Wow. This is an incredibly interesting discussion.

Just like there are hard and soft limits, I have my subs choose a hard and soft safeword.

The "hard" safeword: It means that everything stops now, no-ifs-ands-or-buts. Yes, we can (and generally will) talk about why s/he stopped the scene, but it's over. So is any play for a while.

The "soft" safeword: That one means that we need to take a break and either fix something or negotiate something. I guess that's the more traditional safeword.

I guess that was kind of obvious from the names. There's always a back-up, non-verbal sign that Things Must Stop This Instant. It's something simple like sticking a thumb out, so that hopefully the issue of being in too much pain to do/say something will never occur.

For punishments, s/he can use the soft safeword, but not the hard one. The punishment can be rearranged, changed, whathaveyou, but s/he can't get completely out of it.

I will never ever be part of a scene without my sub having a safeword. And here we jump into Uninteresting Personal Issues territory. Abandom ship while ye still can!

I am shite at picking up social signals. Not shite in the sense that I don't pick up on anything, shite in that I pick up on too much and go into analysis paralysis. When I hear a "no" that really means "yes", I hear the no and the yes, but worry myself into a panic attack that the yes doesn't really exist.

You can see what a problem this is, being a Domme!

When I'm in a scene, or, really, doing anything with people, I turn off all analysis, in a sense. I go with my first instinct, which has about a 50% chance of being wrong.

This also makes me a really crappy Domme in many ways. ;-)

There was a long time (a purely academic time, I must add) where, too me, a safeword was a stop-everything word. I knew that I can't be relied on to determine if my sub meant that s/he wanted to stop everything or that s/he wanted to negotiate something.

That's why I won't participate in a non-safeword scene. I can't trust myself to notice that I'm taking things too far. Yes, it is a problem. Thankfully, most subs are understanding that, even though I can't trust myself, I can trust them to know their limits. I'm not comfortable being involved with anyone who goes too deeply into subspace or gets too emotional to use a safeword for that reason. If I can't trust him/her to voice objections and bringing everything to a halt, then s/he can't trust me, and that's just not good.

[/ramble]