Red, amber, green
The traffic light system, which is the safe word arrangement I would give anyone who asked and the one I use myself. Three settings instead of one. The middle setting is the whole point.
Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.
In short
- Red stops everything at once. Hands off, scene over, no questions.
- Amber means change something and keep going: lighter, elsewhere, slower, or give me a minute.
- Green means carry on, and is normally an answer rather than something volunteered.
- Amber gets used roughly ten times for every red, and most of those tens would otherwise have been silence.
Everything on this page concerns consenting adults over 18. The full version of this, including non-verbal signals and what the top has to do, is on the safe words page.
What it means
Three words borrowed from a set of traffic lights, used during a scene to report on how it is going.
- Red. Stop now. Everything ends, the implement goes down, no discussion and no cost afterwards.
- Amber. Something needs to change and I want to continue. Too hard, wrong place, cramp in my leg, I need water, give me thirty seconds.
- Green. Carry on. Almost always said as a reply when the top asks for a colour.
Some people say yellow rather than amber, which is the American version and works identically. Some add a fourth, orange, between amber and red. I think that is one rung too many for a person who is barely able to speak.
In practice
Amber is the one that earns the system its place. Think about what actually goes wrong in a session, which is almost never a disaster. The cane has drifted an inch high. Your arm has gone numb. The thing that was building nicely has tipped over into something you are only enduring.
None of that justifies ending the evening, so with a single safe word people say nothing at all, and then either the session quietly becomes something they did not want or they eventually have to blow it up.
With amber available, speaking up stops being an act of demolition and turns into ordinary commentary. That change is bigger than it sounds. I have had evenings saved by an amber at minute six that would have been a red at minute twenty.
The advice I give anyone meeting someone new is to use amber deliberately in the first ten minutes over something trivial. Ask him to go lighter. Watch what happens. You learn more in those five seconds than in an hour of conversation.
What people assume
Treating green as reliable data. Green said instantly, flatly, in a voice that has gone somewhere far away is a reflex rather than a report. If I get that twice I stop and check properly.
Assuming the colours will still be available when they are needed. In deep headspace language goes early, so anything involving restraint, a gag or heavy play needs a physical signal agreed as well: an object held in the hand and dropped, or three sharp taps.
And treating the colours as the safety system rather than the backstop. The safety system is the person holding the implement paying attention to hands, feet, breathing and the quality of the silence. Traffic lights are what you have left when all of that has failed.
A colour only works if using it is free. Not tolerated, not accepted with a small sigh. Free. If a red costs you a sulk, a joke about being delicate, or a cooler evening afterwards, you have been told what the next one will cost, and next time is when you will actually need it.
Common questions
What do red, amber and green mean in a scene?
Red means stop everything immediately and the scene is over. Amber means something needs to change but the person wants to continue: lighter, different spot, slower, or a pause. Green means carry on, and is usually said in answer to the top asking for a colour rather than volunteered.
Should I use traffic lights or a normal safe word?
Traffic lights, in almost every case. A single unusual word only lets you stop, which means anything short of a catastrophe gets endured in silence. Traffic lights give you a middle setting, everyone already knows them, and they sit outside any roleplay in which no and stop are part of the script.