§ Note. This version includes an addendum containing the first paragraph from an article entitled Freedom of Choice, posted on the original site in 2002.

In the world of D/s the concept of abuse is explicitly paired with that of consent. Abuse arises where there is no consent. To Dominate, in the D/s meaning of the term, is not simply to control someone who positions herself as a submissive; it is to act according to a moral code, that code being to not take control outside the boundaries of consent. Once consent is given and the limitations of that consent are clear — there are always some exceptions to full consent, two of the obvious being "do not kill or maim me" — the Dom can proceed to control and use the sub within the entire compass of her consent. To go outside those boundaries is to enter into the realm of the immoral. This is where abuse occurs.

A "safeword" is a means to temporarily constrict boundaries during submission. Its effect is to remove consent in some particular area. It is not regarded as a permanent restriction. A sub may give herself to a Dom with the explicit denial of a safeword. The implication here is that she will not later constrict the boundaries she lays out in the beginning and that the Dom may move freely within the sub's boundaries in any way he desires. A sub's "limits" are those acts that exist outside her boundaries. The fewer the limits, the larger the area of consent.

A sub may regard her boundaries as temporary and she may want the Dom to press them occasionally in order to give her opportunity to reevaluate them. There is what could be called a "border of uncertainty" at the periphery of her boundaries. When the Dom is exploring this area, a safeword is likely to occur.

A Dom, too, can have boundaries. Outside are those acts he does not want to do.

Addendum 2003. The fundamental moral principle of freedom of choice cannot be justly denied, so how can it be honored within a D/s relationship where one partner regulates the acts of the other? The usual first answer is that the submissive consents to the Dominant's control, thereby relinquishing her freedom of choice. Her consent, it is thought, is a broadly encompassing, far-reaching choice about her future freedom to choose, wherein she bestows present and future authority, of some particular degree and range, over her physical self to the Dominant to whom she gave that consent. Under some interpretations, only a safeword exempts her from the binding force of that consent, and perhaps then only as a temporary suspension of the Dominant's conferred power. But, of course, she has always had the freedom to choose. She can safeword out of a situation, then simply decide not to submit to the next command. There is no moral principle that obliges her to continue her submission. Any prior consent she gave cannot abolish her moral freedom to choose in the next moment against that consent. In law, contracts are binding. But you cannot morally contract yourself into slavery.