Editing Risk-aware consensual kink (section)

== History ==

RACK was coined in reaction to dissatisfaction within the BDSM community regarding SSC. According to david stein, the man who coined "Safe, Sane, and Consensual S/M" for [[New York City|New York]]'s Gay Male S/M Activists organization, SSC was only intended to be put forward as a minimum standard for ethically defensible S/M play, to establish a distinction between play between loving S/M partners and the public perception of [[sadomasochism]] which would be more accurately described as [[sexual abuse|abusive]] behavior. Over time, as the phrase started spreading through the larger community and appeared on bumper stickers and T-shirts, people started to associate "safe" with "risk-free," diluting the message. "Instead of asking people to think about what it means to do S/M ethically, and to make the hard choices that are sometimes necessary (if only between what's right and what's right now), many organizations today act as if these issues have all been settled, assuring us that sadistic or masochistic behavior not deemed SSC isn't S/M at all but something else — abuse, usually, or domestic violence or poor self-esteem."<ref name="stein">{{Cite web|url=http://www.boybear.us/ssc.pdf|title="Safe Sane Consensual" The Making of a Shibboleth|access-date=2010-10-05|publisher=Vancouver Activists in S/M|year=2002|author=david stein|work=VASM Scene|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110911035825/http://www.boybear.us/ssc.pdf|archive-date=2011-09-11|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1999, Gary Switch posted to [[The Eulenspiegel Society]]'s [[USENET]] list "TES-Friends" proposing the term RACK out of a desire to form a more accurate portrayal of the type of play that many engage in. Noting that nothing is truly 100% safe, not even crossing the street, Switch compared BDSM to the sport of [[mountain climbing]]. In both, risk is an essential part of the thrill, and that risk is minimized through study, training, technique, and practice.<ref name="Switch">{{Cite web|url=http://www.vancouverleather.com/bdsm/ssc_rack.html|title=Origin of RACK: RACK vs. SSC|access-date=2010-10-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501182232/http://vancouverleather.com/bdsm/ssc_rack.html|archive-date=2009-05-01|url-status=dead|publisher=The Eulenspiegel Society (Reprinted by Vancouver Leather)|year=2001|author=Gary Switch|work=Prometheus #37}}</ref>