Clarification: Bondage and Discipline

Both of these words have multiple meanings, and some more than others are relevant to the "lifestyle." Let's start with discipline. The definition that comes most readily to mind, for most people, goes something like this:

"To punish or chastise in order to gain control of another, or to enforce obedience."

Others have more to do with a learning experience:

"A specific, usually named, set of rules of behavior";

"To train for the purpose of achieving behavior that complies with a set of rules";

"Behavior that is in accord with an established set of rules";

and there are more. Note the recurring theme in most of the definitions: rules of behavior. The aim of real discipline is to elicit and reinforce a particular kind of behavior. To be sure, disciplinary activity that happens in the lifestyle is often attributed to the motives specified in these definitions, but in fact, that is sometimes, perhaps even mostly, pure posturing. In that case, the so-called "discipline" is merely choreographed abuse.

What about bondage? The definition most applicable in the "lifestyle." is as follows:

"A state of being physically restrained for purposes of sexual gratification."

Other definitions which may at times be used are:

The state of being under the control of another person;

Being a slave or serf;

Indenture, slavery, or serfdom;

and many variants on the theme. The mental states that describe being in bondage aside, in "lifestyle" terms, it usually refers to the physical restraint of a person, using ropes, chains or a variety of other devices that limit or prohibit movement.

When bondage and/or discipline is used for purposes of behavior modification, it can be considered a true disciplinary regime. This is a normal, but not necessarily frequent or required, part of a Dominant/submissive relationship.

The use of bondage and discipline to achieve immediate sexual gratification depends on the potential of the practises to cause or experience pain, discomfort, humiliation, or helplessness, as an outcome. When used in this way, these practises lay more in the domain of Sadism and masochism.

Whether or not the target is bound, physical punishment as part of discipline may be delivered in a wide variety of methods. If you want a catalog of tools, go to your favorite fetish shop and you will no doubt find a huge array of items designed to inflict any level of pain to any body part desired. Novice disciplinarians though, should proceed with extreme caution. It would be altogether too easy to cause permanent damage or disfigurement, through ignorance.

The idea of an apprenticeship for disciplinarians has great appeal, but there is the problem of finding a credible instructor. One way might be to ask for recommendations from a submissive who has participated in multiple scenes. Before you accept such recommendations, however, be sure to perform a full-body inspection of the submissive - remember, it takes all kinds, and your advisor may think nothing of the fact that his/her body is covered with lesions and scars.

Punishment using humiliation requires more thoughtfulness, and a much more intimate knowledge of the abusee's state of mind..

Given the potential for these practises to result in injury, disfigurement and in extreme cases, even death, one seldom comes upon anyone who engages in them on a permanent, full time basis. Most often, participants in the activities engage in what is knowns as scenes. Before we get into a discussion of what scenes are, lets first deal with another concept: that of the Safe, Sane, and Consensual (SSC) credo.

It should be obvious even to the most casual observer, that these practises can result in great harm to some participants, and put others at risk for jail terms. To mitigate these risks, and hopefully eliminate them, ethical practitioners only engage in activities that are:

Safe - To the extent humanly possible, risks of physical and psychological damage to each participant are identified and eliminated.

Sane - All parties to the activities are nominally sane, and in control of their decisions. It should be obvious that any use of drugs or alcohol would automatically violate this condition.

Consensual - All parties are fully informed of intended and potential outcomes of the activities, and agree to participate voluntarily. It should be noted that, even if written consent is obtained, it will probably NOT provide legal protection for anyone in the event of a death, or significant physical or psychological injury to one or more participants. Let me repeat this in clearer terms: CONSENSUAL OR NOT, IF YOU KILL OR INJURE SOMEONE DURING THE ACTIVITY, EVEN ACCIDENTLY, YOU WILL IN ALL PROBABILITY BE PROSECUTED!

Sometimes participants will use another term for it, but a scene is a somewhat choreographed session, occurring over a defined period of time, with specific and clearly understood rules which establish limits governing the type and intensity of activities to be undertaken.

