The worst ever slave, and responsibility (longish)
WV Wench
>From: Anthony Hilbert <hil...@hilbert.demon.co.uk>
>Which is no more than irritating, except that against all reason I feel
>responsible for these guys. I go out of my way to tell them exactly
>what we offer, and if they feel cheated they've only their overheated
>imaginations to blame; but I still feel maybe I should have made it
...
>Comments?
(lots of interesting stuff snipped)
I am not even slightly qualified to comment on this situation (not that that
usually stops me ;). The only thing that came to my mind was perhaps you
should have trusted your instincts and not allowed him to come, since you had
so many misgivings.
But aside from that, the reason I respond is that I found this whole idea
fascinating. I am in a full time D/s style relationship; not really a
Master/slave relationship, though I love the slave fantasy at times. We don't
do much heavy duty and we don't go to play parties (in WV? please) and we
don't have any opportunities to socialize with those who share our interest in
R/T. Anyway, I would be very interested in hearing more about your lifestyle
- how you choose and/or find your slaves, how the dynamics work, etc. I'm
just a voyeur at heart I guess and I love hearing about what other people do
and how they do it and what they get out of it (also a studier of people at
heart). If you are interested in sharing this I would be interested in
reading it.
His Wench
(owned & operated by WV Master)
Anthony Hilbert
For as long as Joy and I have been together we've had adverts out for
visiting male slaves. And as usual 90% of the ones that reply have been
nothing but fantasists, but some of them actually do turn up. And some
of them are great, and work hard and suffer beautifully and we part
friends. And some aren't.
It's become a catchphrase for us: "never underestimate the power of
wishful thinking". Because no matter how many times we tell them that
we have a small child and a crumby little terrace house, that I'm bald
and Joy is fat, that we don't have the opportunity or the desire to
dress kinky at home, that we expect our slaves to do real work not just
pose around with a duster before cutting to the chase... they still turn
up expecting a couple of leatherfolk in a chateau waiting to do for free
a scene that would cost them an easy couple of hundred pounds from
professionals.
And some of them get halfway through and walk out complaining, and some
of them take a look at the the dishes in the sink and leave, and some of
them never get past the doorstep. The one this week must be the worst
ever, because he came all the way from Europe. Okay, he came over on his
firm's business, but to judge by his emails he had to arrange to be
given the trip specially, and he still had to get here from London which
can't cost less than fifty UKpounds.
I had a bad feeling about him from the start, because he seemed to have
the wishful thinking bug worse than most. I told him at the start we
had no use for TVs (nothing personal, but Joy's had bad experiences with
some), but he kept right on heading all his emails "House Maid". I
warned him repeatedly that Joy might not want to do anything with him
(she enjoys beating a helpless male bod as much as the next cruel
sadistic bitch, but she hates to feel obliged to - as Twain said, the
difference between work and play is whether you have to do it) but he
kept writing "the Mistress this" and "the Mistress that". However many
times I said "no", he kept asking if there might be a female slave
there. Because his English clearly wasn't good, I went over all the
usual warnings three times as much as usual, asking "have you understood
that..?" And I stressed that if he wanted anything interesting to
happen before the kid's bedtime, he'd have to be there when the kid was
at nursery.
So he phoned from London and asked about train times, and I warned him
that it would take at least four hours and left him to work it out. He
arrived three hours late and said the taxi had been slow. We're five
minutes' drive from the station. This guy is supposed to travel for a
living, for Gaia's sake.
Okay. I ordered him to his knees and put a collar on him, and led him
to the kitchen explaining that since I would be getting the kid from
nursery any minute now, he was going to have to keep his clothes on and
that was all the chains he'd be wearing, but we could still play in the
evening. He looked helplessly at the mess (when I know I've got a slave
coming I let the dishes pile up, wouldn't you?) and said maybe he should
come back tomorrow at the right time.
Joy and I had a small bet on whether he would. I thought he just might,
since he'd come so far; but she knows timewasters better than that.
Another no show.
Which is no more than irritating, except that against all reason I feel
responsible for these guys. I go out of my way to tell them exactly
what we offer, and if they feel cheated they've only their overheated
imaginations to blame; but I still feel maybe I should have made it
clearer, maybe I should have gone along further with whatever fantasy
they expected me to play for them. Not for the first time, I find
myself coming up with what's really a stereotypical female response: if
a guy has got worked up, I'm responsible, even if it wasn't me but the
fantasy in his head that did it, and I ought to satisfy him. I know
without Joy telling me that it doesn't make sense; but it still nags.
