Silver Threads and Iron Chains

Merriam Webster
1: the act of giving or taking one thing in return for another
2 a: the act or process of substituting one thing for another b: reciprocal giving and receiving
3: something offered, given, or received in an exchange

I'm not really all that intolerant. There is room for everyone's fetish in SL and I don't have to look if I think it's silly. It's just too damn easy to poke fun at some of them.

I guess I mind the romanticizing of the word "slavery". There is nothing consensual about it.

OK, fair enough. The two things being exchanged aren't necessarily the same things, and they don't even have to have equal "value" (however one would measure that). The power flows in one direction, but both people get something out of it.

my family was never slaves or ever had slaves..this might be why i never really ever felt the taste to be a slave or an owner..
being tied up once in a while is fun but i could never take orders or give them well..
i just couldn't lick someones boot and feel good about it..the fact they would tell me too would have me feeling so disrespected..
that would be the Apache in me though..we do not lick feet

I try very hard to deter and avoid any contact at all with slaves/subs inworld for a very simple reason: I want to communicate (I was going to say have intercourse with, but you would almost certainly have misunderstood) in a manner of mutual trust; it is difficult enough assessing the honesty of someone who is speaking for themselves, but impossible to to do so if they are someone's acknowledged puppet, possibly required to lie, cheat, steal and otherwise serve their Master/Mistress's whim without my being aware of it - because of their commitment to obedience.

Pep (A bit like reading anything the Lindens say in the forums)

Any decent person wouldn't lie, cheat, steal, etc. Submissives are no different. You think that if it's against their nature, they would be able to or want to obey someone who asked it of them? No more than anyone else. It's still up to their own character to decide whether to do those things or not.


Love (Why do I let myself get sucked into these threads)

Its late, I'm tired, so I'm just going to splat out a few things that come immediately to mind.

1. No relationship, absolutely none, to "real" slavery. That kind of slavery doesn't even get roleplayed. Introduce that kind of action, and everyone I know about personally would dial 911 or pull out a gun or both, even if they hear about it 2nd or 3rd hand. Believe me, stuff is negotiated beforehand and either person can shout "stop".

2. Don't get confused by the externalities (whips, chains, collars, etcs). They're mostly just props for a fantasy, which it really is, and the use of touch and stimuli to drive an emotional state. Touch is a VERY big part of it.

3. The internalities revolve around core issues of vulnerability, trust, intimacy, release from responsibility/taking control, and putting each partner in a mental state where they can shut out the outside world and exist in the "now". Essentially its about telling the frontal cortext to "take a hike" so the emotions can come out and play.

4. There's all types from clueless wankers and drooling idiots to hard core responsible lifers to people like me who are 98.6% normal and 1.4% "stick my toe in the water um OK five minutes that's enough lets watch a movie and cuddle now, K?".

5. Ethics and responsibility doesn't go out the window just because someone "owns" you. The fantasy is between consenting adults. If Mistress tells me to lie or spy on someone else thats nonconsensual and a strict no-go. Anyone who does otherwise is a total fool, of which there is a great abundance, unfortunately.

Um fantasy slavery is fantasy obedience or not even close to obedience in true sense of word. If the sub or slave obey and is obedient to everything including things that put their emotional, physical or any essential safety at risk I would consider them too irresponsible to have a Master. I sure in hell wouldn't want to be with them as a Dom, I wouldn't want that responsibility because I know I fail because I am not mind reader.
As great as the fantasy of being mind reader and totally in tuned with someone would be I wouldn't want to go there again. Done it, didn't like it and it had host of unwanted problems that I don't ever want to be a participant in ever again.
I learned this hard way long ago.

So they have lied to their Master/Mistress when they pledged obedience then?

Pep (You can't have it both ways)

Why do so many people chose life of animals or pirates or to serve the tyranny of the imperial forces?

To retreat to childhood when they don't have to make grown-up personal decisions?

Pep (I only retreat to my post-adolescence, when I made the *wrong* grown-up decisions)

Where to start? Nowhere, I think. Unless you are genuinely interested in learning about this, as opposed to merely passing judgement.

More likely because they want to, and if it's not causing harm to me or others, it none of my business why

Go to bed. There's a good boy. And don't bother the grown-ups.

Jig...
Slavery (the type "...so reviled in teh real world...": I take this to mean the actual, mostly illegal, unwilling exploitation of labour, chattel status of human beings and reduction of personal freedom? I don't think it's any more popular here in SL that it is in RL.

Leaving the difference between RL and SL out of it, what I think you are asking is why is Dominance/submission sexuality tolerated when slavery is abhorrent?

Consent.

D/s has no more in common with slavery than Sadomasochism has with torture. The confusion lies in the shared terminology & symbols... words like 'Master' and 'owner', objects like collars & chains.


(edit: just noticed that Soen Eber said more or less the same while I was writing my response)

Bondage. Read about it before you post about it. It's not as uncommon as you think.

As far as Gorean, I don't approve so I don't participate. It's that simple.

You sound like my wife when confronted with an irrefutable logical argument that doesn't accord with her emotional beliefs.

Pep ("You don't understand . . . "

nite nite, mamma troll.

LOL. What I meant to suggest is that you are passing judgement on something for which you apparently have no understand of whatsoever. I'd take the time to help you understand, but given that the judgement has come prior to any apparent attempt to understand, it seems like it would be a lost cause.

Since you mentioned her, I wonder if you wife sometimes feels the same way?

I do know what you were suggesting, which relates to the emotional element of what you were talking about which I have no desire whatsoever to know any more about than I do already. I was referring to the simple proposition: If you promise obedience to one person, then another can have no trust in you.

Pep (Too difficult?)

Not to difficult. The fault is with your assumption of absolute obedience. These are complex relationships, which, when done right, are well negotiated in advance, constantly re-evaluated, and where limits of all parties are respected. So your original conjecture that you can't trust a submissive because of their relationship to a dominant is true, but only insofar as you also cannot trust a non-submissive's motives either. For equal reasons (lack of character?)

Your "irrefutable logic" stood on a false assumption. How about that?

And there is such a thing as "partial obedience"? Perhaps "just obeying you when I feel like it"? Or "and we won't tell anyone else when I am permitted to disobey you"? Or maybe even "and perhaps we'll lie about when I am permitted to disobey you"? Like being "a little bit pregnant" - you either are or you aren't.

Incorrect! The fault appears to lie with your own understanding of "obedience". Does your Mistress/Master know about your difficulty with interpretation?

Thank you for kneeling down before my irrefutable logic and agreeing with me.

Pep (If I'm not privy to a comprehensive agreement then my argument for complete distrust stands)

when gathering your data and formulating your reply to Lost's post you missed this out:



Are you malfunctioning, Pep?

Geesh. Please reread the bit about negotiating and limits.

"Lost's"?

Error 322 - I meant Love's


<System shutting down>