Nerve damage – Improving Our Terminology

It’s Not Just A Ping!

There has been some discussions here at Evil Girls HQ of late with regards to terminology, especially relating to nerve damage.

Many of you have heard My story about how I prefer not to use the word “Fainted” about someone in rope. “Fainted” infers visions of ladies in corsets gently swooning into conveniently placed Chaise Lounges, one hand to their forehead. It doesn’t feel….serious. When I am talking about rope, I prefer to use the term “Unconscious”, as in “they suddenly became unconscious without a reason why that I could discern.” This imbues feelings that we should be getting medical attention, and maybe calling an ambulance if need be. It’s a much more serious word, which is appropriate for such a serious situation.

So, Georgia has recently been speaking about how we use the term “Nerve Ping” to describe an injury to a nerve during rope bondage. Basanos and I are discussing creating some easy to understand posters and information booklets for use in our Rope Studio, to assist all riggers and models but especially new ones, to understand nerve placement and signs of nerve damage (among other things).

As part of this, at Georgia’s suggestion, we are going to stop using the term “Nerve Ping” in our teachings. It doesn’t convey the seriousness of the situation. It doesn’t show the gravity of the consequences that a nerve injury can have, either short or long term. A better description, we believe, is either Nerve Crush Injury or Nerve Compression Injury (both meaning basically the same thing in our world). As in “I tied with this person, the placement of my ropes wasn’t very good and I caused a nerve crush (or nerve compression) injury, where they lost the use of their (wrist/finger/skin sensation/etc etc) for (a period of time which could be anything from 10 seconds to forever).

So from now on, here at Evil Girls HQ we are going to start using the term “Nerve Crush Injury” or “Nerve Compression Injury” to describe all incidents where some form of nerve damage, even minor, results.

Please bear with us while we break old word habits, and endeavour to improve our terminology. Over time, we believe better terminology and better information, will create better rope artists and models.

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