by DurLlwyd - version 1.0

Most of us are familiar with the concept of a safe-call: The practice of making a phone call to a third party when meeting someone for the first time. This is often followed up with a second phone call a couple of hours later to "check in" and make sure the meeting went okay.

The vast majority of folks in and around the BDSM community are good people. In that sense, safe-calls are much like locks; they help make sure good people stay good. With this in mind safe-calls should be considered an extra safety measure, they are not a primary safety measure. Safe-calls do not replace primary precautions.

Primary precautions are things like:

Getting to know your potential partner before entering into a scene with them. This means you should spend time with them in person and not just over some electronic media, before scening.

Always doing your first scene with someone in some kind of public forum. This doesn't mean you have to go out to a BDSM club, it can simply be inviting another couple over for a small play party.

If you have to travel to meet your partner, why not consider meeting at a BDSM event, with a little poking around you can always find one going on somewhere.

Once the primary precautions are out of the way, a safe-call can be added as an extra layer of security. The main purpose of a safe-call is to further reduce the likelihood of a having a problem in the first place. This is accomplished in the following mechanism -- If everyone knows who you are and whom you are with, you are less likely to do something you shouldn't, because, if you do, everyone is going to know about it.

It is also worth remembering that a safe-call is intended to protect the Dominant as well as the submissive. While the Dominant may not feel they need physical protection, almost everyone is vulnerable to false accusations. By making more people aware of the meeting and the specifics of the meeting, there is less room for colorful embellishment.

The essential elements for a safe-call are:

1. A person who is not involved in the meet must know everyone's real name and contact information.

   This means that first and foremost, everyone's identity needs to be clearly established. One way to help do this is to ask each person involved in the meet to provide not only their own contact information, but also the name and phone number of a reference. The reference should be someone with first-hand knowledge of where the person lives.

2. Everyone must be aware that someone else knows their real name and contact information.

   The person providing the safe-call should get all the relevant contact information and call both those involved in the meet and each of the references provided at a random time before the meeting. This will help verify the contact information and ensure that everyone is aware that the safe-call provider has their information.

   As a side note: It is a good idea to make sure that all parties in the meet have the contact information for the person providing the safe-call. If there is a medical emergency or any other type of problem, the person providing the safe-call needs to be reachable by everyone.

3. The person who is providing the safe-call should know where and when the meeting is taking place and should be expecting a call by a certain time.

Some people go so far as to set up 'code' words that can be used to secretly express that there is a problem. How far you take it is up to you, but the important part is that everyone knows who everyone else is.

Remember, safe-calls are only one part of managing personal risk. Be careful, have fun, and hopefully you'll have, at the very least, made a new friend.

You can download and view a sample safe-call form below:

• Safe-Call Form (Word 6.0)

• Safe-Call Form (Adobe PDF)

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