Collaring

I thought I would post some thoughts on the subject, since although the girls have been collared for some time, mitda for a fair length of time, last weekend we did a collaring ceremony for them together, and as a result it is closer to top of mind than it has been for a while.

Firstly, I love that they are collared.  Their beauty seems that much more radiant wearing their collars, and now that they can both wear their collars 24/7 they are a constant reminder to me of my luck and joy at mastering them.  They are also a constant reminder of my responsibilities in mastering them, and the standard which I have to try to live to.  I am currently studying the concept of unlimited responsibility, something that I think is particularly apropos and necessary in a TPE relationship.

Not that things are always perfect at House Daedalus.  The fact that the collars are identical reminds me of the occasional rivalry between slaves, the envy or jealousy that can poison any poly household.  And treating two very different people differently, as they require, but still equally, as they desire, is a difficult balancing act at times, and one  I don't always succeed at.

mitda and I, as a former vanilla married couple, had the easiest transition to a TPE lifestyle.  emmie and I have a few more hurdles to climb.  We are in a poly married situation as far as our vanilla sex lives go, but it is new and like any newlyweds we are still learning each other's tastes, wants and predilections.  And we have our pre-existing, comfortable relationships with our legal spouses to fall back on when things become tense for any reason.  That my spouse is also her sister slave makes her feel insecure.   That her spouse is a "top" sexually, and beginning to dominate in a bedroom bdsm sense, is an additional element and tension for me.  Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't trade any aspect of my family for any other in the world, but it's only by being honest about the tensions that they will be resolved, as I always trust that they will.  The love I have for emmie, Jubal and mitda, and the love between all of us, makes all the tensions worth it, all the difficulties a temporary thing, and my overall life satisfying and full of joy.

TPE, Poly and other Alt. Marriages, less coercive or more?

If the outcome of coercive power is the reduction of the human to human resources, and the reduction of the tradition to resource
allocations, we can begin to take a closer look at the various options open in the field of relationships. Quickly we can note the alignment of marriage with tax structures, religious power centres and family-values style politicking. 

At first glance TPE, total power exchange, a.k.a. internal enslavement, is the most forceful of the marriage options open. Polyamory possibly the least forceful. Traditional marriage falls somewhere in between. But glances are dissembling here as in many areas. There are also the areas of gay and transgender marriages.

So how about polyamory? Poised as it is against the traditional marriage and the upholding of "family values", and convoluted as it makes marriage from an ownership and taxation point of view, polyamory is in many ways the most radical option for a newly relationshipped adult. The many flavours of polyamory, whether the poly group is in a V, W, quad or other, leads to a delay between expectations and realizations from the moment the group sets foot in society. There are no easy societal labels within the group - husband, lover, partner etc. all seem equally inappropriate. This facet poly shares with gay and transgender marriage. As a result polyamory as well as gay/transgender marriage finds a common element with the proponents of traditional marriage

But since the seat of coercive power in the home is usually occupied by the heterosexual male, doesn't all this argue the more that TPE is the most outrageously coercive form of relationship dreamt up in the west so far?

The missing element here, is mastery. Were TPE simply a matter of domination, and were the domination available in an exterior form, it would be nothing more than a 24/7 form of the imposed drudgery of Hegel's bondsman. A marxist BDSM'er might argue that since the relationship is at least explicit, there is the possibility of reclamation, which seems impossible for the wage slave in his battle with the amorphous and mostly unempowered bourgeois. More than this, however, is the internal form of the "slavery" envisioned, where the slave gladly enters the relationship and would not leave it for a moment. And the willing acceptance of that gift by the Master, returning a solid sense of responsibility that traditional marriage and traditional divorce simply leave to the courts. Mastery is not coercion, it in fact abhors coercion, and will only admit of its own existence if that mastery is provided to it by those it masters. Coercion looks for the weak and the subduable, Mastery only finds value in the mastery of equals.

Mitdasein

Coercion and Mastery

I wrote a post a little while ago separating abuse and bdsm.  This post is to attempt to tease out the difference(s) between coercion and mastery. 

Coercion is an act of the will, frustrated by opposition, to turn another will by the force of guile.  Ultimately it is dishonest in its actions and in its intent, bending the will of another to its own advantage for the sake of furthering its will alone.

Mastery does not turn the other's will, and certainly does not operate under any guise but its own open strength.  It is functionally honest in both actions and intent, and its intent is to master the will of the other to the other's own advantage, for the sake of furthering both wills and conjoining them together.  Mastery is quiet in its manner and mode of going about things, because the noisy "will to power" of the mainstream hides a singular lack of power, a fundamental helplessness when it comes to either their outcomes or the outcomes of those over whom they exercise coercion.

Mitdasein

Slaves on the Downward Spiral

I went to bed in a bad mood last night and woke up in a worse one.  So I've spent from 2am till now pretty much working on my RS/6000 server and feeling pissy.

I'm not the only one.  Both through conversations and reading their blogs I have been well apprised that both of my slaves are down, depressed, suicidal, etc.  Not that this is the first time such things have happened, they both by chance are bipolar, as am I, and handling moodiness is a sine qua non of this relationship.

Unfortunately when it's all of us it becomes difficult to look to each other for the support we so desperately need.  emelina feels like a third wheel, mitda feels "not good enough", and me, well, I feel like I'm neither doing my job as their master nor helping myself in any way.

Mitdasein

Dominance and Abuse

Dominants get a lot of flack.  We're accused of being "spousal abusers with an excuse", or "sadists with a philosophy".  The thing is, anger is a huge part of abuse, and lack of control the other major factor.  Sadists get off on pain, domination is a tool.   Dominants get off on control and domination, bondage, discipline and sado-masochism are tools of that control.  Submissives or slaves want, crave, need that control, discipline and domination from their Masters.

Not that this post will convince anyone who doesn't know and understand someone involved in internal enslavement or total domination.