The other day a friend was joking about an outfit her Dominant wanted her to wear. "Well i can always declare "last act" " she quipped. She was referring to a submissive/slaves ultimate decision to remove their collar. Now i know this person and know they were only joking and not the least bit serious. To a submissive/slave taking off the collar is like cutting off an arm with a dull butter knife. Which is to say it is truly the last thing they would want ever to do. Unfortunately all too often i have seen many who ARE serious about using "last act" to get their way.
Master teaches in His Dominance courses that while the Dominant has the final order and say of the household, the submissive/slave has the ultimate power of last act. This is why He cautions Dominants to make sure of Their decisions. Being honest, safe, and consider that sub/slave's feeling when making choices are very important. Taking these things for granted will ultimately lead to last act. But i would also have to add that Dominants should be careful of the person they collar too. Be certain this person values YOU and all You believe in, trusts You, and that You have given time to truly understand E/each other. Otherwise You might end up with a sub/slave that could care less about Your decisions and blatantly try to top You.
Unfortunately i have seen it be a common response when i tell students "your Dominant owns you not the other way around. It is not your place to challenge the Dominant, but rather respectfully share your feelings about certain things. Then your duty to obey the final decision." Which inevitably leads to "but i can always take my collar off if i don't like the decision". Well, yes technically you can. But hold on to your leashes my siblings in service. Lets stop and think about the importance of this great power. It was never intended to give you control of the Dominant. It was intended as a safety net for those times when a Dominant makes a clearly unsafe and harsh decision or order. If a Dominant orders you rob a bank, THAT would be a good reason to take off your collar and run. But if you are being punished for being disrespectful and ordered to write an essay, for example, then taking off the collar is the last thing you should even consider. In this instance the only thing you should be doing is writing that essay and thinking about how your actions reflect on your Dominant.
The simple truth is that taking off your collar every time you disagree with your Dominant is not only topping Them, but it cheapens the collar to nothing. The whole purpose of the collar and the commitment are lost. There are going to be times when you disagree with your Dominant. Its normal. But when you took that collar you told your Dominant that you trusted Them to make the final decisions. Trusted them enough to kneel and obey. If you have no trust for a Dominant then you have no business being collared to Them. And if you think "last act" is intended to get your own way, then you don't belong in the lifestyle. Your collar is a symbol of honor and commitment to that Dominant. Last time i checked, honor and commitment were not things you do when you feel like it or when it is convenient.
But the biggest mistake i see being made by subs/slaves who use the power of "last act" this way is in thinking it is reversible. Folks the truth is a strong and confidant Dominant will consider "last act" just that; the LAST act.
I have seen subs and slaves who were shocked when their Dominant refused to take them back. They act as though they have been wronged. "Well it was such a silly thing really! I cant believe They wont give me back my collar!"..Of course not! If it is a petty and nonsense thing you took your collar off for then you deserve to be left where you are. That Dominant clearly sees that sub/slave for the manipulative person they are and since they so conveniently let them self out of the house, why bring them back?
A confidant, well educated Dominant will not put up with being bullied or manipulated. Once Their collar is thrown off in this manor, it will never be offered again. That promise and bond were broken. And a confidant Dominant would rather have no submissive or slave than be stuck with a manipulator. Eventually They will find someone to serve Them with honor.
NOW...at this point my words have been toward my fellow subs/slaves. But i would be lying if i said that Dominants have not also used the collar in this fashion too. I have seen subs/slave scared to sneeze wrong for fear of having their collar yanked. And i have seen Dominants very blatantly state that the minute a servant disagrees in the slightest about any decision made or even breaths a word of being uncomfortable that collar is off. This is not Domination. This is bullying too.
A Dominant should not have to use the threat of decollaring to get His/Her way. A submissive/slave is also a human. We have thoughts and feelings and those need to be considered when making decisions. Mistakes are also part of being human. No sub/slave should have to be afraid to breath wrong in order to serve. If i am afraid to put on a pair of shoes and have them be the "wrong" ones, i am not being dominated i am being terrorized.
