Creating language to better describe what a situation or activity entails.

This will be the first is a short series of articles surrounding my philosophy and understanding of danger, risk, and safety both in play and in building a culture and community which genuinely supports learning and mitigation of risks for ourselves and others.

The Discussion

When negotiating or participating in many kinky things we often talk about them being risky or dangerous; we more the things that can go wrong and we talk about the mitigations we try and take for them. What we don't do it talk about how likely those negative outcomes are to actually happen, how often we have had them happen in our experience, or what factors might affect those things. A big part of this is that, unlike most other high risk activities with low margin for error we don't have a language ingrained in our subculture for clear communication of the finer layers to risk and potential harm.

To help fill this gap I'd like to propose three definitions and dicuss them in the context of a few different activities - some kinky, some not - to begin to build an understanding of what types of danger exist, how lokely they really are to come up, and how those dangers are likely to develop. The first of these is Dangerous:

An activity is dangerous if there is a chance of any negative outcome occurring also being a very serious negative outcome. Examples of dangerous activities in everyday life would be:

• Flying a sailplane
• Open ocean SCUBA diving
• Free Climbing
• Getting Surgery

Note the distinction between the severity of an outcome and the likelihood of that outcome. That leads into the next word: Risky. An activity is risky if it has a high likelihood of a negative outcome happening. Some examples of risky activities are: - Trail Running - Swimming - Martial Arts - Eating day old sushi - Woodworking - Office Work

In these activities we can see that it's reasonable to expect that fairly frequently an injury, illness, or other outcome will happen. That said these risks are also inherent to the activity by its nature. In the other hand something is hazardous if it has a number of specific things in the situation or environment that add to the chance of a negative outcome or the severity of the harm. Examples of hazards are: - Flying in clouds - Unbeatable ground - Rain - Heat - Cold - Intoxication

It is always possible for an activity to be in multiple categories; driving us both risky (vehicle collisions are extremely common) and dangerous (driving is the #1 cause of fatalities for people under 50 most years; being hit by a vehicle is often close behind). It can also be a very hazardous activity as well, with hundreds of factors increasing those risks (weather, intoxication, day of the week, familiarity with the area, number of other drivers, &c).

Kinky Specific Discussions

With that language defined I'd like to take a few activities that are commonly seen as "safer" and a few that are commonly seen as "edge play" and look at them through this expended lens to open up a discussion about them for the discussion and commebt thread to build on, so please challenge things you disagree with, write up ideas about other kinds of play, and ask lots of questions!

Breath Play

We all know that breath play is looked down upon by a large proportion of the BDSM community for its high potential for lethality or significant harm. At thebsame time there isn't actually a great deal of significant data about how often these events actually happen; especially as a fraction of the participants or events. There is even less data available on how many people actually engage in it - how many people a accidentally engage in it - or what measures can be taken to identify and mitigate hazards in these situations.

Looking at breath play overall a few things stand out: 1. The level of danger when things go wrong is very high 2. the margin for reaction when things go wrong is measured in seconds 3. there are many hazards that exist which if not identified can greatly increase these risks 4. people do die from this, and those deaths are often remembered 5. Stigma won't stop people from playing with this in all its forms

Looking at this it's clear that breath play is dangerous. It's also clear that it takes a lot of training, practice, and skill to manage responsibly. It's also clear that it can be hazardous too. What isn't clear is the actual level of risk; how often things go wrong.

For this I'd suspect that the reality is that the risk level sits somewhere close to light aircraft aviation. As someone who comes from that culture it's about as common to know someone who's had a fatal incident, or be only one degree of separation from them. There are however far more US BDSM practitioners than there are aviators (a few million vs. a few hundred thousand). I'd suspect given the popularity of erotic asphyxiation and choking even in semi-vanilla communities, plus the frequency of breath play intruding into rope, suspension, queening, kinging, throat fucking, and many other activities that the number of practitioners is actually very high as well.

