I recently watched the final season of YOU, and the episode of Black Mirror called Playtest. In both of those shows, a character is asked if they’d like a safe word, and they both respond with something along the lines of “When I want it to stop, I’ll just say ‘stop.’” That made perfect sense to me. What situation would it be okay to ignore a person saying no or stop in favor of some other word? Why do some people have the “safe word” be something weird and random like “Hakuna Matata” or “Blueberry muffins” instead of saying No or Stop?
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Because sometimes part of the roleplay calls for using the word stop. People need a way to differentiate between someone playing along and genuinely asking someone to stop. A safe word is so out of context that there is no mistaking that it’s being used
Because part of the roleplay could include the words no or stop.
People use safe words to make it abundantly clear if they want something to continue or stop. Strange words are used because they are words that typically wouldn’t come up during sex. Most people wouldn’t shout out “blueberry muffin” during sex. Also, some people use the stop light system (red, yellow, green) to continuously check in with their partner to determine if boundaries are being pushed too far.
My wife and I like to play CNC (Consensual NonConsent) games in the bedrom.
Her yelling things like no, stop, don’t, or quit are part of the fun and don’t actually mean I should stop. So we have a safe word (and a nonverbal safe gesture) that means I actually need to stop.
Some people might say “no” or “stop” and not really mean it because they’re roleplaying. A safe word on the other hand means “stop” more definitively.
Another thing is that “no” or “stop” might mean “stop entirely” but they might also mean “stop that specific thing.” Maybe someone bites their partner and they don’t like being bitten in that spot, so they say “stop,” but they’re still ok with being bitten elsewhere. A safe word is a bit more of a complete “I’m uncomfortable so stop completely.”
I have a safe word… it’s for the bedroom, but also just life.
Safe word means that things are getting out of hand. My husband and the kids know my safe word, because if they say it, it means I need to stop doing whatever is happening… be it talking, playing, or whatever. It gives them a way to let me know I’m crossing a line without having to freak out and draw massive attention or explain, whatever.
I use purple… it’s g rated… it’s not super commonly used… and it’s not something I’m likely to mishear. Purple means stop, under all circumstances. No matter what’s going on, Purple is the safe word.
To answer you question: Saying no or stop in the bedroom can be part of role play. So people use obscure words so nothing is misunderstood.
If you want to avoid accidentally ending something, like if you are in a scene where you are being spanked or whipped having a safe word means you wont stop it accidentally by saying “No” “Ouch” or “Stop” by reflex
I have extremely few reasons to say something like “pineapple” when I’m getting laid. The unexpected word makes the whole “yo we need to stop” thing more obvious.
In addition to roleplaying, there can be situations where you can say “stop” without really meaning it. It can just slip through your self-control.
Personally I like them because sex can get chaotic and “no” can sound an awful lot like “go” in a chaotic environment. The main reason most people use them is for CNC play, there are reasons “no” and “stop” might not mean that in the moment between two consenting adults.
Like literally some people want part of sex to be yelling “NO NO NO, STOP, STOP STOP.” Sometimes it’s even more extreme. Yelling “HELP, HELP, someone help me!”
THAT is the situation where saying “Peanut Brittle” is appropriate.
One other reason I’m also not seeing is that sex can be kind of breathy and speech patterns altered e.g. “don’t stop” can easily be heard or cut off as “don’t.” or “stop.” Safewords are usually pretty far outside normal words that might come up making things clear.
I use safe words for both sexual stuff and in friendship situations.
ie – me and my friends, we’re the kinda friends who rib each other a lot. We make fun of each other, tease each other, be rude, bantering – it’s showing love. However, safe wording means that it’s gotten too much and it needs to stop immediately.
In sexuality, it’s kinda similar. Safewording works for things like CNC play or reluctance play, but also in other situations!
Like a couple in bed in the morning. They’re both aware they need to get up at some point, but they’re making out, enjoying themselves, saying, “oh, we should stop, we need to leave,” whatever, but neither of them actually WANT to stop. If someone safeworded in that moment, they’d ACTUALLY stop.
human language is complex and so is sexuality. for things that can become complicated, safe words or tap outs work.
To add a different answer to all the CNC based reasons: a lot of people say the phrase “don’t stop” during sex.
If you just hear “stop” and stop you may ruin an orgasm and nobody wants that. Of course if they actually say stop and you don’t then it is worse.
You can’t rely on forcefullness or tone of voice because, being a physical activity, people can be out of breath or otherwise unable to give tonally clear “stop”.
No is a similarly useless word. It’s one syllable – sounds like go, and is commonly used in even the most benign circumstances in conversation.
“I want to stop sexual activity right now” is not the sort of thing that you want to be in any way ambiguous or easy to miss or used when it doesn’t need to be. A safe word solves that.
Aside from rape fantasies. Where one party ignores the pleas of the other.
‘Don’t’ ‘stop’ is deceptively similar to ‘don’t stop’. Sometimes the punctuation is intentional, others it’s not. It may be obvious which one your partner means, but not necessary.
