This topic gets brought up a lot by people across a broad spectrum of viewpoints on the subject. As with most things I don’t think the topic is truly as simple as “no limits is valid” or “no limits is unhealthy”. Nuance is important. If we look deeper at various ways or circumstances under which that phrase gets uttered I believe there’s far more clarity to be had.

I think most of use reasonably healthy and earnest people can agree that when a new person comes into the community exclaiming they have no limits they:

1) Don’t know what it even means.

2) Are so caught up in the fantasy they don’t realize how dangerous that can be or they haven’t even taken the time to think about it.

3) They aren’t coming from a healthy place.

At the other end of the spectrum you have people who have been in a 24/7 TPE dynamic for 40 years and know each other so well and have the same limits and each other’s best interest at heart. To me, when such people say they have no limits it means that they have cast off the need to verbally communicate what things on a high level that they don’t want. The dominant partner is never going to cut off the submissive partner’s leg. So why call that a limit? The dominant is never going to shit in the submissive’s mouth. So does that really need to be on a limit list? The submissive knows that if they communicate that they aren’t feeling well that the dominant will choose to not play with them that night. Does that need to be a limit?

I suppose you could say that the limits in that case would be “unsaid” or assumed or built in. I think they are all the same thing. I think for some, saying “no limits” just sounds more badass than “we just know what our limits are so we stopped having the need for a formal list”.

A recent poster in another subreddit (the post is no longer available) boasted that one day per week he lets his dominant do anything even if it crosses his limits. He was all of 23 and for all I know he’s never seen a naked women in his life, much less actually having one as a partner. None-the-less it’s an important case to study. I believe that what he was actually saying was that he suppresses certain limits for that time. If she suggested something that would kill him I suspect in reality he would decline. So that’s a limit. He used an example of cutting open his scrotum to expose his testicles. I believe he was trying to sound cool and that in reality if that’s what she suggested he would have quickly declined.

To me, this putting aside limits for a scene is to some degree a CNC scene. One could say that these limits are “soft limits” and that most of the time they are nos, but once a week they aren’t. The idea of playing past someone’s comfort zone isn’t novel. It’s edge play, but it’s not unique.

One other interesting edge case is people who are experienced and deeply into their submission using “no limits” in the sense that once they feel they can trust someone they accept whatever their partner puts them through. I’ve seen people who negotiate this way. In my experience the reality is deeply nuanced.

For example: one such submissive had no limits. She agreed to a dynamic believing that she would be with her dominant forever. Then one day the relationship soured. He had been putting another partner ahead of her. This had been part of their dynamic, but it went too far and she left. That was a limit.

I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with engaging in that way, but calling it “no limits” is not entirely accurate. If done properly I think it can be done from a healthy place, but it’s definitely edge play.

Do you claim no limits?

Do you participate in one of the cases I described?

Do you participate in a no limits dynamic that I haven’t described?