YOU get a consent acronym! YOU get a consent acronym. EVERYBODY GETS A CONSENT ACRONYM!

When you become part of the kink scene, your learning curve is more of a Mount Everest than a hill. There are polycules and poly families, RACK, PRICK, and CCCC. There’s ethical non-monogamy, compersion, and 500 kinds of consent violations. You will now be required to figure out which consent acronym is better. Don’t worry. This is totes going to be easy. </sarcasm>

SSC might seem perfect until a strawman trundles in to explain that no BDSM activity is completely safe, so let’s make perfect the enemy of good. If a light spanking isn’t 100% risk free, we should all use loaded guns as dildos. What? The logic is impenetrable.

People usually move to RACK after they lose faith in SSC because if you can’t be risk-averse, you might as well become risk-aware. Merely knowing the hazards of using a gun as a dildo will help by… by… uh… Look! A flying butt plug!

RACK doesn’t explicitly require you to mitigate risk. Knowing is enough. That’s the whole everloving problem. You can be as lazy as you want with it.

You'll probably decide that if risk awareness is pointless, you might as well graduate to PRICK because it’s not my damn job to manage your safety. Subs are responsible for their own risk awareness. I told you this was going to be easy.

At this point, people discover CCCC and go, “Oh my god, where has this acronym been all my life?” CCCC means Caring, Communication, Consent and Caution, and who can argue with that? Well…. Some people prefer their kink to be harsh and unfeeling. No, really. Not everyone wants to be caring, you know, and besides, what’s kinky about caution?

RACK means many different things to different people. Some define it as risk mitigation, and some use it as an excuse for indifference. Some people use SSC as a way to measure their risk, and some people use it to kink shame. (If your kink is more extreme than my kink, you’re not SSC, and you are thus unacceptable.) Some people use PRICK to emphasise the importance of independent assessment, and some use it to eschew accountability.

You can use a hammer to drive in a nail, and you can also use it to murder your ex-boyfriend. Tools can be used or misused. Everything hinges on your intent and values. I’ve met people who’ve used PRICK as a justification, and I’ve met people who’ve used it exceptionally well. If you don’t give a fuck, you can bend SSC to your selfish will, but if you do give a fuck, you’ll draw wisdom from any acronym I throw at you.

I don’t think you should throw all the safety acronyms in the trash, though. I think it’s better to use all of them simultaneously.

They all have their own wisdom as long as you’re not using them as weapons. The more wisdom, the better, so why choose one acronym when you can choose them all? YOU get an acronym! YOU get an acronym. EVERYBODY GETS AN ACRONYM!

When someone tells you they’re SSC, it can mean they’re driving nails into walls, and it can mean they’re murdering their exes. SSC is not a safety certification. SSC does not mean someone is safe to play with. Like all the acronyms, it's just an ink blot. We all find different lessons in it.

The trick is to use it as a tool, not an excuse.