# Mixed signals > Mixed signals are when a partner's words and body disagree during a scene. Stop, check properly, and treat the body as the more reliable of the two signals. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/mixed-signals/ - Section: A–Z - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. She says green in a voice that has gone somewhere else, and her hands are white. This is the situation that separates people who are paying attention from people who are following instructions. --- ## In short - When words and body disagree, stop and check. Do not resolve it in favour of the answer you want. - Speech goes early in deep [headspace](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/headspace/), so a verbal yes is the weaker of the two signals. - Silence is not consent. Silence means you have to go and find out. - Agree a non-verbal signal beforehand and test it once, physically, before anything starts. ## What it means Mixed signals are what you have when the two channels disagree. The words say carry on and the body is saying something else. Hands clenching and not releasing. Feet coming up. Breath held rather than breathing. A colour given instantly and flatly, in a voice that has gone far away. Laughing at a moment when nothing is funny. Going completely still when they had been moving. ## Why it happens Mostly for two reasons, and neither is anybody being difficult. The first is physiological. In deep headspace, language degrades early. Ambler and colleagues found reduced executive function in receiving partners in their work on altered states during BDSM, which fits, and anybody who has spent time on the receiving end can describe it from the inside: you know the word, you want it, and the machinery for producing it has gone somewhere else. What comes out instead is whatever is easiest, which is usually the answer that was correct ten minutes ago. The second is social, and it is the more common of the two. People who are inclined to please, who have spent an evening being told they are doing well, will take considerably more than they want rather than be the one who spoiled it. The words are not a report on their state. They are an attempt to keep somebody happy. ## What to do Stop. Not soften, not slow down. Put the implement down and change the physical situation, because carrying on at half strength while asking a question puts the person in the position of answering during the thing you are asking about. Then make contact and ask something that cannot be answered by reflex. Not "are you all right", which gets a yes from anybody. Something with content: where are you, what can you feel, how many fingers, squeeze my hand twice. If speech has gone, a squeeze or a number of fingers will still work when a sentence will not. Then decide on the body, not the words. If the two disagree, the body wins. Nobody has ever regretted ending an evening twenty minutes early. Plenty of people have spent a fortnight feeling strange about an evening that went on too long, unable to explain why, because on paper nothing happened that they had not agreed to. ## What people get wrong Resolving the ambiguity in the direction they were already going. That is the whole failure, and it is not usually cynical. It is that stopping is dull, and the evening was going well, and a green was technically given, and the person holding the implement wants the green to be true. The other error is treating the safe word as the safety system. It is a backstop. The safety system is the person swinging paying attention, and treating a word as sufficient puts the entire burden on the person least able to carry it, at the exact moment they are least able to carry it. > **Afterwards.** If a scene went past where somebody wanted it to go, say so out loud rather than hoping it settles. Name it, apologise plainly, and check on them over the following days, because [drop](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/sub-drop/) can arrive two days later. > > > > If any of this has left you distressed, Samaritans are on **116 123**, free and any time. If it was not a mistake, and words are routinely being overridden, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is **0808 2000 247** and the Men's Advice Line is **0808 8010 327**. ## Read next - [Reading your partner](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/reading-your-partner/) - [Safe words](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/safe-words/) - [Headspace and why words stop working](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/headspace/) - [Aftercare](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/aftercare/) ## Sources 1. Ambler, J. et al. (2017). "Consensual BDSM facilitates role-specific altered states of consciousness." *Psychology of Consciousness*, 4(1). [doi:10.1037/cns0000097](https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000097) ## Common questions ### What should you do if your partner says green but looks distressed? Stop and check properly. Put the implement down, make contact, and ask a question that needs a real answer, such as where they are or what they can feel. Words are the first thing to go in deep headspace, so a flat green said instantly is a reflex rather than a report. Treat the body as the more reliable of the two signals. ### Does silence mean consent during a scene? No. Silence means you have to go and find out. In heavy play or deep headspace, someone can want to stop and be unable to produce the word, which is why a non-verbal signal should be agreed and tested beforehand and why the person swinging carries the duty to keep checking.