Exploring D/s

By Jack Rinella

While writing Partners in Power I came to the conclusion that we ought to give out dictionaries at munches and that every Leather bar ought to have one available to its patrons. Leather vocabulary can be blurry as a snow squall on Lake Michigan. Improving the precise-ness of our speech would certainly help make what we do easier to understand.

Take what seems to be the simple acronym "BDSM." Those four letters stand for a huge variety of fetish and relationship possibilities. Even the "B," as simple as bondage may seem, represents many different types of bondage: rope, chain, leather, incarceration, mummification, and some Oriental types I can’t spell.

I’ve been thinking about D/s because the folks at Passive Arts Studio in Los Angeles invited me to speak on the topic. Let me give you a report on part of what I said.

First off, of course, I start with my tried and true generalization: "Every relationship is defined by the two (or more) people in the relationship." I know that we would all like to have ready-made, one size fits all rules for being dominant and submissive but life just isn’t that way. It is the prerogative of every kinky person to decide how they want to live their life.

The way some tops pontificate you’d think that wasn’t the case. Dogmatism has no place in our dungeons. While we certainly all should heed the words safe, sane, and consensual, even they give us a wide berth for playing and determining what those words mean for us as individuals.

My trusty dictionary gives me a rather clear place to start when it comes to the word dominance: "The condition or fact of being dominant." Well, OK, maybe it’s not that clear so let me look down the page for the word dominant: "Exercising the most influence or control; governing; most prominent in position or prevalence."

This ladies and gentlemen is the essence of the D in D/s. Notice that there is no mention of power or pain. Those aspects will have to be negotiated when you mutually determine how broad the influence is and how much control is exercised. The D in D/s is really about being in first place vis-à-vis your submissive, though not necessarily in relationship to the rest of the folks in the dungeon.

Looking elsewhere in the dictionary we see that submission is "The act of submitting to the power of another; the state of having submitted." Refining the definition further by looking at the word submit, we find that it means "To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another." Ah, those words are more to our liking and closer to the point of what we expect about D/s.

I think it’s noteworthy to see that while D/s does involve the exchange of power, the exchange is more precisely begun by the submissive, not the dominant. The operative word in the definition is surrender. In my experience it is the act of surrender and the degree to which it takes place that creates the D/s relationship.

For me, that means that the dominant is not the aggressor so much as he or she is the recipient. Dom(mes) don’t take power. They receive it. This understanding puts the relationship on a very sound basis, one that is entirely consensual.

This line of thinking then brings me to another word I used a great deal in Partners: continuum, that is "A continuous extent, succession, or whole no part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts except by arbitrary division."

Yes, we would like to have clear-cut distinctions between Masters, Doms, Tops, and Daddies (of any and all genders and orientations) but such is not to be. The continuum stretches from the most demanding dictator to the most permissive top. Your D/s relationship can be strict or easy-going, intense or care-free, temporary or long term, all-the-time or only when scheduled. You see, I’m going to retreat to the first statement: It is up to the two (or more) of you to define what works for you.

In order to clarify the nature of D/s I think it’s helpful to remember that top and bottom are positions and do NOT necessarily determine dominance or submission. We have too easily fallen into a category-trap, labeling what we do with simplistic words that indicate an act without analyzing the act’s intent. Topping, after all, can be a very submissive act and bottoms can be very much in control. That’s one of the reasons that D/s can be so confusing. What you see may not be what is happening.

If we refine our dictionary search further we can turn to the pages where we find master: "A person having control over the action of another or others," and slave: "One bound in servitude to a person or household as an instrument of labor." Going a bit further in today’s vocabulary lesson, we find that servitude is "Submission to a master."

As a more intense form of D/s, the master/slave relationship, then, is defined by control. Note that it is not simply control, though, but "control over the action of another or others." The M/s relationship can be evaluated by the extent to which control is exercised in action. Giving a few orders, which may or may not be actually done, over the Internet is certainly a different degree of control than one has over a slave who lives in one’s home and performs his or her required actions throughout the day, week, month, and year.

I admit to being a writer but my D/s has got to be about more than words. Actions speak louder than words in every case. Without the physical manifestation of our D/s we’re only playing games. That’s OK if that’s what you want, but deal me out of that hand.

In any case, "voluntary servitude" is a more appropriate name to describe our Master/slave relationship, since it is both consensual and service-oriented.

Words, though, change only slowly and I’m not about to introduce my slave as my volunteer servant. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

That, then, is my take on the letters D/s. Whether you’re a slavish dog, an anal master, a sissy maid, or fair lady, there’s a world of pleasure in those words. Enjoy -- however it hits your fancy.