Demspotis
Posts: 61
Joined: 3/11/2005
Status: offline
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Alumbrado is right that the SCA is "make believe"... but only so far. It is a game, but even so, the relationships between people can be very real, regardless of their being founded in a game. There are certainly people for whom BDSM role-playing is less real or sincere than SCA role-playing is for some. Both BDSM and SCA can be lifelong lifestyles with extraordinary commitment and investment. That being said, the SCA is intended to be a game - an elaborate, intricate, and long-term role-playing game - but a game, whereas BDSM includes many different kinds of relationships and play, some of which are nothing more than amusing flings and games to their participants, while others are true and sincere commitments, and everything in between.
As far as the OT - there are certain similarities, but also very significant differences, between fealty (either in real life or in the SCA) and collaring or submission. Fealty is personal allegiance of one free person to another, in which the one swearing fealty gives the other authority over oneself in exchange for certain benefits, all as part of a complex social order. This is best known from post-Roman-Empire European feudal societies, but has its roots in the Patron/client fealties found in most free European societies before that time as well. Collaring and submission, when done sincerely, implies a greater difference in status, as one who is collared is not free (or, in BDSM, may be role-playing a subordinate status). Although both fealty and collaring are inherently dominance dynamics, they are of different types, between people of different degrees of status.
All that is in principle only, and doesn't really help with the underlying issue. I can't speak to the particular situation, since I'm not a sub, and the SCA knights that I've had training relationships (in the past, as I'm not currently active) with have been my father, my godfather, or in bits and pieces, others of my father's bloodbrothers... most of whom had been my father's squires before earning their spurs. So, the only SCA fealty I've had to worry about is my father, to whom I owe it anyway, in or out of SCA context.
Still, I will offer this advice to GhitaAmati: if you are having issues with these conflicting loyalties, you should probably discuss it with both of them. It shouldn't be a difficult thing to resolve if, as you say, they seem to have much less difficulty with it than you do. It should be easy for them (or all three of you, as the case may be) to set up boundaries between their spheres of authority over you, so that you can avoid the feeling of conflict.
Best of luck!
~Demspotis
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A question for SCAdians...fealty vs collaring - 
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