What is the Difference?

We have recently been corresponding some folks who live in a nearby community.  They are relatively new to the lifestyle, and they are interested in perhaps establishing a polyamorous household.  Unlike some internet correspondents, these people seem to have a good understanding of the niceties and protocols of communicating with people in power exchange relationships, and our conversation has proceeded slowly and gently as we get to know one another. 

Most recently, they asked about the difference between submissives and slaves. It is a reasonable question to ask us since our triad is composed of two different power-based relationships:

• Master and T,  His collared submissve
• Master and me, His slave

It is not a new question; it comes up regularly in the lifestyle, and you can set any one of our community discussion fora on fire by asking about the difference between a submissive and a slave.  Everyone in the lifestyle has an opinion on the subject, and there are very few other topics as likely to inspire passionate arguements.  There are all sorts of variations on a theme.  People twist and turn trying to clearly define and delineate the boundaries between the two categories. I've seen people get just livid over whether it is valid to bend the definitions, or must we, as a community, insist on definitional accuracy.  These wrangles almost always end up with a whole series of declarative absolutes that tend to fall into a predictable pattern:

• "Submissives can but slaves cannot..."
• "A submissive will, but a slave never would..."
• "Subs don't but slaves do..."

All of those generalizations provide interesting grist for discussion boards, social networking sites, and chat rooms, but I've never found them particularly helpful. There are exceptions to each and all.  In practice, that conversational path just leads inevitably to one side beating up on the other side.  Somehow, when WE all get started trying to talk about who is what, there is almost sure to be an outbreak of "one true wayism." 
 
I am disinclined to agree that lifestyle labels should just mean whatever any individual decides they mean "for them." Doing that makes it impossible for us to actually communicate because we lack a shared lexicon. Still, as a practical matter, the words "submissive" and "slave" do not carry the same solid meaning as the words "wife" and "husband" do. We are still defining and determining some of that meaning among us all.  Those labels are too personal, and perhaps too evocative, to mean exactly the same thing to each one of us. 

For our household, the two terms, submissive and slave, attach to T and I respectively. We are all comfortable with the implied distinction and we don't spend a lot of time worrying about the definitions. We tend to put more stock in our perceptions of one another, and in our perceptions of ourselves. For us, the words "submissive" and "slave," just fit and we don't worry too much about the distinctions. Each of us fits into the spot that makes sense for who we are, and we mesh with one another without a hitch (mostly), so the labels are just not a big deal.

That may not be an interesting or useful answer to the "what's the difference" question, but it is the reality. We tend to do what works for us and our household, and leave off worrying about what other people say or do or think. It is less formal than some, but more workable in our daily relatedness.

swan