Seeing Slavery-what it is; what it is not.
Slavery is an agreement I first make with myself. I decide that decisions about my behavior will be placed under the control of someone who is worthy and who knows Himself well. I make this decision because I have learned that when someone else has control of my behavior, my mind experiences a transformation during which it is open to being flooded with an ecstatic bliss that I can’t get any other way.
From that point of view, slavery is something I do for myself. It is my way of being selfish because I like feeling joyous and blissful. I think we were all born to feel bliss, and slavery is simply the way I do that. It is now, quite obviously, the very best decision I can make for myself.
Slavery is like a paradox. I get what I seek by giving my obedience to another. I like to say that slaving is a choice, but at this point in my life it has become clear that there isn’t really much of a choice for me at all. To breathe, I must inhale. To feel my favorite bliss, I must slave.
When a friend once mentioned that Buddha is reported to have said, “To have it all, you must first give it all up.” I understood him. Slaves who work to improve our submission understand this idea. Buddhism is a way to have it all that entails submission to a set of principles. Slavery is a way to have it all that entails submission to at least one individual. And the submission itself is, or can be, guided by a set of principles.
These principles can offer slaves ideas about how to give it all up and thus have it all. This same notion is partially suggested by the proverb that tells us, “It is better to give than to receive.” My view is that it is best to give and thereby receive.
Giving is getting. This is my best summation of what slavery and slaving is all about for me.
If it doesn’t take me where I need to go, then what the hell is the point?
As for the principles themselves, I believe that when submission is guided by a set of principles, a blissful experience is much more likely to result than when submission is left unguided. The principles that I have learned will be the subjects of the remaining essays. For now, it is enough to say that I know my submission works – delivers the goods – better when it is informed by guidelines than when not.
So, slavery is a paradoxical way to generate happiness by surrendering control over one’s behavior to another. The act of my surrendering is accomplished by following certain principles and using the tools of submission implied by those principles. Understanding the principles and using the tools is the real work of slavery. Once a slave can do these things, cleaning the toilets is a piece of cake.
At this point, it will be really useful to distinguish a slave from a generic bottom or submissive.
The chief difference between a slave and a generic bottom or submissive is the orientation from which each pursues his/ her own satisfaction. Bottoms have appetites that are their own, whereas slaves’ needs become the same as those of the Master.
(A bottom can sometimes be mistaken for a slave when the Master’s appetites and the bottom’s appetites accidentally happen to match smoothly. This can be very confusing for Masters when this happens, by the way, and is potentially dangerous for Them. The difficulty is hidden from both of them until the appetites of one or the other change.)
For example, a Master might like His boots licked and a bottom might like to lick boots, and so the boots get licked. But the slave need have no desire to lick boots. Instead, he/ she wants to service the Master’s desire to have His boots licked and, again, the boots get licked. The licking of both bottom and slave may look the same, but the boot lickers are coming from very different orientations.
Staying with this same example, the bottom may lose interest in licking the boots at some point and initiate some other activity or simply stop when he/ she has had his/ her fill. The slave will lick boots until he/ she receives some other instruction, or until he/ she becomes physically exhausted and can no longer physically lick. Both bottom and slave are selfish only in the sense that they all do what will bring themselves pleasure: the bottom gets to enjoy his/ her interest in licking; and the slave gets the pleasure of pleasing the Master. If the slave also happens to love boot licking, then that is a bonus for the slave, but it is not his/ her main source of pleasure. This boot licking example was chosen because it is such a commonly shared interest and illustrates the distinction, although subtly.
Bottoms and slaves are much more dramatically distinguished from each other when we imagine how each of these might respond to orders like,” Pick up my dry-cleaning this afternoon,” or “Pick up the dog shit in the back yard and use your hands,” or “Go outside and stand on one foot, wait for the mail delivery, and fetch the mail,” or even,” We are going to look at an exhibition of toy dolls next week at the museum. Read up on dolls before then so that you can explain them to me as we look at the exhibit together.”
Immediately the differences become crystal clear. To the vast majority of bottoms, such orders would be laughable. For a slave, each of these represents an opportunity to give pleasure and find joy in surrendering to His will. Monks in many religious orders would associate this idea with their performance of menial tasks as the offering of their labor as an act of love, devotion, and the exercise of humility.
