Home › Guides › Safewords and limits

Care & ground rules

Safewords and limits: a beginner's guide

A word that stops everything, no questions. It makes it easier to try things, because stopping is always one word away.

In the quiz

• Using a safeword
• Check-ins during
• Writing down hard limits

How to start

1. Use “red” for stop and “yellow” for slow down or check in.
2. Agree on a hand signal for when talking isn’t possible.
3. Write down hard limits.
4. Say yellow once early on, just to see that it works.

How to keep it safe

• Respect it every time, with no sulking.
• Check in after a safeword gets used.

What you need

• Nothing needed.

Ideas to try

• Review your limits list every few months.
• A quick color check mid-scene.

Is your partner into it too?

Take the quiz on your own phones. You'll only see safewords and limits in your results if you both said some kind of yes.

Take the quiz

Sources

• American Counseling Association (2020). Kink culture: What professional counselors need to know. Practice brief.
• Dunkley & Brotto (2020). The role of consent in the context of BDSM. Sexual Abuse.

Related guides

• Aftercare

  Looking after each other after sex or a scene: cuddling, water, a snack, reassurance. Research has found partners feel closer after scenes that go well.

• Trying new things together

  Doing new things together helps keep desire alive in long relationships, in and out of bed.

Educational, not medical or legal advice. Updated 2026-11-09.