Master/slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice (4 page)

slave: A person who has transferred authority over him/
herself to another. (Officer Wes: "The submissive is a
volunteer. The slave is not a volunteer." Officer Wes goes
on to note that the slave's mindset would be as follows:
"Once i have gained trust in my Master, i am willing to
place anything under his control. Over time, i expect and
hope that all limits will be negotiated away."

The slave is expected to understand the terms and conditions of his/her submission and the restrictions placed
upon him/her. Generally, the slave's responsibilities
include such things as:

• Ensuring complete support for Master and Master's
Household, including acting to ensure Master's health
and wellbeing.

• Appropriately communicating any change in the slave's
physical, mental, spiritual, or financial state.

• Being open and honest with Master, discussing freely
any issues, concerns, hopes, or fears.

• Being sensitive to the fact that all his/her actions or
inactions reflect upon Master and his House.

• Understanding that the slave's primary purpose is
the subjugation of his/her will to serve and to please
Master. In that light, success not only depends upon
how effectively service is rendered, but also the manner in which that service is rendered.

Structured relationship: A framework of systems or
methods of accomplishing tasks that defines the authority
dynamic of a particular Household.

submissive: A person who gives up personal power to
another under certain negotiated terms and conditions.
The Good Officer Wes explains: "The submissive has a
desire to submit to the direction of another person, which
in this community we call the Dominant or Top. Their submission may be quite limited in range. For example, they
may only want and desire to release their submission in a
limited fashion, for short amounts of time and within tightly
confined arenas. This type of submissive will generally
carry a long list of rules, boundaries, limits, requirements,
etc., which they require the Dominant to agree to prior to
engaging their submissive aspect within the relationship."

Trainer: A Dominant who is primarily concerned about
teaching systems that improve and refine a slave's skill
set - such as puppy skills, pony skills or other pet skills.

Leather vs. Not-Leather

Before going any further, I'd like to set the stage for the balance
of this book.

In a general way, the current and diverse "BDSM Community"
has developed from two major paths. At the risk of oversimplifying these origins for the sake of brevity, the "Leather" path is
an outgrowth of returning gay GIs from WWII, who often associated with motorcycle gangs in the 1950s and 1960s. They bring
hierarchy, protocol and spirituality to their modern-day practices.
The other BDSM path, a path that I'll refer to as "Not-Leather,"
evolved - at least in part - out of the swinging movement of the
1960s and even earlier. The Leather path has greater focus on
obedience, spirituality, service and protocols, whereas the NotLeather path has its focus on amorous love.

For a definitive historical discussion of the origins of BDSM
both in Europe and in the US, see Robert Bienvenu's doctoral dissertation. (www.americanfetish.net)

I'm mentioning these different paths because they carry some
implications in relation to how Masters and slaves get together in
this current age. Again, while there are no absolutes, there is a
general tendency in the Leather community for a slave to petition
a Master to be that Master's slave. In some cases, there is a
tendency among Leather Masters to see it as their duty/obligation to accept such petitions and to "Master" the person - if the
Master deems that person ready to be Mastered.

Again, while there are undoubtedly exceptions in the Not-Leather
community, it's been my experience that Doms tend to be looking for submissives for play, and that over time, the D/s relationships sometimes drift into M/s relationships - often with little or
no formality.

I'm not proposing that one approach is better than another. I'm
only pointing out that there are two quite different starting points:
a person petitioning to be a particular Master's slave versus a
person seeking a submissive or slave.

Describing Some Relationships: husband/wife;
Top/bottom; Dom/submissive; Master/slave; Owner/
slave

I'm about to wander into the realm of generalities. At least I let
you know.

husband/wife: Generally, both partners have equal power and
responsibilities; structured power exchange (or authority exchage)
is not generally included in marital vows. In fact, it is unlikely that
the average couple-on-the-street would have the faintest idea what you were talking about if you asked them about the role of
power exchange in their marriage. In my personal opinion, this
is one reason that marriage is so difficult. (I've been in two: each
lasted about 17 years. I'm 61 as I'm writing this.)

Top/bottom: In BDSM play, this describes who is doing what
to whom and does not necessarily involve power exchange. It's
just a description of the physical action. Usually the Top is the
person performing the action, and the bottom is receiving the
action. You can be a Top and be flogging someone, or you can
be a bottom and enjoy a flogging. You can lead the action from
the Top position - you can determine which flogger you use and
how hard you flog your bottom - or you can lead the action from
the bottom, telling your play partner (acting as the Top) to strike
a little harder/softer or a little more to the right or left and to pay
attention to the wrapping, please!!! Master Skip Chasey refers
to Top/bottom play as "about the physical body." Master Steve
Sampson thinks of it as "about the sexual self."

Dominant/submissive: For our purposes, this is the first level
of relationship that involves power exchange. Consensus has it
that D/s play is situational or time-limited. Often, D/s play negotiations involve discussions of likes, dislikes, and limits. There
is one senior Dom in my community who won't play with a new
play partner, even for a scene, unless the partner sits down for a
formal scene negotiation leading to a scene-specific contract. In
a general sense, D/s is about micromanagement. The submissive is not to do anything that the Dom/me doesn't direct. Master
Skip refers to D/s play as "about the mental body." Master Steve
looks at this play as about energy. Despite the conventional wisdom that D/s play is time-limited, I can easily imagine long-lasting
relationships that have grown to incorporate negotiated D/s into
a marriage or marriage-like relationship.

