Battle of the Acronyms
March 5th,During a shoot a few weeks ago, I was asked: Would you describe yourself more as RACK or SSC?
I managed not to laugh, but it was tough. The whole RACK vs. SSC thing is just funny. (If you’re feeling masochistic, go ahead and Google the semantics, but don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.)
When I first decided I was kinky, I bought a bunch of books and learned to recite “safe, sane and consensual” like the Pledge of Allegiance. I think this was not an uncommon experience.
But, see, all sex should be informed, safe and mutual. Whatever the motives and activities, our creative perversion is still sex. And we know what all sex should be, right? Right.
If what I am doing is just sex, why does kinky sex need these acronymic edicts? I think it’s to distinguish it from the shithole of repression, silence and shame that is regular sex in our culture. For many people, sex does not include talking or honesty. They don’t feel that they can share limits and desires. They don’t expect ever to be able to. Not with their partners, sometimes not even when they’re paying me.
And yeah, in that framework where you can’t ask, tying up and beating people is abuse. It’s just not my framework. In mine, those neat little acronyms are foregone conclusions. It is because of the rest of the world and their fucked up, uncommunicative sex that I have to bother articulating it.
Your sex life may not include any communication at all. But I’m going to be judgmental and say, I think your sex life — no matter what it entails — would be a lot better for it.
March 5th, at 11:17 pm
I find it even more silly how the various communities have taken RACK which was coined as a joke and SSC which was coined as something very different from how the scene defines and use them as cudgels. Beating on each other to either to prove how more edgy they are or how dangerous some other subset group is.
March 6th, at 4:13 am
The entire concept of safewords amused me for a long time. Translating “no” into another language doesn’t somehow remove the Top’s choice to heed the request to stop, or to ignore it. (Has anyone read their Sartre? Not that his conclusions were correct, but I digress.)
March 6th, at 8:00 am
The sad thing is that the “SSC” mantra was developed as a PR piece, really nothing more. And in the end, that is how it is used by organizations such as the NCSF.
It is the people who decided to take it on as a personal brand and ideology that have caused all the silliness. When someone tells me they are a “SSC player”, I roll my eyes and walk away.
March 6th, at 8:44 am
I agree. I honestly have no interest in getting into the debate. SSC is so that we have a leg to stand on when reporters (or at one point, our own benevolent benefactor beginning with a C) try to tear us apart and say we’re encouraging violence or abuse.
One of the points of the fun of BDSM for many people is knowing that once you understand the “rules”, you can figure out how to bend or break them, and hey, that’s everyone’s choice. From our official standpoint, as long as we’ve got people talking and thinking before they act, that’s great.
March 6th, at 2:38 pm
I think “SSC” should be replaced with “UYIT.”
“…Unless You’re Into That.”
March 7th, at 1:04 pm
SSC, RACK, safewords, negotiation…
You’re right… if it’s sex (as it is for me) then yeah, it’s so basic it’s like thinking about breathing.
I had an experience with one top a while ago that sticks in my brain… we had a long conversation about negotiating a scene. He still occasionally mentions wanting to negotiate a scene with me.
I haven’t yet figured ut how to tell him, without being rude, the conversatioon WAS the negotiation, and the negotiations failed.
If you have to tell me how long you’ve been in the scene and that you’re SSC or RACK in the first 5 minutes of a conversation, I’ve pretty much lost interest.
And I won’t answer how long I’ve been in the scene when asked anymore. You get more useful information from watching me play than from a timetable.
March 9th, at 2:29 pm
“you get more useful information from watching me play”
I think that sums it all up. Know WHO you’re playing with. What you call it is all semantics.
March 9th, at 6:37 pm
I recall SSC the same way boymeat does, it was really just for PR purposes, a mantra to bleat at the media whenever someone lifted a stone to shine light on our depraved perverted world.
Not sure I understand where you’re coming from SW. Safewords, as I understand them, are there because having someone say “no” and “stop” while you keep doing it is hot, as long as you know that they can say SOMETHING if they really need you to stop.
Of course,if you are in a vulnerable position, and the top decides to not heed a safeword, then there isn’t much you can do. After the fact however, you’ve got a fairly sturdy legal leg to stand on that you were raped/illegally confined the moment you said your safeword and it wasn’t heeded.
March 10th, at 4:25 pm
Zonk - Stripping one syllable of its power, give it to another syllable, and pretending that the first one still had it seemed silly to me, yes.
Legally useful, yes. Also, silly. And I fail to see how holding off using a safeword is somehow any different than holding off saying “stop.”
Submission to a top isn’t any safer because the request to stop has been translated. It still requires trust that they’ll heed it. (I’m reminded of a hillarious scene in Euro Trip.) But you raise a good point: exceeding consent also requires the top have a very high degree of trust that the sub won’t turn them in. And still, people have been known to play along that edge too. (Talk about a power exchange!)
March 10th, at 8:54 pm
SW: I see your point that a safeword isn’t useful because it’s a different set of syllables t’s useful because it’s a specific set of syllables. The bottom can now complain or resist or cry or beg without the top having to be a mind reader as to when he really needs to stop. If you want to make that specific symbol be “no” or “stop,” more power to you.
March 11th, at 2:31 am
Boston Boy: “Stop” and “I’ll press charges” are specific and unambiguous sets of syllables too.
I imagine a byproduct of making it all so definite and clear cut is that it strips the top’s experience of the illusion that they are actually walking that razor’s edge. The moment of decision, the tension between violation and retreat would be entirely absent until the safeword is uttered.
Granted, I expect most people don’t like playing with that tension, and a top who fears incarceration is likely to be far more cautious when playing. But then, people really shouldn’t be playing this way with anyone they don’t entirely trust with their liberty. (Non-safeword pickup sessions would be the absolute height of stupidity.)
You know, there’s an entire theory of Executive power based on the panoptic/constraining effect of requiring after-the-fact ratification to bless extra-legal actions. (It works a lot better on the individual level than in a system where the President can just issue pardons, IMO.)
March 15th, at 12:36 pm
I think SSC showed up to prevent consensual kinky fun from being compared to serial killers as often in the media. I personally do RACK in a moderately serious way, but I do a lot of edge play (blood, knives, blackmail, etc) and I WILL push a scene past the point of consent as long as the person who I am playing with has an established relationship with me and had some vague idea what he was getting into.
When you start getting into the ultra fuzzy ethical areas of consentual nonconsentuality, force, blackmail fetishes, and some other things, the distinctions can be importaint.
A lot of what I do is not considered sane, and to some sure as HELL isn’t considered safe. But if it’s nerfed, and made safe, it no longer has the power to turn me on.
Such is life!