Sub­mis­sive vs.slave and Com­mon Misconceptions

The dif­fer­ence between a sub­mis­sive and a slave is not always clear cut and is often the sub­ject of con­tro­versy within the lifestyle. In gen­eral, a sub­mis­sive main­tains a cer­tain dis­tance from her Mas­ter and retains some free­doms and a slave gives her all as well as her free­doms to her Master.

This dis­cus­sion is about what ele­ments make a sub­mis­sive or a slave. They may not nec­es­sar­ily agree with what a per­son calls them­selves. Often one finds indi­vid­u­als that call them­selves a slave, when a sub­mis­sive would be a bet­ter title and some­times one sees a per­son described as a sub­mis­sive that is more akin to a slave. I am not sure that the term Total Power Exchange (TPE) can be applied to a con­sen­sual slave. In nor­mal cases, it seems impos­si­ble to have a TPE in a real world non forced slav­ery rela­tion­ship and it is unusual in forced slav­ery cases. TPE seems to involve fan­tasy more than real­ity. In a true TPE rela­tion­ship, it would mean that any order a Dom­i­nant could think of would have to be obeyed by the slave with­out ques­tion. For exam­ple, A Mas­ter could say, “I hate my neigh­bor, go get a gun and shoot him”.

Like it or not in the real world there are restric­tions on TPE. Very often the fol­low­ing restric­tions, what some would call eth­i­cal bound­aries, are a real­ity of a Master/slave rela­tion­ship and are often doc­u­mented in the slave contract.

(In my world) The slave does not have to obey com­mands that:

 a. con­flict with any exist­ing laws and may lead to fines, arrest, or pros­e­cu­tion of the slave

 b. may cause extreme dam­age to slave’s life, such as los­ing her job, caus­ing fam­ily stress, etc

 c. may cause per­ma­nent bod­ily harm to the slave

 d. may cause psy­cho­log­i­cal trauma to the slave, such as a rape scene for a slave that has been raped in the past

In my opin­ion, these self imposed restric­tions placed on the author­ity of a Mas­ter do not weaken the Master/slave rela­tion­ship, but reflect the real­ity of mod­ern life. This is not a new con­cept in slave own­er­ship because in the past many soci­eties that endorsed slav­ery had restric­tions on how a slave could be treated by the owner. One can look in the Bible to see exam­ples of these restric­tions. In the 1850’s a famous case in Polk County, TN involved the pros­e­cu­tion of a Mas­ter that mis­treated his slaves. So the con­cept of TPE is not nec­es­sar­ily real­is­tic in the mod­ern con­cept of con­sen­sual slav­ery or in forced slavery.

Today, slav­ery within the lifestyle has NO rela­tion­ship to the forced slav­ery of the past. Any slave can, if she chooses, exe­cute her free will and leave the rela­tion­ship, this is a real­ity. Yes, the objec­tive is to train the slave to where she emo­tion­ally needs her Mas­ter and is attached to him and her slav­ery to a point where leav­ing her Mas­ter is unthink­able, but many Master/slave rela­tion­ships end. Many end at the slave’s request instead of the Master’s request. So, any dis­cus­sion of slave vs. sub­mis­sive must be within the frame­work of the above restric­tions imposed by mod­ern life.

A sub­mis­sive obeys and serves by choos­ing to do so each time and retains her will. A slave ini­tially makes a choice to obey her Mas­ter at all times and then sub­mits to the will of her Mas­ter at all times.

A sub­mis­sive accepts sub­mis­sion, while a slave accepts obedience.

In my opin­ion, a sub­mis­sive retains free­dom of choice and a slave gives her free­dom of choice to her Mas­ter. A sub­mis­sive makes a choice to give her sub­mis­sion in a lim­ited fash­ion, for a defined period of time and under cer­tain con­di­tions. A sub­mis­sive can have a long-term rela­tion­ship with a Mas­ter, but still retains cer­tain con­trols. How­ever, many are sat­is­fied with casual role-play with­out any long-term goals. Train­ing may or may not be involved between a Dom­i­nant and a submissive.