‘Stop’ can be a reflexive response. You don’t mean to say it. And you don’t actually want your partner to stop. You’re feeling overwhelmed. And it comes out without thinking. It’s frustrating when you say it, and they listen, but you don’t actually want them to stop. Obviously, this is a longer conversation. And unless you specifically state ‘don’t stop when I say it’ they absolutely should.
A safe word is for when you want an obvious out of place word that may not appear naturally during a role play to indicate to someone they should stop.
If you are doing a CNC roleplay, no and stop are words that you already agreed won’t actually cause things to stop. It’s a role play.
Another reason is that stop and don’t stop sound very very similar when said in the heat of the moment.
Besides what everyone else has said about kink, and CNC etc, there is a big difference between “Don’t! Stop!” and “Don’t stop!”
A safe word means that when your partner is getting close to orgasm and you hear “don’t stop” you know which one they mean.
A safe word is not supposed to be a word you’d use normally during sex or intimacy such as “stop”, “yes”, or “no”.
It’s meant to be a word that’s distinctly out of context, like “helium” or “apples”.
Prevents confusion and misunderstanding.
Sometimes “stop” or “no” is actually part of the roleplay, which means they can’t always be taken at face value. That’s why a safe word needs to be something completely unrelated to the scene something that stands out and clearly signals that your partner genuinely wants everything to stop.
Mine is PINEAPPLE JUICE!
😅
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP861pDHY/
Because many bdsm styles of play can incorporate rapeplay or consensual non-consent.
If the game is to say no stop daddy it hurts. How would you know if they really mean i
Say ” dont stop ” then realize why stop isnt a good safe word
Words like stop or no comes out easily. Like imagine you’re on a rollercoaster going up. One might be saying “no no… WHEEEEEEEE” doesn’t mean you don’t want the ride to stop. Similar applies to kinky sex where you’re in the heat of the moment and just vocalizing. A clear established term or motion send the least confusion.
I mean last month someone slapped my ass just the right way and I burst kut “aaahhh”. Poor guy thought he hurts me when it was the opposite lmao. Just an example of why a safe word could be helpful, especially if you or your partner really cares about safety.
This song (nsfw, slightly) explains it didactically https://youtu.be/EFwzFOn1U7Q
Roleplay reasons for one. But less obviously, they can be useful in public spaces for things you don’t want to call too much attention to. I, for example, have an interrupting problem and I hate it. But I can’t police myself perfectly. So someone in the know might catch me in a group conversation and throw out a subtle, pre-arrange code phrase that will remind me to reel it in, without undue attention/embarrassment.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned in better detail is that safe words are (often, but naturally all situations are different) like an Emergency Escape hatch. When they are spoken, it’s a full-stop, ropes cut, people are let loose, etc. But sometimes during whatever someone is doing, a participant may want someone to stop what they’re doing at that specific moment but not asking to have everything completely dropped.
For example, I had a partner who was into impact play and had a high pain tolerance. I had struck them in an odd way by accident that had (in their words) felt like they were hit by electricity. They told me to stop for a moment so they could get their bearings and we got right back into it when they were good. On the other hand, there was a time when they had hurt themselves twisting around in ropes I had tied them in and that necessitated a complete stop right then and there.
In therapy we use some protocols that use safe words so the clinician isn’t confused about whether or not them saying “stop” is part of their process or them really wanting to stop.
Why not just don’t put yourself in situations where you need a safe word?
Safe words are frequently used in things like porn. It’s so the video can still be used without the word “stop” being evident. It’s also so different words can be used to deescalate in different levels. So it’s about preserving the film and not needing extra editing. So they didn’t understand it’s about not looking like a weenie.
I like safe words because it helps force the conversations needed to have safe ish play. One of the things that gets glossed over in movies and such is that safe words are about more than just stopping.
Red, yellow, green, are probably the most common safe words around. Red for hard stop, I’m done, I’m hurt or my headspace is wrong, but we need to end this now. Yellow for me is mostly about pain level as a way to communicate that I’m okay, but if you keep up like that I may have to tap out soon or change spot please. Green is fuck ya I good, and lead on.
However I don’t assume people use it the same way and we talk about it before hand. Why don’t I just describe everything out instead of using short hand? If things are going really well long sentences are not exactly easy and short hand is a lot easier and communities more information.
Also safe words are a bit of a shorthand as well. It’s all about helping communicate information in a situation that may make it harder than usual. That also can include things like actions or making specific sounds. A good example of this is in pup play. Howling, barking, bowing, all can say specific things but don’t break the game. Or if you can’t talk a pair of bells in your hand to drop is a good tool.
Movies and books often make it seem like safe words are only about stopping a scene, but that is only part of it. They are about helping communicate information in order to make things a little bit safer and sometimes that means “please sir I would like another” becomes a formal way of communicating that Im safe, I’m having a fun time and please don’t hit harder but do it again.
Oh and for extra “fuck no we are done” is the safe word for you have severely fucked up and I coming off this cross and you better have a very good response or you may just be getting decked. This isn’t red, red is not “bad thing”, just that we need to stop and that may be unfortunate.