Comments?
--
Anthony Hilbert
"You are a creature who has received pain and given pain,
and taken too much joy in its application." - Babylon 5
(Delenn to the Inquisitor, "Comes The Inquisitor")
Katharine
Dear Anthony,
On Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:25:28 +0100, Anthony Hilbert
<hil...@hilbert.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<story of recent encounter snipped>...
I am going to play devil's advocate here and try to offer a solution
why the issue of over-exaggerated fantasy projections crops up in
these situations.
The first thing I noticed in your post is that you repeatedly refer to
what are ostensibly casual play encounter partners as "slaves".
Perhaps this is just a semantic thing with me -- but dynamics such as
slavehood, ownership, submission and domination at a *deep* level
don't happen the first time someone walks through my door. For
example, in *most* cases, I would never collar someone the first time
I played with them -- for the reasons that you're struggling with. It
sends the bottom/sub a signal of "yes! youv'e reached slavehood, and
here is fulfillment".
In other words, based on your story, a possibility that comes to mind
is that you are also fostering an excessive wish-expectancy situation
by creating demands of your own that seem out-of-synch with the kind
of encounter you're describing.
>evening. He looked helplessly at the mess (when I know I've got a slave
>coming I let the dishes pile up, wouldn't you?) and said maybe he should
>come back tomorrow at the right time.
If I am not playing with a service-oriented submissive, I tend to
reconceptualize my service paradigm. When my play is really
sub-focused (ie, my energy is about the submissive's experience),
service is something that s/he does in exchange for the energy,
thought, and caring I put into my scenes. It is not expected or
assumed without any accompanying effort on my part. What constitutes
that effort on my part can vary from person to person -- but generally
it boils down to some sort of incentive/reward system.
In a first encounter, I certainly would *not* expect submission and
service from someone before I devoted some kind of energy to them --
particularly if it was someone I hadn't yet had any real life
experience with. I've generally found it *easier* to work with known
positives from the submissive's perspective (a sexual need, a fetish,
a certain kink or headspace) before I present them with some challenge
(ie, eroticizing the subtext to washing your pile of dirty dishes).
People don't submit without a reason in early encounters -- they can
do it out of love/devotion, in response to a sexual need, to get a
fetish met, etc. But I don't really know that many people who submit
entirely for the sake of submission alone until relationships develop
solid foundations, histories, and etch new paths of devotion via past
experiences. "Casual" submission always seems to exist in a series of
inter-related dynamics and it's a really tricky thing to figure out
off the bat.
I would also wonder what it felt like to walk into an untidy house,
where it appeared that a mess was deliberately left for me -- I wonder
if a submissive might feel like he'd been set up for failure, or
perhaps that he was asked to give up control to people who didn't seem
to have alot of control over their own lives, or, even worse, people
who were using the SIQ as a free maid service.
>Which is no more than irritating, except that against all reason I feel
>responsible for these guys. I go out of my way to tell them exactly
>what we offer, and if they feel cheated they've only their overheated
>imaginations to blame; but I still feel maybe I should have made it
>clearer, maybe I should have gone along further with whatever fantasy
>they expected me to play for them. Not for the first time, I find
>myself coming up with what's really a stereotypical female response: if
>a guy has got worked up, I'm responsible, even if it wasn't me but the
>fantasy in his head that did it, and I ought to satisfy him. I know
>without Joy telling me that it doesn't make sense; but it still nags.
Well, you are responsible for them to a certain extent, just as they
are responsible for themselves. Perhaps I'm misreading, or
over-reacting to the title of your post -- but it seems as if you are
also unwilling to assume your fair share of the responsibility for
giving these guys a "good scene" -- even if that scene is only
housework. I don't understand why dominants seem threatened by the
notion that creating an positive and erotic experience for someone
will undermine that power. IMX -- the deepest devotions I've received
from lovers have stemmed from the things I've done to *empower* them
-- through attention, listening, perception and yeah, even sexy, hot,
perverted play :)
When it comes down to it, D/s is 99% button pushing, and if you want
to get something out of a submissive, you have to push the right
buttons. Hell, I would have rewarded the guy off the bat for his show
of faith by taking a 4 hour train ride to meet me. Even if that
reward only meant a remark of praise, and a chance for him to shower
and relax for a bit in a clean room.
