|
LadyNTrainer -> RE: Do mistresses love their slaves, or just use them? (3/10/2010 5:35:19 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
True - I Iike the chivalrous knight image and it works for me to an extent. But only an extent. In those myths the knight undergoes those ordeals with gritted teeth as means towards an end - saving his Lady, snatching the potion from the dragon's lair, whatever. He doesn't get turned on by being hurt during these trials and it's never the Lady, herself, who is inflicting those hurts upon him.
Actually, the macho "saves the day" take on knightly chivalry is very much modern. If you look closely at the actual literature, not the modern interpretations, you'll see a very strong cultural slant towards what is essentially hair-shirt masochism in chivalry, and knights enduring tests of suffering and humiliation inflicted more or less directly by their ladies. Sometimes by their lords as well. Japanese samurai culture also had an interesting take on it, though you'll much more often see those kinds of tests of admirable loyalty being inflicted man to man. Lots of nifty homoerotic themes.
quote:
A knight goes down on his knees to his Lady, just as a slave does - but the difference between a knight and a slave is always clear. Or, at least, I can't think of a myth offhand where that hasn't been the case.
Read more of the original classics, the obscure ones, for a more scholarly perspective on knightly chivalry and the origins of romantic love, then move over East a ways and check out the origins of the samurai class and its values. Complex and fascinating stuff, and it may offer some insight on positive historical role models for the self respecting male submissive.
I don't have the cites handy, but it wasn't uncommon for a knightly sort to proclaim that his love made him a slave to his Lady, and to boast of the debasing things he had done or would be willing to do for her sake. A slightly related example from a much later (Elizabethan) era is the notion of a gentleman putting his fine silk cloak down into the mud for his lady to walk upon. It was a lot more extreme a few dynasties earlier.
|
|
|
|
