Similarities and differences

A woman asked, recently, in a discussion about submission: what is the difference between BDSM and abuse?  It's a loaded question and there are as many answers as there are practitioners of BDSM.  Here is mine.

I suppose it seems threatening to consider a relationship built upon an architecture of power-exchange and domination/submission.  If there is one person in the relationship who "has more power" then maybe it resembles the beginning of that vague word "abuse".

But, only in an abusive relationship does it resemble the beginning of abuse.  Resemble.  And of course there are, just like in relationships of equality, abusive personalities who enjoy taking advantage.  The online community is populated with all manner of people who call themselves "Doms" and who, instead of mastering a submissive, bully her into compliance or try to tell her to feel grateful for less than she deserves to benefit himself.  Or "submissives" who manipulate and do violence when they are incapable of articulating their deep-rooted needs.  Of course there is going to be abuse: there is abuse everywhere, in any lifestyle, but it is not something to take for granted simply because one is a dominant or a submissive personality by nature, or simply because one may have a predilection for painful pleasure.  Responsible adults know how to do this right.  Right?

The difference between BDSM and abuse is that BDSM has a fundamental tenet of safety, sanity, and consent.  We emphasize these things (though some may not really understand their meaning until an emergency emerges).  "Abuse" (such a vague term... let us call it "bullying" or "taking advantage of" or "assault" if we want to be specific) is by definition non-consensual.  Insane.  And not safe.

These are the basic differences as I see them.  To put in better context:

Does a BDSM slave strapped to a cross and whipped on his thigh by his Mistress constitute abuse?  Not if he has begged her for this scene or consented to it at her request.  

Does it constitute abuse if he has not consented? I would argue that yes it does.  

Does it constitute abuse if he has given a blanket consent weeks ago that she may do anything she wishes to him without asking, and this is one activity that she will use to test that theory?  It's a grey area, but I would argue that if he has access to a respected safe-word that he may invoke whenever he is uncomfortable (indicating her sanity in respecting the word and his sanity in using it) then it still falls under the jurisdiction of kink-aware awesomeness.

How about a submissive woman wandering through a vanilla club, suddenly harassed by men who declare she is obligated to kneel for them and obligated to strip and dance, obligated because THEY say so, ridiculed for her refusal to comply, and insulted for her inability to submit to them -- does that constitute abuse? It bloody well does.  

What about if she were wandering through a BDSM club, suddenly harassed like that?  It bloody well does there, too.  It's abuse no matter where you go.  And, some people love it!  And some people hate it!  And we can only hope that the people who hate it get the hell out.  Because ultimately this journey is supposed to be exactly -- to the letter -- what you want it to be, not someone else's version.

The difference between BDSM and abuse is like the difference between a swimming pool and a tar-pit: they aren't comparable items at all, existing as they do in entirely different realms of requirement or convenience, but they feel the same kind of wrong if one is being forced into them without consent or regard for safety and sanity.  That wrong exists as frequently in the world of equality as it does in the world of established power-structures.

* * * 
How can a submissive be abused in the world of BDSM?
- Assume she is your 24/7 slave when really she's just a lovely submissive personality wandering her own journey.
- Assume she wants to dedicate her entire life to you without asking her if that's any kind of true.
- Assume she will be satisfied with one third of a commitment when she is entitled to the whole thing.
- Assume the limits that she presents to you are invitations to break them.
- Assume that when she screams out a safe-word she is lying about it.
- Assume that your way is the only right way of doing things, even though she may have opinions to the contrary -- valid and worthy of respect.
- Assume that your way is the only right way of doing things, and if she does not comply then she is simply "not submissive."
- Assume that she wants to be humiliated, beaten, insulted, ignored, or caged even though she hasn't asked for any of it.
- Assume that depriving her of something (food, attention, fresh air, public discourse) is good for her character, and not just a power-display of your own imagination.
- Assume that telling her "you will disappoint me, otherwise" is a healthy motivator.
- Assume that when she says, "I don't think that I can do this," she doesn't mean it.
- Assume that when she says, "I don't think that I want to do this," you don't need to care.
- Assume that, after depriving her of something for several days, she should be grateful to you for finally giving it back to her.

Bad assumptions.  And they are bad assumptions in the real world, too, not just in the virtual world or the D/s world.  Maybe your submissive has already declared her willingness and pledge to do these things or behave in ways that will please you.  Maybe your submissive has already submitted to the fraction of goodness you were prepared to offer.  Maybe, just maybe, the submissive may react with grateful gratitude and with grateful receiving -- maybe.  But if you assume it of every single submissive, and more to the point if you punish her for not reacting so gratefully, congratulations!  You've just abused someone.