One implication of the SSC credo, is that consent is dynamic. Consent may be withdrawn or modified (reduced) unilaterally, at any time by either party, and such withdrawls or reductions are binding! For this reason scene rules also usually define the safewords: i.e., words that the receiver of abuse holds in reserve, to be used only as signals that things are going too fast or too far. It is most common to have only one safeword, which stops activity altogether, but sometimes a second safeword is used to indicate a need to reduce the intensity of the activity.

Obviously, if a scene includes having the abusee gagged or otherwise silenced, some alternative means of signalling an end to the activity must be agreed upon, up front. Since most means of silencing the abusee have a significant concurrent risk of asphyxiation, such practises are generally discouraged for any level of activity beyond erotic photography.

About safewords and safesignals: It would be extremely easy to get so involved in an activity that the disciplinarian fails to notice or heed such signals. It is good practise to pause action at regular intervals for a reality check. During these pauses, both the giver and receiver of discipline should clearly and distinctly reaffirm the specific signals to be used and honored. The reaffrmation should be clear, distinct, and unambiguous - redundancy is NOT a bad thing! The conversation might go something like this:

M: "Slave! What is your STOP safeword?"
S: "Sir! My STOP safeword is DUTCH!"
M: "Slave! Your STOP safeword is DUTCH! Is that correct?"
S: "Yes Sir!"
M: "Slave! What is your SLOW safeword?"
S: "SIr! My SLOW safeword is AGAR!"
M: "Slave! Your SLOW safeword is AGAR! Is that correct?"
S: "Yes Sir!"

As I said, clear, distinct, and unambiguous - and redundant. This exchange brings up a few other things about safewords. The words should be short and intelligible even if issued during a scream - for obvious reasons. They should be completely out of place for the action that occurs during the scene - so that if used, they are guarranteed to stand out from the action and get attention. If used the word should be shouted, not mumbled, and MUST BE HONORED AT ONCE! A disciplinarian who fails to heed a safeword runs not just the risks associated with the activity, but may find him/herself unable to find any willing playmates - ever again.

Inasmuch as this is a blog, and not a textbook, this is about as far as I intend to go in discussing bondage and discipline. There are a lot of web-base resources for learning about them, as well as about the practises of sadism and masochism, and dominant/submissive relationships. Unfortunately sometimes those resources are erroneous or are deliberately misleading. Your best resource in dealing with these subjects is common sense.

The next, and last blog in the Clarifications set will be a cursory discussion of personalities and motivations, and how they relate to D/s relationships and BDSM practises.

QM

Progress

This isn't the blog about Bondage and Discipline. Sorry about that. I got kind of hijacked by the story I'm writing for Thinking Horndog 's "Swarm" universe. I haven't decided on a title yet, and probably won't, until it's nearly complete.

Yes, that means I won't be posting individual chapters immediately upon finishing them. Thinker doesn't want to review stuff piecemeal, and I understand that. At the same time, I don't plan to put anything up on my own sites that doesn't have "official blessing". I have to say, even as much as I have problems maintaining logical consistency between chapters of my one of my own stories, it is much more difficult to do so with a collection of works from different authors. What I find myself doing is avoiding topics that offer opportunities to screw up.

Anyway, as of about 10:00 AM today, Chapter 1 of that story is done, although it may suffer some editing later on. It's about 5K words, same as most of the chapters in most of my works. I expect about 4 or 5 chapters, total, when the story is done; but as Thinker pointed out, estimates like that are worth about what you pay for them. We'll see.

I'll try to get back to the "Clarifications" blog set in the next day or two. Again, we'll see. I have more to write on the next Galen story (for which chapters will be posted as they are completed!) and Chapter 7 of Schroedinger's Cat is languishing while I play at these other things. Other works beckon to me, one very insistently. Sometimes I wish I were twins!

Oh well. Bye for now.