--Katharine
Unsafe, Insane and Nonconsensual
Zayphod
In article <w9AMqOAY...@hilbert.demon.co.uk>, Anthony Hilbert
<hil...@hilbert.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Which is no more than irritating, except that against all reason I feel
>responsible for these guys. I go out of my way to tell them exactly
>what we offer, and if they feel cheated they've only their overheated
>imaginations to blame; but I still feel maybe I should have made it
>clearer, maybe I should have gone along further with whatever fantasy
>they expected me to play for them. Not for the first time, I find
>myself coming up with what's really a stereotypical female response: if
>a guy has got worked up, I'm responsible, even if it wasn't me but the
>fantasy in his head that did it, and I ought to satisfy him. I know
>without Joy telling me that it doesn't make sense; but it still nags.
>
>Comments?
Wow - i can relate. The truth is that there are so many wannabes out
there that don't really understand what being a slave actually is. Play
is _earned_, not demanded.
i first got into this through Dianna Vesta, and later Goddess Tantra / Sir
Midian. Each one of them have people begging for the opportunity to
be their slave. They all have expectations of what they want without
giving one good damn about what the Dom in question wants in return.
Dianna was happy with me because i came into the lifestyle not actually
knowing too much about it, therefore i didn't have any expectations of
my own. This put zero demand on Her, and it was rewarded in kind
with several play parties with me in them.
A slave wants only to make the Dom happy. They are happy as hell
to do anything to help out, pick up little things, clean this, put away
that. Make beds, clean dishes. And then really, really clean out that
kitchen - no crumbs, water drops on the counter, etc. This is what
a Dom appreciates. "I would be most happy to do that for You." is
what makes a Dom _want_ to reward their slave with a little play.
Otherwise, they need to pay up the $250/hour for a professional.
Or just get out of the lifestyle alltogether.
Just my 2¢.
Zayphod at aol dot com
Zayphod at gate dot net
"I say to you net-abusers, KNOCK OFF ALL THAT SPAM"
--- "The Tick" (if he were on-line)
Anthony Hilbert
Zayphod writes
>Wow - i can relate. The truth is that there are so many wannabes out
>there that don't really understand what being a slave actually is. Play
>is _earned_, not demanded.
>
>A slave wants only to make the Dom happy. They are happy as hell
>to do anything to help out, pick up little things, clean this, put away
>that. Make beds, clean dishes. And then really, really clean out that
>kitchen - no crumbs, water drops on the counter, etc. This is what
>a Dom appreciates. "I would be most happy to do that for You." is
>what makes a Dom _want_ to reward their slave with a little play.
>
malesubs, they're rare as diamonds in gravel. If we ever find one who
likes us enough to come back, we'll marry him.
--
Anthony Hilbert
"Heterosexuality is a serious health hazard for women at this point in time."
Frances Hornstein
Anthony Hilbert
Katharine writes
>
>The first thing I noticed in your post is that you repeatedly refer to
>what are ostensibly casual play encounter partners as "slaves".
>Perhaps this is just a semantic thing with me -- but dynamics such as
>slavehood, ownership, submission and domination at a *deep* level
>don't happen the first time someone walks through my door.
Interesting to compare your view with Zayphod's. Which is right? I'd
say "both", or "it depends". The trouble is that slavery, like sex,
means so many different things. Your view is analogous to people who
can't accept that casual sex can have any value.
I'd never imagine that a visitor could walk into the same sort of slave
role that Joy has with me, but that's not what we offer them.
> For
>example, in *most* cases, I would never collar someone the first time
>I played with them -- for the reasons that you're struggling with. It
>sends the bottom/sub a signal of "yes! youv'e reached slavehood, and
>here is fulfillment".
For some of them, it =has= been fulfilment, at least so they say. For
the time they're here, they are in the slave headspace they wanted.
Necessarily, since we are strangers (though we do try to get to know
them), this means fitting us into an existing fantasy role. That's
possible if (a) all concerned have a clear idea what that fantasy role
is, and (b) the sub is prepared to realise that reality is not going to
meet his fantasy point for point.
The problem is the ones who feel reality =ought= to match his fantasy,
and blame us when it doesn't.
>
>If I am not playing with a service-oriented submissive, I tend to
>reconceptualize my service paradigm.
