If the idea of someone hurting someone else deliberately still throws you for a bit of a loop, What do you think of karate practice? What do you think of boxing?

You can say, yeah, but people sometimes end up with bruises, things like that, in this scene.
   Sometimes they do.
    Sometimes they're really proud of them.

Say, for instance, you get mugged in a dark alley, someone steals your wallet and breaks your leg.
    You're gonna have a certain attitude about that.
    Let's say you go skiing and break your leg and lose your wallet, now that's a completely different experience.
    And what about if, for some reason, a birth defect or something, you need to get your leg broken, and the doctor does it for you and charges you for it.

It is, after all, our reaction to the experience that makes the difference.

Each time it's a broken leg, however, attitudes in each case are very different.
   In one case it is a positive result, of a normally negative experience.

Some would argue that violence promotes violence, and there, s no place for it in society.
    Yet quite often those are the same individuals you'll see cheering like crazy at hockey games.

Social attitudes are very sophisticated when it comes to dealing with our primitive side, yet very primitive when it comes to dealing with our sophisticated side, our sexuality.
    With consensual role playing games, we begin to evolve a little further, to fill the gap.
   The impulse to violence, the competitive urges to lead or follow, are a part of nature.
   To ritualize them, to create games out of them, is considered the civilized way to express these needs.

Many people, when they think of D&S behavior, they think of violent sex crimes like the Bernardo slayings.
   The fact is, the SM community is just as happy to see those maniacs behind bars as you are.

Consensual role playing games, and acts of violence against non-consenting individuals have nothing in common.

I think part of the confusion comes from appearances.
    How SM is portrayed in the media, and even in some SM pornography.
    The rules around a Safe, Sane, Consensual SM/D&S/Role-play experience are not explained.

It looks pretty scary if you don't know the code, that the actors are playing roles.

This is one arena where "no" does not necessarily mean "NO!".
    Instead we have a "Safeword" which means "Stop what you are doing and turn me loose right now!" That basically means no. That's the code.

Obedience to the safeword is the Sacred Rule of Trust, that makes these intense experiences possible.

A drugged and unconscious teenager cannot be said to be "consenting", and could not have used a safeword even if the Bernardos had one, which they obviously didn't. Their "sanity" I hardly need comment on. A scene that ends in death could hardly be called "safe".

Many people who get involved in role playing games, like to get very involved in the role playing.
   They may like to cry and beg Me to stop and plead for mercy, but they would be very disappointed if I actually stopped, and a responsible Dominatrix needs to know the difference.

So, we have a `Safeword,' a word that would not normally be uttered in the course of a scene, and if that word comes up, then we know, that means no.

We can use "Safeword" as a safeword, or we can choose another word, or even a system of words.
    I like to use traffic light colors: red, yellow and green.
    If I ask my sub. "How are you?" and they say "green, Mistress," they want more!
    "Yellow, Mistress!" means they need a time-out, to discuss some adjustment to the scene.
    "Red!" means "Safeword!",which means "Stop what you are doing and turn me loose right now!" and ends the scene.
   That's the code.

"Red" would certainly be used if the submissive is actually in some danger, such as someone feeling pains in their arms that could be the onset of a stroke.
    The scene stops at that point, and does not start again.