Noah
Posts: 1660
Joined: 7/5/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: DarkdesiresNYC
Service is an essential part in many D/s relationships and it provides a natural way to bond between Master and slave. However, most service is task and goal oriented. In other words, the slave is given orders to complete a set of assignments. It is straightforward to measure the success of this type of service, simply by answering the question "was the task accomplished and the goal reached?".
This sounds probably wrong to me, but then I don't have data from large numbers of D/s relationships to confirm my suspicion. Frankly I doubt that either your view or mine amounts to much more than a prejudice based on a limited amount of experience and some habitual ways of percieving. I do see within and without BDSM people giving their lives to service of one sort or another wherein their own iniative is a much more powerful engine than the task/goal-oriented directives of others. Why is it that you think your generalization applies?
In any case, what has managerial measurability to do with spirituality and bonding?
quote:
Needless to say, the bonding between Master and slave goes beyond the physical completion of tasks and orders. In a successful relationship, there is an intimate bond there.
Look. this is one sort of definition of successful relationship. If two people choose one another to interact with with the express purpose of sharing certain sorts of power exchange experiences while absolutely minimizing bonding, and then proceed to find what they are looking for with one another, well I can hardly see on what ground you would have standing to rule them unsuccessful.
quote:
This might manifest itself in the form of mutual belonging or togetherness, a sense of "we". What we are talking about here is orthogonal to the physical plane, and we might want to refer to it as the spiritual plane of the relationship.
It takes time to develop a spiritual bond.
So "spiritual bond at first sight" is ruled out? Well that's fair enough if that's how you choose to limit the term and do so in this clear and forthright way. Still, I think others might want to allow for the term spiritual bond to apply to some cases you might rule out.
quote:
And if we have it, we most likely have to continue to work on it to keep it alive and kicking. We need to spend time together, share experiences, and just talk.
As for the necessity to keep working on it, I'm not clear if you mean "most likely" in a sort of broad statistical sense or in some other way. I have some important relationships with people I have no contact with from one year to the next. When we do interract we find the bond between us undiminished by time and distance. Mightn't someone reasonably posit that the capcity to readily transcend material/temporal limitations like this as one of the very earmarks of a spiritual relationship?
Again, as a matter of semantics it is fine for you to rule these sorts of relationships out of your own "spiritual bond" category (not that you have explicitly done so here; it seems to be an area of some ambiguity so far) but I fear that if you were to you might be painting out some interesting, significant things which upon reflection you might consider to belong in the picture after all.
quote:
Yes, we have all heard it before: communication, communication, and communication.
We have heard lots of things before. I'd like to balance the important truth in what is above with the observation that a relationship can be communicated to death. In our culture is is too easy to make "the relationship" the subject matter of the relationship. Like the insipid "Country" song about how goll-durn County this gosh darn song is, or as as Becker and Fagan put it in reference to the cinema: "Show biz kids making movies of themselves / you know they don't give a fuck about anyone else."
How about we all back off far enough to let our relationships be about so much more than "us"? Sometimes when someone says "We need to talk" they are just dead wrong. Sometimes in such a case what is really needed is some gardening, or sky-diving, or separate (not mutual) efforts to bring fresh vision to things which lie every day before our eyes.
quote:
But only this way can a mutual trust and understanding come about.
Personally I prefer to go real easy with proclamations like: "This is the ONLY WAY." The overall picture being painted here about operational sorts of things seems to stand somewhat at odds with at least one sort of idea of a spiritual relationship.
More narrowly: have you had no experience whatever with people who inspired your trust and with whom you shared mutual understanding long before the incessant grind of communicate, communicate, communicate had ground its grist?
quote:
Note that both Master and slave have to be willing to give of themselves, a mutual transparency of sorts. Without the openness and transparency, no trust can be built and our "psychological firewalls" will still be there. Often we talk about that our slaves have to be transparent; but how can they be transparent if we as Masters are not? As Owners we can set the standard by being transparent ourselves.
Can there not be poignancy and beauty and deep meaning in a trust given prior to the time-consuming and assiduous construction of a whole range of pre-requisites? If I tell you that I can decide whether to trust you by smelling a certain little patch of your skin at the end of a busy day will you tell me I am wrong? Will you disqualify all of the life experience upon which this way of knowing is based? And if you do tell me I am wrong (that your "only way" and "have to" are invioble laws of the universe) should I reject my way of knowing in favor of yours?
You say "... have to ..." "Have to" is one of those expressions like "only way" and once again I suspect you are just painting over things that are actually worth your consideration, most especially in the context you have chosen to set for this discussion.
If one person seeks transparency in another, but wishes to remain opaque him or herself, and locates a partner who finds fulfillment in being transparent to an opaque partner, well in the first place it seems reminiscent of familiar descriptions of spiritual "relationships to ..." whether the other in these relationships is an unseen diety, or nature, or "the spirit of human excellence" or what-have-you.
Nature keeps secrets from us. I think on that we can agree. But some well developed spiritualities focus centrally upon Nature. Nature, you might say, gives us her necessities and contingencies unmediated and unvarnished and often quite by surprise. Underneath all the talking, do two people inevitably do this with one another as well? Are all their attempts to mediate, mitigate and/or varnish these things ultimately in vain?
I certainly don't know the answer.
But if two people decide to interact within a power dynamic which embodies a strong assymetry along these lines I think we might well find that they would each report that the experience was an important aspect of their own spiritual path.
I for one wouldn't want to disqualify their project in advance because it broke some Rule of Mutual Transparency.
