Safe, Sane, and Consensual

Safe, Sane, and Consensual (SSC) is a guideline the BDSM community uses to define responsible kink. Safe means taking steps to reduce physical and emotional risk. Sane means participants are of sound mind and able to make informed decisions. Consensual means everyone freely agrees to what happens. The phrase was coined in 1983 by activist slave david stein for the Gay Male S/M Activists (GMSMA) in New York, at a time when leather communities wanted to separate consensual kink from abuse and to build legitimacy amid stigma and the AIDS crisis. SSC became a widely shared watchword. Some practitioners later adopted alternatives like RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink), which stresses that no activity is fully risk-free.