Master/slave: The M/s dynamic is generally considered the
most extreme form of relationship. In this relationship, the slave has given Master complete authority over him/herself. Now: a
caveat. Leather M/s relationships generally begin with a contract that includes paragraphs describing the scope and limits of
the M/s dynamic. By that very act, the M/s dynamic is viewed
by some as something less than a total commitment to the concept of M/s. This has given rise to a new relationship category
- Owner/slave - discussed in the next section. Above, I've mentioned that D/s often involves micromanagement. In M/s, the
object is that the slave gets to the point that micromanagement
gives way to macro management. As the slave learns Master's
habits, the slave becomes able to anticipate and move to meet
Master's needs. The couple is increasingly blended into one
being. Often, the M/s dynamic involves spiritual growth that is
not common to relationships involving other power dynamics.
Both Master Skip and Master Steve consider Master/slave relationships to be about the spiritual body. I know of a number of
long-term marriages that incorporate an M/s structure, though
these are quite rare.

...people who know and follow the path of Mastery or slavery are called. They believe they were called to follow a different path than the ones our society prescribes for us."

slave marsha, Keynote address,
Southwest Leather Conference December 5, 2003.

Owner/slave: As Master Jim Glass points out: "With absolute
ownership comes absolute responsibility." Over the last year
or so, I've begun to notice increasing distinction made between
Master/slave and Owner/slave. My first exposure to the concept
occurred when SlaveMaster conducted an "Ownership" presentation at Master Taino's Northeast Master/slave Conference in
Washington, D.C. in July, 2005. Since then, I've noticed that the
term "Owner" is being applied to a relationship that is not based
on a negotiated M/s contract. The total "contract" is comprised of the slave's pledge to obey and to serve Master and the Master's
pledge to take complete responsibility for the slave (see the
example provided in Part VII). That's it. Master simply owns this
piece of property and its income producing capacity. The slave
exchanges total personal authority for total A-Z protection, care,
and emotional security.

Now, we've come to the end of this part of the book, but just so
some readers don't feel left out, let me mention that I don't want
to get into Trainers and puppies or ponies here. Nor do I want
to start engaging discussions of swinging, polyamory or Gorean
traditions. Combinations spin out of control too quickly.

So, to refocus - now that we've rolled through some forms of
BDSM relationships, a question comes to mind: What are you
looking for?

• An occasional slave for play or a permanent slave?

• A structured relationship or an amorphous one?

• A monogamous relationship or a polyamorous set of
relationships? If poly, are you thinking of including
other slaves or other play partners?

• Is your life to be centered on sadomasochism (SM
- sadomasochism is sexual pleasure or gratification
produced by inflicting pain - sadism - or by receiving
pain - masochism) or something else?

Chapter Summary

In this chapter I defined terms so that you will have a common
language for understanding the balance of this book. These
terms included:

• boy/boi

0 Daddy

• Dom/Domme

• Master - both as an adjective and as a noun

• Owner

• Protocols

• Rituals

• slave

• Structured relationship

• submissive

• Trainer

I described some relationships:

• Husband/wife

• Top/bottom

0 Dom/submissive

• Master/slave

• Owner/slave

That's all we need to cover right now. Next, we'll start in on some
self-examination before moving on to relationship issues.

What is your purpose in entering into a Master/slave relationship?
I like Master Bert Cutler's statement of purpose: To achieve "an
enduring relationship between a Master and slave who are worthy of each other." Master Bert goes on to comment that the
assumption, here, is that the relationship would last more than
two years. He also goes on to define "worthy" as: "Someone
whose contribution to your life is commensurate with your efforts
on their behalf; someone you are proud to call your Master or
your slave; someone who strives to excel in their role." (Master
Bert Cutler's Handout for presentation at Southwest Leather
Conference 2005: Finding a Worthy Master or slave.)

This rasies the question: how do you find such a person - either
Master or slave? THAT answer, to a large extent, centers on
how clearly you can confront yourself about yourself and on how
objectively you can evaluate the person you're considering as a
Master or slave.

Who Are You?

What interpersonal, technical and life skills do you bring to
the table?

Before I begin this section, a comment: I've heard people say
that they've had (let us say) five years of experience at some
skill, yet when you observe them at that skill, they don't appear to
be very good at it. From this, I've learned to distinguish between
someone who has had one year of experience that they repeated
five times versus someone who has had five years of progressive experience leading to skill or knowledge mastery. I further
draw the conclusion that some people are dead-set to learn little
or nothing from life's experiences and will go out of their way to
do so.

So, here are some tough questions - tough, in large part because
few people spend the time to think them through before starting a
new relationship or maintaining the one they're in. Starting right
now and lasting throughout this book, I'm going to be putting
forth questions designed to cause you to stop and think. And
act. When possible, I'll provide tips and techniques and nudges,
but you MAY have to seek out experts and courses to build your
strength in certain fields.

"Few people think more than two or three times a year. I
have made an international reputation for myself by thinking
once or twice a week."

G.B. Shaw

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the
reason why so few people engage in it."