That's why I really labour the fact, in my preliminary letters, that we
expect our slaves to work for us. In principle, we should only attract
service-oriented subs.
In practice, alas, a lot of wannabe subs are so desperate that they'll
claim to be into whatever you say, in the hope that once they're in the
door their dreams will somehow come true by themselves. The bdsm
equivalent of what we call "cold porridge types" - the wannas who would
claim to be into doing it in a tank of cold porridge if they thought
they could get laid that way.
This one had insisted that what he was after was service; he didn't
think he could take much pain, he was prepared to try being used for sex
but wasn't sure, the one thing he was sure he wanted to do was serve.
> When my play is really
>sub-focused (ie, my energy is about the submissive's experience),
>service is something that s/he does in exchange for the energy,
>thought, and caring I put into my scenes.
That's the general idea, and that's what I try to make clear to them.
>
>In a first encounter, I certainly would *not* expect submission and
>service from someone before I devoted some kind of energy to them --
>particularly if it was someone I hadn't yet had any real life
>experience with.
That's why I try to arrange things so that I can start with a "warm-up"
- getting them stripped and chained and giving them a preliminary
strapping to get them in the mood.
I guess if I'd tried harder, I could have made time to do more than put
a collar on him. But I was pissed off with him being so late; it'd
thrown out my whole day, and he had our phone number so if he'd been
held up he could have let me know.
>
>People don't submit without a reason in early encounters -- they can
>do it out of love/devotion, in response to a sexual need, to get a
>fetish met, etc.
And that's what I try to set up: an honest offer to meet their
fetish/need. The trouble is, so many haven't got clear in their own
heads what they want: they just feel that if they can find their dream
dom, all their fantasies will come true without having to negotiate.
> But I don't really know that many people who submit
>entirely for the sake of submission alone until relationships develop
>solid foundations, histories, and etch new paths of devotion via past
>experiences. "Casual" submission always seems to exist in a series of
>inter-related dynamics and it's a really tricky thing to figure out
>off the bat.
No kidding <wry smile>
>
>I would also wonder what it felt like to walk into an untidy house,
>where it appeared that a mess was deliberately left for me -- I wonder
>if a submissive might feel like he'd been set up for failure, or
>perhaps that he was asked to give up control to people who didn't seem
>to have alot of control over their own lives
<ouch> that was too close for comfort <twisted grin>
>, or, even worse, people
>who were using the SIQ as a free maid service.
Not free, no. My view is that since I'm not up to doing pro domination,
I do it on the exchange basis: we get our housework done, they get their
bondage/punishment/whatever the way they want it.
>
>Well, you are responsible for them to a certain extent, just as they
>are responsible for themselves. Perhaps I'm misreading, or
>over-reacting to the title of your post -- but it seems as if you are
>also unwilling to assume your fair share of the responsibility for
>giving these guys a "good scene" -- even if that scene is only
>housework.
The problem is exactly what constitutes "my fair share" of the
responsibility.
Views range from the ones who are happy just to have us provide a space
in which they can play the role they want, to the ones that expect us to
stage their pet fantasy in detail.
The main reason Joy gave up pro domination was that she hadn't the
patience to follow some man's script, but she recognised that she had an
obligation to if he was paying for the scene.
> I don't understand why dominants seem threatened by the
>notion that creating an positive and erotic experience for someone
>will undermine that power.
I certainly don't feel that way. If I can make it an exciting
experience for them too, I take pride in it.
I guess it's the same feeling that, on a more intimate level, makes me
take more pleasure in getting my slave helplessly excited than making
her scream. Anyone can cause pain, but turning someone on is mind
control.
> IMX -- the deepest devotions I've received
>from lovers have stemmed from the things I've done to *empower* them
>-- through attention, listening, perception and yeah, even sexy, hot,
>perverted play :)
I couldn't agree more. But you're talking about lovers, not casual
visitors who wouldn't be coming so far for a scene if they were better
at getting close to people.
>
>When it comes down to it, D/s is 99% button pushing, and if you want
>to get something out of a submissive, you have to push the right
>buttons. Hell, I would have rewarded the guy off the bat for his show
>of faith by taking a 4 hour train ride to meet me. Even if that
>reward only meant a remark of praise, and a chance for him to shower
>and relax for a bit in a clean room.
And I probably would have if he'd shown up anywhere near on time, or
even phoned to say he'd be late. Maybe I was too impatient, but that's
how it worked out.
