Master/slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice (12 page)

• Weekend kink conferences:

Once you have started mingling with like-minded people, the next
hurdle concerns making an appropriate connection that demonstrates your thorough preparation for a relationship. I would
certainly notice it if a petitioning slave came up to me with a card of introduction that gave just the right amount of information, and
then followed up with a resume such as the one I will describe
immediately below. This would communicate his/her clarity of
intent, thoughtfulness about details, and what I call, process.

Anyway, in my view, personal marketing has components-

• Stuff: how you present yourself

0 Exposure: where you present yourself

0 Follow-through: how you keep track of contacts

Stuff - Social Calling Cards, Photos, Resume,
Website

In this day-and-age of computer-generated business cards, it's
easy and inexpensive for someone with computer skills to print
a handful of social calling cards that include a photo. (Note:
if you do include a photo, then you need bright-white, glossy
card-stock. You also may need a photo-quality printer - a few
hundred dollars. The image will have to be 300dpi to look good;
don't bother trying to print off a 72dpi image. You will need a
program like Adobe Photo Elements® or Adobe Photoshop® to
manipulate the image - crop it, lighten or darken it, sharpen it.)
Actually, it's likely that the hardest part is getting a competent,
uncluttered photo image.

Even a simple social calling card without a photo is better than
handing out your work/business card. Your professional business card reveals too much about who you are.

Your Leather/BDSM Master's resume should be contained on a
single page, and should include topics such as:

• Who you are - scene name or real name, but not
address. Marital status.

• Means of contact - cell phone? E-mail? Through a
website?

• What you seek - skills, talents, capabilities, duration.
Are you looking for a play partner, a third, a weekend
event or a 24/7 relationship?

• What you like - your particular kink(s).

• What you seek - the "ideal slave" kind of thing.

• Your Leather history - are you part of a local group?
Do you go to regional conferences?

• Accomplishments - do you speak at BDSM events?
Are you recognized for mastery in some BDSM
arena?

• General overview of your education and work experiences.

• Hobbies/interests?

• Etc.

Next, I suggest that you consider preparing a set of questions
that you would ask your potential slave or Master. You can build
these from our earlier sections, or simply sit down and start thinking of things you would like to know about this person. Everyone's
list would be somewhat different, but here's a start...

• In what areas of life do you consider yourself truly
accomplished?

• Have you been particularly successful in your work
life? Tell me about that.

• How do you make your money grow?

• Tell me about your relations with your prior spouse(s)
and children. Are you close with your family? What
about your parents and siblings?

• What areas do you hope to explore in the next five
years?

• Conceptually, what do you think of playing by SSC
(Safe, Sane and Consensual) rules? In your view, what are the strengths and weaknesses of using SSC
rules vs. RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink) standards?

• What leisure-time activities do you enjoy?

• What first comes to mind when you see a street person
begging for money?

• Tell me something of your spirituality.

• Do you smoke? Drink? Use recreational drugs?

• Do you enjoy meeting new people? How do you do
this? If not, why not?

• What volunteer work have you done in the past?

• What are your favorite TV shows? Movies? Books?

• How would you describe your spirit of adventure.

• What's your Leather history?

• Ever tried a polyamorous or swinging lifestyle? When
were you last tested for STDs and what were the
results? What's your position on condom use?

• Do you have lots of friends? Where do you go to be
with them? What kind of activities do you do with
them?

• What specific BDSM skills do you have? CBT?
Flogging?

• What specific BDSM play do you particularly enjoy or
particularly avoid?

These are proxy questions for key issues about kindness, loyalty, personal competence, self-confidence, personal ethics, kink
preferences, self-reliance, and so forth. They are only part of
your packet of questions. It is up to you to extend this list.

The next group of questions concern what your slave candidate
may be seeking. Again, you really need to think this list through and create one that comes from YOUR being, not from my head.
Consider the next two lists as starting points.

Questions a Master Might Ask of a submissive/
slave

• Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, but why did you pick
ME to petition?

• Specifically, what skills do you seek in a Master? What
evidence do you have that I can help you with that?

• Name some life-goals that you think I could help you
attain.

• How do you see me helping you grow in personal or
skill areas?

• How have you prepared to be a slave? Have you been
in service before? (NOTE: it is very important that you
learn about this person from others within his or her
community. See below for the section on "Poor Quality
submissive/slave.")

• "Living in Service" can mean different things to different people; can you explain what living in service
means to you?

• What acts of service have you experienced - both for
pay and as a volunteer?

• There's a lot of discussion about loving your slave.
Where do you stand on the subject of love in M/s relations?

