Safeword: Black and White

This is going to be one of those posts where I argue an issue as if it were controversial, but I hope it's not. I hope people agree with me. I hope when you come to the end of this post, you'll be nodding your head and thinking, 'yep, that is true.' If not...if not, you and I have some talking to do.

Sadists and masochists face so much judgement for who we are.
To "normal" society, a little kink is okay. Too much, and you start to get attention; people start to look at you. Which is fine if you're a celebrity, using the costume of kink to further your platform and sales. It's not so good if you're the average joe or joanne, trying to live life on your own terms.

Because we face this judgement, we, on the other side of what's deemed "acceptable," start having this 'us vs them' mentality. We label everyone and everything on the other side of the fence as vanilla, and use the term sneeringly. We're the cool people, we're the ones who have the awesome sex lives, we're the ones who take risks and have fun and do things vanilla people only dream about.
There's nothing wrong with us. You're just jealous.
Sounds very high-school, no?
But because we face so much judgement from the outside, we're loathe to judge our own. We don't want to risk looking like we're defecting to the enemy camp by formally and publicly calling other kinksters out on their behavior. Because that's not us, that's what vanilla people do.
This kind of mentally is not only fucking stupid, it's dangerous.
We're a community of grownups, are we not? And grownups know that sometimes, shades of grey are the illusions of philosophers and dreamers. Sometimes, the lines between black and white are very, very clear. There are behaviors that are wrong, period, and there is no way to look at it from a different perspective or twist it around in your head or tie it up in bows and ribbons to make it look pretty. It is just wrong, from every angle. Period.

So I'm going to throw this out there for every Top, Dom, and Sadist out there, and hope to God you agree:

If you set up a scene with a woman who has the use of a safeword, and you have promised to honor that safeword, then for God's sake, HONOR IT. 

Don't take away her ability to say it by stuffing her mouth or holding it closed. Don't ignore it when she says it. Treat it with respect.
I don't give a shit about you "losing control" or getting "caught up in the moment" or any of that bullcrap. You know what? If you knew for a fact that if she made any attempt to say that safeword and you ignored it, the powers that be would pull an axe out of the fucking sky and chop off your head off, you'd make damn sure to honor that safeword. And if that's what you have to imagine to give it the importance it deserves, then do it. Imagine that every time a woman tries to say her safeword and you don't let her, she will fucking kill you for it.
Then maybe you'll get it.
Cause if she won't, she just might have some friends who will.

Ed to add: I just got an email from Amazon that they've blocked my latest title, Evie (Babygirl)  from their general search list, because of its mature adult content. I've immensely pleased by this. It somehow confirms that I've "arrived" as an erotica writer.
They hate me! They really hate me!