Advocacy for M/s and other Fetish Issues...

In a group I follow on FetLife, the question came up of displays of M/s in public and whether or not that was appropriate. I wanted to share my personal feelings, and expand that into the larger sphere of public advocacy.

The first thing I want to say is that I think that effective advocacy has to be balanced. It requires careful, intelligent, reasoned discussion and promotion which normal people can feel comfortable with. It is also the case that effective advocacy requires a certain degree of provocative behavior. It requires challenging norms. The Civil Rights movement required both Martin Luther King and Malcom X, two very different individuals. You cannot have societal change without a combination of rationalism and radicalism. Knowing and having the sense when to be radical and when to be rational is a difficult balancing act, and even the greatest advocates have had their failures. In short I believe in a balance of careful reasoning and occasional radical activism.

I don't often engage in public displays regarding M/s. I have a number of reasons for this. I am a private person, and I have the quality of life of my wife (who is not in a D/s relationship with me) and my servants to consider. However I do engage in some public displays and I often approve of and encourage those who do the same, whether it is someone who speaks in public on the topic under their full name, or just a girl who walks her girlfriend across her college campus on a leash. I don't question their motivations or seriousness. I accept that they are doing what they feel is right and believe in.

I do think that there is an abhorrence of radical action within the M/s Community that is not always in the best interests of the individual or the Community. I think there are a few core reasons for this.

a) We are ashamed

On many levels, many of us are ashamed, or made to feel ashamed of our M/s relationships. We wonder if it's really okay if we have someone as our servant or slave. We wonder if it's healthy. We feel on some level that what we are doing is "wrong" in a way that is different from our neighbor's marriage, and we feel that we should not expose it to decent people.

I have a few theories on this. I think that M/s often (not always) draws people who have a background that involves shame for sexual feelings or abuse (Masters as well as slaves). I think often the draw to being controlled and serving is deeply bound up in a past that may anger them or cause anxiety, and that makes them feel that what they do as a Master or slave is contaminated by that shame, because they feel "weak" rather than "strong" for choosing it. I contrast that to the many many people who have similar issues and never rise above them to find a fulfilling way to lead their personal lives and that saddens me. I wish everyone who chose to seek an answer rather than hide from their issues could bring themselves to be proud of what they are.

b) We are trapped into the presumption of sexuality

Because our relationships involve sex, we are trapped in the fallacy that to express our dynamic in public is to expose our sexuality to others. There is some basis for that. To say "with this ring I thee wed" in front of an audience is to say "I now have the right to ejaculate into your vagina, and keep the fruit of that coupling." We gloss the fact now, but there are still parts of the world where the bloody sheets are displayed the morning after to show that the bride is a virgin.

The expression of our personal relationships is not any more (or less) inherently sexual than a wedding ring. It may be far less socially acceptable, but it is a statement of lifestyle choice and commitment, not sexuality.

There is the additional question of whether or not sexual expression should be allowed in society and that's a different, but related issue.

c) We are afraid

We fear repercussions. Against the community, against us individually. We fear that Aunt Agnes will find out. We fear that a coworker will suddenly realize what that symbol means. We fear the judgment of friends, relatives, and of the law. These are real fears, and cannot be easily dismissed.

d) We are polite

Possibly the most powerful and pervasive. We are by and large a polite group of people who value manners. We don't want to upset people, don't want to "squick" them, don't want to have them bent out of shape. We feel that no amount of secrecy on our part, and no inconvenience is too great to avoid making someone else feel unpleasant.

e) We are socially conservative

Around the edge of the M/s movement there is a strong edge of social conservatism. There is an edge of "what we do is okay, because it involves me treating my wife as a slave, but we don't necessarily much like those poly-liberal-genderqueer strange folks. I'll merely comment that once you have stepped into placing a collar on another human being, or having them call you Master or Mistress, you have crossed a line of sorts, and "if we do not all hang together, we shall most certainly...& etc."

The Need

If M/s is to be taken seriously and thrive as a lifestyle, it must be public and acceptable.

I realize that there will be a hundred people on this list who are anxious to tell me that they themselves do not have this need.

So, I have a friend who does have this need. She's young she lives in the North Central United States. She identifies strongly as a slave (not my slave). She has not yet found a Master or Mistress in real life, but she has an online Mistress who I respect and take seriously.

She is torn about entering the M/s Lifestyle, even though she has no serious thought that she can live any other way and be happy. She is torn because it is completely unacceptable to her family...in a way that her being homosexual would not be. And there is nothing she can point at in culture that makes it okay. She cannot say "well, Ellen DeGeneres is a slave." She cannot say "George Takei is a Master."

