Danger Danger SSC V. RACK Is it just semantics?
Dear and obviously very patient readers. I was going through my emails and once again realized that it has been a significant amount of time between posts. So Aiko has a Christmas present for you all. While I mention the holiday, I’d like to wish each and every one of you a great holiday season and a prosperous new year.
Though technically not a new article, I was looking through my folders of past articles I’ve published and this one particularly stood out. So I decided to re-write it and publish it on the blog.
I originally wrote this article back in 2009 for a second life magazine which focused on the BDSM lifestyle called “Spank”. Unfortunately the magazine is no longer being published. However this subject still is very valid. It’s a subject that is controversial and hopefully will make you think.
Throughout my years of participating in the lifestyle I’ve come into contact with certain terms that are lifestyle specific. The two I refer to here are SSC and RACK. How this article originally came to light was the Isle of Shadows started a BDSM Lifestyle online meeting board for folks exploring the lifestyle in Second Life. One of the questions on the questionnaire for submitting a listing is “ Do you practice SSC?” For those who are unfamiliar with the term SSC = Safe, Sane & Consensual. A basic tenant of our lifestyle.
To this day I still find people unfamiliar with this terminology especially when submitting the questionnaire for posting a listing. A vast majority of responses are “Don’t Know” or “No”. So I decided to wade into these muddy controversial waters and try and explain these acronyms, why we use them and my feelings on them.
Feel free to post any comments you have after reading this article.
Within our community there has always been some dissention on the use of the acronyms SSC and RACK. Safe, Sane and Consensual versus Risk Aware Consensual Kink.
In the BDSM community there’s a general consensus or rule of thumb that SSC (Safe, Sane & Consensual) or RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink) is very important to a healthy BDSM relationship and is generally standard practice.
The differences are basically semantics and the image either acronym puts forth. Some within the lifestyle argue that SSC is too vague or ambiguous so they use RACK as the defining imperative. Be that as it may, whether you use either term I feel what they encompass is extremely important.
Within BDSM in general play we tie our partners, beat and humiliate them. To outsiders or those new to the BDSM scene this can be seen as abuse. The difference between our scenes and real violence or abuse is that they encompass the aforementioned, safe, sane and consensual or risk aware consensual.
Now let’s try and define the basic premise that both SSC and RACK encompass, that of any play or scene being consensual, informed consent. All participants consent to what is about to happen and accept freely to participate.
All have a reasonable idea of what they are consenting to and the consent is not coerced. But, this also means that the consent can be retired at any time during play by any of the participants by use of a safe word.
Consent is the actual difference between BDSM and abuse as it is between lovemaking and rape. The scene cannot be considered consensual if played with someone who is unable to consent, such as minors, the mentally impaired or by someone whose decision making ability is impaired by drugs or alcohol.
Let’s look at the other aspects of SSC and RACK, safe or safety, risk aware. Safe being that all participants have evaluated the risk, are aware of the risk of what is planned in the scene and find it acceptable, that the equipment to be used is in good repair and the participants are knowledgeable in its use and the risks have been minimized to everyone’s satisfaction.
This is an area the proponents of RACK begin to take issue. Those who feel RACK is more appropriate argue that “Risk Aware” is more definitive a term. To me it’s a matter of semantics and the image these terms put forth. The safe and consensual encompass this just fine. I was asked the other night if I was familiar with the term “RACK” my response was “Yes, why write a novel when a paragraph will do.”
The RACK folks state that due to the inherent danger of what we do the terminology “Risk Aware”, being aware of the dangers should be used.
I look at it this way. There are many things we do in life that include some type of danger, airplanes, driving cars and everyday activities. So “Risk Aware” to me is an unnecessary definition.
For example RAS…Risk Aware Showering. Statistically most accidents that occur in the household occur within the shower, so should we use this terminology when describing your morning shower? How about RAD…Risk Aware Driving? If anyone has been on the highways surrounding Atlanta recently they’ll know there’s inherent danger there as bad as any NASCAR event. I think the “Risk Aware” is over defining what can be simply encompassed in the “Safe” and “Consensual” of SSC. This also focuses on the negative and puts forth a bad image. I’ll get to that later.
