December 2, 2009

Labels and Dogma

"Like people who say that you aren't really owned if you can leave. Well if you were to leave, no, you are not really owned anymore. It doesn't mean you never were."
Are your labels preventing you from seeing what you have? ~ A Dominant Character


Ownership is not a dogmatic principle, it has to be pervasive, it is all in the relationship. When she submits to you, totally and completely, then she is owned, she is owned because she gives herself to you. Her ownership is about her frame of mind, not yours, although you are the vessel into which she chooses to place her well-being, that which she gives away. There is no need for contracts or collars or all of the accouterments; there is just her, giving herself up to you, and you accepting that stewardship.

The outside view of these kinds of relationships almost seem upside-down, or inside-out, words nearly fail in their ability to convey the essence. Ownership is not something you take, it is something given, which the dominant accepts and holds. And just as ownership is a manifestation of what she gives, her submission is a manifestation of what you give to her.

8 comments:

  1. Thank you David, well said, it is not something that we have it is something that we do.

    J.

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  2. So is a "submissive", in your mind/opinion, different from a "slave", or just a different word for the same thing...a subbie person putting power into a Dominant's hands? I'm curious, because so many subbies identify as slaves, while i don't. we're all submissives in some form or other, as our Sirs/Masters/Dom's require of us, but we've all chosen to submit (as opposed to dragged off by the hair and locked into a dungeon)...
    just ...curious (and, of course, Vanilla, hee!)

    nilla

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  3. beautiful beautiful beautiful.

    and concise.

    it reminds me of a period of time during which i referred to myself as the sadist's slave. my relationship to him certainly wasn't what others would call being his slave, but he accepted my usage of the term because, as he said once, he understood what it meant to me. it referred to the completeness with which i gave myself to him - or what i thought was the completeness, because it grew deeper and deeper as the weeks and months passed.

    on the day he surprised me by referring to himself as my Master for the very first time, something inside me changed. i no longer had to use the term, "slave" for myself as a way to express the depth of my submission. he recognized it by allowing me to call him my Master, and that, it seemed, was all i needed.

    i do, however, say that he owns me. he countered that once, as i am not his "slave". but i pointed out that he had said that he owns my mind and owns my body (not to mention my orgasms), which doesn't leave much. and there it stands. he does own me, i feel that way, his possession winds around me like a delicate golden chain, as hard as iron and as decorative as brocade ribbons.

    look inside my head. there is my submissive brain, stamped all over with PROPERTY OF...

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  4. nilla, the notion I carry around is that a slave is a submissive, and a master is a dominant, but not necessarily vise versa; and I know there are arguments against that as well. My point, and J's in the article that triggered this post for me, is that the more you try to refine and define, the murkier and more personal the perspectives become.
    Probably an illustrative but over simplified definition is that a slave is a submissive who has given up choice.

    I think what o g says covers a lot of it, and dances nicely around the semantics of it all.

    I have said, "I am happy to own as much of you as you are willing to give over to me, for as long as you are willing." and she understood that, and can/does operate nicely within those parameters. Make your relationships in the way that serves the needs of the people involved, and let others label it if they choose.

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  5. Thank you Sir! As always, i appreciate your responses, your thought provoking questions...and your thoughts about D/s.

    so many flavors abound...no wonder there was room for a vanilla woman...(nilla smiles)

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  6. This is a beautifully simple post, David, and so very fitting at the very least for me. The last sentence in particular sums up very well what ownership means to me in my relationship with Logan. I have wholeheartedly given myself to him, and he has wholeheartedly accepted that. I don't refer to myself as a slave, but I do refer to myself as a submissive and definitely as an owned girl. It makes me happy and proud to know that I am owned and that my Owner takes great care of me.

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  7. Beautiful! I know you wrote this quite a while ago, but the whole post is just so simple, clear, and beautiful that I had to let you know how much I loved it.

    "There is no need for contracts or collars or all of the accouterments; there is just her, giving herself up to you, and you accepting that stewardship."

    It really is that simple and so many times I try to complicate it by thinking that such accoutrements are needed, and yet they are not because my submission is always continuously there and his domination is always continuously there and nothing more than that is needed.

    Thank you for putting it so eloquently and so simply.

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