I think another point to add, is that a safeword makes it easier to set a boundary. A lot of people would have a hard time saying “stop” in the middle of sex, and would worry that a hard “no” might come off very harsh. By using a word that has no negative connotation (like pineapple or flamingo or whatever) it’s easier to blurt out than “stop”.
A lot of people use a light signal, which gives more neuance. Green for all good, yellow for “something needs to be changed” and red for stop. Some people even have another step above, calling it purple or black to mean “something is wrong, we need to exit this right away”.
It’s in two parts. One is so that you can say no or stop during a a scene and not actually have them mean no. In the right circumstances, it enhances things. The other is to function as a hard line to not cross. It cuts out all the explaining and talking, and boils it down to a single word to get things stopped right away.
For people into BDSM and pain play, “stop” and “no” is part of the fantasy. Safe words are the emergency switch when it gets to be just too much or something needs to be attended to (losing circulation in hands, e.g.)
I asked my wife for a safe word…. She said does “fuckmeharder” work? I nearly pissed myself because she isn’t the funniest person in the world. Best wife ever of all time.
Because sometimes NO is worked into playtime
Also, I had safe words for my kids too. If someone went to my kids school to pick them up, they needed to tell the kids the SafeWord before the kids would leave with them.
CNC brotha
>What situation would it be okay to ignore a person saying no or stop
From https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18321031
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Current research indicates that between 31% and 57% of women have fantasies in which they are forced into sex against their will
Some people are into pain play, and the words “ow stop” come out instinctively. And if I tell my girlfriend to stop, she knows I’m almost at my limits but can still take a little more. If I say “strawberries”, she knows that means absolutely no more, stop now
Safewords don’t even have to be sexual. There was a streamer I was watching who didn’t want spoilers for a game, and they used an out of place word to signal when they wanted help from chat on a puzzle compared to when they were just curious about something.
I thave relevant experience to add to this conversation. I am ENM (Ethically Non-Monogamous) and a self described pleasure dom (and very occasional switch). For myself and my partners, CNC (Consensual Non-Consent) and BDSM are about trust. My partners have told me that safe-words allow me to take them to places they can’t quite go by themselves, but they want to experience. I’m going to try to be clinical in describing another side of safe word play:
Instead of a “rape scene” or inflicting pain, I like to apply pleasurable stimulus until the sensations are extremely intense. They can get so intense as to be uncomfortable, almost painful, but the release is equally intense. Think of the discomfort and immediate relief/pleasure of massaging out a stubborn cramp, but a thousand times stronger. It can be intense enough that they instinctively cry out “no” or “stop” but they actually want that release. A safe word allows someone to get to that place, and still be able to communicate when they genuinely need/want to stop.
Because sometimes people consent to something painful or non consensual, and may say things that would cause the average person to stop when their partner doesn’t actually want it to stop. That’s what safe words are for, something that wouldn’t be said reactively or instinctively that has been agreed on to mean stop.
There are different degrees of safety words and they are often used in roleplay scenarios.
Roleplay often deliberately pushes boundaries (for example, a couple may be exploring a slave/master type relationship) and it is useful to have a different word for ‘I am not comfortable with you putting that in there/do not hit me in that location/too hard/too fast’ which allows you to adjust and keep going without breaking the immersion, versus a ‘I need to stop the roleplay’ type word.
With the former, you might have a quick conversation about what exactly needs to be adjusted (eg you can put other things ‘in there’, just not the ice cubes) and keep going, but with the latter it means the person wants to opt out of the experience now – toys down/chains off/etc.
As other posters have said, these are intentionally different from ‘stop’ or other words that might accidentally be said or misunderstood, especially if the roleplay expects ‘please stop’ or other similiar words to occur. Their purpose is to either adjust the narration or break it entirely in an unambiguous way.
I’m a doula and sometimes there are safe words in birth – mostly surrounding pain management. A lot of words come out of the birthing person’s mouth that they may not actually mean. Not my client, but I know if one who kept repeating ‘I need an epidural” and a nurse kept going to get the anesthesiologist. But the birthing person didn’t actually want an epidural and had a safe word to indicate if she was done with her plan for natural childbirth. “I need the epidural” was just her chant to get through the pain. I didn’t have a safe word because my birth was not in a hospital and pain management wasn’t an option, but I kept saying things like “make the pain stop” and “take this baby out of me.” I didn’t actually want an epidural or a c-section. Had I been in a hospital, I would have had a safe word to indicate when I truly did want those options.
I believe the principle is that, “stop” is a kneejerk response to mild inconvenience, so using a safe word is an agreement that simply “no” or “stop” is not to be interpreted as a demand to actually stop, but a safe word requires specific thought and becomes the new actual demand to stop.
It’s not an area that I think most people really would consider, but my understanding is, the point of BDSM is to endure pain as pleasure, and sort of let go of the natural avoidance of pain. Because they like it, or it turns them on, or something like that. I don’t have a grasp of it firsthand.
One of the biggest kink, especially in women, is consensual non-consent which means that they could be saying no or stop while wanting you to continue. The whole kink is about losing control and letting someone take it from you.
there’s a lot of things about ‘no’ or ‘stop’ that might make it inaccessible.
The perfect safe word is Meatloaf. “I’ll do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”