"safeword"” and, more commonly, "red." I consider it useful to go with the "public standard" because that means that in the future, you're likely to be attuned to the correct word if you practice BDSM with other partners as well. (It also means that if you ever do S&M in a public space such as a dungeon, everyone in the place will recognize your safeword if you scream it.) C) At first wasn't that excited about this, but I've grown to love the fact that the safeword "red" also sometimes encompasses "green" -- and "yellow." That means that if I'm in the middle of an S&M encounter, I can say "red" and my partner will stop; I can then catch my breath and say "green," which means "by God keep going!" Or, if I'm a little uncertain about the territory but don't actually want my partner to stop -- if I just want my partner to be a little bit cautious -- then I can say "yellow" (and, of course, I can move to "green" if I become really psyched, or shift to "red" if I really want my partner to stop). Thomas MacAulay Millar: My spouse and I use the "stoplight system." It's simple, it works, and "yellow" option is really useful for things that are getting hard to handle. Also, a lot of bottoms are either submissives or masochists with more pride and stubbornness than is good for them -- the former out of an overdeveloped desire to please, the latter sometimes out of a desire to impress or even just a pitbull-stubborn urge to push themselves as hard as they can go. Take the personalities that finish an Ironman and collapse and need IV fluids, and put them on a spanking bench with big welts from a prison strap, and you've got someone who won't safeword when ze probably should. In those and other circumstances, giving the bottom an easy option to say, "I'm struggling here" without feeling like they're quitting is a very useful thing. [Editor's Note: "ze" is the gender-neutral pronoun, and it's in the Glossary. Clarisse tried to use it regularly for a while, but ultimately concluded