Yet i have even heard "Dominants" make statements like "i am going to call her slut in public and if she don't like it there's the door"...Really? What are her limits? Is she OK with being humiliated just because it gives you a jolly? And what does this say about the value of a Dominants collar if they can be yanked for such things? Any idiot can CALL themselves "Dominant". That doesn't mean they are. And if a collar is so easy for a "Dominant" to pop off without the slightest feeling for it, then that collar is so cheap its not worth wearing. A dime a dozen in fact. For these "domwannabies" a thought; No self respecting sub/slave is going to have their gift manipulated like this. True servants are going to be absolutely crushed if you take away a collar. And don't even THINK of asking them back. You broke their trust in you and it will never return.
To my fellow siblings in service, if you are being threatened to have your collar taken over the most minuscule of perceived slights every day then maybe your Dominant is not Dominant. Just insecure and using the collar as a means to scare rather than show care of you. The collar should be the open symbol of the Dominant's care and honor They feel for you and your submission. It should not be used as a "do it or lose it" choke hold.
In the M/s lifestyle total power exchange is expected. But the Master will not collar a slave that is not ready to give TPE either. Therefore They would not use the collar as a punishment. It is the symbol of Their commitment to the slave. They would not cheapen the value of Their collar by using it daily as a ball gag.
The moment a "dominant" takes that collar off out of some petty notion that it will "teach you a lesson"...consider it last act. Do not answer calls, do not engage in conversation. Let them go. I have seen subs/slaves go through the agony of being decollared, the abandonment, and the devastation. Only to be contacted by that "dominant" a day later who expects them to jump back in the collar or jump back into command. If you allow them to do this to you, then it will happen over and over. You should never allow yourself to be collared only when it is convenient to the "Dominant". They may cry, whine, etc, but they made that final decision. Since they have the final word, let them live with it.
My final Sub-Stance; folks a collar is not something you can toss off and on like underwear. It is not meant to be used as a manipulation tool or "when ever i feel like it". A true collar is a commitment to a relationship. It is saying to E/each other "I care for you, I vow to honor you, and I will respect my commitment to you". If either party does not feel this care or commitment then leave the collar off. It wont be worth, as Momma used to say, "the powder and shot to blow it up". Leaving a collar or taking one away is not something to be done lightly. It is severing the cord between the Dominant and sub/slave. It is not a punishment, it is a finality.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
INTERNAL ENSLAVEMENT part 1 - "What constitutes slavery in M/s context?"
I started a series of articles on the concept of "Internal Enslavement" (IE) that is described on the website http://www.enslavement.org.uk, and I am going to post the articles here on the ACES blog as well. I find the ideas presented in the essays on this website very thought provoking and inspiring, and as a submissive D/s lifestyler I can relate to a lot mentioned there.
Some background about the internet resource that I will be using for the series of articles: The IE website was initiated by the Fetlife user Tanos in 1997. He is an M/s lifestyler since many years, living in the UK with his long-term female slave mia. Tanos has written many essays on the dynamics of Master/slave and is still active with doing so. Until 2009 he published them on the www.enslavement.org.uk website together with his former long-term slave lili who also wrote many essays. So the website presents the Dominant's and the submissive's perspectives. They also present essays of other people who are active D/s lifestylers.
Tanos' "newer" writings since 2009 (after he and lili had split up) are published on the website http://www.ownership-possession.com. It is a highly interesting resource for D/s and M/s lifestylers as well. Background info you can find on http://www.tanos.org.uk/.
So you see this man is quite active with publically promoting M/s lifestyle and his ideas about it. I don't know Tanos in person, and the reason that I am doing some articles inspired by the Internal Enslavement website's essays is simply that I am fascinated by them. I am convinced that they can hold up with the reality of an M/s relationship in real life. They also have a quite scientific approach to it, not just because psychology plays a role. They say "We believe it is essential that theories of ownership are tested by comparison with the real lives of slaves and submissives". I specifically like this approach, because it is grounded in a healthy realism and not a "D/s bliss ideology" that might more of an illusion than grounded in the world of real relationships as they can be. A lot of the information given on the IE website deals with M/s and personality which in my opinion is very important to put focus on when you want to conduct a long-term successful M/s relationship.
