Commentary on "Submission" and "Slavery"

From alt.sex.bondage

This will be a somewhat odd post. The main text is quite small, and will be dwarfed by the prologue and epilogue. But I think it necessary to include the prologue to address some questions that arise whenever someone attempts a definition, and to provide the background for the defintions. And, because the thoughts in this message tie into some other thoughts that I posted a couple weeks ago, and may not be very clear without the earlier post (the propagation of which was, I think, poor, as I wasn't flamed for it), I'm appending that earlier post.

A poster asked in a recent de-lurk, among other things, if "sub" and "slave" were the same thing. An old question around here. Some people insist that there's one and only one proper meaning for each of those terms (and some think it's the same meaning for both terms), while others insist that not only are there no true definitions for these terms, but that the effort to define any terms is marginalizing and oppressive.

I agree that there's no one meaning to either word. There are as many meanings for those words as there are users of them - more, in fact, because many users will employ varying definitions at different times. Communication occurs, to the extent that it does, because enough people use definitions that are sufficiently similar. No definition is "right", it's just that some are more useful than others, either because they permit communication with a larger and more diverse audience, or because they allow more precise communications with a narrower audience.

But while we can't come up with the "right" definition for any word, that doesn't make the effort to define them wrong. First, because as we share definitions we work towards an understanding of the diversity of our definitions, and the common elements within that diversity, and this may help us in making our usages as widely recognized as we can. Or it may help us to speak to specific audiences as precisely as we can. Either makes our communications more efficient.

Beyond this is another goal. Each person's definition is that person's piece of the truth. As we share definitions, we share our truths. Poorly, because a word can only be a poor shadow of the truth it represents, but it is a sharing of truths, and the more we share each other's truths the better we understand our own.

So I'll be offering my definitions of "Submissive" and "Slave". They're not the only ones. I don't claim they are the "right" ones. I won't even say that they're the best ones (though obviously I think they are, or I wouldn't use them). I'm not trying to convince anyone to use them. I'm just offering them for your consideration, for whatever value you may find in them.  

Slaves and Submisives

I had occasion once to ponder a punishment. Not mine, but one that a very dear friend was facing, and which sie knew would be quite severe. And, having received from hir Master a description of the punishment administered (as well as from hir, though sie didn't remember it very clearly), I can assure you that few people would have been able to find any pleasure in it (Bob Flanagan might not have found it impressive, but for almost anyone else, it was heavy, though it caused no major or lasting injuries). My friend most definitely did not enjoy it, and does not wish any repetition.

And, yes, sadist that I am, I enjoyed immensely reading of my friend being so stringently tortured. But when the event was yet to come, I had no wish for hir to suffer that much (no, really, I mean that, really; fantasies are not wishes, at least, not always).

Yet even with my sadistic side suppressed, I couldn't find anything to object to in the prospect that my dear friend would soon suffer terribly and in ways sie did not want to suffer (sie accepted that there would be punishment, but sie had no desire for it). The reason for this was that I knew the offense sie had committed, a clear and conscious violation of a known, understood, and important rule, could not be allowed to pass. A punishment, a very severe one, was needed, or the relationship that meant so much to hir would be badly damaged.

In my own and my Liege's concept of submission, punishment had no place. Submit or do not submit, as you wish, but don't waste the dom's time if you aren't going to submit. The only punishment for not submitting is to not be able to submit. Play punishments, though not something either of us were interested in, would have been possible (being both sadists, my Liege and I much preferred torture unsullied by any pretense that it was anything other than an exercise in power and pleasure), as would expiatory exercises (aka penances), should someone need them. But real punishment had no place in our relationship, and no part in my submission.

