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clear from the context whether it's meant as an umbrella term like "bottom" or as a
specific term. The use of "dominant" and "submissive" as the default terms seems to me
to have started in the mid 90's, and I've never liked it because of its imprecision. Not all
bottoms are subs; some people like to bottom but don't have a submissive bone in them.
Some bottoms are wisecracking smartassed masochists only in it to play the pain game
and ride the endorphins; some bottoms don't see themselves as giving up power in any
way to the top. And I top my fair share, but I certainly don't think of myself as a
dominant. I think the change in terminology arose with a small but vocal minority of
kinksters who believe that everyone who does BDSM is really looking for a deep power
exchange, ultimately even a 24/7 relationship. I still see people make this argument.
They're still wrong, and they're still few in number. Using "submissive" and "dominant"
when one means to include folks who are just topping and bottoming may be
misunderstood; saying "top" and "bottom" is almost always correctly understood as the
inclusive term. ("Sadist" and "masochist" are specific terms that shouldn't be pressed into
general service either; there are submissives that really, really don't like pain at all and
dominants that would prefer never to inflict it.)

Clarisse Thorn:

What I love about safewords and check-ins:

1) Hypothetically, mainstream society acknowledges that anyone could say no at any
point during sex, but in practice, this is really hard. A variety of forces -- girls socially
pressured not to be so-called "cock-teases," boys socially pressured to supposedly "prove
their manliness," and everyone anxious to please their partners -- work against people's
capacity to say no; and while there is a vague understanding that "no means no," that
vagueness is as far as it gets. There's no explicit framework in place for how to say "no,"
and no understanding of how to continue an encounter (or relationship) after one's partner
says no. Even worse, there's an assumed linear progression of sexual activity -- the best
example is the "base system," which places sexual interaction on a metaphorical baseball
diamond where "first base" = groping and "home base" = penis-in-vagina sex. Have I
mentioned that I hate the base system?

So anyway, the biggest moral of the story with safewords and check-ins is that consent
does not only happen once. Consent is always happening, and can always be
renegotiated or withdrawn. Adapting my understanding of sexuality to reflect this --
even in my non-BDSM sex -- might have been the best thing that ever happened to my
sex life.

Thomas MacAulay Millar:

What can safewords do for non-kinky people? Permission communication. In a culture
that delegitimizes communication -- especially women's communication of limits or
needs -- this is huge. Safewords permission "no." That which permissions the free
exercise of "no" also, necessarily, creates space for the free exercise of "yes."

Clarisse Thorn:

2) On a related note: Good sex is not about entitlement. If we acknowledge that anyone
can safeword out of any sexual act at any time, then we acknowledge that no one is

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