Finally lets look at “Sane”. This word in and of itself can be open to interpretation as can the word safe. What is safe and sane for some people may not be for others. But how do we define sanity?
In a lot of instances it is the individual or participants who determine what is sane. The best description of sane I’ve run across is “All participants understand the difference between reality and fantasy and act accordingly”
Meaning they are not insane, under the influence of drugs or alcohol or otherwise impaired to make decisions.
Webster’s dictionary defines sane as “Mentally Healthy, free from mental disorder, marked by sound judgment.” It boils down to the ability to make an informed decision.
For 20 years or more the BDSM community has used the term SSC safe, sane and consensual to describe the lifestyle or scenes we participate in. The term is simple and straight forward.
Now lets look at the message RACK put forward. As I mentioned earlier to me it focuses on the wrong terms, even within the confines of our community. It has undertones of danger, the connotation being in reference to the medieval torture device, “The Rack”. It presents our lifestyle or scenes we participate in as risky.
* Risk, what we are doing have some associated risks. We use whips, ropes or perhaps needles and fire.You can hurt your sub if done without care.
* Aware, Once we know the risks we accept them, we acknowledge what we do is dangerous.
* Consensual, all participants freely agree on playing.
And my favorite,
* Kink, what we are doing is “weird” “perverted” or outside the mainstream. Now is this the image we want to put forth to the BDSM community and beyond?
All activities have some associated risks whether within the lifestyle or mainstream. Sensible people try exercising them in the safest possible way. But should we be more aware of the risks of flogging our subs than those of driving a car? Of course we should. But how we put forth this awareness affects our community and the perception of BDSM as a whole.
Most people within the BDSM community are aware of the risks of BDSM. We stress safety. At Isle of Shadows this is a main tenant that we teach those new to the lifestyle. But it is not because we believe BDSM to be especially risky.
Many may not be aware of the special risks associated with BDSM. We try and call their attention to the special risks within the lifestyle. BDSM if participated in sensibly even with it’s particular risks, is no more dangerous than most of the things we do in our day to day lives.
Within the lifestyle we stress safety most of all and awareness that there are inherent dangers in what we practice, whether using either acronym. But we do so with the knowledge that we are accepting the dangers and that all safety issues have been addressed to all participants satisfaction.
Now what about “kink”? Perhaps within the lifestyle we are used to this word. But, for a lot of folks this word has negative connotations. Why should we stress we are “kinky”? Or better yet, do we think we are “kinky”? If safe and sane are ambiguous this is worse.
What is kinky for some may very well be a normal sexual practice for others. For example a religious conservative could consider anything outside of sex for reproduction in the missionary position as kinky.
We see what we do as normal, but we know there are folks that do strange things that each of us could consider kinky. So there most likely will never be an agreement on what is kinky.
We write many articles and put forth the information trying to show what we do is normal, if not even mainstream. Many outside of the lifestyle may think of us as kinky but we should not accept that definition. We have normal, if somewhat different relationships.
If we tell folks we practice SSC we are telling them what we do can be seen as different but we use common sense the same rules as anyone, for SSC should in reality apply to everyday life, how we treat everyone, how we conduct ourselves.
If we tell folks we practice RACK are telling them we are kinky, strange, weird folks who are aware of doing dangerous things? Is this the image we want to put forth to the world, to those in and outside the lifestyle?
I for one don’t want to put forth this image, I don’t think it’s positive or productive. What many of us hope for in the lifestyle is that BDSM will eventually be accepted by the mainstream or vanilla public as normal though a somewhat different relationship. We need to put forth a positive image of our lifestyle if we ever hope to gain this acceptance. There has always been pre-conceptions and misconception about our lifestyle. So I think in this instance semantics are very important.
So for Isle of Shadows, and myself, I don’t think we’ll support the use of the RACK acronym. It may be semantics, but I think SSC safe sane and consensual with all its ambiguities is a better definition for our practices, for outsiders as well as those in the lifestyle.
You’ll have to decide for yourself.
I hope to see you at the Isle of Shadows in Second Life and hope everyone has a very happy holiday season.
Aiko
