Because we humans like to take things a bit further. Like when you're a kid and dad starts tickling you. You are laughing but what him to stop, yet he continues to tickle you because it's fun.
As we get older, we continue to push buttons and take things one step further, thinking it's out of fun, but not always recognizing when stop means a genuine stop and the person will be upset after vs stop meaning an acknowledgement of not being comfortable but pushing forward means helping them move past their comfort level.
So having something completely unrelated let's both parties know when things need to stop completely.
I think a safe word also makes for a non-mood killing way of saying no. If "no" can mean "stop...don't stop...stop...don't stop..." In a teasing way, and it also means "stop because I'm not comfortable with will get upset if you don't stop" then the only way to differentiate between the two is tone.
And if you are having sexy time with a partner, and they push your boundaries where you start saying no. But they continue to tease and push, you will eventually aggressively say no, which then kills your sexy-mood. Thus ending sexy time completely and putting a bit of a wall between you and your partner.
But if instead you can say, "Oranges!" Your partner gets the idea ASAP and you can both tone it back a bit without actually killing the mood and without your boundaries feeling pushed too far.
Erdnuss_Gallery t1_jebisvi wrote
Reply to ELI5 what’s the point of safewords? by sieis
Because we humans like to take things a bit further. Like when you're a kid and dad starts tickling you. You are laughing but what him to stop, yet he continues to tickle you because it's fun.
As we get older, we continue to push buttons and take things one step further, thinking it's out of fun, but not always recognizing when stop means a genuine stop and the person will be upset after vs stop meaning an acknowledgement of not being comfortable but pushing forward means helping them move past their comfort level.
So having something completely unrelated let's both parties know when things need to stop completely.
I think a safe word also makes for a non-mood killing way of saying no. If "no" can mean "stop...don't stop...stop...don't stop..." In a teasing way, and it also means "stop because I'm not comfortable with will get upset if you don't stop" then the only way to differentiate between the two is tone.
And if you are having sexy time with a partner, and they push your boundaries where you start saying no. But they continue to tease and push, you will eventually aggressively say no, which then kills your sexy-mood. Thus ending sexy time completely and putting a bit of a wall between you and your partner.
But if instead you can say, "Oranges!" Your partner gets the idea ASAP and you can both tone it back a bit without actually killing the mood and without your boundaries feeling pushed too far.
I hope that helps.