So, first of all, what is "Internal Enslavement?" (IE)
Some keywords to "frame" the term would be "Master/slave" ... "Total Power Exchange" ... "Psychology" ... "Analysis" ... The concept of "Internal Enslavement" deals with the question if a radical consensual slavery is possible in an M/s context that is based on the pillars of safety, sanity, consensual and mutual trust, respect and commitment, in the physical, emotional and mental area of relationship. According to Tanos the answer is yes. Radical consensual slavery is possible (-> TPE = Total Power Exchange). It is a goal you can work towards to step by step, and you can make more and more achievements towards this goal. Tanos also believes that there are certain techniques derived from psychological knowledge that help with the "examination of a female slave's thoughts, emotions and past experiences to establish and maintain a solid and inescapable state of ownership".
In this article, I decided to focus on the question "What constitutes slavery in M/s context?".
In the IE concept, there is one plain simple answer to this: The submissive needs to be a "natural slave" in order to make an intimate M/s relationship work long-term for the sake of happiness and satisfaction of the Master and the slave. Before going into some details, I want to cite Tanos former slave lilli. She wrote about her relationship with her Master: "He changed my life in ways too numerous to mention and i owe much of my inner strength and happiness to him. For that he has my respect and undying loyalty." I think this puts in a nutshell what many submissives wish to achieve in their D/s relationship. Maybe some of you reading this article and can very much relate to this. A slave having this feeling about her Master must be truly happy and not need much else in her life.
We can read "To be a Natural Slave - to be a slave by nature - implies that the individual has some inherent, innate or inborn character trait which predisposes them to slavery in some way." Tanos believes that if a submissive is a "Natural Slave", there are certain techniques derived from psychological knowledge that help with the "examination of a female slave's thoughts, emotions and past experiences to establish and maintain a solid and inescapable state of ownership" (-> TPE = Total Power Exchange). So to speak, "enslavement" in M/s context is a process of purposely influencing and occupying/possessing more and more of the "inside" of a submissive (--> "internal" enslavement).
A huge aspect of determining what constitutes the being of a "natural slave" is that they seem to show a lover level of every-day "Reactance" (psychological concept first described by Brehm in 1966). Reactance is an emotional reaction to mentally or really experienced restriction of freedom. It is an emotional reaction that you could call "inner rebellion" in order to reestablish personal freedom; hence it leads to actions of resistance, struggle and fight until the restricted freedom is re-achieved again. In case the freedom cannot be restored there is a typical turning point that is described as "reaching the peak of reactance": giving in, trying to settle with the situation that seems inescapable ... when it is dramatic it can lead to depression etc. If You want to read about "Reactance" in greater detail, I advise you these two resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_%28psychology%29 and http://www.enslavement.org.uk/reactance
On http://www.enslavement.org.uk/natural we can read:
"Submissives may experience lower levels of total Reactance (roughly stress), when their freedom is restricted, compared to when they are free; and that they also don't experience the depression and low performance which psychologists observe with "normal" people in psychologically defined helplessness."
"We can go further and use Reactance to define a type of slave: a Natural Slave is a slave for whom slavery can be better than freedom, since they have the capacity to experience less Reactance when living in that condition, without the depression normally associated with Helplessness. Thus they are suited to slavery by their nature - by some inherent quality of their psychological makeup."
"Even though Natural Slaves in this IE sense may experience slavery as a positive experience, other factors in their environment may prevent this. Notably, if the Master behaves in a destructive way, ignoring fundamental needs, then the Helplessness may become negative rather than positive for the slave."
This is why I brought up the pillars safety, sanity, consensual and mutual trust, respect and commitment in the beginning.
