Being prepared for when Murphy visits.
Most of us will be familiar with Murphy's Law. For those that are not Murphy's Law states: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
As an engineer I was trained to design reliable machines. This means that part of the design process is analysing what can go wrong and what will happen when it does go wrong. Later in my career I was also trained on work environment safety. Because of this I have a different way of looking at safety and things that can go wrong than most people. Over time I have come to call those things that go wrong at the moment you thought you had covered everything “Murphy visiting”.
Being prepared for when Murphy visits is not so much about preventing things from going wrong. It is more about understanding what can go wrong and minimising the damage when it does. The reason for this is that if you try to do the first you quickly find the only way to do that is to do nothing at all. Because if you do nothing there is nothing that can go wrong. So the only way is to expect things to go wrong and be prepared for when they do.
Within the bdsm we think and talk a lot about safety related to what we are doing. When we talk about rope bondage for example we talk about pinching nerves and cutting off circulation. We almost never ask the questions like “what if the power goes out?” that might sound silly but do you know where your flashlight is (and does it work) or are you able to untie all those knots in complete darkness.
When you ask the question how fast you can unchain her when a fire breaks out you might realise that the romantic candles you are using to light the room could be a bad idea.
For me the real awareness of safety became apparent when I moved form playing for a few hours to playing for days on end. When you are playing for a few hours it is possible to keep an eye on your submissive most of the time. You might step out the room for a moment but you are aware and close by. When you start to play for days on end there comes a point where your have a submissive in restraints while both of you are asleep. Going a step further you are leaving a submissive at home in restraints for the day while you go to work.
At that point things like house fires, natural disasters, burglars, having an accident on your way to or from work become obvious issues. But also less obvious things like for example in a colder climate a power failure or malfunction causing the heating to shut down. Does she have the means to keep herself warm until you return? Similar to that would be having enough to drink when it gets really hot for some reason.
To find the hidden dangers I started to run scenarios in my head of things that could go wrong and looking for ways to prevent them or to make sure the damage caused would be minimal.
For example when I have a girl locked or secured to something she can not move there is always a part of the locking mechanism she can physically destroy in order to get herself out and to safety if she needs to. There are smoke detectors all over my house that are networked. If one goes off they all do. That way we have the maximum amount of warming time possible. When I am going to work she has the means to contact me (phone, pad, laptop) so she can ask permission to free herself in case of a lesser emergency like getting sick.
I have also used web cams in the past so I can check up on her. But at that time they where still too unreliable to be trusted for safety. But I will definitely invest in a better one in the future.
To me it is important to think about these things and be prepared because Murphy visits more often than we sometimes realise.