--
Anthony Hilbert It's a wild time,
I'm doing things that haven't got a name yet.
- Grace Slick
Jehannum1
<lotsa snippage>
>Otherwise, they need to pay up the $250/hour for a professional.
>Or just get out of the lifestyle alltogether.
>
>Just my 2¢.
>
>Zayphod at aol dot com
Uhhhmmm....I'll call this one a YKINMK. Ok?
Until I got to this post, I was gonna go in an entirely different
direction......but I've got to figure the UK is a significantly less paranoid
land than the one I live in. (Just down the road from the Neo-Nazi,
Butlerite advertisements for abortion.) And Joy and Anthony know what's best
for their little one. It's just that in MY neck of the northwoods, strangers
don't come into the house when my kid's around. I even watch the furnace guy
like a hawk.
But hey, this area breeds paranoia even better than mosquitoes.......It must
be nice to live where that's not the case....must be REAL nice. ::sigh::
<De icebound Cajun>
"Where there's a whip there's a way." The Return of the King, Rankin-Bass.
Anthony Hilbert
WV Wench writes
>
>The only thing that came to my mind was perhaps you
> should have trusted your instincts and not allowed him to come, since you had
> so many misgivings.
<sigh> I'd put him off three or four times before. I find it hard to
keep telling these guys "we're not what you want".
>
>Anyway, I would be very interested in hearing more about your lifestyle
> - how you choose and/or find your slaves, how the dynamics work, etc. I'm
> just a voyeur at heart I guess and I love hearing about what other people do
> and how they do it and what they get out of it (also a studier of people at
> heart). If you are interested in sharing this I would be interested in
> reading it.
Sure, fwiw.
We are in a very similar position - our relationship is complete in
itsself, the nearest parties are an hour's drive away, and Joy feels too
shy to go to them anyhow. But: we both like to have other subs to play
with, and Joy knew from her previous attempts at pro domination that
there are men out there prepared to include real work in their
submissive scenes, and we both hate housework!!!!
So from Day 1 we agreed that we would try to find visiting slaves, and
planned a format which has worked out most of the time. We ask them to
come for an afternoon and evening, be put to work in the afternoon, and
in the evening (originally this was to make it after the kid's bedtime,
though this is less reliable now) be punished and used by either or both
of us. Since Joy may not feel like it but I always do <g>, we stress
that they have to be prepared to be dominated and probably used sexually
by a man.
The figure of 90% failure from adverts, which some people have commented
on, was mostly from the days when we advertised in contact magazines,
which we already knew to be mostly read by the saddest wannas in the
business. The few ads we have placed on the 'net have produced much
smaller responses, but with a much better signal/noise ratio. As a rule
we get replies which are either brief nervous notes on the lines of "Saw
your ad, if genuine Im interested" (to which the first reply has to be
"which of our ads?"), or long essays about their depth of experience,
their amazing qualities, what exciting things we can do with them, and
how they want to submit to us utterly but they can't come till evening,
won't have sex with a man and mustn't have anything done which leaves
marks. Or something of the kind.
(Cynical? Me? Little moi?)
Over the last couple of years we've had quite a few, and not all of them
have been anything like that bad. On a good day we get someone who
works dilligently and obediently, and whom we can both beat ragged (Joy
has a much harder whip arm than me) before I fuck him - =and= someone we
can talk to and make friends with.
The bad ones can be anything from walk-outs, to the clown who kept
trying to get Joy alone and grope her. (Alas, he too walked out before
he could get what he deserved.)
--
Anthony Hilbert
Zayphod
In article <19971005051...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
rems...@aol.com (Remslusti) writes:
> i may be way out of line here, but why didnt you just advertise for a
> domestic? I am a submissive by choice,, and a slave to my Master, but it is
> an erotic and loving relationship. i dont see how you can complain about a
> stranger that you have not known.. to come in and fullfill your wishes when
> you have not even shown you are a real Master and Mistress.. From your
>posts
> i respect you and your lady, but how can someone who is in need of a true
> (probably loving) dominant relationship and who does not have english as his
> first language, be able to come to your home and immediately go into
>domestic
> service?
>
>it just seems to me your expectations were not for a sexual slave or an
>erotic
> slave.. but for a little domestic help....
i think the point here is to put the submissive in a 'slavery' position,
i.e., doing the things a slave does around the house. "Oops, you didn't
fold the towels correctly, and there were water spots on the glasses
I told you to wash. Looks like you'll have to be severely punished for
that."