Given this I'd actually suggest that breath play isn't that risky since so few incidents occur relative to the billions of times people engage in it every year. The reputation persists because of how extreme the negative outcomes are when things do go wrong - especially when people ignore hazards or fail to account for them during the play.

Likely the overall profile for breath play matches closely with that of general (non commercial) aviation, or open water diving (which incidentally has a huge overlap with the risks of breath play) and the judgement levels directed towards practitioners are unwarranted. At the same time it's also important to recognize that the high level of danger means practitioners should have more resources available to understand how incidents happen and therefore mitigate them.

Needle Play

Needle play (and most blood play really) is another area where stigma shapes the culture and community around it. I know many excellent practitioners who refuse to teach or do performance work solely because of the amount of judgement that exists around what constitutes perfect safety practices, and the fear of harm that can be done. At the same time I've never actually heard a firsthand account of a bad outcome from needle play; beyond some minor unexpected scarring that was a known risk by all parties.

While there isn't a great deal of scientific literature on play percing there is a lot on injuries of different types, piercings in general, and on wound infection as a whole. From looking at the meta analysis a few things become clear quickly: - It's very hard to get an infection from a small surface wound - It's even harder to get an infection from a wound inflicted from a sterile object - The best mechanism for preventing infection is washing with warm soapy water after the injury is sustained - You have 8 hours or until the wound closes to wash it before risk of infection increases - Wiping the area with a mild cleaner, washing with soap and water, or using an alcohol swab is sufficient for any small surface injury - Even for unwashed surface cuts, punctures and scrapes infections are very rare, dangerous ones even rarer, and treatment if identified is cheap and easily available.

Ultimately unless needles are bing shared, soiled deliberately, or re-used the risk of infection is near zero. Additionally the risk of hitting something important is extremely low if the practitioner is playing attention, and even so the harm done by nicking a vein is quite small if basic first aid is applied.

Ultimately needle play is low risk, not dangerous, and has very few hazards (avoiding implants, eyes, and nerve clusters being the main ones).

The largest hazard with needle play is the risk of transmission for blood borne illness; this is also often overstated practically. Literature on blood contact transmission (outside of IV drug use with shared needles) for Malaria, Syphilis ,Brucellosis, Hep A & B, Hep C, and HIV are also extremely low in the US. - Malaria is not common in the united states, and status is usually known if it is a risk vaccines do exist and it is treatable, plus prophylaxis exists. - Hep A & B have vaccines which are standard for people to have received people engaging in this play can easily get them - Syphilis is treatable, but is becoming more common; still the risk of transmission is similar or lower than ordinariy sexual contact. - HIV Transmission can be mitigated using post-exposure prophylaxis (Descovy, Truvada) and pre-exposure prophylaxis which are widely available. - Hepatitis C is a substantive risk; that said, acciendal needlestick transmission from a known infected patient is 2% to 10%. For patients of unknown status this makes the risk 1.3% of a person being infected - or a random encounter risk of at most 0.13%. With partner testing and other mitigations.

This is not to say that best practices and safety practices shouldn't be taken at all times. Instead it's to say that judgement of others who are playing with others whom they know, isn't called for with this activity. Ultimately it's an activity that's got a lower risk of disease transmission than sex - even protected sex - and we should respect each other and our fellow practitioners enough to give lots of leeway for risk tolerance if they're still following basic reasonable safety practices (proper disposal, negotiation, using sterile needles, not sharing needles, disinfection of blades, &c).

Needle play is low risk, low danger, and low hazard overall.

Please let me know what you think below, and discuss other kinds of play and how they might break down. Next article I'll be delving deeper into how I measure the potential and liklihood of consequences of different activities and how they compare to daily activities as best as reseach allows.

My Info

I wanted to take a fewl lines to shout out my work. I post on FetLife: MiraMaven, Instagram: @mira.maven.sub, Tumblr: MiraMaven, and I also post spicy content on Sheer.com: MiraMaven occasionally and hopefully more consistently soon! I also regularly shoot with Femdom Philadelphia who hosts their content on Clips 4 Sale!