A sub­mis­sive often has a list of con­di­tions, rules, and lim­its that a Dom­i­nant is required to agree to before enter­ing a ses­sion or rela­tion­ship. These con­di­tions, rules and lim­its usu­ally define time, place and activ­ity. It is not unusual for a sub­mis­sive to start the rela­tion­ship with rules and lim­its and release some or all of them as trust, respect and love for her Mas­ter grows. In fact, it’s a good prac­tice when start­ing any new rela­tion­ship. One should enter the rela­tion­ship by giv­ing only the amount of power that she feels safe in giv­ing. The deci­sion to become a slave should be post­poned until both the Dom­i­nant and sub­mis­sive know each other and trust each other.

A sub­mis­sive can and often does role-play dur­ing an agreed to period of time with a Mas­ter. Dur­ing this period the Mas­ter may have total con­trol, then once the period is over, con­trol returns to the sub­mis­sive. The Mas­ter only bor­rows con­trol of the sub­mis­sive and to the extent the sub­mis­sive wishes and she con­trols her submission.

One def­i­n­i­tion of a slave vs. a sub­mis­sive is based upon the focus of the sub­mis­sive. If the focus is on self then you are a sub­mis­sive, if the focus is on your Mas­ter, then you are a slave. I am not sure that this is a com­plete def­i­n­i­tion for each one, how­ever it is one divid­ing line between the two.

Being a sub­mis­sive does not always involve:

1) A long-term commitment

2) Devo­tion to a Master

3) Con­stant Obedience

4) Focus on the needs and desires of a Master

Again, there is no need to rush into slav­ery. One should start out as a sub­mis­sive and get to know and trust her Mas­ter first. slav­ery is not for all sub­mis­sives. If a sub­mis­sive is unable or unwill­ing to accept slav­ery, for what ever rea­son, that is no great crime. Each per­son has to deter­mine their needs and focus within the lifestyle.

slav­ery calls for a higher level of com­mit­ment and of serv­ing, obey­ing and pleas­ing than sub­mis­sion. slav­ery is the com­plete com­mit­ment of a slave’s body, mind, soul, and spirit. She sub­mits to the will of her Mas­ter. His choices become her choices. Obe­di­ence is a major focus in her life.

A slave has made a “choice deci­sion.” The “choice deci­sion” she makes is to give her choices to her Mas­ter. Con­sent and obe­di­ence are always assumed to be part of slav­ery. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mutual under­stand­ing and trust grow to the point to where it is no longer play but part of her life. A slave is owned all the time by her Mas­ter regard­less of time, place or activ­ity. She is owned by her Mas­ter when she is out of his pres­ence. Trust in her Mas­ter and sur­ren­der to him is the start­ing point to slavery.

slaves enter into this rela­tion­ship of their own free will. This is slav­ery by choice, not forced slav­ery. She decides to give her free­doms to her Mas­ter. She becomes a slave because she needs, desires and wants to serve, obey and please her Mas­ter at all times and in all ways, not because she is forced into slav­ery. Of course, there will be times when a slave will be forced to do some things, but it will not be some­thing that goes against who she is as a per­son. Master’s often push lim­its and expand obe­di­ence in order to help a slave grow and increase her ser­vice to him. slaves become accus­tom to obe­di­ence and find joy and peace in it. A suc­cess­ful Master/slave rela­tion­ship always involves happiness.

Being a slave means you are will­ing to be molded to fit her Master’s needs and to serve him. A slave is re-socialized and re-educated by her Mas­ter to serve, obey and please him. Her atten­tion is on his happiness.

A Mas­ter is respon­si­ble for the needs and hap­pi­ness of a slave. She gives him author­ity over her needs and hap­pi­ness. How­ever, a slave is respon­si­ble to com­mu­ni­cate those needs and feel­ings. The lim­its of the Mas­ter become the lim­its of the slave. This does not hap­pen overnight, it is a process of grow­ing into slavery.

A slave does NOT give up think­ing and rea­son­ing and become mind­less. This is the biggest mis­con­cep­tion of slav­ery. It is a false charge that has been lev­eled at slaves mostly by cyber-subs and part time play­ers as self-justification for their lack of total com­mit­ment. If a cyber-sub can make a slave look mind­less then she can jus­tify why she is bet­ter than a totally com­mit­ted slave and sup­plies a rea­son why she calls her­self a sub­mis­sive. She rea­sons that “Nat­u­rally a good Mas­ter would not want a mind­less slave, they surely would want a think­ing cyber-sub instead.” It’s a late addi­tion to lifestyle think­ing and only stated by some sub­mis­sives. Gen­er­ally, well informed sub­mis­sives that feel secure in the lifestyle don’t try to blast slaves. It’s usu­ally “wannabes.”