Zayphod at aol dot com
Zayphod
In article <vRyyJ$A3q6N...@hilbert.demon.co.uk>, Anthony Hilbert
<hil...@hilbert.demon.co.uk> writes:
>The figure of 90% failure from adverts, which some people have commented
>on, was mostly from the days when we advertised in contact magazines,
>which we already knew to be mostly read by the saddest wannas in the
>business. The few ads we have placed on the 'net have produced much
>smaller responses, but with a much better signal/noise ratio.
Just out of curiosity, how do people feel about the quality of responses
when they come from an ad in a contact magazine over an ad placed
in alt.personals.bondage? Good stories? Bad stories?
Katharine
Dear Anthony,
On Sun, 5 Oct 1997 19:27:28 +0100, Anthony Hilbert
<hil...@hilbert.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Maybe I didn't make it clear enough here. Our expectations were for an
>erotic slave who would also make himself useful! Some of our visitors
>have got into the servant role, others have accepted it as a chore they
>have to do to pay for the scene we'll be giving them. I prefer the
>former, I can live with the latter. The problem is the ones who haven't
>thought it out at all, but just turn up with a head full of fantasies
>and feel cheated when the fantasies don't come true.
I don't know if this is helpful to you or not -- but I generally do
not assume there is such a thing as a "slave" or "master/mistress"
outside of the relationships in which these people are slaves and M's.
I've also come to the conclusion that there really are not that many
guysubs out there. I do think there are alot of fetishists out there
who have taught/told that "submissive" is the proper label for them to
use. And I do believe that a fetishist can become empowered in new
ways by learning to submit in the context of a productive
relationship.
I think there's a bad image of fetishists out there as inherently
selfish and single-minded -- and I admit that Ishare some of those
biases. However, I'd prefer to see a stronger distinction made
between the two terms -- both in the sense that they can be
simultaneously related and very different.
Anthony Hilbert
Katharine writes
>
>I don't know if this is helpful to you or not -- but I generally do
>not assume there is such a thing as a "slave" or "master/mistress"
>outside of the relationships in which these people are slaves and M's.
>
accept that they can use them the way they want. I know that when these
men say they want to be my slave, they mean something quite different
from what I mean when I call Joy my slave. But it wouldn't get us
anywhere to tell them they have to use another word for it; what matters
is to make sure I know what =they= mean by it.
I don't think it diminishes our Owner/slave relationship to use the same
word for something else in another context. Indian and Chinese
restaurants both serve something they call "curry". As long as you
realise that an Indian curry is a completely different dish from a
Chinese curry, you can enjoy both without telling either restaurant they
shouldn't use the word.
>I've also come to the conclusion that there really are not that many
>guysubs out there. I do think there are alot of fetishists out there
>who have taught/told that "submissive" is the proper label for them to
>use. And I do believe that a fetishist can become empowered in new
>ways by learning to submit in the context of a productive
>relationship.
>
This is =definitely= a question of how you use words. If it looks like
a duck and quacks like a duck, I call it a duck. If it crawls like a
sub and serves like a sub and takes its punishment like a sub, I call it
a sub. If you'd rather call a duck a webfooted waterfowl, go ahead.
What do you think these "fetishists" would be if they hadn't been told
they were subs? And who told them?
Yes, I know there are, for instance, men whose primary motivation is
cross-dressing, but who find it easiest to realise that fantasy in the
context of being "forced" to CD by a Master or Mistress. But whether
you call them submissive crossdressers, or crossdress fetishists who
submit, seems to me a distinction without a difference.
We've had men who mainly wanted to serve and would take a little, very
light beating because they felt they should, and men who mainly wanted
to be beaten and worked for us to pay for it, and men who weren't into
service or punishment, but really wanted MM sex and could only accept it
in the context of being tied up and "raped". So long as I could find
out in advance which particular items on the menu were important to
them, and which could be skipped, I didn't worry about what I should
call them. We called them all "slave" and none of them objected.
>I think there's a bad image of fetishists out there as inherently
>selfish and single-minded -- and I admit that Ishare some of those
>biases. However, I'd prefer to see a stronger distinction made
>between the two terms -- both in the sense that they can be
>simultaneously related and very different.
So what exactly do you mean by them? And how will making the distiction
help?
