The Foundations Of A Relationship

Part I: Trust

By Norische

trust \Trust\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Trusted ; p. pr. & vb. n. Trusting .] [OE. trusten, trosten. See Trust, n.]

To place confidence in; to rely on, to confide, or repose faith, in; as, we can not trust those who have deceived I will never trust his word after. He that trusts every one without reserve will at last be deceived. --Johnson.
To give credence to; to believe; to credit. Trust me, you look well. --Shakespeare.
To hope confidently; to believe; -- usually with a phrase or infinitive clause as the object. I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face. --2 John 12.
We trust we have a good conscience. --Heb. xiii.

18.

Trust, a word so easily defined yet so hard to understand. Within the BDSM realm trust is a word that holds a great deal of power; each individual must trust others as well as him or herself in a wide variety of ways.

There has always been a great deal of discussion on who must trust more, the Dominant or the submissive. In my honest opinion each must trust to a different degree, neither of which can be considered more or less than the other.

Each step a slave/submissive takes is a step towards trust. The first time he or she contacts a Dominant is the first sign of trust. The slave/sub trusts that the Dominant is being honest with them. When a slave/sub makes arrangements to meet with a Dominant he or she is trusting that the Dominant is safe and means them no harm... they trust that the person they are meeting with is not some homicidal maniac with PMS. The first time they scene they must trust that the Dominant knows what they are doing.

When a slave/sub enters a contract he or she must trust that the Dominant does not intend to take all their money, and abuse them. One young slave I know had gone to another state to be with a Dominant that he had met at a BDSM function. When "Jake" got there the first thing he noticed when he pulled up in the cab was that the house didn’t look exactly like the pictures he was sent. The yard wasn’t mowed and the house needed painting, the place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in forever. When he knocked on the door another guy answered the door and let him in, not his "Master". The guy seemed nice enough so "Jake" didn’t think anything about it. In a few minutes he was introduced to two other roommates of his "Master". Within minutes, his "Master" took all his clothes and put a chain around his neck; he also had him turn over all his cash as well. It only took about 2 days for "Jake" to get the idea that he was going to be used as a slave by everyone in the house, even guests. Let me stress at this time that "Jake" was not told ahead of time that there was anyone else in the home. In no time at all he was doing all the roommates laundry, all the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, and the yard work within two weeks. The roommates would snap their fingers and command him to serve them, and threaten to tell his "Master" that he had been disrespectful if he didn’t do what they wanted. He tried to talk to his "Master" but the "Master" would not listen to him, any time he brought up his doubts "Jake" would find himself locked in the tool shed outside for a day or so. It took almost 6 weeks for "Jake" to get a friend of his to come get him and take him back home. Even after he managed to get away, his "Master" would email him and threaten him for months after words.

Over and over again a slave/sub must place his or her trust in the Dominant, for the slave’s safety, mental and physical health, growth, and security. The reasons that trust is so fundamental are quite easy to see, when it comes to a slave/sub. But what about a Dominant, how important is trust for a Dominant... after all they have all the control.

Trust for a Dominant is extremely important, their very livelihood and freedom is based on the fact that they trust their slave/sub.

When a Dominant takes an individual as a slave/sub they must trust that they are mentally stable and that they honestly want to be active within the BDSM realm. How many times have you heard about a individual "posing" as a slave/sub either meeting someone from the internet or at a party and going home with that individual for a little private sceneing; only to later call the police and report the individual for rape, assault and battery, even kidnapping... all because the scene wasn’t the fairytale experience they had read about in all the really cool books. A Dominant must trust the slave/sub not to have them arrested and charged with a wide variety of interesting charges that range form misdemeanors that get dropped with out a second thought to felonies where the Dominant makes real good friends with a buddy named bubba in cell block D for about 10 yrs. The police do not care if you have a contract, they do not understand the idea of scene negotiation and they will not understand the idea of consensual slavery. All they will care about is the bruises, the cage in your basement, the accusations, and the wall of whips and various torture devices stored in that bedroom upstairs. They deal with facts, what they see, what they hear and what the laws say.

The law states that it is illegal to rape someone, even if it is a "scene" and completely consensual... the individual does have the right to change his or her mind even after the fact. The law states that it is illegal to use physical force against an individual, the law does not distinguish between consensual and non-consensual "abuse". The law basically states that if someone consents to putting him or herself at risk then they are not in their right mind and therefore it cannot be consensual. If a slave/sub moves from the city or state they live in to live with you, even if it is done willingly they can say that you threatened them and hence it becomes kidnapping. Any physical or sexual act experienced after that point could be considered battery and rape, due to the mental state of the individual at the time.

A Dominant must trust in other ways as well. I had a friend that had spoken to a slave on line for about 4 months, my friend is nobodies fool and though he had asked all the right questions and gotten all the right answers. He paid to have the slave move in with him and every thing seemed to be going quite well for about 3 months. Then all of the sudden my friend began to get credit card bills for cards he had no clue about. He confronted the slave but the slave stated he had no idea what they were. So my friend closed the accounts and listed them as fraud. About 2 months later my friend began getting phone calls from collection companies. Apparently the slave had taken out about 7 credit cards in his name as well as a checking account, and was purchasing items and sending them back to his buddy in Virginia where the young man was from. While my friend was at work, the slave, about $8000.00 in BDSM toys, around $900.00 in cash, and a car load of electronics and other items walked out of his house. Apparently this was not the first time that the "slave" did this kind of a thing and so it took about 8 months for the police to catch up with him, it was a "he said", "he said" tug of war and the only thing they could get him for was the credit cards and the checking account. He spent 6 months in jail and was released. My friend has spent the last 4 yrs working on his credit and attempting to prove that the credit cards were fraud; to say the least his credit is shot.

Now the examples that I have given are by no means the norm, so I don’t want anyone to think that this is the way that most individuals behave. Most individuals within the BDSM realm work hard to build a healthy trust between themselves and those that they are familiar with.

One thing that must be understood is that once trust is lost it is very hard to rebuilt. Strive to strengthen the bonds of trust between you and those that you are close to, work hard at making sure you deserve the trust of others.

As with everything this is my opinion, take what you will and leave the rest. If you wish to contact me, my email address is Norisch1@mchsi.com. If you wish to see more of my work you may find a complete listing of all my writings at... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norisches_Quill/?yguid=99788111 in the files section.