Check-in

Four seconds, once every so often. It is the least glamorous safety measure in this subject and the one that prevents the most quiet damage, because it moves the work of speaking up off the person who is worst placed to do it.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

What it means

A check-in is a brief, deliberate interruption in which the top finds out where the other person actually is. Usually it is one word: "colour?" The answer is green, amber or red, and the whole exchange is over in a few seconds.

It exists because of a design flaw in relying on safe words alone. A safe word requires the person in the deepest, most disorganised state in the room to initiate a difficult social act. Some of them will. A great many will not, especially early on, especially with someone new, and especially if they are the sort of person who does not like to make a fuss.

In practice

I ask for a colour after the first few strokes with anyone I do not know well, then at every change of implement, then roughly every few minutes when things are heavy. That is more often than most people do it and I have never had anyone complain.

The answer is only half the information. Listen to how it arrives. A green delivered instantly, flatly, in a voice that has gone somewhere else is a reflex, not a report. If I get that twice I stop properly, put a hand on their back and ask something that requires assembling a sentence. What can you feel. Where do you want the next one.

Other forms are useful when speech is going. Ask for a number out of ten. Ask them to squeeze your hand twice. Ask how many fingers you are holding up. All of these still work when producing words has become difficult, which happens earlier and more completely than people who have not experienced headspace tend to believe.

There is a check-in after the session as well, and one a day or two later. That second one catches most of what the first one misses.

What gets misunderstood

Tops worry that checking in breaks the spell. In my experience it strengthens it, because the receiver stops half-watching themselves for problems once they trust somebody else is doing it. What breaks the spell is a long, anxious conversation. Keep it to one word.

The other error is treating the check-in as the whole job. It is a spot reading, and between readings you should be watching hands and feet, listening to breathing, and noticing when the quality of the silence changes. Silence is not consent; silence is a prompt to go and find out.