She told me that she thought about killing herself, but has chosen not to. She lives with the feeling that she will never be able to be what she wants to be, and there is no television campaign to tell her "It Gets Better." Neither Hillary Clinton nor President Obama have a kind word for her to let her know that her choice of lifestyle is okay.

She has that need. You don't need to.

I know another couple who crave the company of other M/s Couples...who crave being involved in the local M/s Poly community. But flat out, they fear the law until their children are at least sixteen. They fear Child Services, and they suffer and sneak out while they can because they care for their children and that constrains them against the lifestyle that is their choice.

They have that need. You don't need to.

You only need to understand.

Historical Parallels

The right of people to live as they will is purportedly important. I think the right to choose M/s, or by extension any of the other choices that make up WIITWD...to marry many or none, to choose to submit or dominate, and to choose masochism or sadism...is important.

I do not think it is any less important than the freedom of religion, or the freedom to love someone of the same gender, or to freely exhibit one's body.

Historically many things have been unthinkable.

In 1895 when one of the most brilliant dramatic minds of the era was destroyed through hard labor and effectively killed at 46, it was unthinkable to be publicly homosexual. It was still unthinkable in Greenwich Village in 1969. Nobody in 1970 would have seriously predicted that within forty years, U.S. states would begin allowing homosexuals to marry.

To take a lighter, but no less significant tone. How many of the women reading this would want to have to wear a corset daily, or be considered to be immoral. How many women would like to not have the option of wearing jeans or shorts. How many men would like it if your girlfriend could not wear shorts or a skirt, show ankle, or wear high heels? Yet, only a few generations ago, those things dictated morality. They aren't trite traditions that were "cute." They were dull day in day out rules that people lived and died by.

And if you think it's not a very important privilege for you and your female friends to dress as you choose, contemplate for a moment living under sharia and having it revoked.

Only through challenging the norms did things change. Your ability to wear the clothing you do today...or see it on women...is because people from Amelia Bloomer to Coco Chanel broke tradition, and did and wore things which were...patently offensive.

This wasn't a matter of "being a little daring." There was a point in time when baring flesh was a direct blow to adult moral sensibilities. It was an offense. Flesh (or eventually some flesh) was not to be seen. We may not have had Sharia, and stoned people, but it was not simply a neutral choice to bear neck, shoulders, ankle or midriff. At various times simply doing those things was to give unreasonable offense to decent people...to assault them merely by wearing (or not wearing) those things into their presence. And the assault was by obvious association...sexual in nature.

Advocacy

There are many ways to advocate for things that you believe in. I am not saying we should all demonstrate our dynamics in public, or put an M/s flag bumper sticker on our car. To my delight about a week ago, for the first time ever I saw an M/s flag sticker randomly on a car on the open highway rather than parked near an event.

We can write, we can maintain silence, or we can act up.

But it is my feeling that if the envelope is to be pushed forward we need not to shame the envelope pushers. We need not to engage in the inevitable conservatism of a subculture that fears "outing" of shaming those who choose to demonstrate in public.

It is no more offensive for me to walk my slave on a leash in public than for my grandmother to show her kneecaps. In both cases, I can find substantial writing that such things are an obvious sexual assault on contemporary morality which normal people and children should not have to see.
In the case of my grandmother, she wasn't the first person to wear a skirt cut above the knee, and I don't know when she began. But I know that someone did it at a time when it was a patent offense against decency or we wouldn't be doing it now.

I would like to see within the M/s Community and the BDSM Community a wider understanding of the role of Lifestyle Advocates, both those who choose to write and share their points of view, and those who choose to "act out" or "act up" and demonstrate their desires.

It is ludicrous that it is fine to dress in a bikni, or a speedo, or wear a wedding ring, but that non-invasively demonstrating my interpersonal dynamics in public is "non-consensually inflicting my scene on others." It is not. It is creating the envelope to follow the lifestyle I please.

It is important...if we are ever to experience a day where we are all truly free to choose our lifestyles and partnerships. It is important not only that we advocate M/s, but also those other elements of WIITWD, which may be misunderstood or meet with resistance, but are important to the overall picture of a future world in which our right to behave sexually and in our relationships as we please with whom we please, is not questioned.

