No, the problem isn't safety, sanity or consent. The problem comes in mistaking a description for a prescription. Before anyone said the phrase Safe Sane Consensual SM—decades, even centuries before—bottoms were safe enough to survive and beg for more, couples were sane enough to recognize a good thing and protect their possibilities for continuing to do it, and consent was clearly and obviously known to be essential. That’s why the SM of earlier times was eventually described in the late 1980s as "Safe Sane Consensual." No problem.

It becomes a problem with contemporary efforts to sell that description as a requirement, apply it as a prescription, and to judge one another on the basis of various understandings of what that prescriptive phrase looks or feels like in action. Granted, some of the institutions are gone that were once relied upon to make SM safe, to provide community-wide feedback on the sanity of the members and to double check that consent was being respected. Still, taking a phrase that described the SM world as it once operated and repeating that phrase endlessly will not make SM SSC. Embroidering the phrase on patches, even painting it on 30-foot-wide banners will not save a single scene from becoming unsafe, stop an insane man from doing SM or monitor the necessities of consent.

- Joseph W. Bean, The SSC Mistake

SSC is often touted throughout our community as a measure of how “right” or “wrong” a player may be. Honestly, however, how much of WIITWD can ever be considered safe? Is it safe to hit someone else? Is it safe to allow someone to cut your skin, pierce it, or drop hot wax on it? And as for sanity, that’s definitely relative. What is “sane” for member of our community is often considered deviant or insane by those outside the SM community.

As someone who plays with a “heavy edge player” I get the worried looks from friends, the phone calls or IMs the day after an event which ask, “Are you really okay?” The answer is yes and the reason is simple. Of the three issues—Safe, Sane, and Consensual, I believe the “C” is the most important. I have given the man I serve my consent to use me in the manner which best meets his needs at the time. I also trust him not to permanently break his property. He has proven to me, time and time again that he values me and breaking me would be counter to that valuation.

I’m not a masochist. I don’t like pain. I don’t process it into pleasure and I don’t fly (enter subspace). I serve. Is what I do with the man I serve safe? Not really. Getting hit can do damage. Being cut can leave scars or do other damage. Is it sane? Who knows. My friends seem to think I’ve been a little touched to get involved with someone whose taste in SM activities is so far from what mine have always been. Is it consensual? Absolutely…and that is really all that matters.

The next time you watch a scene and you think to yourself, “Gee, that’s not safe,” consider this: The players are adults. They have agreed to engage in the activity you are viewing and to engage in it where you are permitted to view it. Instead of focusing on your own perceptions and concepts of SSC, remember that the “C” part has been met and the rest is really inconsequential. If you don’t like what you see, walk away and don’t watch. Or stay and learn something about the players and maybe about yourself.