SimplyMichael
Posts: 7229
Joined: 1/7/2007 Status: offline
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Slavery, as it existed in the past, was complete ownership of the OBJECT, not the mind. Otherwise, there would never have been slave uprisings now would there? Owning the object is a very effortless objective. Fork over a few bucks and you own it. I always laugh at those who hold that sort of slavery as a goal. Big fucking deal, any moron with money can own a slave. Inspire a follower? Now that takes a bit more. Now you are at least in the Jim Jones/cult status and that at least takes some effort, some skills, and personal power. However, when the worship is one sided, when the goal is to make one person be the center at the expense of another, an independent observer is a bit less impressed. One egomaniac/insecure nutjob needs to be unquestioned and "followed" by those two insecure and unsure of themselves that they need to "believe" in something other than themselves. I place vanilla above all those. At least there you have two people, equal in some ways, who freely choose to be together and who help each other grow, mature, and reach both mutual and individual goals. Rather nice actually. I place 70% of bdsm relationships as less fulfilling than a decent vanilla relationship. Harsh, made up statistic but I am unimpressed if these boards are any indication. Perhaps we can con LA into doing some sort of analysis on how many truly fucked up relationships appear monthly here? Anyway onward. To ME (and for those too stupid to understand by that I mean, this is of course my opinion, not the one true way of which nobody who hails from this planet has a grip on although I hear they do do it better on other planets) a GOOD D/s relationship has elements from all of these but they are balanced out, taking more of the good than the bad. We start with a woman (since that is my paradigm) who has a life that is completely squared away, independent, drama free, stable, etc. A woman capable of attracting all sorts of men but needing none of them. Said woman is of course submissive but that submission isn't some prize one can seize, nor is it some gift she can turn on or off. Our woman sees any number of men who evoke that submission but most fall short of possessing the things the woman has, namely independence, no drama, stability, etc. So while she FEELS that submission, she reigns it in and does not act on it. That would be the "slave heart" crap. She truly wants to submit but has yet to find a man worthy of being given the chance to SEE that submission, to act on it. So our upstanding female citizen meets a man who is dominant, like so many others, but unlike the vast hordes of dominant men, this one seems to have his shit together, his knuckles drag the ground only when he wants them to, he can actually hold a decent conversation, and while he has an active fantasy life, it is balanced by having his feet firmly planted on the ground. So our little couple starts flirting, she allows him to see that submission and he acts on it. Trust slowly builds because actions and words align. So we have a woman who is genuinely submissive but has the security to choose who she expresses that submission to. She cannot be "taken" she cannot be forced, she has to choose WHO she expresses that submission to. Now, I don't give a rats fucking ass how dominant someone is, if you have a woman like the above, someone you have to actually EARN, there is a give and take. Now that give and take might CONSIST of all taking by the man but ONLY if what he is taking are the things she wants/craves/needs taken. Which is why we so often hear refrains like "but he would never do that" etc. I don't think that makes these relationships any less, I think it is what makes ALL relationships work. Which is why I laugh when people try to do extreme things to "show" how "slavey" their partner is. If your partner "needs" to be forced to do things, she on some level wouldn't be happy with me because that isn't my style in that sense. It is an exchange and what I exchange wouldn't meet her needs and what someone wants to take are the very things she needs taken. Which is why "internal enslavement" is such horseshit, it is a game of semantics for people who are terrified what they are doing isn't real enough by some external measurement. Who the fuck cares what others think? Seemingly the ones who have to blather loudest that they don't care what others think.
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