I do not think that people should non-consensually engage others in their scene. But when I choose to demonstrate my dynamic in public, I am making a political statement. I am saying:

• This is not shameful
• This is not something I should have to hide
• This is not something that you need to be protected from
• I hope that this does not hurt you in any way
• If this hurts you it is because you are judgmental, not because I am a bad person
• If you are not judgmental, I am sharing something that may interest or merely amuse you
• If you are judgmental, this is a challenge and a threat, as sure as Stonewall or the Greensboro lunch counter you will come to accept it if not to like it so that others lives are not crushed by being forced to hide their behavior by the weight of presumption that what they are doing is wrong.

Clear Impossibility

The major reason I hear given for not pressing advocacy of M/s issues is that it's clearly impossible that it will ever be culturally acceptable. Anyone can see that. No right thinking person could accept M/s.

Or...showing a woman's bellybutton. Or the public discussion of sex. Or the depiction of sexuality...or homosexuality on TV. Paganism...

I hear people say "well you can't talk about it to children." That may be the 600lb gorilla in the room in most discussions of acting out.

Why not? Why is it easy for us now to say "Billy has two daddies" but not "Susie's Mommy has chosen to obey Susie's Daddy much like you obey Mommy and Daddy. At work she has a lot of responsibility and when she comes home she takes care of Susie and Daddy takes care of her so she does what he says." Is that so difficult. Children aren't idiots. They might well conclude that "always having to obey Daddy would be yukky" but that's fine. We're just telling them about options, not evangelizing. My parents talked to me about issues like racism, homosexuality, and politics in simple, clear terms.

Having been relatively politically sophisticated by the dawn of the Regan era, I can recall the attitude about homosexuality in the 70s. It could never be public because it would never be appropriate to explain to children about two men or women having sex. Yet we've found ways and found that most children are more blase about it than their parents.

The real fear of course is that it would give our children permission to be gay. But children become young adults and need the same permissions we ourselves needed and need.

Bearing in mind that we are advocating acceptance of a lifestyle that is freely embraced and practiced, not nonconsensual chattel slavery, I think that M/s, Poly, and the acceptance of Sadism and Masochism **can and must** become acceptable within our culture. Will that happen tomorrow? No. But following the rules of acceleration of change in the modern era, it will happen in twenty years, rather than forty...within most of our lifetimes. Young people who are learning about M/s now will see themselves acceptable to the mainstream by the time they are middle-aged.

Many things that were unthinkable, are now not only "thinkable" but acceptable. They are not acceptable to every subculture or every group. But there is sufficient traction that we can tell people "It Gets Better," and that is a message we all need to hear about our freedom to choose whatever path is right for us.

Times change, and it is time that we created some change in perceptions about M/s.

Every Blog will have his day...

In an effort to curb my tendency to be unable to write about a subject in under 4000 words, there are now  Tumblr and Twitter accounts for Gordonsdrysin.  At the very least, they'll carry occasional visual 'humor."

Self-Sabotage and Passive Aggression in Relationships...

I recently posted in a group about self-sabotage in M/s relationships.  Situations where a slave acts out passive aggressively, or in ways that destroy the benefits of the power exchange.  I came up with a number of core reasons that lie behind destructive self-sabotaging or passive aggressive behavior in relationships, and I thought I’d enlarge and repeat the comments as I think they have a wider relevance.   

Note that this isn't a book...I skip over or treat quickly some concepts here that I've gone over more deeply in other places...

Genuine Resentment

I think the first thing to start with is genuine resentment.  We set up M/s relationships and it's easy to assume that because someone in a book said that girls should just be quiet and listen to Master, that's how it is.   But it is supposed to be a “power exchange.”  Traditional relationships say each partner has the same authority/power and the same responsibility.  In M/s, we shift that around.  But it’s an exchange, not a swindle.  The Master has to be giving back something for the power exchange to be complete.  If the slave/servant isn’t clear on what this is, or doesn’t feel it emotionally…they can feel cheated and that’s going to cause resentment.  It is possible for a slave to understand the logic of the exchange but fail to “feel” it in their emotional mind and that leads to trouble. 

The slave/servant partner is more likely to act out passive aggressively than the Dominant/Master partner, because they feel less empowerment to use direct methods.  But the Master partner sometimes does this too...if they feel eclipsed by a bossy or controlling slave, or trapped in a relationship where the responsibility outweighs the power-trip of ownership or the sexual release that goes with control.

The remedy to this is to go over the relationship dynamics. Carefully talk through them all and ask a lot of questions. An external point of view in the form of classes or books is really helpful to this situation, because few of us even know what questions to start by asking.   External sources such as workbooks really help with this, as do workshops such as Lee Harrington's "Delving into Power" which make us really examine our feelings about M/s. 

