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A Safe-Word Theory of Social Liberation
Capitalism, BDSM, and Basic Income
“There is something terrible, ridiculous, outrageous going on, but it’s not clear whether you are even allowed to acknowledge it, and it’s usually even less clear who or what can be blamed.” (David Graeber)
When stress transgresses tolerable boundaries during BDSM play — a sexual subculture juxtaposing power and dominance — there’s always a ‘safe-word’. One may simply say, “basket”, or whatever, and the atmosphere snaps from aggressive to supportive. Following the safe-word’s utterance, “The dominant partner may bring the submissive ice for any bruises, but it’s important to know that aftercare involves emotional care as well as physical”, writes GQ Magazine.
For life in industrial capitalist societies — a subculture also juxtaposing relations of power and dominance — there’s a neglect of safe-words. When life’s stressors transgress tolerable levels — people falling into insurmountable heaps of debt; single parents working interminable hours for their families; millennials trapped in jobs they hate to pay off predatory student loans; even that unstated malaise of modern living, where we yearn to ‘soul search’, but rarely find the…
