Here's a quote from someone else's page that I thought was a good comparison between sub and slave, especially since I was in the military. I've edited it for grammar, but the content is anonymous.
"Slavery hinges upon a commitment to obedience. The slave does not revisit issues such as "should I submit?" or "How do I feel about that? Will I say yes or no?" When a dominant order is issued, whether or not the slave agrees with it, the slave is obedient in the same manner that a soldier who has enlisted in the Army is.
A person gives themselves over to the control of another as completely as is humanly possible. This means not only a high degree of obedience, but that there is actually a chattel property context to the relationship. I refer not to a legal relationship, of course, but to a mutual understanding of ownership and property status that arises between the parties. While both slaves and submissives are often fondly referred to as "property", in the sense of consensual slavery the slave becomes literally the property of the Owner.
A slave cannot say "No" without completely abrogating the very basis of the Master/slave agreement. A "No" from a slave is a terminal deal-breaker in a way that it is not for a submissive. One analogy I offer is this: a submissive is like an employee in the workplace, who can protest directives and hope to resolve conflict with management (the dominant). A slave, on the other hand, is like a soldier who, if she disobeys orders, has put herself in a position of mutiny with much more dire consequences to her relationship to the military (the Owner) than if she were a civilian disputing a less-controlling authority. The military cannot function if command authority is questioned, and neither can a Master/slave relationship."
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