QM

Clarification: Sadism and masochism

Instead of jumping into a full-scale discussion of all the parts of BDSM practises, I thought it might be useful to break it down into manageable bites, so for this blog, I'm just going to talk about Sadism and masochism, and their practitioners, Sadists and masochists.

Let's get one thing clear, right now. This is probably going to twist some tails, but there is no such thing as a Sadomasochistic relationship. If you will follow my arguments for just a little while, you'll see why. Let's look at some history and definitions.

Sadism

The term Sadism derives from certain sexual practises, described in novels written by le Comte Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, often appellated as Marquis de Sade. During his lifetime, de Sade frequently attempted and sometimes succeeded in creating real-life situations, similar to those in his novels, in which he inflicted pain on others for his own gratification.

Most dictionaries will give a definition of Sadism similar to the following:

"behavior characterized by inflicting pain (physical or emotional) on others, for the purpose of sexual gratification."

A Sadist then, is simply:

"an individual who practices Sadism."

Note that these definitions do not require the presence of a masochist. This fact, and his (often poor) choice of victims, is the reason that de Sade ended his days in an asylum for the criminally insane.

Masochism

In 1870, an Austrian novelist named Leopold von Sacher-Masoch published a novella titled Venus in Furs, in which, through the characters he described, he codified his obsession to be used and abused by the object of his desire. He had somewhat less success at achieving any long-term happiness in this way, in real life - I suspect a case of conflicting goals. At any rate Masoch achieved a kind of immortality, when psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing coined the term "masochist," in 1886, to describe such obsessions.

The dictionary definitions of masochism can be summed up as follows:

"achieving pleasure or sexual gratification from being humiliated, or from being physically or emotionally abused, either by oneself or another person."

In other words, if you get off on being hurt or embarrassed, you're probably a masochist, at least to some degree.

Complain all you want, but then look at the facts.

There may be a D/s relationship which includes Sadomasochistic overtones. There may be a love relationship, or even just a friendship with such overtones. A pair of total strangers, with no relationship at all, or only the temporary relationship of perpetrator and victim, can engage in a Sadomasochistic behavior.

Clearly a "pure" Sadist (one who has no specific relationship with his victim) does not require a masochist in order to get his/her jollies. He/she can gain pleasure from hurting anybody, whether they enjoy it or not. In fact their enjoyment of the process might actually detract from his own.

Conversely, a "pure" masochist doesn't require a Sadist, in order to have fun. Anybody will do, even someone who detests treating people harshly. Oddly enough, even another masochist will do. If no one else can be found, a masochist is often perfectly capable of becoming the source of his/her own pain. No relationship there, because nobody else is involved.

Here's the thing about relationships: for a relationship to exist, there have to be two personalities involved. For both the Sadist and the masochist, the other person involved in their activities is so completely objectified, that for all intents and puposes there is no other personality involved. Furthermore, if you want to establish that some fact or condition characterizes a relationship, you have to show that it is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for the relationship to exist. There's no way to do this with Sadism and masochism: all of the relationships you might point to are either driven by something else, or they don't qualify as relationships. Ergo, there is no such thing as a Sadomasochistic relationship.

So where does that leave us? Not quite in the dark. Sadism and masochism cannot themselves define a relationship, even in part; but they are personality traits, and there is some evidence to the effect that everyone possesses them to one degree or another. As a society, we tend to ingore these traits, unless the form of expression is extreme.

The terms have also been co-opted to refer to certain behaviors or practises (remember my previous blog?) involving the delivery or experiencing of pain or humiliation. By mainstream standards, these practises are considered to be deviant behavior, and the personalities that actively seek to engage in them are usually considered borderline, or completely, insane.

Hold on, now! I know you don't consider your harmless little bit of fun to be evidence of insanity. I'm just telling you what you already know. If you got caught doing it, by anybody with a badge, you would be taken into custody, for your safety and that of society at large. Maybe for a very long time! Of course, if you're a masochist, the idea of confinement might not be unpalatable...

