What is consent?

Consent is the cornerstone of every kink activity. It must follow thoses 3 principles: It must be

• Explicit – clearly stated agreements about what will happen. A "maybe", or the abscence of answers isn't a "yes".
• Ongoing – may be confirmed or withdrawn at any time. Using a safeword count as withdrawing consent. Continuing after is rape.
• Informed - risks & boundaries are understood before play begins. A yes stated under the influence of drugs or alchol isn't an informed yes and therefore should not count as consent. Hiding parts of a play or changing the overall direction of it is at best bad, and at worse life-threatning.

RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink) or SSC (Safe Sane and Consensual) ?

The SSC (Safe Sane and Consensual) acronyms explain that BDSM activities should be:

• Safe All risks are minimals
• Sane No emotional manipulation or loss of agency
• Consensual All members consented beforehand

This view of BDSM would correspond more to soft BDSM. On the contrary, person that practices harder BDSM like edgeplay require another setting: the RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink).

• Risk-Aware All risks are understood beforehand and all participants are willing to take them
• Consensual All members consented beforehand
• Kink Both party are enjoying the setting that is taking place in an erotic way

The latter is more used when risk in unavoidable: for example for breath-play, harder beating, sensory depravation, temperature play or CNC.

In all cases, activities should always be consented beforehand.

What is a safeword?

BDSM is intense. In many cases, without prior notice, people partaking in a BDSM play can begin to feel really bad. That (among other reason) is why safewords exists, as a safety mesure. A safeword is a sign or word people participating in a play can use to slow-down or stop a play. While in many scenarios it is not a neccesary thing to have, we strongly encorage the use of it even in vanilla situation.

• If a medical episode start to happen, this can be used to state that we need to immediatly stop
• It is a reassuring tool for the sub or dom to know that they have a safeword to get out of their predicament if something bad happen
• In bondage, if a cramp start, a safeword can be use to quickly get the sub out
• The safeword can be used by the dom too! If the dom start feeling bad for any reason (examples includes traumatic events), it can be use to explain that they need aftercare
• In daily or 24/7 relationship, a safeord can be used to pause the dynamic, or stop a punishement that might be too hard on the sub

In the discord server, we enfore the light-switch safeword system. If you see someone saying or reacting with a color emojis, it often means one of the following:

• 🔴(red) - Halt all roleplay or ongoing conversations and check in with the other individuals involved. THIS IS A HARD STOP
• 🟡(yellow) - The person or people you are speaking with are beginning to feel uncomfortable. You should switch gears and proceed carefully. This is not a hard stop.
• 🟢(green) - The person you are talking to feels comfortable despite the intense nature of the conversation or roleplay.

Some users like to be able to give more feedback during plays. This is why they use a commonly use extension of the lightscitch system:

• 🔴(red) - Halt all roleplay or ongoing conversations and check in with the other individuals involved. THIS IS A HARD STOP
• 🟠(orange) - Pause the scene and discuss of something. The scene might continue after.
• 🟡(yellow) - The person or people you are speaking with are beginning to feel uncomfortable. You should switch gears and proceed carefully. This is not a hard stop.
• 🟢(green) - The person you are talking to feels comfortable despite the intense nature of the conversation or roleplay.
• 🔵(blue) - The person you are wwould not mind the scene to go harder and stronger in intensity. This is a ASK and not a NEED: do not feel forced to go harder.