There are distinctions to make.  They require thought, care, communication, questions, time, lots more time, and many many many more questions.  Make these distinctions.  Think about them and talk about them.  YOU can tell YOUR OWN difference between abuse and BDSM at the end of it.

Chastity and Online D/s

I attended a discussion yesterday that began as an open-forum talk-about-what-you-want munch and resulted in a very interesting discussion about chastity.  I asked the question, "did anybody attend the chastity discussion of the night before which I was forced to miss" because I am interested in what the general D/s community public has to say on the matter.  Sadly (to me), the answer came back that the discussion I missed had actually been all about sexual stimulation.  Orgasm control and such things -- which I do not regard with any critical view as "chastity."  So then I asked the question, do you think discussions of chastity would go over well in this community?  The answer was a resounding yes!

Apparently there is, in fact, a growing trend of submissives in Second Life who, like me, don't throw it all about, as it were.  In fact, the idea of holding oneself "in trust" for one's eventual Master or Mistress is more common than I'd thought!  And even then, there is also a growing trend of chastity within an established relationship.  Submissives who have chosen a dominant may still, in the online world of Second Life, require "no sex" as a limit.  She is still a rare bird, she is, who will enforce that kind of limit.  However, it's not unheard of, and I regard it as a very sensible thing to do for many reasons (common-sense reasons that many security professionals have already imparted all over the internet).

Submission is not simply a sexual service.  And, if a dominant has his eye on a particular submissive who has proven that she is disciplined with her body and her mind and her endeavours, that is an attractive bird indeed, is she not?  If I were a dom looking for a submissive girl, I would want one who demonstrates that she is not a crawling, whimpering mess of appetites.  Even for the very simple reason that such a bird doesn't tend to carry a lot of baggage a dom will have to deal with.  And I have baggage issues, so that is why the no-baggage idea is so attractive to me.  Anyway.  Moving along.

Submission is not simply a sexual service.  Vulnerability of submission implies naked, bare, stripped, transparent and raw presentation -- and that is what a lot of my photography aims to capture in fact.  Without necessarily capturing a sexual experience, if that makes sense.  Gender, yes.  Vulnerable, yes.  Sexual, not necessarily.  I, myself, explore the idea of submission in a chaste way.  At first, I thought I was alone in the world -- but now I realize there is at least one other person (and maybe ten!) who believe in this method.

Submission is not simply a sexual service.  I am, however, obligated to further contextualize the adorable  part of that discussion, and it's as good a punch-line as any.  It does, I'm afraid, slightly burst the bubble that I have admired for the duration of this post.  In an admittedly adorable way.  But I don't mind -- at least I've started the conversation.  So, here it is:  when I asked the question about whether or not discussions about actual chastity would be a good idea (and keep in mind, my question is whether DISCUSSIONS would be a good idea, not whether chastity would be a good idea), a very good-looking and articulate man in attendance immediately offered the comment, "I would really like to encourage this idea of chastity, this way of thinking, yes, a very good line of inquiry."  And suddenly, all the girls present were like, "Oh I'm chaste.  Oh yes me too.  Oh I have been for a long time.  Oh totally chaste.  Me too, Me too!  I still have orgasms but I'm chaste.  Oh yes you have to have SOME orgasms, but yes otherwise very chaste."  Et cetera.

Well, whatever it takes, my sisters.  Whatever it takes.  So there you have it: there is (now) a growing trend towards chaste living in the online D/s community in Second Life.

Collars, Protectors, Mentors, and Learning

I attended a discussion yesterday that was, ostensibly, about collars but which ended up being more a dissection of the "protector" dynamic in Second Life BDSM (and I suppose also a little bit of real life crept in there too).  It is a very good idea to attend discussions when one is new to the D/s lifestyle because, honestly, there is so much that we take for granted and so much that goes unexamined in our lives -- and this is a very safe place to dissect these things and examine them properly in the presence of a variety of other lifestylers, experts, newbies, and seekers.  Discussions are helpful.  What is even more helpful, I find, is that I must (and WANT to) discuss the learnings now with House Sparta so that we share the experience and digest the points raised, together.  Collars are on my mind, lately, and so it was a timely discussion with some interesting points to make.

