Pushing boundaries mid-scene should be assumed to not be okay unless it’s been carefully negotiated in great detail, both parties know each other really well, the bottom is completely comfortable with saying so if things go too far and the top is completely comfortable with their ability to read the bottom and figure out if things are going too far. I do think SherynB is underestimating just how far under many people go when they’re in subspace. My understanding (as a top, which means I could be completely wrong) is that subspace is not entirely unlike being drunk, in that anything the top wants seems like a good idea and it’s very hard to say no.

What I heard SherynB saying was that withdrawing consent after the fact is not cool. To take an example from a comment: I’ve had two partners pull the “I wanted to safe but couldn’t because I was in subspace and you should have known and stopped even though it looked like I was having a good time and you were doing exactly what I asked you to do before we started.” on me.

To me, that seems completely unfair. I take the responsibility to look after my bottom in a scene very seriously, and I pay very close attention to how they react to whatever I’m doing to them, but I’m simply not a mindreader. If I don’t get any signals that all is not well, that robs me of the opportunity to fix things, whether that’s stopping the activity that’s not going well, or ending the scene entirely.