Recorded: 4/25/2021 / Published: 1/20/2022
- Call in at 865-268-4005 to leave your question or visit the Krypt at https://kuldrinskrypt.com.

- In this week’s episode of The Krypt, we are talking about "The Safeword defense" and consent violations.

- Rules to Love By: ( https://inclusionwoodworks.com )
1: Safe, sane, consensual, and informed
2: KNKI: Knowledge, No Intolerance, Kindness, Integrity
3: “Submission is not about authority and it’s not about obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect.” -Wm. Paul Young

- “Safeword Defense and Consent Violations-S03E42”
Written by and permission given by Soup on Fetlife. https://fetlife.com/users/10338348/posts/6015142
Let’s say that Daniel and Craig decided to do a scene together. Daniel lays down a hard limit: don’t put a pineapple up my ass. An hour later, during the scene, when Daniel is vulnerable and things are getting pretty steamy, Craig slowly shoves that pineapple right up into Daniel’s butt.
Now let’s pause for a second here. In an ideal case, Daniel would safeword. The scene is immediately over, then comes the conversation: “Hey Craig, why did you just violate my hard limit?” But of course, there are quite a few reasons why someone might not safeword. Let’s come back to this later.
So Daniel says nothing, and Craig continues on his way. Scene over, done, everybody go home. Later that week, Daniel texts Craig. “Hey, can we talk about that scene we did? I feel like my consent was violated, given I put down a hard limit on pineapples and you didn’t respect that.”
Here comes what I call the Safeword Defense.
Craig responds: “Uh, well, you didn’t safeword. You don’t really get to complain later if you didn’t safeword.”
Now there are two things wrong with this.
First, basic attitude issue. Craig’s immediate reaction to a concern brought up by a bottom is to jump to a defense. Perhaps feedback does need to be given back to the bottom, and that’s alright, but hear them out first. Open conversation and feedback not going to happen in a situation where both sides are throwing up defenses in the first place. Everyone needs to feel safe and heard. If the bottom was truly shaken by their experience and wants to hash it out, listen.
Second, this is a false method of dismissing someone’s concerns.
What Daniel and Craig have here is a pretty clear-cut consent violation. The ass pineapple was inarguable. But there’s a contingent of people in the kink community that feel that if you don’t safeword in the scene immediately after your consent was violated, you don’t really have a leg to stand on later.
This isn’t true though. The bottom’s reaction to a consent violation doesn’t change whether or not it happened. It happened. Definitively.
If I steal some jewels from the store, but I don’t set off the alarm, I don’t get to argue later that I didn’t actually steal anything because the alarms didn’t go off fast enough. I still stole some jewels, which is a crime, and the cops will put me in jail. The alarms are irrelevant.
Now in the case of a consent violation, it may not have been intentional, and it may be forgivable. In my view, the problem really boils down to how the top reacts. A good reaction: “I’m concerned to hear I made you feel this way. Tell me your side of the story. I may have made a mistake and I’d like to correct it for the future.” And then after discussing the issue, apologize directly for the consent violation action. “I’m sorry I did not respect your hard limit. In the future, I will listen to bottoms more carefully.”
Now one may object, but why didn’t Daniel safeword?! Bottoms need to take care of themselves! Consent violations occur when...