About Slavery and Ownership

My friend, Sara, is endlessly curious about the variety of power exchange dynamics. How people see their dynamics, and the words they use to describe that perceived reality are topics that seem to fascinate her. She and I engaged in an interesting and enjoyable conversation about BDSM and Domestic Discipline awhile ago, and now she is asking some similar questions with regard to Chloe's lifestyle dynamic. Sara wrote:

For me, and I believe for all of us, it comes back to the question of “Who am I?” I am interested in looking at other people, women in particular, I think because it ends up helping me see myself more clearly. I could not begin to think of myself as a “slave” as a “pet” and yet I would say I am his as he is mine. That last bit works for me. In truth, I don’t see myself as a submissive either. (I know it is not a noun, but humor me, please). Some women in D/s relationships see themselves as fundamentally “submissive”. I see myself as a complex woman with many qualities of all sorts, who does feel some satisfaction (and also challenge) in fitting herself into harmony with a man she loves, who is more dominant than not in personality. For me, for us, the spanking and any other BDSM-ish activity we might engage in fall into the category of sexual interest and play. Does it cross over into relationship and power dynamic? Of course! I don’t think we can slice ourselves or our relationships up into fixed parts. Everything crosses over and touches everything else, but if we do pin it down, as we must to look at it, that is how I see things…at least for today.


"I am His and He is mine..."

That bit that Sara wrote, may hold within it the essential kernel that makes her dynamic different from mine. I won't even pretend to speak for anyone else (you can all do that for yourselves if you like).


"I am His and He is mine," paints a picture of something far more mutual and egalitarian than the deliberately and consciously unequal relationship dynamic that I embrace...


I am surely His in every possible way, but He is truly not "mine" in the sense that we tend to understand that within our social lexicon of loving relationships.


I love Him. I serve Him. I obey Him. I seek to please Him. He is my life and my dreaming and the fulfillment of my existence.


He loves me, cherishes me, rejoices in the fact of my presence in His life. He does not belong to me as I belong to Him. He has a complete autonomy that only falls to Him -- not to me. He does care for me with deep passion, and I believe that He wants me to be happy, however He doesn't feel that He is responsible for making me happy. That is particularly true in situations where what He wants runs contrary to what I might want or feel would work to make me happy. In that event, I might end up feeling unhappy, and He'd be OK with that. I can easily imagine circumstances where that would absolutely be the way things would work.


For us, ownership is a unilateral reality. He owns. I am owned. Property does not dictate terms or make demands. Even the fact of feeling unhappy or unsatisfied is a limited sort of option for me, should it come down to it. He'll indulge that for a time, but will determine when it should be no longer an impact in His presence. That is the way of it.

I can have my say. I do not have a vote.

Slavery, the way I live it, is hard to show to people who throw up extreme eventualities that frighten us all. For me, the mundane potentials are the ones that are more telling. For me, the most frightening prospect is that He might withdraw the affection that I now enjoy(for whatever reason) -- and still hold me as His. That could come about in any number of circumstances, and I imagine it would be an unimaginable torment. But He is not mine. I can hope it never comes to that. I can cast my spells, and pray my prayers, and make all sorts of desperate deals with the universe, but I cannot control or change the way He will choose and or act as life comes to Him and us. Whatever happens, He is and will always be Master, and I am His always and all ways.

swan