The Mythology of Consensual Slavery

by slave marsha

Over the past few years, i have had the great honor and pleasure of speaking to the leather/BDSM community all across the U.S. and Canada about what it means to be a slave. i have spoken about slavery's joys and challenges. As i have explained my deep need to be owned and controlled, i have seen people look at me with longing and with curiosity. i have been approached by scores of men and women asking me questions about living as a slave and wanting to know how to find an Owner. i have had some of the most enjoyable and emotional conversations of my life with these men and women. i have been treated with tremendous courtesy and respect by so many in our community.

But as i have spoken about my life as a slave, at times, i also have seen a look of horror creep into some people's eyes. i have been told my life is nothing more than a fantasy game. i have been informed in no uncertain terms that slaves are weak and not very bright. i have been told that my life is, by definition, abusive.

Living as a consensual slave is a radical act in our society. Western thought and culture celebrate independence and personal rights, not obedience and service. Even within the leather/BDSM community, someone who identifies as a slave not just for role play, not just in the bedroom or the dungeon, but in all rooms and all places, often is the focus of raised eyebrows and ominous muttering about "abuse" or the slave's failure to understand reality. And yet, paradoxically, it seems that there is a growing desire in the leather/BDSM community to learn more about Master/slave relationships, and there are more and more people who are deciding to try to live in such a relationship.

The Mythology of Slavery in the Community
The leather/BDSM community over the years has made great strides in educating its members about technical SM. Every week, scores of clubs, groups and organizations offer educational classes in SM technique led by knowledgeable, skilled instructors. But when it comes to education on living as a Master or a slave, too often the people leading these seminars are people who have little actual experience at living in a Master/slave relationship. i'll admit that this troubles me a great deal; we certainly do not want someone with no experience teaching flogging, temporary piercing or bondage, so why do we have people with little to no experience in Master/slave relationships teaching about them? Add to this the fact that everyone in the community seems to have a different definition of what exactly it means to be a Master or a slave, and you are guaranteed that there will be confusion and misconceptions surrounding Master/slave relationships.

Master Jim, my Owner, has dedicated a large part of our life to talking with the leather/BDSM community about Master/slave relationships. Master Jim and i do not have all of the answers, or the only answers (no one does), but after living day in and day out in a Master/slave relationship for nearly 6 years and spending countless hours discussing the issues faced by those living in these relationships, we speak from our experience. As we talk with the community, we also have the opportunity to hear first hand the many misconceptions people hold about slaves and slavery. Some of these are so common and so widely repeated as truth, that they go beyond being misconceptions they have achieved the status of "myth" in our community.

Every community has its myths and legends, of course. But when myth is accepted as reality and becomes the basis on which people try to construct a life, that life is almost certain to eventually fall apart. i believe it is important that those of us who desire a life of slavery, as well as the larger leather/BDSM community, seek to understand the difference between the myths surrounding slavery and the reality. And so as this new year begins, it is my hope to contribute to that understanding by addressing three of the most widespread myths of slavery: the Myth of Perfect Obedience, the Myth of Constant Eroticism, and the Myth of Roleplaying.

The Myth of Perfect Obedience: "If you become someone's slave, you automatically will be totally obedient (or else you aren't really a slave)."

The Myth of Perfect Obedience is the myth of "slave as saint" the belief that there is something about becoming a consensual slave that transforms flawed human beings into perfectly obedient slaves. And if you say you are a slave but are ever disobedient, well the unspoken judgment is that perhaps you are not really a slave at all.

Let me dispel the Myth of Perfect Obedience right now. i was not a slave for very long before i found myself struggling to be obedient to my Owner. At times i simply disobeyed. Even worse, after 6 years as a slave, at times, i still disobey.

The real harm of the Myth of Perfect Obedience is its effect on those trying to live and grow as slaves. When I believed in the Myth of Perfect Obedience, i was terribly afraid that i was not fit to serve because of my disobedience. The more i worried and focused on my disobedience and what it said about me as a slave, the less focus and attention i had for obeying right now. It was a terrible cycle.

With Master Jim's encouragement, i began looking for role models who might help me understand how better to obey. As i looked, it came to me that if my goal was to learn to obey and serve my Owner, it might be useful to study the lives of other people for whom obedience is central to the way they live. The people who immediately came to mind were those men and women who have become monks and nuns in various religions throughout history. Surely if anyone had found the secret to perfect obedience, they had.

i began reading everything i could find written by these men and women and what i found surprised and relieved me: these men and women are frank in saying they are not perfectly obedient. They talk about how obedience becomes easier with time and hard work, but until the day they die, these monks and nuns struggle to be obedient. They view entering into religious service not as the moment when they will become perfectly obedient, but as only the beginning of a long, long journey into obedience. While perfect obedience is the goal for these men and women "and for slaves" not achieving it is not a sign of lack of fitness to serve.

It was from this research and study that i began to view my slavery as living a calling, much like the call one might hear to live a life of religious service. Once i began to view slavery this way, as a lifelong journey into obedience, i could let go of the fear that disobedience meant i wasn't really a slave.

The fact is that slaves are human. No slave in the world will be perfectly obedient, every time, all the time. Of course a slave should strive to be obedient. Certainly punishment for disobedience may be appropriate. And if a slave makes no effort to obey and just doesn't care; well, perhaps the path of slavery isn't the right path for that person. But the myth that once you become a slave you will be perfectly obedient is tremendously toxic and destructive. Believing this myth guarantees that the slave will fail.

