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ORIGINAL: Ishtarr

My personal believes are that a slave is a person governed by an external force.
Without an external force governing them, a person can at the most be somebody who acts as if they where a slave.

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This is why I personally don't believe in giving consent, or obeying because you gave your word, or agreeing to slave contracts, or anything like that. If obedience comes from within, it's a free choice made by a freethinking individual, and to me, it's not slavery. I don't care if people call it slavery because they like the term, but to me it's not, and instead a choice made by a free person to do something they personally desire to do.

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Because of this I wasn't my previous owner's slave the entire time I was in his collar. The only time I spend as his slave was between the time he first became able to compel my obedience from me, and the time he seized to be able to compel my obedience from me. However, due to circumstance, I ended up acting out the protocol a slave would follow for longer than that time, which in retrospect, I consider and incredible idiotic thing to do. I probably consider that my single biggest mistake in the whole mess that was our break up.

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And now, it causes me to struggle with that "being" that once came so spontaneous and natural.
I've always been a bit of a control freak, wanting to have a grip on things as they happened. And when I was first confronted with the external force of my ex-Master compelling my obedience from me, it was such a liberating experience. It was as if I finally attained permission to let go, stop my head from spinning, relax and just "be" in the moment.
It was quite literally an addicting experience, one that I became dependent on in order to be able to relax and feel comfortable in my own skin.

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Now, after the break up, I have the almost opposite spontaneous reaction when confronted with an external force compelling my obedience. Instead of relaxing and letting go, I cramp up and grasp at everything even more tightly than before. My head starts spinning off like crazy, because I desperately try to calculate and predict all the possible permutations of what could theoretically happen if I dare to actually let go, and react to the external force, instead of resisting it.
Its an experience that creates hostility, stress and distrust in me, where it used to be the most liberating, beautiful and relaxing thing that could ever happen.

I, in essence, have totally lost my capability to submit, because I have total lost the reactionary symbioses that used to exist between my desire to let go of everything and my desire to control everything.
I can make myself go through the motions, as if I where submitting, but I can no longer just react.

It's why I deeply believe I can no longer be a slave again, because I don't see that blank ability to react without hesitation ever fully returning like it was the first time. I don't ever see myself falling in a relationship again where things just "are" from the start.
I do see myself continue to work on, and overcome a who lot of inhibitions which will allow me to have a more natural dealing with my own emotions and reactions again. But the all-encompassing faith and lack of hesitation I had that first time, is not something I ever see returning.

I'm not ever sure I want it to even. The middle ground seems a steadier path to walk, because, though it will probably never have the absolute high points I once was capable of experiencing, the lows will not be able to approximate the depths I've felt either.

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl
I so know this feeling. How can one enter into another relationship when the first still has such a drastic hold? I do not expect anyother relationship to hold the same force as the last. Yet, the next may be even better, just in different ways.

My current will never be like my last. My last will never be like the first. If there is a next, I would expect it to be different from the rest.

No two owners want the same things. Being the same slave would never work.

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ORIGINAL: LillyBoPeep

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ORIGINAL: Ishtarr


My personal believes are that a slave is a person governed by an external force.
Without an external force governing them, a person can at the most be somebody who acts as if they where a slave.

That's really interesting -- have you ever gone into detail on that anywhere? I've never really run across that perspective before.
To me, being a slave is about ownership, but human beings derive motivation from so many places, I wouldn't use motivation as a measure. Like, I imagine in places with institutional "illegal" slavery, or caste systems, people in certain positions internalize the "reality" of their role, and they DO act with their own motivation, because they believe that that's their role, their culture, the reason for their existence, and that is what they do.

Not to compare a consensual relationship with non-consensual slavery, but I think if self-motivation exists in the illegal type of slavery, it could certainly exist in the consensual version.

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ORIGINAL: LillyBoPeep

Thanks Ishtarr -- nope, no intention of derailing this snazzy thread, either, I'd just never seen that particular perspective so I wanted to ask. I'd appreciate any links.

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ORIGINAL: LillyBoPeep

(somehow missed the story Orion posted until now)

That is an interesting case -- where a person with a psychology degree (but who also had various pathologies of his own) used his skills and knowledge in a negative way, to effectively brainwash another person without her knowing (probably made easier by finding her when she was young and very impressionable).

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I don't believe IE, in and of itself, is a bad thing at all. I like that the conclusion of the story explains that this girl still lives in a CNC/IE relationship, but things are done in a more proper way.

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Hopefully you can elaborate on differences between negative and positive IE techniques?

That is a really interesting story -- sad, but poignant. Thanks for sharing it with us.