As an aside, it should be noted that Sadism and masochism are not mutually exclusive personality traits. The term "switch," as used in the "lifestyle," ultimately derives from the fact that, early on, the mental health community recognized that some individuals can derive their pleasure from being on either side of the abuse process.

Most people involved in Sadism and masochism today, do not try to engage in those practises as a total lifestyle (24/7). I said most. There are always exceptions, and that's why we have asylums. If that pisses you off, too bad. By my personal standards, trying to live 24/7 either giving or receiving pain with any enthusiasm, is conclusive evidence of insanity. They're my standards, and you're not going to change them.

People who just want to a have a little fun now and then, practising Sadomasochism, usually engage in scenes. I can't say much about scenes, without bleeding over into Bondage and Discipline. I want to deal with that in a separate blog, so I'm going to end this one here.

Ta Ta For Now.

QM

Clarification - Dominance and submission

I sometimes take verbal flak about my self-described Dom personality. It seems that the external face of my lifestyle doesn't fit the preconceptions the complainers hold about D/s; and they persist in pointing out that I don't own a dungeon, don't make a regular practise of hurting anyone, and rarely even tie anyone up. They are obviously confused and/or ignorant about the meaning of terms used in the lifestyle.

Even given the unlikely chance that they will ever read it, I'm going to try and correct that here, to the extent that it is feasible.

D/s and BDSM are not the same thing. Sometimes it is convenient to lump them all together though, and that creates a lot of the confusion.

D/s is shorthand for Dominance and submission, which phrase describes a kind of relationship between people. BDSM is shorthand for Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism, which is a collection of practises, in which some people may engage at times (some will also insist that the "DS" in the middle is for Dominance and Submission). For example, one is much more likely to know people involved in a 24/7 D/s relationship (even though you are probably unaware of it) than one is to know anyone who regularly practises Sadism by flogging someone. Let's put this one to bed.

Dominance and Submission

As I said, D/s describes a kind of relationship. A relationship exists only between members of a pair of individuals; and is usually, but not necessarily, different from any relationship that exists between either member of the pair, and another individual, outside the pair. A D/s relationship may be only one of several kinds of relationships that exist between members of the same pair.

Like any relationship, a D/s relationship is driven by the roles played by the participants in the relationship. In this type of relationship, only two roles are of any real importance: the Dominant (or Top, or Dom/me or sometimes, Master/Mistress) role, and the submissive (or bottom, or sub, or sometimes, slave) role.

A dictionary is often useful in understanding terms. The Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary (2002) lists one definition of the noun dominant as follows:

"a dominant individual in a social hierarchy."

Since this is a recursive definition, using the same word as an adjective to define the noun, we need to look a little further. The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary (2002) lists a definition of the adjective dominant as:

"exercising the most influence or control."

So, to expand and clarify the first definition, we can define a Dominant as:

"the individual who excercises the most influence or control in a social hierarchy."

There isn't as much dictionary support to define the noun submissive, the way we use it,so our efforts will require a little more of a stretch. Experience with the lifestyle would support another recursive definition: i.e.:

"a submissive individual in a social hierarchy."

Again, we use a term as an adjective, to define the same term as a noun. There is no shortage of definitions for the adjective, submissive, however, and the one which seems to fit best, comes from the Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary (2002):

"characterized by tendencies to yield to the will or authority of others."

Expanding and clarifying then, we define a submissive as:

"an individual who tends to yield to the will or authority of others in a social hierarchy."

These definitions fit into social hierarchies of any size, even one that contains only two people - a relationship! More specifically, a D/s relationship.

Any specific relationship, and thus any D/s relationship, may be said to exist in a continuum of such relationships of the same kind, and the location of the relationship between any two particular people within the continuum, may be described by expressing the amplitude (intensity) of one or more characteristics of the relationship.

In his stories, one of my favorite online authors (MWTB) describes Dominance and submission as aspects of a single quantity: a number line, if you will, with submission at one end of the scale and dominance at the other. In his view, then, where you fall on the line determines which role you normally play.