One never hears a knowl­edge­able Mas­ter refer to a slave as mind­less, because he knows bet­ter. He also knows that she is more straight­for­ward and much more use­ful than any cyber-sub.

Often a slave is given great respon­si­bil­i­ties within the rela­tion­ship. They are given a gen­eral frame­work of lim­its and direc­tion and expected to act within them using their own resources and abil­i­ties. A slave is often asked to express her thoughts on issues or prob­lems, but real­izes that the final deci­sion is always her Master’s. The deci­sion made by her Mas­ter becomes absolute for her.

Most slaves use their skills and tal­ents within the Master/slave rela­tion­ship to advance it and the well­be­ing of their lifestyle. Most Master’s encour­age this. Often Mas­ters feel more at ease in using a slave to man­age a project than they would a sub­mis­sive. Through­out his­tory slaves have been given respon­si­bil­i­ties that require thought, plan­ning and deci­sion mak­ing, there is no rea­son to dis­con­tinue this prac­tice in mod­ern times where there is con­sen­sual slav­ery instead of forced slav­ery. Con­sen­sual slav­ery involves devo­tion, car­ing and obe­di­ence, why not take advan­tage of these traits in a slave as well as her knowl­edge and skills.

As stated above, the word “door­mat” is often used by wannabes and cyber-subs to describe slaves. My def­i­n­i­tion of “door­mat” would be that of a per­son that is used by another per­son for their own ben­e­fit with­out regard for that per­sons feel­ings, growth, or well being. A Mas­ter assumes respon­si­bil­ity for his slave’s body and well-being and is always con­cerned about the devel­op­ment and men­tal well being of his slave. She is his prop­erty and he has no rea­son to destroy his prop­erty. In fact, he has a great inter­est in her devel­op­ment. Per­cent­age wise, who is more likely to be used as a “door­mat”, a slave or a sub­mis­sive that has a casual meet­ing with a Dominant?

One often hears “A slave has NO voice in the rela­tion­ship.” This is another mis­con­cep­tion of slav­ery. Often, a Mas­ter with com­mon sense will seek the opin­ion of a slave before mak­ing a deci­sion in many areas. It’s impos­si­ble to find a slave that does not have more knowl­edge in some areas than does her Mas­ter. In areas where she has expe­ri­ence, knowl­edge and train­ing, it would be fool­ish for him not to seek her advice before reach­ing a deci­sion. In addi­tion, it’s often bet­ter to bounce your ideas off some­one else before reach­ing a final deci­sion. A good slave will wel­come the chance to aid her Mas­ter by offer­ing an intel­li­gent opin­ion. A slave has input into many of the deci­sion mak­ing processes that are required in life, but the Mas­ter makes the final decision.

slav­ery is NOT an escape from life. Past, present and future prob­lems don’t mag­i­cally dis­ap­pear into the night never to be seen again. For exam­ple, past credit card debts don’t dis­ap­pear, but a Mas­ter may plan repay­ment and place his slave on a bud­get. slav­ery is a com­ple­tion of a slave’s nat­ural feel­ings and needs, not an escape.

A slave enjoys sub­mis­sion and, over time, that sub­mis­sion becomes deep enough to elicit feel­ings of being owned or fully con­trolled by her Mas­ter. Not all sub­mis­sives become slaves, but all slaves are submissive.

slav­ery always requires a long-term com­mit­ment by the slave to her Mas­ter and she is owned at all times. slav­ery always requires obe­di­ence. A friend in response to read­ing a draft of this arti­cle stated in an email to me that she didn’t know how many peo­ple start out as slaves, but in her opin­ion it is a process of “becom­ing a slave.” One starts as a sub­mis­sive and over time grows into slav­ery. I fully agree with this statement.

There appears to be no right or wrong way, one can be a slave or sub­mis­sive. It depends on the needs and desires of the indi­vid­u­als involved. Some Mas­ters don’t want a slave and some don’t want a sub­mis­sive. In addi­tion, depend­ing on the per­son­al­ity of the per­son, some sub­mis­sives will never be a slave and some slaves would never be happy as a sub­mis­sive. It is a choice that one must make in their life.

Cuff­s­mas­ter