We can also read an explanation of what mechanism could be at work in an M/s relationship that is based on informed consent (next to safety, sanity, mutual respect, trust and commitment). Keyword: "Paradoxical Gratitude / Stockholm Syndrome"
"Such phenomena can be seen as" survival strategies to cope with defeat. In particular, there may be a sexual dimension when the captor is male and the captive female, since the female's reproductive success may be best served by accepting the situation. The instinctive tendency to find captors sexually attractive if they provide for the captive's needs would facilitate this acceptance. This may be the root cause of the Enslavement process we observe in IE between Masters and female slaves."
(quote taken from http://www.enslavement.org.uk/natural)
The conclusion Tanos is drawing is this:
"This would suggest that Internal Enslavement may only be possible with Natural Slaves, since the trust and intimacy (in the Transactional Analysis sense) that forms the emotional bondage would be inhibited if the helpless state were destructive rather than positive for the subject." (quote taken from http://www.enslavement.org.uk/natural)
I hope that with this opening article of a series on Internal Enslavement i could help you to work yourself into the backgrounds of the concept and understand the basic approach to it.
In the next article I want to expand on one of the psychological techniques that can help with the "examination of a female slave's thoughts, emotions and past experiences to establish and maintain a solid and inescapable state of ownership" (Tanos): Transactional Analysis.
I would like to thank the IE website owner Tanos and the authors who published their essays on the website http://www.enslavement.org.uk/ for their awesome work and interesting thoughts on the dynamics of a Master/slave relationship.
Written by Mirjam Munro, July 2011
Some background about the internet resource that I will be using for the series of articles: The IE website was initiated by the Fetlife user Tanos in 1997. He is an M/s lifestyler since many years, living in the UK with his long-term female slave mia. Tanos has written many essays on the dynamics of Master/slave and is still active with doing so. Until 2009 he published them on the www.enslavement.org.uk website together with his former long-term slave lili who also wrote many essays. So the website presents the Dominant's and the submissive's perspectives. They also present essays of other people who are active D/s lifestylers.
Tanos' "newer" writings since 2009 (after he and lili had split up) are published on the website http://www.ownership-possession.com. It is a highly interesting resource for D/s and M/s lifestylers as well. Background info you can find on http://www.tanos.org.uk/.
So you see this man is quite active with publically promoting M/s lifestyle and his ideas about it. I don't know Tanos in person, and the reason that I am doing some articles inspired by the Internal Enslavement website's essays is simply that I am fascinated by them. I am convinced that they can hold up with the reality of an M/s relationship in real life. They also have a quite scientific approach to it, not just because psychology plays a role. They say "We believe it is essential that theories of ownership are tested by comparison with the real lives of slaves and submissives". I specifically like this approach, because it is grounded in a healthy realism and not a "D/s bliss ideology" that might more of an illusion than grounded in the world of real relationships as they can be. A lot of the information given on the IE website deals with M/s and personality which in my opinion is very important to put focus on when you want to conduct a long-term successful M/s relationship.
So, first of all, what is "Internal Enslavement?" (IE)
Some keywords to "frame" the term would be "Master/slave" ... "Total Power Exchange" ... "Psychology" ... "Analysis" ... The concept of "Internal Enslavement" deals with the question if a radical consensual slavery is possible in an M/s context that is based on the pillars of safety, sanity, consensual and mutual trust, respect and commitment, in the physical, emotional and mental area of relationship. According to Tanos the answer is yes. Radical consensual slavery is possible (-> TPE = Total Power Exchange). It is a goal you can work towards to step by step, and you can make more and more achievements towards this goal. Tanos also believes that there are certain techniques derived from psychological knowledge that help with the "examination of a female slave's thoughts, emotions and past experiences to establish and maintain a solid and inescapable state of ownership".
In this article, I decided to focus on the question "What constitutes slavery in M/s context?".
In the IE concept, there is one plain simple answer to this: The submissive needs to be a "natural slave" in order to make an intimate M/s relationship work long-term for the sake of happiness and satisfaction of the Master and the slave. Before going into some details, I want to cite Tanos former slave lilli. She wrote about her relationship with her Master: "He changed my life in ways too numerous to mention and i owe much of my inner strength and happiness to him. For that he has my respect and undying loyalty." I think this puts in a nutshell what many submissives wish to achieve in their D/s relationship. Maybe some of you reading this article and can very much relate to this. A slave having this feeling about her Master must be truly happy and not need much else in her life.
