BDSM Safety: Hard Limits, Soft Limits

What Are Hard Limits, Soft Limits and Why Are They Important?

By definition, a limit is a point at which something terminates. In practical application, a limit can be applied to something like a credit line. If you reach your limit, you can no longer purchase things until you pay your balance below the limit. I can also be applied in a more personal manner, such as setting a limit on how much work you do in one day. Once you hit your limit, you stop for the day, or for whatever period of time you set when you set your limit.

In the BDSM lifestyle, these limits are considered hard and soft limits. Hard limits are limits that you can not change, a restriction that is imposed by an outside factor. Such as having no bloodletting as a limit due to being anemic or having clotting issues. While this may seem like a common sense limit, but it's not because there are people who enjoy play that causes bloodletting. Soft limits, on the other hand are limits that are set by either the Dominant or submissive and can change if necessary.

To most people, there may not be an obvious difference in a hard and soft limit, especially if someone's limits start changing over the course of a relationship. The dominant and submissive can work together, shaping their limits together, eventually melding their soft and hard limits to suit their relationship. But it still remains that there will be things that can not be changed due to outside influences such as allergies or physical limitations. Soft limits are things that can be shaped and changed, such as limiting the amount of physical pain that the submissive will take before the dominant stops.

If a submissive can only tolerate a certain level of pain in the beginning of a relationship, then over time, the limit is pushed a little at a time, slowly raising the tolerance threshold, as well as raising the limit. Or a submissive may set a limit that they won't allow certain things to be used on them, such as a blindfold, because of things that happened in their past. Over the course of a relationship, the dominant can push that limit, slowly accustoming the submissive to having their eyes covered by a hand at first, then slowly work towards using an actual blindfold by using lighter weight materials that don't totally cut off the sight. Eventually, the submissive will let the dominant use the blindfold at will, again shaping their soft limits to their current relationship.

Why are limits important? Without limits, then a dominant has no way of knowing what a submissive doesn't enjoy. They don't know what is acceptable within play, leaving the dominant open to inflicting harm on their submissive when it wasn't intended to be harmful. Without a well defined set of limits, a dominant won't know when to stop a scene, especially if a submissive is deep enough in subspace that they don't know what is going on around them.

Limits are meant to keep a submissive safe, to give a dominant a defined stopping point, to keep both parties safe from going too far. They are meant to keep BDSM from becoming abuse, or worse. They keep BDSM from resulting in major mental or physical harm.