Glossary

• BDSM – Bondage, Discipline, Sadomasochism
• Bottom – One who enjoying giving up control or receiving sensation during a scene
• D/s – Dominance/submission, typically of a mental or emotional nature
• Edge play – BDSM activities that are often deemed riskier; examples include breath, fire, and knife play
• Lifestyler – A person involved in a relationship in which power exchange is a defining dynamic
• Limits – BDSM activities in which a person chooses not to participate
• M/s – Master/slave, a deep form of power exchange, generally 24/7
• Munch – A public social gathering of like-minded people, usually over food or drinks
• RACK – Risk Aware Consensual Kink, an alternative mantra to SSC (see below) recognizing that BDSM is to some extent inherently risky
• Safecall – A safety technique of prearranging a phone call at a specific time to a friend who knows where you are and can send help if you don’t call or don’t say a prearranged code word
• Safeword – An unusual (in context) word, e.g., “pumpkin”, which means stop everything, sometimes in conjunction with a second word meaning slow down, e.g., “red” and “yellow”
• SSC – Safe, Sane, and Consensual, a mantra of many in the BDSM community
• Scene – A temporary period during which some form of power exchange occurs
• SM – Sadomasochism; gaining pleasure from pain, either from inflicting it (sadist) or from receiving it (masochist)
• Top – One who enjoys controlling a scene or giving sensation
• Watersports – Play involving urine
• WIITWD – Scene abbreviation, often used online and in vanilla settings; stands for What It Is That We Do
• 24/7 – A constant, full-time relationship