Slavery and Trust

On to slavery and murky waters filled with taboos and quarrels about definitions. A quick google search on the difference between subs and slaves will yield loads of results. The first ones my search yielded were people lamenting how slavery is watered down with everyone calling themselves slaves. In relation to such statements I can’t help but point to the fact, that any form of slavery not watered down would involve involuntary capture, enslavement and trade of human beings who would definitely not be asked their consent.

In other words: considering slavery within a BDSM-context in any sensible way must water down the term considerably. The next solution might be a minimal understanding of consensual slavery as something as close to the historical meaning of slavery as possible; irrevocable ownership, but with the (initial) consent of the slave. One must still respect that kink is a marriage between fantasy and practical reality, so there will be compromise. Inevitably the disagreement on how much you must compromise with the pure idea of slavery, what forms of slavery that are too compromised to be considered 'real', or too uncompromising to be considered consensual or responsible - even among those, with whom I disagree, who want to ‘protect’ terms such as master and slave against being watered down by those who are not hard core as they are.

Secondly, slavery is an extremely charged word. It’s almost taboo, which makes it a great attraction to some and revolts others. Some may have a fetish for slavery, they may enjoy playing at it without making it their lifestyle. Others may see so strong negative connotations with the term, they may be revolted by it even though they may wish for something that others would consider lifestyle-slavery. I don’t see why, if we see BDSM as a project of emancipation, something meant to set people free to enjoy their kink, we should limit the ability to enjoy slavery as a fetish or form of roleplay, just because some purists find that it waters down their lifestyle.  For that reason I’d genuinely like to come up with a more neutral term that can capture modern lifestyle slavery, so that we may free the word ‘slavery’ to be used by those who like using it, and talk about the lifestyle in a way that’s not so charged.

Some might argue the term for it is TPE, total power exchange. If you go for the minimal definition of slavery it is indeed a fairly precise solution. You might then make the distinction TPE-slavery as a total transfer of power on the one hand and fetish-slavery as playing with the slave role within a continuously negotiated relationship (whether that’s 24/7, between regular partners or just a scene). I believe, however, that TPE covers something more comprehensive than lifestyle-slavery needs to be, in that it has to be a total exchange of power. It becomes a quantitative definition: TPE is the point, where you control everything, where there is nothing left to give up control over. I prefer a qualitative definition; I see ownership and slavery as something inherently different than ‘simply’ obeying the will of someone else.

In the minimal definition above, the difference, other than the transfer of all power to the master, is the irrevocability of slavery. This is something that pops up in my search as well. It is pointed out that the submissive continuously chooses to submit; that while the submission might be in an established relationship under established rules it is still something you do because you want to submit – and that you would stop the moment you do not. Slavery, in this understanding, is something only chosen once. This leads those articles to point to those things, that make submission a choice, as those that define submission as something different than slavery. Slavery doesn’t have contracts with conditions in them, doesn’t have limits, doesn’t have safe words etc.  because all of those are tools for the submissive to have the ultimate control about what is allowed to happen. If this definition is accepted a lot of people who are attracted to slavery will at most be fetish-slaves.

There is a qualitative difference between submission and slavery in my opinion and I think that it does lie in how power is transferred. For me the core, and fascination, of slavery is irrevocability. That you are in a situation where you are no longer in a position to say no or make demands about what is given. A submissive chooses to follow her dominant every step of the way. It may well be that a person enjoys submission so much, or has such a great need to serve, that she will go further in her submission, than what she would actively have wanted for herself. It may well be that she enjoys that she is ‘forced’ to do this or that (within her limits) because the dominant wants it. But in both cases the submissive still chooses to follow, because she enjoys the feeling of giving herself or of feeling forced. It may also well be that the submissive may lose the ability to say ‘no’ because of the intensity of the scene, subspace or an endorphin high that makes her ready to do things in the heat of play, that are not otherwise ok with her. But in those cases it’s still part of the deal that the dom will try to make contact with the submissive, or that he remembers what she has agreed to, and that he considers what she would agree to if she had the full use of her mental capacities. As I see it the difference for a slave is that she is seeking a situation where she no longer chooses; where there is no longer a choice for her, where whatever is chosen for her is a given to her, something outside of her power.

But this leads me to another important distinction, something pointed out by those who work with the idea of ‘internal enslavement’: It may well be that a slave chooses to give up all power over herself, but that choice is only binding in the extent that she is bound to it. Since slavery (thankfully) has no legal validity in our society, it is ultimately for the slave to make slavery valid. If it’s only the master that considers the slavery valid, then his only power over her is physical force, which (once again thankfully) is not legal in our society. External slavery is thankfully a thing of the past. Internal enslavement, on the other hand, is the idea of forging  chains, as strong as external enslavement, within the slave herself by gradually training her to find anything but obedience impossible, installing obedience deeply, that she loses the ability to take back the control she initially gave up.

The slave may very deeply have given herself to her master, and she may obey him perfectly, and in a way very much like a slave. But she is only doing so, because she wants the slavery so much that she’ll do most anything; she is bound by her own wish for her slavery, not ultimately by anything holding her to her status. She is continuously choosing her slavery, like a submissive would continuously choose her submission (that is not to say, that the ideal that would hold her to her slavery is not a very strong thing). Slavery, as something irrevocable, then, is not something that can be achieved over night, but rather something that builds on a very long process of instilling obedience until it becomes ownership. In that understanding, where slavery is something where you not only want inescapable ownership, but where it has been achieved, I will dare to claim that there are extremely few slaves or masters out there. But exactly because there is a qualitative difference to what slaves want – in their wish to be owned, to have choice taken away – I do not find it sufficient just to call those, who seek a condition of slavery, submissives or fetishists. I do not think it is meaningful either to believe that a slave will wake up from one day to the other and suddenly be without the power to escape her master. It is a gradual process where for a long while you want to lose control over what you give, and you keep on giving it again and again until the point where it is not something you are giving any longer, but where it is actually his – a given, so to speak.

In my understanding to submit is to give because you enjoy giving and because you choose to give to the one who is receiving or taking it. Slavery, in the D/s context, is to give because you want to be a slave, want the ideal and, gradually, because you no longer have that choice. It’s a way of submission where you seek to work submission and dominance into the psyche of the slave. The slave seeks to be owned, to lose her independence to one extent or another. To reduce slavery to just being a very intense form of dominance and submission, is to lose an important qualitative difference within the realm of dominance and submission. On the other hand I see no reason to make quantitative criteria for slavery. It might be that you enjoy slavery within certain spheres of your life, like your sexuality or your life at home, but not within others; just like D/s can involve all of your life or just a small space within it. As I see slavery, what makes it different from submission is that you fundamentally surrender, or seek to surrender, control of what you have given; that with time it is something you could hardly take back or cannot take back at all.

For me there is something very beautiful about giving without conditions. The fact that she entrusts herself to me like that makes me give myself to the task of caring for her as her master unconditionally as well. I believe in a slavery built on trust and love, in reaching the point where we know each other so well that there is no longer a choice for her, because she could no longer contemplate me wanting something that is not good for both of us. I am not sure if that is irrevocable slavery. I’m not sure such chains might survive if I were to betray her trust; but I have no need to bind a girl in a way so as to give me power to abuse her. I see great beauty in trust, but no beauty in trust being betrayed. I hope one day I find a girl to trust me in that way, in the way that will also be a way of giving herself to me, but that will only be because we can trust me to use that power for what is best for both of us.