I actually believe that Dominance and submission are two separate characteristics, and that everyone has both characteristics, in different quantities. As separate characteristics, Dominance and submission can be described in a Cartesion two-space (plane). In this view, the D/s relationship between any two people can be described by where they fall on the plane.

The so called vanilla relationship, for instance, is not a different kind of relationship at all. It is just a situation that happens when two people assume that they are at more or less the same place on the plane. When a person's entire lifestyle is characterized as vanilla, it simply means that he/she habitually treats the people around him/her as social equals. It usually signals a lack of awareness on his/her part, about where on the D/s plane the people surrounding him/her are, leading to the (sometimes) erroneous assumption that everyone is about where he/she is on the plane.

As you can see, being a Dominant doesn't necessarily require that you tie anyone up, or flog them, or in any way be cruel or rude to them, and being submissive doesn't have to mean that you have any of these things done to you. Bottom line: being a Dominant requires that you make most of the important decisions about the relationship, and being submissive requires that you accept, and when expected to, implement, those decisions.

Well, I've rambled on and avoided my other responsibilities long enough, for now, so I'm going to close this blog. Sometime soon, I'll probably add a post with some opinions about the practises of BDSM, and maybe another comparing the characteristics of Dominants, submissives, sadists, and masochists.

Sayonara

QM

New Galen story

I forgot to mention. The title for the new Galen story will be "Homecoming? "

QM

Schroedinger’s Cat, Chapter 6 - Grief, Love, and a Ghost

Chapter 6 is up! To those of you who might have been looking for it last night, please accept my apologies. It was ready to go, but I was so deeply involved in the initial work on another story, and a new chapter for yet another, I simply forgot to upload.

I hope you find it worth the wait.

As always, constructive criticism and comments, as well as praise, is always welcome.

QM

Progress!

Well, I've got about a thousand words so far on the new Galen story. Still no idea for a title yet. I guess it'll come in time.

By the way, Chapter 6 of Schroedinger's Cat is subtitled Grief, Love, and a Ghost, and it's still on track for posting this weekend, maybe Friday night.

Still researching for the other story.

QM

New chapters, new story

Well, the writing is done on Schroedinger's Cat, Chapter 6. It still has to undergo editorial review and reformatting for the web, but I expect it to go up by the weekend. Hopefully by then I'll have figured out a subtitle for it.

I committed to writing another story in the saga of Galen Cuvier and his ladies, and I have the bones of a plot worked out for it. Hopefully I will have some time to flesh those out soon.

Finally, the idea I had for a story that takes place in another author's universe is going to proceed. It'll be my first time trying to collaborate with multiple other writers in terms of maintaining some sort of consistency with a common future history. Look at the stories in Thinking Horndog's Swarm universe for background. I still have a little more research to do before I can start writing in earnest, so I'm not sure how long the project will take.

Reviving Breakdown

Okay. To counter negative feedback on Literotica about Breakdown, I got several on-site positive comments, as well as significant additional email encouragement to continue the story of Galen and the ladies. Because of that, I... er... broke down, and decided to go ahead with the continuation.

While Breakdown was a good title for the original story (because it started with an automobile breakdown), I don't think that it would be an appropriate title for the continued work, so I've decided to close out the current story with its epilogue, just as I did in the original posting. Because the vagaries of posting at Literotica prohibit me from posting the epilogue as a standalone document, it will be appended to an edit of Chapter 4.

I have an outline for the first chapter of the new story, and I know it begins in Galen's home in Atlanta. No doubt an appropriate title will manifest in good time.

Work continues, albeit slowly, on Schroedinger's Cat, and I have ideas in the works for two other stories. One of those is in another author's universe, though, which leads to two problems: first, I don't publish in another's universe without their permission and willing support, and second, I don't want to invest the time in writing there, if permission to publish isn't forthcoming; I blindsided an author like that once before, and got lucky - the other author welcomed my effort - but you can't count on things like that. I have emailed a query to the author of that universe, and time will tell if my idea bears any fruit.

That's all the news for now. I hope you all are having a wonderful New Year!

QM