There are good workbooks for this that present discussion topics, checklists and writing assignments.  The partners need to look seriously at what they want to get out of the M/s dynamic and why they are in it, and be exceptionally honest with each other about the reasons and their needs.

The Master must be the one to support this.  In business we often say that “change will only occur if it is supported by management.”  That’s true in M/s as well.  The Master is management and must be the one to both encourage honesty and reward it, even if it stings or hurts.

Conditioned Resistance

This is resistance that happens when someone has chosen an M/s path or mindset, but it runs against their programming.  We each have programming in the part of the mind that Freud calls "Superego" and Berne calls "Parent."  Some people call this the "conscience" and then can't understand why people raised much differently than them "don't know right from wrong."  In fact it is a synthesis of everything we were taught in childhood, starting when we're born, and slowly sealing off from about age 8-12.    Ideas can get into this part of the mind in adults (advertisers spend millions to figure out how), but it is harder and slower. 

Often a "new" idea (I should give myself to a Master) will war with an "old" idea already in programming "you must grow up to be independent and fend for yourself....you can't trust a man...." etc.  This contains things we're told by parents, church, peers, siblings.  Since very few Westerners were brought up to seek an M/s relationship, most of us have programming that says we're weak/bad/wrong/deficient/losers for choosing to serve.  This can be hard to beat and is one reason that slave-training tends to use mental conditioning techniques.   

Obviously people should be able to make their own decisions...but the decision to serve another...like the decision to serve the military or a religion...is a personal and valid one. 

The remedy here is to work voluntarily on elements of mind control.  Mantras, devotions, etc. that help build the Response.  Immersion in the M/s Community, talking and sharing with other slaves, attendance at SIGs and workshops, and participation in forums, as well as reading and video (stuff like much of the Insex and related libraries, or Kink.com's Upper Room, which show situations in which real people present and are accepted as slaves)

Resistance to Authority

It would be an ideal world if everyone who sought a Master was completely comfortable with the idea, and simply chose a Master, sat at their feet, and learned and since they wanted a Master, did what their Master said.  Unfortunately this is not how human beings are wired. 

Let's start by saying that...since M/s is not a really common path in North America...most Westerners who are drawn to it are drawn because they are *missing* something.  That doesn't mean every slave is broken or messed up.  It can be the same sort of "lack" in life that draws stable people to the military, or priesthood. 

Unfortunately, a very common reason for seeking M/s is coming from an abusive background, where there was little or no security.  There's a huge amount of writing and literature on this, in terms of abuse meaning inconsistent reinforcement.  As simple as "sometimes paying attention to Daddy makes him happy and sometimes paying attention to Daddy makes him angry (depending on if he's drunk or not)."  There's the entire gamut of what is termed "codependency" where someone is brought up to have an exaggerated concern for the happiness of another person.

So...as adults you get people who *want* a Master, because a Master represents parent/safety/good/support, etc.

But...they also resent the fuck out of the people who were their original role models in this regard.  Maybe even hate them.  A lot of girls hate men, openly or on some level. 

Amplify this if there's a history of sexual abuse...the reasons can be wildly varied, but they tend to cluster around a combination of fascination/draw to older men and deep resentment at what was done.

So...girls (and presumably boys...I just have no experience) seek a Master and take refuge.  Then begin acting out based on their resentments of the people who abused them in the past.  That's a simplification, but I'm trying to keep this short.  In the end they tear down their relationship by making it a proxy for their first abuser.  It's confusing, because they love their abuser and getting consummation...approval from their abuser feels good.  But They also have unresolved anger/hatred, etc. and they vent it on the person whose approval they want. 

Basically the relationship that feels natural to them is to be periodically abused.  So getting attention from their abuser feels really good.  But they also resent the fuck out of it and act out subconsciously and passive-aggressively against their abuser.

But it gets worse

What the abused person feels most strongly in life is a need for control.  They want someone to control them completely because that will make their life feel under control.  But they have never had that, it has always been a lie, always been subject to sudden shifts.  So they will "test" often to the point of destruction.  They destroy each of their relationships, systematically because if they can chip away a little bit of control, more will follow, and they feel that actually getting what they want is an unnatural state.  It has always been a lie so it must be a lie, and they may honestly feel in danger if they don't uncover the lie and see where the abuse is going to come from.

Again, a simplification.