• In your past relationships, how have prior Masters
distinguished between punishment and correction?
Please give examples of a few issues that occurred to
you that you suspect would cause me to punish or to
correct you.

• What kinds of support/help do you seek from a Master?
What role do you wish your Master to fulfill?

• Are there times in your past relationships when you
were loaned out? Tell me about those. What was the
purpose in loaning you out, and how did you feel about
that? What safeguards were in place when you were
loaned out? Did you feel those were adequate?

• Please describe in detail the kind of sex play you particularly enjoy. Said differently, what level of sex play
do you wish of me? What experiences have you had
with a polyamorous lifestyle? (If you, the reader, are
also interested in the swinging lifestyle, you will have
to develop appropriate questions.)

• In the future, I might wish to consider having more than
one slave. How do you react to that?

• In your prior M/s relationships, how was SM play folded
in with daily living?

Do you already have a website? If it's not appropriate to use
your existing website to promote your search for a slave, perhaps
you could have another site built for that purpose. A decision to
build a website to advertise your search for a slave is highly individual and depends not only on who you are, but also the degree
to which you are used to having a web presence.

Exposure: Presentation and Follow-Through

Okay, let's presume that you've prepared your bio and thought
through questions to ask a prospective respondent; you've prepared all this stuff, now what? Well, you can advertise.

• Local e-groups

• Alt.com; bondage.com; collarme.com; slave4master.
com and similar websites

• Personals sections of newspapers

0 Local munches and meetings

But advertising, alone, may not be enough. Depending upon the
extent of the response, you may need to develop a way to keep
track of the contacts. This doesn't have to be elaborate, but it's
a matter of making notes of what you did/said to the person so
you don't get the people confused. (I can hear you already: "How
confused can I get with zero responses?") Take heart. You're
fishing in a really, really small pond. Think about it. There's the
total U.S. population. Then there is the subpopulation of people
who are kinky. Within that, the subpopulation of those who
are interested in power exchange. Within that, those who are
interested in a structured relationship - Master/slave relations.
Small group. A few thousand couples in the U.S.? Regional
conferences get about 200 people. They're expensive, yes, but
people practicing this Lifestyle are pretty passionate about it and
may show up at M/s conferences in greater percentages than for
general BDSM conferences.

The point is, you may find it's hard to find a good match. I've
watched both Doms and subs in my local Community hunt and
hunt and hunt. Ultimately, I've suggested to more than one person that they start writing articles and books in order to become
known and to gain access to a wider pool of candidates.

Some Special Considerations if You or Your slave
are New to the Lifestyle

If your slave is new to the Lifestyle - and if YOU are fairly new to
the Lifestyle - your greatest risk is probably in scaring him/her.
I have a friend - a Leatherwoman who had been in the Lifestyle
for one year - who took a fairly new-to-the-lifestyle date to a dark
party (a no-rules party), and was upset that he didn't know how
to behave. Are we surprised, here?

I have another friend who was so excited about finally collaring
his slave, that he ordered her to wear the collar to work. Not a
good idea; this collar wasn't very discreet. Soon, the slave was
embroiled at work in one minor controversy after another. The slave never lost her job, but she had the sense that she was
monitored much more closely, and differently, than her peers.

Message: it's going to take some time for those new to this subculture - whether new as a Master or new as a slave - to learn
how to behave and act separately and together in ways that don't
cause others to roll their eyes. How many times have we heard
stories of Internet Doms showing up at a public play party and
causing an uproar by grabbing someone's slave/submissive by
the collar? How many times have we heard about the new person walking right across an ongoing scene? How many times
have we watched with some mixture of horror and fascination as
a new-to-real-life Dom would sit down beside someone's collared
slave and start talking to her?

Anyway, the reality is that we all started out at the beginning, and
once we've been submerged in this Lifestyle for some years, we
tend to forget how different we are now from the person we were
then. Don't overwhelm your new slave candidate.

Getting to Know You; Getting to Know All About
You

Before you begin a relationship, I strongly recommend getting to
know the person in a very Vanilla way. In the opening stages of
your relationship, you - as Master - should be sharing equal psychological power and authority with your slave candidate. So,
take some time with this person in order to figure out how they
act and react to unusual situations. Try spending a weekend in a
single bed. Make up some reason why it has to be this way, and
consider the reactions. Take your slave candidate out slumming
for dinner one night, and then have him/her get seriously dressed
up another night. See how you guys behave for a weekend at
a four-star hotel, then at a dive. Who is doing the fussing, and
what are they fussing about?