Safe, Sane, Consensual (SSC)

SSC is the best known tenet of BDSM outside of the BDSM community. It has become a mainstream element of pop culture. It is the most easily understandable philosophy for people who are not involved in kink.

In the wake of the appearance of the RACK philosophy (risk-aware consensual kink), the usefulness of SSC has been questioned by practitioners and theorists of BDSM. SSC implies that kink is without risk ("safe"), but many BDSM practitioners understand that there are risks involved even in the tamest BDSM activities. As such, the definition of what "safe" means becomes difficult to pin down. However, both SSC and RACK agree and insist on consensual participation in BDSM activities.