The ABCs of BDSM Safety: Understanding Key Acronyms for Safe Practices

SSC: Safe, Sane, Consensual

SSC emphasizes that all activities are undertaken in a manner that emphasizes safety, sound judgment, and with the full consent of all parties involved.

Safe, Sane and Consensual was coined by David Stein in 1983 when he was serving on a committee of the newly established Gay Male S/M Activists (GMSMA). He recalls drawing inspiration from his childhood experience of being wished a “safe and sane” 4^th of July. The intention of the committee was to distinguish themselves from “harmful, antisocial, predatory behavior.” At the time, there were concerns that predatory doms were taking advantage of folks who were new to the scene, and encouraging them to push the boundaries of their own desire, comfort, and safety.   David has a very comprehensive blog post on the nascent activities of GMSMA that is absolutely worth a read in its entirety. 

It is crucial to acknowledge the work that our queer ancestors did to center informed consent within the community, and to make it such a visible part of their activism in the wider world.

RACK: Risk-Aware Consensual Kink

RACK places a similar emphasis on consent, but shifts the focus from “safety” to “risk-aware” because not all kink-related activities are objectively “safe”. Risk-aware asks that everyone involved take responsibility for understanding the risks involved, and deciding if the level of risk is acceptable.

RACK was first proposed by Gary Switch, best known as a contributing editor for Prometheus Magazine, a publication of The Eulenspiegel Society, the first BDSM organization founded in the United States. Reports on the details vary, I’ve heard some say RACK was first pitched on Prometheus’s USENET list, but I personally love the version of events that involves Gary pitching it on a TES-friends list in 1999.

In his own writing on the subject, he speaks about the importance of including “kink” in the acronym to make sure people are clear what exactly we’re talking about, and because it makes a “snappy” acronym. 

He also points out that the “sane” part in SSC can be difficult to operationalize, what one person considers sexy another person might consider “insane” when it comes to kink play. Other BDSM activists have also pointed out that it is unintentionally stigmatizing to members of our community who live with mental illness but are still perfectly capable of consenting to kink play.

Gil Kessler, a longtime GMSMA board member clarifies in his writing on SSC that “sane” was intended to mean “knowing the difference between fantasy and reality” in the sense that “You may know how to do something, and even get consent for it, but it may be best left for one-handed reading.”

PRICK: Personal Responsibility Informed Consensual Kink

In researching this article, I couldn’t find consensus on the author of PRICK, but most sources agree that PRICK evolved after RACK.

PRICK places extra emphasis on the notion that you can’t really give consent unless it’s informed consent, and each member has a personal responsibility to seek out the information they need to make an informed decision. 

Sometimes, in D/s dynamics, there is a mistaken assumption that because someone is taking a dominant position and perhaps taking more control of a scene, they have more responsibility for the safety of themselves and their scene partner(s). While it is absolutely true that thinking about safety is an essential component of being a good dom(me), this is a collaborative, and shared responsibility with all participants. PRICK makes this explicit in a way that can be a helpful reminder for folks in these kinds of dynamics.

CCCC: Caring, Communication, Consent, and Caution

CCCC was coined by Williams, Thomas, Prior and Christensen in 2014 in an article in the Journal of Human Sexuality titled “From “SSC” and “RACK” to the “4Cs”: Introducing a new Framework for Negotiating BDSM Participation”

The authors explain that they chose to “reframe safety/risk-awareness” under “caution” because doing so “carries less discursive baggage” and supports participants thinking about risk in ways that go beyond the strictly medical perspective commonly considered under “risk-aware”.

They choose to place and emphasis on caring and communication as values they see as essential to BDSM relationships. They are also hopeful that their inclusion will help correct “lingering misperceptions from outsiders that BDSM participation is somehow inherently abusive, violent, or rooted in psychopathology”.

The Practical Application of Acronyms

When it comes to safety acronyms, you don’t have to pick a team and pledge your undying loyalty to one, versus another. Each of them can be a great starting point for talking about how you approach safety and consent in relationships of all flavors.

If someone has no knowledge of any of these acronyms, this is something to get curious about. Is this indicative of a lack of knowledge? If so, how interested are you in playing with a newbie? I don’t say this derisively, folks that are new to the scene can bring a fresh energy that can be invigorating and help us consider things from new perspectives. But there are power dynamics to be sensitive to when one person is empowered by a lot of knowledge, and their partner is not. 

What if their lack of awareness of safety acronyms is indicative of the fact that they just don’t care about consent or safety all that much? If someone has been in the kink scene for a while and they have no awareness of safety acronyms, given the accessibility of information in the digital age, this strikes me as concerning. Perhaps not irredeemably concerning, but it should prompt some serious questions about how what understanding they do have about how to center consent and safety in a kink-forward relationship.

We Hope These Acronyms Make You Think

Maybe this article provides some historical context for the acronyms you already know and love. Or maybe it offers new acronyms to add to your collection, kinksters LOVE acronyms, am I right?

Either way, whether your play is SSC, RACK, PRICK or CCCC have fun! And if this article made you want to talk more about negotiating consent and safety in BDSM with a pleasure-positive and kink-aware sex therapist in Massachusetts, reach out, we would love to meet you!