For your part, do you want to maintain that according to your "only way"s and "have to"s that these people are not doing D/s? Not doing it right? Not authentic? Not successful? I don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm just talking about relationships which violate your rules/laws ("only way" "have to") yet seem to me to be phenomena of potentially great beauty and meaning.
quote:
Trust develops over time from responsibility, consistency and honesty in intent and action. If someone says they believe strongly in something, we expect that they are going to maintain that belief and not change it from week to week, right? People we trust, or are developing a trust in, we expect to be truthful and not hold back important matters.
Hopefully every parent takes it as part of a sacred trust that he or she will absolutely and if necessary at great cost "hold back" much that could be presented but for very good reasons should not. The parent/child relationship of course typically does and I think should embody a highly asymmetric power dynamic. So we see here at least one kind of "power-inflected" relationship in which uniform sharing of all important matters is not only not required but to my way of thinking might be highly inadvisable or just morally wrong.
D/s is not parenting, obviously, but many comparable examples (of exceptions to your rule) present themselves. We go to work for people, and we hire underlings, among other reasons, to take care of certain important things with us without presenting us with each of them. We elect government representatives to consider weighty issues and more often than not to do a great deal of the deciding for us. Like us they succeed and fail by degrees but part of the cession of power is a reliquishing of any requirement for transparency in at least a certain number of very important senses.
We ask a friend to cook us dinner--a potential matter of life and death as the headlines show us--without requiring that they share with us all the important matters of produce selection, sanitation, hygeine, etc, etc.
One of the great things about trust is actually that is allows opacity. I TRUST you to make me a pot of chili and so I can enjoy the meal without fretting over (or communicating, communicating, communicating about) all the (undeniably) important matters associated with my ingestion of this food.
Yes, to a point we expect people to be forthcoming as you suggest. But again I think you have painted the thing in very broad strokes. Some people enter relationships primarily "to be protected" and others enter relationships to have someone to "protect." Shielding a partner from "important matters" can be a large and important aspect of what people are talking about when they use the word protect in this context, no less in D/s than elswhere. Whether or not this is your personal dish of teas I think it would be well to make room in your worldview for people whose D/s not only includes strategic or tactical non-sharing of important matters but which features this particular sort of non-transparency as a key structual element which each party values highly.
In that moment you may rule for or against it or just let it be. Up to you. I do think your overall picture should make room for it, though.
quote:
Spiritual belief and intimacy also serves an important role. This does not mean that we need to practice the same religion/spirituality or that we need to have sex constantly! The mutual sharing of different spiritual beliefs provides an excellent way to understand each other, our identities and personalities. Not having a particular belief is fine too, as long as we are open to accept and respect the other's beliefs.
True and well said. These things have their role, across the board, which can loom large or small in any given case. And the mutual sharing you describe is an excellent way, perhaps among some others, including some others which look quite different indeed from this one.
quote:
In a D/s relationship there are many different forms of expression of intimacy. Finding the right channel here is the key, whether it is through sex, SM or some other form. A strong mental "we"-type of bond may develop from great sex as well as from SM. Both Masters and slaves have the need to feel and express their identity; that of being dominant and submissive, and to experience the power exchange and control. Beyond protocols and household rules, play and SM are activities in which this power exchange and control can be brought to its core. Simple daily rituals is another, and sometimes equally powerful. Feeling and experiencing that special place together has a long-lasting effect, way beyond the duration of the scene or ritual.
Again I'll say true and well said, and well worth featuring in a discussion like this.
That said, that whole section was predicated upon a high evaluation of intimacy. Some of us do value it highly. Let's just be careful to make room in our considerations for those who have little or no taste for it, too. Finding the right "channel(s) for intimacy" probably won't be "key" for some of these people.
quote:
In closing, I think we need to identify our core values create our bonds from that. Personally, for me the foundation is made up of trust and transparency, structure and control, and service. These are the pillars that I have seen myself going back to time after time in a relationship, in good as well as in bad times.
In my experience, when a person sits down to draw an outline of his or her "core values" they often produce a list which just doesn't seem to jibe with the life I see them lead, the meanings they claim to find, the things they actually find joy and sorrow in.
I think there is a "type" who might do very well to do some sort of "core values" exercises--being careful to note going in and along the way how slippery that term is to begin with. On the other hand this can for many people devolve quickly and unfortunately into ultimately useless navel-gazing.
For other people, this whole enterprise is needless. They have different strengths and weaknesses and can in regard to these matters "just do it." Whenever they can find a suitable person to "just do it" with I would be the last person to instruct them to stop doing what works so intuitively and sublimely just for the sake of analytical exercises upon it.
It may be true that the unexamined life is not worth living, though I suspect that many formidable and gorgeous exceptions will be found. I think there are fewer exceptions to the rule that the unlived life is not worth examining.
For all I know you and I may be in perfect agreement here. You may be recomending a very active and engaged process of exploring one's values. I think that might be good.
I would like to hear more about what, for you, is found under the umbrella of the term "spiritual." I don't ask for genus and difference definitions or anything like that. The subject of the word doesn't seem to have sharp edges and so no worthwhile definition of the word will either.
I wonder if some of what you are calling spiritual others might characterize as (more simply) emotional, for instance. And at that one can view emotions as mere epiphenomena upon biology or something much close to the spiritual themselves. I'm interested in your views.
Thanks for a nice topic. I hope my attempt at careful examination of your post won't have been seen as adversarial but rather as one way to cooperate in the exploration of these ideas.
< Message edited by Noah -- 10/19/2006 5:24:49 PM >
|
Bonding and Spirituality in D/s - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread