Who is the "Top Chicken?"

Maybe it is just that, as a school teacher on summer break, I have more time to sit and think, but I am sure that in the last couple of weeks I have observed a number of instances where people who are nominally on the "small-s" side of power-based relationships express their views in a fashion that works to put them "up" compared to whoever they are engaged with in conversation. I saw it go down that way just a few days ago in the comment section of another blog. There is at least one Fetlife discussion where one "slave" is after someone else who doesn't do it "right."

I try not to get into these things. Generally when someone sounds off and displays arrogance, pride, conceit, or condescension, I figure that the conversation is over. I'm not inclined to get into a mud wrestling thing with someone who is "just ate up" (as T would put it).

I do wonder though if this particular move is actually an artifact of the power exchange dynamic itself? I wonder if, for some people, giving up power and control is so unsettling and so uncomfortable that the compensatory move is to attempt to gain some perceived "power" or position over someone else; a sort of playground bully response to feeling insecure and unsure.

If we were all chickens, I imagine it would be described as a scramble to establish where everyone stands in the "pecking order." Pecking order is a hierarchical system of social organization in animals. The basic concept behind the establishment of the pecking order is that it is necessary to determine who is the 'top chicken,' the 'bottom chicken' and where all the rest fit in between.

And that causes me to consider the question, "If someone claims to have relinquished the control to their Master/Dominant/HOH, but then turns around and 'Lords it Over' some other unsuspecting and non-consenting person, can they really claim to have entered honestly into their power-based relationship at all?" What does it say about the control that is in place in a person's life when they are running amok, putting the arm on everyone they can find? If that control doesn't extend to one's conduct in the larger world; if it ends at the front door (or the keyboard); if it is OK to behave like a total bitch outside the immediate gaze of the "Top" partner, then what is that? It makes me think that they are just pretenders -- playing at this whole business because it is what all the kewl kids are doing. Makes me want to smack somebody.

swan