The Myth of Constant Eroticism::: "Every waking moment of every day as a slave is erotic."

i am sorely tempted to rename this "The Myth of the Beauty Trilogy," after the series of books by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice).

The books tell the story of a young and beautiful princess who is kidnapped into a life of slavery and SM, and whose life from that point on apparently is one long wet dream. Every male slave in the books has a constant impressive erection (amazing!) and every female slave's glistening pussy lips perpetually quiver with need. Of course, the Beauty Trilogy isn't the only place we see this myth: gay SM porn has its fair share of stories in which slave dicks never go soft, Masters ejaculate again and again accompanied by the appropriate groans of ecstasy, and no one ever has to work, run errands or even put on clothes other than a hot little leather jockstrap and a pair of knee high boots perfectly polished, of course.

These books and stories are entertaining pornography or erotic fiction, if you prefer. But somewhere along the line, some people began to confuse the fiction with fact and to declare that the best thing about being a slave is that every waking minute, every task, becomes erotic. Doing the laundry is erotic. Cleaning the toilet is erotic. Picking up your Owner's dirty socks for the one hundredth time; now that's erotic.

Like other relationships, the beginning of a Master/slave relationship may feel like a 24-hour-a-day erotic experience. But like other relationships, eventually, the newness wears off. Suddenly, picking up those dirty socks just doesn't give you a quiver in your loins any more. When that happens, if you've accepted the Myth of Constant Eroticism as the truth, the fear sets in: am i not really a slave? Is he/she not the right Owner for me?

The truth of slavery is that sometimes it's erotic, sometimes it's boring, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's joyous, and sometimes it's just plain hard. Living as a consensual slave is living. If you expect to live in a 24/7 porn novel, you will be deeply disappointed.

The Myth of Roleplaying: "No one can be a slave all of the time " sometimes you have to "step out of role".?

If i had to name the number one myth of slavery, the Myth of Roleplaying that says no one really can live as a slave all of the time would probably be it. But before i explore why i believe this is a myth, let me be absolutely clear about a few things.

First, by identifying the Myth of Roleplaying, i am not saying that living as a slave is somehow better, greater, or more advanced than living in some other way. Living as a slave can be a legitimate, healthy choice, but when compared to any other way of living, it is neither better nor worse; just different. There is no "BDSM ladder" on which someone must move up the rungs from bottom to submissive to slave. Nor am i advocating that if someone is interested in slavery, he or she must live as a slave all the time. It is a perfectly valid path to choose to experience slavery for a more limited period of time such as a weekend, or a few weeks or months.

What t i am addressing in the Myth of Roleplaying, however, is the widespread belief that it absolutely is not possible for someone to live as a slave 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. i believe this myth has come about as a result of viewing "slave" as a role, rather than as an identity.

Our community loves and understands roleplaying. We may not all get aroused by the idea of playing doctor-patient, or Daddy-little girl, or jailer-prisoner (a personal favorite of mine), or officer-recruit, but nearly everyone in the leather/BDSM community understands the idea of putting on a different role for an evening or a weekend and then taking it off when the scene is over. The idea of "Master-slave" as roleplaying fits in neatly with this understanding, and if you spend any time in the leather/BDSM community you certainly will see a fair amount of Master-slave roleplay scenes.

But here is why the Myth of Roleplaying is, in fact, a myth: for some of us, "slave" is not a role to play in a scene ; it is an identity. It is who we are. It is the first and most fundamental way in which we describe ourselves. It is the thing, the word, the concept we have searched for, often for years, to describe what we have felt inside, but for which we had no language. For many of us, discovering this identity that speaks to us is truly an earthshaking event. And then, just when we think we have found out who we are, we are told that we cannot possibly be who we think we are, at least not all of the time.

i identify as a slave, and i am a slave, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just as a mother is still a mother, no matter what she is doing, no matter whether or not her child is with her, so am i a slave whether or not i am with my Owner, whether or not i am in the dungeon, or kneeling, or doing any other so-called "slave-like" thing. Because slavery is my identity, there is no stepping out of role for me. i am a slave when i work as a lawyer outside of my Owner's home. i am a slave when i need to discuss a problem with my Owner. i am a slave when i go to the grocery store, or the dry cleaners, or run errands, or do any of the thousand and one things we all do as a part of life. What i do is not who i am ; and whatever i am doing, i am a slave.

The Myth of Roleplaying says slavery cannot be "real." The reality is that the myth is wrong; for some, slavery is an identity, not a role. It is possible to live as a slave, every day.

In Closing: Myths and Radical Actsts
Radical lives like the ones lived by consensual slaves are fine breeding grounds for myths and so it really isn't surprising that the concept of living as a slave has spawned a legion of myths in the leather/BDSM community. Clearly, these myths are far too numerous and complex to address in a single article. So much more needs to be said about the three myths i have addressed, as well as the many others i left untouched, in order to bring our community to a clearer understanding of the radical act of living as a slave. But if in some way, this article encourages our community to undertake the equally radical act of critically examining our mythology of slavery, then our community (and its slaves) will be the better for it.

About the Author

slave marsha identifies as a slave and a leatherdyke, and has been in service for nearly 6 years to Master Jim, a gay leatherman in Dallas, Texas. Master Jim and slave marsha have presented seminars on Master/slave relationships throughout the U.S. and Canada. slave marsha was honored to serve as International slave 2001 and is a co-owner of South Plains Leatherfest.