Safety call

What is a safety call?

A safety call is the safety measure where someone outside the room knows where you are, with whom, and until what time. In sex-work research the safety call stands alongside the buddy system and the check-in group as three names for the same habit. It belongs to a set of measures, not as a stand-alone trick.

What a safety call looks like in practice

Like a message to a group, not a phone call to one person.

Thérèse Bernier and colleagues spoke with twenty-two Canadian sex workers for PLOS ONE about how they keep their work safe. What they described: before an appointment they send a message to a group of friends or colleagues, over WhatsApp, Twitter, or another app, with the location and the planned end time. The researchers note that in the interviews this measure was referred to as “a safety call, buddy system, or check-in group”. One participant described her Twitter group like this: “that group is a check-in group as well”.

For a first date with a stranger it looks no different. You send a friend the address and the time you expect to be done, and you send her a second message the moment you are outside. What the research adds to the homespun version is that a group works better than one person. One person is asleep. Or at the movies, or has left her phone in a coat pocket hanging on the rack.

Why a safety call works, and on what exactly

Not on the meeting itself, but on the time after it.

A safety call changes nothing about who is across from you. It changes the clock. More precisely: how long it takes before someone realizes something is off. Without an arrangement that can be a night. With an arrangement it is the difference between your planned end time and the moment your friend starts calling.

That is why a safety call without an agreed follow-up is nearly worthless. The message is half of it; the other half is what happens if the message does not come. Who calls, who has the address, and after how many minutes.

Why people who do this professionally always set it up

Because it is the cheapest measure they have.

Karolynn Siegel and colleagues interviewed one hundred eighty men from eight American cities who traded sex for money and met their clients mostly through dating and hookup apps for the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The measures they took before the meeting were always the same four: setting the terms in advance, checking the client out, sharing information about the client and the place with others, and looking for a meeting spot that is safe. During the appointment itself they named, among other things, staying alert and sober and working out beforehand how to get back outside.

• For anyone meeting a stranger the safety call takes away the question of whether she is making a fuss. The message is sent, the conversation about it has happened, and after that she does not have to think about it anymore.
• For the one at home it is a task instead of worry. A friend who knows what to do lies awake less than a friend who only knows you are out.
• For the one receiving the appointment it is reassuring. I would rather someone had my address than have a woman spend half the evening working out how to get away.

A safety call stops no one. It is also not a replacement for the checking beforehand, which both studies name as the first measure. Anyone who only arranges the call and skips the conversation beforehand has done the cheapest half.

How people organize this among themselves

Usually digitally, and more and more collectively.

The scoping review by that same research group in the Journal of Medical Internet Research describes how the buddy system runs in the United Kingdom: a sex worker messages a colleague with the planned appointments, their location, and the start and end times. With the Canadian participants the same thing ran through group chats that also served as a place to share experiences and pass on warnings.

What stands out in both studies is that newcomers precisely do not do this. The Canadian participants told the researchers that in the beginning they made appointments on the basis of one text or email, without any further checking, simply because they did not know it could be done differently. That knowledge sits in networks, and those networks are hard to find if you are not in them yet.

Misconceptions about the safety call

“That is something for sex workers.” The measure comes from there, but the situation is the same the moment you go alone to someone you know from the internet. The research is only about that profession because it is the only one that has been questioned about it systematically.

“If I set this up, I distrust him.” Distrust is in the checking beforehand, not in the call. The safety call is about what happens if something goes wrong, and that could be a torn ankle or a flat tire too.

“I will just send a message if I need to.” That is exactly the situation in which it does not work. A safety call works because it is agreed beforehand and because its absence is already the signal.

What I see myself

I am Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. I ask about it myself, and on request I give the details your friend needs. That costs me nothing and it saves you an evening of half paying attention.

Women apologize for it strikingly often. As if they are accusing me of something by setting it up. It is exactly the other way around: someone who minds that you do this has given you information you have to act on.

And the most common little mistake: tipping off a friend, but not telling her what to do. Then at eleven o’clock someone is sitting on the couch wondering whether she is interfering.

More reading on meeting safely

Within this glossary, safe call covers the mechanics of the arrangement itself, autobondage explains why this is the only measure that still works there, and pick-up play is about playing with someone you met that evening. On the blog, when a meeting really feels safe describes how that goes in practice.

Beyond this site, the Canadian interview study gives the best picture of how these arrangements really run, and the scoping review shows which digital tools are used for it worldwide.

Where this fits on this site

If you are meeting me and you want to set this up, just ask me for the details. The page on preparing for our date covers what else I go over before we see each other.

Sources

• The needs and preferences of Eastern Canadian sex workers in mitigating occupational health and safety risks through the use of Information and Communication Technologies: A qualitative study. Thérèse Bernier, Amika Shah, Lori E. Ross, Carmen H. Logie & Emily Seto, PLOS ONE 17(6), e0269730, 8 June 2022 (DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0269730, PMID 35675347; authors, volume, and page number checked against Crossref). A qualitative study with twenty-two sex workers of mixed gender, interviewed by phone between April and July 2020; full text read via Europe PMC. Gives the finding that participants message a group of friends or colleagues before a meeting with their location and the planned end time, that this measure was referred to as “a safety call, buddy system, or check-in group”, the quote “that group is a check-in group as well”, and the point that in their early days participants made appointments on the basis of one text or email without further screening because they did not know the usual precautions.
• Male Sex Workers’ Strategies to Manage Client-Related Risks of Violence. Karolynn Siegel, María Cabán, Courtney J. Brown-Bradley & Eric W. Schrimshaw, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(19–20), 10814–10838, October 2023 (DOI 10.1177/08862605231176804, PMID 37232155; authors, volume, and pagination checked against Crossref). An analysis of qualitative interviews with one hundred eighty men from eight American cities who met their clients mainly through dating and hookup sites and apps. The publisher releases only the abstract; that was read and nothing was drawn from the full text. Gives the measures before the meeting (negotiating the terms, screening clients, sharing information about the client and the meeting spot with others, choosing safe meeting spots, and drawing information about difficult clients from their own network) and those during the meeting (getting paid in advance, staying alert and sober, and planning a way out).
• The Use of Information and Communication Technologies by Sex Workers to Manage Occupational Health and Safety: Scoping Review. Thérèse Bernier, Amika Shah, Lori E. Ross, Carmen H. Logie & Emily Seto, Journal of Medical Internet Research 23(6), e26085, 24 June 2021 (DOI 10.2196/26085, PMID 34185001; authors and source checked against Crossref). A systematic survey of the literature on digital tools for occupational safety in sex work; full text read via Europe PMC. Gives the description of the British buddy system, where a sex worker messages a colleague about planned meetings with clients, their location, and the start and end times, and the placing of that measure alongside screening and the sharing of warnings as part of one coherent package.

Related terms

A safety call is the arrangement outside the door; everything you agree on inside is elsewhere in this list.

• Safe call. The same measure under the shorter name, with the mechanics worked out.
• Self-bondage. The practice where this is the only measure that still works once you can no longer do anything.
• Autobondage. Where this is the last safety net instead of an extra layer.
• Pick-up play. Playing with someone you have only just met, where the same questions come up.
• Safeword. The emergency brake inside the room.
• House rules. How a venue solves the same problem for a whole room.
• DM. The person who takes over the role of this arrangement at a play party.