--
Anthony Hilbert
Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is
described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can play.
-- Dr. Thor Wald, in "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by James Blish
Anthony Hilbert
Zayphod writes
>Just out of curiosity, how do people feel about the quality of responses
>when they come from an ad in a contact magazine over an ad placed
>in alt.personals.bondage? Good stories? Bad stories?
You want horror stories about contact mags? How long have we got?
We've had men who sent us nude photos of themselves with chains and
aprons badly put on with pen and Tipex, to "prove" their stories of
having been enslaved by Spanish contessas. We've had letters
interspersed with drawings of red bums and stiff cocks. We had a chap
who wove such detailed and dramatic stories of his adventures as an
entrepreneur in East Germany that he could have made it as a novelist;
he offered Joy a job as his secretary/dominatrix, and was so convincing
that only the fact that his letterhead was written not printed stopped
us being swept away. We had a chap who told Joy he wanted to be
punished for having failed to pay maintainance to his deserted wife and
child, and when she told him his punishment was to pay it, he sent her a
cheque and an address to post it to.
As Terry Pratchett said in another context, I'd write a book, but nobody
would believe it.
--
Anthony Hilbert
"Where's the Any Key? I see Esk, Cturul and Pig-Up, but no Any Key."
- Homer Simpson
Katharine
Dear Steve,
On 10 Oct 1997 00:20:20 GMT, s...@bob.eecs.berkeley.edu wrote:
>In my thinking, "fetishist" is a broader term than "submissive"
>in the sense that a submissive has fetishized certain specific
>things -- servitude, giving up of power in a relationship,
>humiliation. A submissive is still a fetishist, ultimately,
>just one with a particular focus.
>
>So one way I interpret your comment is that you feel there are
>significant numbers of ostensibly submissive guys who have not in
>fact fetishized these sorts of abstractions that comprise
>submission; but are instead more into fetishizing objects, or
>particularly the objectification of their partner as a
>fetish-object. If this is the sense you intend, then I largely
>agree.
This is interesting, because I've been operating under the
intellectual sense that fetishists and submissives were after
different things -- a fetishist has a deep relationship with an object
or some other external trigger, and a submissive forms a relationship
in the context of his/her dynamic with a dominant.
>It's a difficult distinction because there is, in fact, a
>gradation (rather than a distinction) as to what people have as
>their "core fetish" (if there is such a thing). Jon Jacobs
>solves this problem by saying that a true submissive has by
>definition fetishized total powerlessness at a very deep level.
>But I'm not sure how useful such a narrow definition is -- it
>tends to lead to a correspondingly narrow paradigm as to what
>should constitute d/s practice.
I like your notion that submission is a fetishization of an
"abstraction" -- it works for me because I tend to be an abstract
thinker and sorta fetishy in that regard myself.
According to your explanation, then, dominants would also be
power-fetishists. However, that description just doesn't ring true
(for my own personal experience, anyway).
For me, dominance isn't this "outside thing" that another person can
casually gratify. It's not something that I ever experience when it's
*removed from the context* of a relationship (and that relationship
doesn't have to be of the SO-type, but it does have to be, at the very
least, an intimate friendship).
Sometimes, in casual play encounters I will sense something that
disturbs me -- that my ability to create a feeling of "submissiveness"
is more important to my play partner than the fact that it's *my*
ability to create that exchange. When this happens, I feel like the
nuances and richness and individuality I bring to bdsm are not
perceived, and instead replaced with some generic notion of "femdom".
At moments like that -- I believe I am in competition with a fetish --
something that is outside-of-myself, and it's a total turn-off.
This bias of mine partially explains why I just don't understand
Anthony's approach to casual play. I don't think it's wrong at any
level whatsoever, but it does seem prone to so many dynamics that make
me uncomfortable (esp. the feeling of "being used" for my dominance;
or having the obligation to satisfy someone who is supposed to be
pleasing me).
Thanks for the insights....
s...@bob.eecs.berkeley.edu
Katharine <kha...@enteract.com> responds to A. Hilbert,
>> Maybe I didn't make it clear enough here. Our expectations
>> were for an erotic slave who would also make himself useful!
>> Some of our visitors have got into the servant role, others have
>> accepted it as a chore they have to do to pay for the scene we'll
>> be giving them. I prefer the former, I can live with the
>> latter. The problem is the ones who haven't thought it out at
>> all, but just turn up with a head full of fantasies and feel
>> cheated when the fantasies don't come true.
