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ORIGINAL: ownedbyPF

heartfelt,
I think you hit on something that is key. Force of will. Yours or his? I need his in order to feel enslaved. If I feel like I am relying on my sense of will in order to obey vs obeying because of his will... I lose my sense of enslavement. Perhaps there lies the difference. You are good with that force to obey coming from within, I need it coming from him. Not that one is better than the other, just different ways of ticking.
~s

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ORIGINAL: leadership527

For carol, it is neither conditioned or choice... it is just the way she views the world. She approaches most of the situations in her life with a submissive mindset. It is fair enough to say that through conditioning, I am strengthening that response in relation to me.

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ORIGINAL: heartfeltsub
Thank you for your reply aj. You may be right, i may be taking it too literally, i tend to be a bit literal (grinning). May i ask a couple of questions, there is no offense meant by these questions, i am just trying to gather some understanding of a mind set that i don't know a great deal about.

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When you say that your slavery ( i may be using terms incorrectly to the Gorean mindset and if i am doing so, i apologize) requires from you conscious effort from you, does that mean that you have to at times consciously choose to obey when you would rather deliberately disobey, or when you say step out of line or neglect to please, are those actions more omission or mindful commission?

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i am trying to understand the concept of keep me enslaved. Although i do not currently personally identiify as a slave, i have a strong need to obey and to be pleasing. That being said, because i personally do not do well inside a relationship that has a punishment dynamic and in my past D/s relationship there were maybe 5 times in 4 years that
where i wasn't obedient.

quote:

But that being said, when there were things that arose that were very difficult for me to do (like being emotionally naked and vulnerable) or i distinctly didn't want to do(like getting up at 5 in the morning to let the pets out when getting to bed hadn't occurred until 3 am), my own will made me obey when everything in me didn't want to obey other than my own will and my steadfast refusal to not honor my word. Would that be in line with how you view things or would that be you keeping yourself enslaved because i made myself do those actions knowing there would not be any punishment for not doing them.

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If you mean by keeping you enslaved, he has to remain who he is, he has to remain dominant to keep you enslaved, then that i can grasp, but i have a feeling we may be using the same terms but that they are meaning different things to each one of us.

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Thank you so much for your reply and for helping me understand

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ORIGINAL: heartfeltsub
Thank you for your reply. May i ask some additional questions? Given some of your previous posts, i know that disobedience would end your M/s relatiionship but not your marriage. Giving that as a basis, how do you and she deal with times that she doesn't want to obey? It is my understanding that you don't do SM and as you don't allow any disobedience, i can't see where you would have a punishment dynamic, so how do you manage to never have any disobedience at all, be careful for what you command or some other tactic. i am very submissive and very rarely disobedient, but i have done so once or twice. It was addressed as to why i reacted that way, things were put in place so that it didn't occur again and we moved on.

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ORIGINAL: alittleevil

Yes, i actively 'choose' to obey many things and some things are conditioned.  When Master asks for a coffee refill or says "come here!" i'm moving before his words are done.   Looking at that sentence though, it isn't quite right.  Let's see if it can be better....i actively exert the effort to obey...that's closer.  I don't think about any given thing "hmm...do i wanna or no...but i will."  No, obedience in general is fairly conditioned because not obeying a specific command is Not Good (and Not Fun).  So, while it might take conscious, deliberate effort to do some given thing, if it is difficult, actually considering not obeying hasn't ever happened.  When i disobey or neglect to please it is almost always neglectful, acts of omission things.  Mindful commission of disobedience would be a very serious thing.  Punishment alone would do little to help if i were beginning to willfully disobey because it would mean there were some serious problems going on from both sides.  Does that make sense?

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i am trying to understand the concept of keep me enslaved. Although i do not currently personally identiify as a slave, i have a strong need to obey and to be pleasing. That being said, because i personally do not do well inside a relationship that has a punishment dynamic and in my past D/s relationship there were maybe 5 times in 4 years that
where i wasn't obedient.

In my understanding and from my perspective, any man who would be Master of a slave masters the girl in front of him.  Not every girl requires corporal punishment to be subject to effective discipline. A Master might use "the whip" only as a tool of pleasure, if that's what he likes, or only as a demonstration of his power over her, or he might not use it at all, preferring to use other methods of discipline that he has found more effective. Enslavement is about so much more than punishment in any form.  I'm only rarely punished (like...maybe four times in as many years and mostly in the beginning.  I try very hard to be good. Yes, i dislike the act of punishment, but mostly, i just find it much nicer to be good and a malleable sort.  Not everyone is like this. Some girls need, even strongly crave, a stronger hand. C'est la vie! :-)

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But that being said, when there were things that arose that were very difficult for me to do (like being emotionally naked and vulnerable) or i distinctly didn't want to do(like getting up at 5 in the morning to let the pets out when getting to bed hadn't occurred until 3 am), my own will made me obey when everything in me didn't want to obey other than my own will and my steadfast refusal to not honor my word. Would that be in line with how you view things or would that be you keeping yourself enslaved because i made myself do those actions knowing there would not be any punishment for not doing them.

Actually i see little difference at all except that it is his enslavement of me that fosters and bolsters my own drive to do those things, like you describe above, that i would really rather not do at that moment.  The difference is that if there were too much of doing things just because i said i would and not because of his will, i would just be a really nice person and not his slave. I'm not knocking really nice people :-), really i'm not.  I think some of the disconnect, if there is any, is in the specific meaning inherent in slavery/enslavement that is common, though not unique, to men like my own Master. Everything else just kind of flows from that understanding.

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If you mean by keeping you enslaved, he has to remain who he is, he has to remain dominant to keep you enslaved, then that i can grasp, but i have a feeling we may be using the same terms but that they are meaning different things to each one of us.

