Submissive vs Slave

[anonymouse]

okay, I will throw in my 2 cents on this.

Most people accept and recognize 3 levels of submissive and Dominants

if all you do is scene or play without any further comitment to each other then they are bottom and Top.

If there is a further comitment to each other beyond the scene or play then they are sub and Dom

If there is a long term wide ranging comitment to each other where the Dom has the last word in all things and the submissive can't bear the thought of NOT BEING OWNED then they are slave and Master.[le snip]

I've never heard it explained like that before, Russell, but it makes a lot of sense. In my own experience (not nearly as much as yours) bondage was the trigger in a relationship that ultimately led to marriage. We were married nearly twenty years with the last seven or eight of them as participants in the wider kink community (real life - not online).

BDSM for us was a social, fun thing more than it was a 'lifestyle' and subsequently we only ever labeled ourselves as top/bottom. Of course, it wasn't strictly true because the BDSM aspect of our relationship was as constant and 24/7 that real life committments would allow however, as I mentioned, I don't believe we took its 'rituals' and 'protocols' as seriously as many of our friends. Thus, top/bottom was simply a label of convenience used out of respect for those who took the lifestyle far more seriously than us.

anonymouse