But my friend was in a very different relationship. Sie was a slave, and wanted to be controlled, wanted this very much despite (or because) of the streaks of rebellion and resistance to which sie was prone. Sie had said that it was important to hir that sie not be able to run over hir master and get hir way. Sie had been making progress in becoming a slave, struggling, mostly successfully, to steel hirself to the duty to obey and bring hirself to the point of believing that which sie had already pledged: that sie had no choice but to obey and no options but to be a slave. Until one day, beset by an attack of anxiety, sie quite consciously violated a major rule. I don't know why; perhaps sie doesn't know why. I do know sie was not seeking punishment; sie already knew that hir master's punishments were not something to seek. But for whatever reason, sie did break the rule, and then dutifully reported it. And now, if the relationship was to prosper, there was no way, at least none that I could see, that a severe punishment could be avoided, even though neither of them liked punishment (hir master also saw no reason to seek punishments; if he wanted to torture hir, he would simply torture hir because it was what he wanted). A punishment that would have to be severe enough to instill in hir a terrible dread of what he could do if he felt it necessary, and, hopefully, once that dread was in place, there would not again be a need for such a punishment.

The punishment was administered, and the relationship continues to prosper. Sie is, I think, now much closer to becoming the slave sie wishes to be. All of which is simply some more prologue to some thoughts on how slavery differs from submission.

I once thought that slavery was a particularly intense form of submission, but have come to see the two as distinct phenomena, not just different points on a continuum. Briefly stated, I see the fact of choice as the essential element in submission, and the lack of choice as the essential element in slavery. The relation of this to punishment is that a true punishment is not needed, and perhaps not possible, in a submissive relationship. The submissive is there by choice, remains by choice, and serves by choice. No punishment is needed to have someone do that which sie choses to do, and, since if sie does not choose to serve, sie is free to leave, punishment to compell obedience is not appropriate, and arguably not really possible. A slave, OTOH, does not have choice, and is not free to leave. The slave must obey, or the relationship that is as essential to the slave's happiness as it is to the master's will fail, and therefore reinforcing a slave's will to obey with a dread of the consequences of disobedience, may, at least for some slaves, be a necessity.

A sub, at least in my style of submission, obeys and serves hir dom by continually choosing to do so (one description I have used is that a sub is under the dom's command rather than the dom's control). The sub could at any time decide not to obey, and so, when the dom says kneel and the sub kneels, that is a gift to the dom; the harder the submission is, the greater is the gift. Submission in this view is a continuous, or at least continuing, gift of loyalty and service. It could be withdrawn at any time; that it is not is part of the gift the sub renders to the dom. If anything other than the sub's love and loyalty and desire to serve produced the obedience, then this precious gift would be tarnished.

A slave has no choice. Hir great choice has been made, one ultimate gift of hirself to hir master/owner, and from that time forward, till sie shall be released by hir master, or by some momentuous event, sie does not have any options but to obey and serve. Sie is under the control of the master. By that I mean not that sie is some kind of robot; slaves, rather than being automatons, are highly autonomous possessions. But while a sub receives a command, then chooses whether or not to obey it (usually w/o much consideration; the reaction may be nearly instantaneous, but there is still and always will be that process of receive the command, accept the command, obey the command), a slave will (usually) have no choice in whether or not to obey (the middle step of "accept the command" is not part of the process), so the slave is reacting directly to hir master's will rather than to hir own, hence the assertion that a slave is under hir master's actual control.

Since hir obedience to any particular command is not a gift (though it is something sie wants to give) but is instead something that the master has an absolute right to expect, to overcome any weakness sie might feel and reinforce hir obedience by dread of the consequence of resistance does not contradict the basic elements of the relationship. However, if punishment were persistently required, and this did not decline over time, then a master should, IMO, seriously consider whether the decision to become a slave was not either premature or simply ill-considered, for if it is primarily fear of punishment rather than a will to serve (reinforced, to some degree, by fear of punishment), then

1. it appears that the slave has not yet been successful in making the internal commitment to obey, and

2. the relationship is, if not already abusive, certainly in danger of becoming abusive.

The master should, again IMO, address this situation, to do what sie can to help the slave to complete the internal commitment, and, if unable to accomplish this, should release the slave.