No, that's pretty much it. :-)  Enslavement is a process that flows from his own personal power over me and his expectations, not any particular tool or method.

Want to know something funny?  All this talk about disobedience and difficulty and the like can make it sound like slaves are expected to do really icky, scary things, like, all the time.  The most recent thing that i found myself balking at in strange and unexpected ways?  Learning to play the keyboard.  ;-)

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Thank you so much for your reply and for helping me understand

Thank you, heartfelt,
aj

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ORIGINAL: kyraofMists

For me, it is really just who I am in my interactions with him. There are a bunch of choices, both conscious and unconscious that are or have been made to get me to this point. I don't think he had to condition me to be obedient; I do think that he worked with me so that my primary thought before making any decision or choice would be "What is his will".

There are certain people that I respond very obediently to and it is not a conscious choice. One of the first times that I spent any length of time with his brother, I learned that I will submit to him and I have to make a conscious choice not to if it goes against my Lord's will. We were sitting around a camp fire and he told me "Kyra, go get me a pop". I started to stand up to do it and his brother said "Kyra, sit down! He can get his own damn pop", and I sat down. Then I had to remind myself which one I was required to obey. His brother was oblivious to my reaction and he found it amusing.

Knight's Kyra

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ORIGINAL: alittleevil

Hello again,

Something just occurred to me that might make this clearer (i hope).

As i sit here typing, or if i'm reading alone, or cleaning house, there is a part of my awareness that is always alert to the fact that Master might wish something.  He expects not to have to request, say, a drink refill. He expects that his girl will serve him by making sure he has those things he wants or needs without him having to pay attention to it.  I certainly know his tastes and habits and he has conditioned me to have the running "timer" in my head that estimates when his drink might need refreshing or his ashtray emptied and so whatever i might be doing, i automatically check in with him throughout the evening to see if there is anything he needs.  Now, i'm likely to do  this for anybody in the house to be sure, but with Master, it isn't a choice i am making--it is his expectation that it will happen. That i find gratification in serving well is merely a happy bonus--and utterly beside the point.  Getting inattentive is a small sort of disobedience...but it isn't anything like a refusal (or inability) to obey.  But should i get inattentive, he is sure to remind me that i've been unpleasing and reinforce his will that i will be an attentive, pleasing slave. 

Hopefully this added something to the thoughts.

Best,
aj

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ORIGINAL: heartfeltsub

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ORIGINAL: kyraofMists

For me, it is really just who I am in my interactions with him. There are a bunch of choices, both conscious and unconscious that are or have been made to get me to this point. I don't think he had to condition me to be obedient; I do think that he worked with me so that my primary thought before making any decision or choice would be "What is his will".

There are certain people that I respond very obediently to and it is not a conscious choice. One of the first times that I spent any length of time with his brother, I learned that I will submit to him and I have to make a conscious choice not to if it goes against my Lord's will. We were sitting around a camp fire and he told me "Kyra, go get me a pop". I started to stand up to do it and his brother said "Kyra, sit down! He can get his own damn pop", and I sat down. Then I had to remind myself which one I was required to obey. His brother was oblivious to my reaction and he found it amusing.

Knight's Kyra

Thank you Kyra for your reply. The concept that you mentioned in the first paragraph, would that go along with your Lord's comments (not sure what address to use to make this make sense (grinning)) the other day about not giving rewards but wanting the behavior to flow from an internal place?

And to address your second paragraph, i have people who affect me the same way. i have had to built up a wall to not instinctively obey them.

Thank you again for your reply,
heartfelt

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ORIGINAL: Andalusite

Smutmonger, for me, that's necessary but definitely *NOT* sufficient. I've been in a few egalitarian kinky relationships, and we had plenty of mutual affinity, trust, and so forth. They simply didn't push either my dominant or my submissive buttons.

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ORIGINAL: Andalusite

Hmm, even so, D/s goes with being in love and getting turned on quite well, but I can be very passionate and aroused by someone without any D/s whatsoever. I dated another switch for a year, and we'd go back and forth for the entire weekend thwacking each other, tying each other up, and doing all kinds of other things to each other, until we were exhausted or needed to eat, then went back to it again! It was extremely hot, he was very intelligent and interesting to talk with, we hung out with each others' friends a lot, and so forth. I just didn't feel dominant or submissive toward him, and vice versa.

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ORIGINAL: heartfeltsub

The other day i was reading in the Gorean section (and please that is not a request to comment on the difference between Gor and BDSM) and a question was asked and comments made that sparked an idea for a question of my own.

The question and the comment had to do with obedience and why a slave obeys. The person making the comment was promoting the idea of obedience becoming a conditioned response and she also mentioned in some M/s BDSM-style relationships that the act of obedience, even after years together, is still an active conscious choice on the part of the s-type.

Which got me wondering, if you identify as a slave, is it either all conditioned responses to obey or is it all conscious, willful choices to obey or a combination of the two. And if you identify as a Master which are you striving for from your slave, a conditioned response to obey or a conscious willful choice to obey and why are you looking for that kind of obedience response?

i am aware that some actions become rote after time, and the post that sparked these questions mentioned that part of what can show if someone has been conditioned to obey is to ask her to do something that she would have formerly objected to. While i am reticent to add that part to the mix as i am hoping this thread doesn't degrade into a limits thread, if you are a slave and you are conditioned to obey, how did you know when it became an internal conditioned response and no longer a willful conscious choice? And when you became aware that you were now internally conditioned to obey whether you really wanted to consciously or not, what was your reaction to that knowledge?

Thank you in advance for your replies,
heartfelt