Just to throw in my two cents (or is that pence?) worth, I
think that if things do not immediately "click" as far as
a particular sub performing a particular service role, that
does not necessarily mean that they -- any more so than anyone
else -- have a "head full of fantasies". It just means that
one aspect of one session didn't materialize. There could
be any number of reasons for this, not all of which reflect
totally negatively on the sub.
> I don't know if this is helpful to you or not -- but I generally do
> not assume there is such a thing as a "slave" or "master/mistress"
> outside of the relationships in which these people are slaves and M's.
I agree with this, along with the comments in your earlier post
to this thread.
>I've also come to the conclusion that there really are not that many
>guysubs out there. I do think there are alot of fetishists out there
>who have taught/told that "submissive" is the proper label for them to
>use.
In my thinking, "fetishist" is a broader term than "submissive"
in the sense that a submissive has fetishized certain specific
things -- servitude, giving up of power in a relationship,
humiliation. A submissive is still a fetishist, ultimately,
just one with a particular focus.
So one way I interpret your comment is that you feel there are
significant numbers of ostensibly submissive guys who have not in
fact fetishized these sorts of abstractions that comprise
submission; but are instead more into fetishizing objects, or
particularly the objectification of their partner as a
fetish-object. If this is the sense you intend, then I largely
agree.
>I think there's a bad image of fetishists out there as inherently
>selfish and single-minded -- and I admit that Ishare some of those
>biases. However, I'd prefer to see a stronger distinction made
>between the two terms -- both in the sense that they can be
>simultaneously related and very different.
It's a difficult distinction because there is, in fact, a
gradation (rather than a distinction) as to what people have as
their "core fetish" (if there is such a thing). Jon Jacobs
solves this problem by saying that a true submissive has by
definition fetishized total powerlessness at a very deep level.
But I'm not sure how useful such a narrow definition is -- it
tends to lead to a correspondingly narrow paradigm as to what
should constitute d/s practice.
Adding to the definitional problem is a certain cultural effect.
I believe society as a whole tends towards objectifying female
sexuality, more so than male sexuality. When this tendency is
interposed with a female dominant / male submissive dynamic,
often the result is a powerful objectification of the female
dominant -- creating a strong image of a fetish-object top, which
is both sought after by the submissive partner, and used by the
dominant partner to control the submissive's responses.
While there is of course nothing wrong with this, there _can_ be
a conflict of interest between being the dominant partner in a
d/s exchange, and being highly objectified. I believe (again,
just my current opinion) that female dominants find themselves
grappling with this potential conflict, more so than male
dominants. (I also believe this effect is partly responsible
above-mentioned "bad image" that fetishists, particularly
male-submissive-fetishists, sometimes end up with.)
Steve
Anthony Hilbert
Katharine writes
>Sometimes, in casual play encounters I will sense something that
>disturbs me -- that my ability to create a feeling of "submissiveness"
>is more important to my play partner than the fact that it's *my*
>ability to create that exchange. When this happens, I feel like the
>nuances and richness and individuality I bring to bdsm are not
>perceived, and instead replaced with some generic notion of "femdom".
Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been aware on occasion that I was just
playing a role in somebody's script. The question is, what's bad about
that? If they enjoy the way I play their script, and they play mine
nicely, we can all have fun and go home.
>
>At moments like that -- I believe I am in competition with a fetish --
>something that is outside-of-myself, and it's a total turn-off.
>
I guess this is a difference in our approaches. I don't feel I'm in
competition with a fetish: I feel I'm working with it. And in an
encounter between strangers, a script saves an awful lot of
explanations.
>This bias of mine partially explains why I just don't understand
>Anthony's approach to casual play. I don't think it's wrong at any
>level whatsoever, but it does seem prone to so many dynamics that make
>me uncomfortable (esp. the feeling of "being used" for my dominance;
>or having the obligation to satisfy someone who is supposed to be
>pleasing me).
That last bit Joy would appreciate. It makes her very tense around our
slaves if she feels any pressure to "perform" as a dominatrix.
I feel a bit of that pressure myself... maybe it doesn't put me off
because I handle most of my life as playing the right role. I very
rarely expect to relate to people on a deeper level, so I'm not
disappointed :-/
>
>Thanks for the insights....
I've found some unexpected ones answering your questions.