We can read "To be a Natural Slave - to be a slave by nature - implies that the individual has some inherent, innate or inborn character trait which predisposes them to slavery in some way." Tanos believes that if a submissive is a "Natural Slave", there are certain techniques derived from psychological knowledge that help with the "examination of a female slave's thoughts, emotions and past experiences to establish and maintain a solid and inescapable state of ownership" (-> TPE = Total Power Exchange). So to speak, "enslavement" in M/s context is a process of purposely influencing and occupying/possessing more and more of the "inside" of a submissive (--> "internal" enslavement).
A huge aspect of determining what constitutes the being of a "natural slave" is that they seem to show a lover level of every-day "Reactance" (psychological concept first described by Brehm in 1966). Reactance is an emotional reaction to mentally or really experienced restriction of freedom. It is an emotional reaction that you could call "inner rebellion" in order to reestablish personal freedom; hence it leads to actions of resistance, struggle and fight until the restricted freedom is re-achieved again. In case the freedom cannot be restored there is a typical turning point that is described as "reaching the peak of reactance": giving in, trying to settle with the situation that seems inescapable ... when it is dramatic it can lead to depression etc. If You want to read about "Reactance" in greater detail, I advise you these two resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_%28psychology%29 and http://www.enslavement.org.uk/reactance
On http://www.enslavement.org.uk/natural we can read:
"Submissives may experience lower levels of total Reactance (roughly stress), when their freedom is restricted, compared to when they are free; and that they also don't experience the depression and low performance which psychologists observe with "normal" people in psychologically defined helplessness."
"We can go further and use Reactance to define a type of slave: a Natural Slave is a slave for whom slavery can be better than freedom, since they have the capacity to experience less Reactance when living in that condition, without the depression normally associated with Helplessness. Thus they are suited to slavery by their nature - by some inherent quality of their psychological makeup."
"Even though Natural Slaves in this IE sense may experience slavery as a positive experience, other factors in their environment may prevent this. Notably, if the Master behaves in a destructive way, ignoring fundamental needs, then the Helplessness may become negative rather than positive for the slave."
This is why I brought up the pillars safety, sanity, consensual and mutual trust, respect and commitment in the beginning.
We can also read an explanation of what mechanism could be at work in an M/s relationship that is based on informed consent (next to safety, sanity, mutual respect, trust and commitment). Keyword: "Paradoxical Gratitude / Stockholm Syndrome"
"Such phenomena can be seen as" survival strategies to cope with defeat. In particular, there may be a sexual dimension when the captor is male and the captive female, since the female's reproductive success may be best served by accepting the situation. The instinctive tendency to find captors sexually attractive if they provide for the captive's needs would facilitate this acceptance. This may be the root cause of the Enslavement process we observe in IE between Masters and female slaves."
(quote taken from http://www.enslavement.org.uk/natural)
The conclusion Tanos is drawing is this:
"This would suggest that Internal Enslavement may only be possible with Natural Slaves, since the trust and intimacy (in the Transactional Analysis sense) that forms the emotional bondage would be inhibited if the helpless state were destructive rather than positive for the subject." (quote taken from http://www.enslavement.org.uk/natural)
I hope that with this opening article of a series on Internal Enslavement i could help you to work yourself into the backgrounds of the concept and understand the basic approach to it.
In the next article I want to expand on one of the psychological techniques that can help with the "examination of a female slave's thoughts, emotions and past experiences to establish and maintain a solid and inescapable state of ownership" (Tanos): Transactional Analysis.
I would like to thank the IE website owner Tanos and the authors who published their essays on the website http://www.enslavement.org.uk/ for their awesome work and interesting thoughts on the dynamics of a Master/slave relationship.
Written by Mirjam Munro, July 2011
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