006 - Safewords and Agency
I’ve been so flummoxed every time it’s -just- hypnotist installed safeties and nothing else haha
Like, those -can- be a helpful tool but…
also the number of times I’ve had this convo
me, talking to experienced sub: “What’s your safeword?” them: “uhhh…”
too many!! We gotta do better lol
Perspectives on safety can violently shift from helpful opinions to performative hot takes. Unfortunately, we don’t have academic research that applies directly to the recreational community - so we’ll need to make some inferences about experience and behavior.
I’ll kick it off with a few guidelines:
- Safeties do not need to be “given” in the first place and do not need to be suggested in trance.
- Safeties, safewords, and safe behavior does need to be reinforced.
- To consider yourself a safer subject, you should be able to reflexively and automatically exit the experience. You can always figure out why you stopped an interaction after you take a break.
- Safeties should be simple, flexible, and empowering. Metaphors and stories can get in the way of being effective. (There’s some strong and reasonable counterarguments to this. I’ll cover that later in the Story Logic and Safety Tools section below.)
The Short Version
If you’ve worked with an excellent hypnotist before, they’ve told you that you can come back up at any time, made sure you had a safety framework in place, and tested your safeties with you before play.
I have two recommendations, both of which you can use with no training, understanding that they work better with practice.
Classic Safeties
Almost any hypnotist is comfortable working with the red, yellow, and green color system. In case you’re unfamiliar, traditionally you’d say any of the following, with the accompanied reactions.
- Green - everything’s good. Usually used to tell your hypnotist everything is fine if they’re feeling anxious.
- Yellow - pause. All suggestions stop for the moment. Ideally, this is when you’d take a moment to talk about what happened.
- Red - stop. Removing all suggestions.
In addition, I’d recommend:
- Blue - more please. If you like, you can create the intention to say this automatically when you want more of something, even if your ability to speak has been ‘taken away.’
It’s not uncommon for your hypnotist to ask “what’s your color” and check in. Sometimes they’ll get a read on your body language, or something will feel ‘off.’ This is a good sign - it means you’re working collaboratively.
Automatic Responses
Here are other rules I set for myself, and I recommend you keep them in mind. Nobody can tamper with these intentions. They are yours if you decide to take them.
Stop reflexively if:
- You’re feeling uncomfortable.
- You’re uncertain about continuing.
- You’re uncomfortable with a suggestion.
- You sense unauthorized manipulation or direction.
- You want to stop, for any reason.
Caveats
It’s important to remember that no safety will stop you from making poor decisions. Find what works for you - this is advice based on community experience and input, boiling down to what amounts to my opinion. It feels unfair to prescribe a “correct” way to do anything, especially something so personal. Please don’t let my opinion prevent you from enjoying yourself or playing in a way that’s right for you.
Traditionally, hypnotists suggested safeties and safewords during hypnotic rituals. So long as you understand that your mind is your own, I don’t see the harm in doing this. It just leads to the incorrect belief that they need to be suggested in a ritual, and can insinuate that you can’t do this without a hypnotist’s help.
Story Logic and Safety Tools
There’s a certain irony in that much of the effectiveness of hypnosis comes from its ritual components, and we try to make hypnosis safer by reminding people they’re in control of the ritual, outside of the ritual.
If you find metaphors or stories help you in staying safe or being able to enjoy yourself, please use them. Mark Wiseman’s Mind Play recommends and demonstrates a few, including:
- Veto Power - a reminder that your mind is irrevocably your own, and you will be unable to accept or enact an unethical suggestion.
- A Safe Place - creating a comfortable environment you can always mentally return to.
- Tell Me Something You Need Me To Know - providing a story around communicating your needs.
Practice
With these intentions in mind, work with someone to test your safeties out. Make sure you can do this in an emergency, or even just discomfort. You could ask your hypnotist for a suggestion to resist, or just have them entrance you for the sake of testing them out. It only takes a few moments, and will ideally put your hypnotist at ease.
This doesn’t get in the way if you try resistance play down the line. You can ‘fight’ suggestions all you want. But if you’re truly unsure, either push the button to come out, or let yourself return. This doesn’t make resistance play completely safe, but it makes it safer.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to take time to reinforce these intentions.
Further Reading
- Give this file a spin from Aurora - it’ll give you a safe environment to practice your agency with no need to wrassle in a hypnotist.
- Apologia on Agency from Wordweaver. A candid discussion about agency - including some of its history, applications in and out of sessions, and misapplications.