What surprised me the most is how problematic the idea of a "protector" is to many in the community -- many people whom I do quite admire, moreover.  The idea of a "protector" role that could be manipulated or taken advantage of was not surprising to them.  The idea that people will abuse the role of protector (or even abuse the role of mentor)  was not surprising to them.  The idea that people will abuse the idea of a protection collar and not just the role itself was also no great surprise to anybody (i.e. perhaps the Dominant will not grant the collar but he still wishes the submissive person to submit totally and wholly; or perhaps the Dominant does grant the collar but then completely ignores the responsibilities associated with it; or perhaps the submissive manipulates the Dominant into being able to wear his collar for purposes of false protection, but now she can boast to other people that she wears his collar completely... these kinds of things).  No great surprise.  Happens all the time.  Yikes, I said to myself.  One girl said in the discussion that the protector is someone who will always be available, forever after; but that the NEED for protection does not last forever.  The purpose of protection is to get the girl out into the world on her own two feet, eventually.  The purpose of protection is to set the girl free, eventually.  The purpose is to teach, to guide, to shield, and to nurture.  And I kind of like that ideal.  (And the girl who said it actually has all that, herself, so obviously it is possible!  And I believe that it is what I have, also.)

The idea of mentors was a big hit for everybody: people are getting hip to the benefits.  I am so glad.  The idea of a training collar is "a joke" apparently, and I was grateful to see that I am not the only person who thinks so.  (Why groom a girl in conditioning and repetitive tasks and make her learn all your preferences if you're not going to keep her?  It does not make -- and never has made -- any sense to me.)  The idea of a play-collar was a little bit scary to some folks, like the fashion collar and like the protection collar: it gets abused.  One Dom said something interesting:  putting a collar on a submissive, no matter what kind of 'alternative' collar you call it, will create certain expectations (a collar looks like a collar; the protection collar doesn't look any different from a full collar; and a fashion collar looks identical to the real thing too).  It is something to think about.  But the idea that there are "weaker" collars in the world seems to make other people (who have "real" collars) nervous.  Does the idea of a part-time collar lessen the value of the real collar?  Does the idea of a "bedroom submissive" lessen the value of a total-power-exchange slave?  Would a girl in a house feel like her collar were undervalued if her Dominant gave away his collar freely to many other girls in the world?  These are all questions that come up when we discuss collars.  They all have the same answer, though, as far as I can tell:  discuss it with your Dominant.  In my case, discuss it with House Sparta, because my protector and his submissive Klaudia are two of the smartest people I know.

Only Connect

The guiding principle behind E. M. Forster's Howard's End, "Only Connect."  I have attended a discussion today about Shelf-Sitting Submissives, a phenomenon whereby a submissive waits (almost interminably) for her dominant to come back and pay attention to her, requiring the underlying assumptions: a) there is no communication about how and when the Dominant will arrive, b) there is no communication about if the Dominant will arrive, c) there is no communication about what kind of waiting is actually required of the submissive i.e. is the submissive allowed to entertain the company of other dominants (chastely or otherwise), and is the submissive allowed to entertain the company of other submissives (to discuss the ways of the world and the mechanics of the D/s lifestyle from peer-perspectives); and/or d) there is no communication about anything else that is terribly important to the feelings, heart, soul, and well-being of both parties in the D/s relationship.  There is no communication, really, and it makes a person feel really low.  Unimportant.  No longer valued.  Not a priority.  Unloved... depending on the self-esteem of the person to begin with.

Only connect.  I am protected by a Dominant who expects me to communicate.  Regularly.  I am protected by a Dominant who has a set, fixed time that I can reasonably expect to meet him in-world.  I am protected by a Dominant who expects me to transparently live in such a way so that he CAN protect me: he knows where I am; he knows what I wish to learn; he knows when and why I am here; and he WANTS to know.  These expectations make me feel loved.  I am protected by a Dominant who says it is incumbent upon HIM to make sure the lines of communication remain open, and to make sure that I obey his expectations about keeping in communication and keeping honest and keeping the energy flow... keeping the power exchange alive.  It's his responsibility; it's my submission; it is our ongoing relationship.  This requires effort and energy on his part.  This requires time invested on his part.  And time invested on my part.  And this time and investment make me feel wanted, make me feel like I'm important.  He protects me, but here's the crux:  his protection is of my feelings.  My feelings are my most vulnerable part of me, and that's what he protects with his protocol of Domination.  He makes sure my feelings are healthy, fine, wanted, and attended to.  This is how he protects me, and this is what protection means.  Only connect -- it's not a secret to a healthy relationship... it is available to everybody.