This is probably the hardest form to deal with...I don't have any ready answers, but an

• awareness of the behavior on the part of the slave
• tolerance of shifts on the part of the Master 

are good starts.  I use hypnosis a lot to try and break the original mental conditioning, but that can only be part of a holistic approach.  Ritualization of abuse can also help by making the time and the acting out afterwards "expected and acceptable." 

Finding channels for the acting out can be tough...often the thing that a girl who has violent tendencies is most terrified of is...her own violence, and accepting that she has rage, let alone finding ways to work through it can be tremendously difficult.  

Self-Limitation

The principal of Homeostasis states that every system tries to stay the same.  This is true of rivers and of dysfunctional families.  Human beings also try to stay the same.  If a man was raised to think that he'll be moderately successful, have a good paying office job, but that he's not destined for great things, it is very difficult for him to break that mental mold and grasp for greatness.  People who are raised to believe that they like their father will be a drunkard and failure have a hard time not being a drunkard and a failure.  We want to rise to the level we've been told we can. 

That includes happiness.  If we were raised in a place that wasn't entirely happy...especially if that unhappiness was a result of classic "codependence" or abuse, we are used to the idea that we may be happy today, but miserable tomorrow.

People who get suddenly rich often crack up and will do self-sabotaging, destructive things to get rid of the money.  They feel threatened by it and don't really feel they deserve it.  The classic scenario for this...which our media actually promotes...is someone who wins the lottery and gives it all to charity because despite having had imaginings of being rich when they bought the ticket, they actually feel very threatened by BEING rich.

The same thing can happen with happiness.  We can get what we want, and find there is too much of it.  It doesn't feel right.  If we are happy and not abused one...two...three days...that may be more than feels right.  After a week...something is wrong.  So we act to return ourselves to the cycle of fight/argument/abuse/catharsis that we had before. 

Self-Hate

This ties so closely into the above two, that I am almost inclined not to break it out, but I think it deserves a quick mention of its own.  Self-Hate is very closely attached to self-destruction.  It is the perfection of the cycle of abuse mentioned above.

When we're very young we depend on our caregivers (usually parents) for everything.  We need the attention of our caregiver to survive.  If this care is freely given and consistent, we grow up fairly stable.  If it is sometimes present and sometimes not we develop mental issues.   Our minds seek control and a consistent universe. 

• If crying = formula, life is good.  
• If crying = formula unless the light is out life is still okay.  
• But if crying = maybe there will be formula and maybe not...we have a hard time with that loss of control.

That just keeps mushrooming through childhood.  So if parents are cyclically abusive...if a word sometimes gets a smile, and sometimes a curse.  We can't really handle that.  We have two choices and you may be surprised which one we pick.

The first is to accept that the world is beyond our control, and shrug and not care.  And the human mind is equipped to do that about as well as a dumptruck is to run in a Grand Prix race.  Which is to say "poorly or not at all."  Because just giving up and figuring things are beyond our control is not a survival trait.  If people thought that way our species would have died out.  So...as tormenting and tortuous as it seems...we seek to find a way to control the situation.

And the first element of that is to believe that it's our fault.  If it is not our fault, how can we control it.  It must be our fault and that makes us powerful.  If the reason mom sometimes doesn't pay us attention or is cruel to us is our fault, then we can control it by acting differently.  And so...the cycle of self-hate begins.

We get more information, and may understand that "mom only hates us when she is drinking," or "dad is only dismissive when he's stressed about mom being out."  But that doesn't fix the cycle that causes us to hate ourselves saying "if only we could do better...things would be okay."

The thing to understand about the cycle of self-hate is that it involves enormous frustration, because of course we can't do better and can't exert control.  It creates anxiety and that invokes the "fight flight" instinct. 

It's worth noting that fight/flight in humans isn't the same as in cheetahs or gazzelles.  Humans aren't good runners, and can't run fast and long.  The human flight instinct is to run away and *hide.*  So while the first part is panic, the second part is domancy.  In primitive times, crawl in a hole and try to stop breathing and thinking and making scent...in modern times...hide in the bedroom under the covers with the lights out. 

Depression is the actualization of human flight instincts

Fight is also not necessarily throwing sticks or stones, or even epithets.  It can be acted out as passive aggression.  And where you find Depression from self-hate induced anxiety....you'll also find Fight...most likely in the form of passive aggression.

Self hate is hard to heal and takes a lot of work.  Start by understanding and identifying episodes.  One element that can help is very strongly enforced rules and guidelines...where the slave/submissive type can *know* that a certain action will *always* get a certain result. 

This helps break up the core anxiety of uncertainty and move the current situation away from remembered abuse.

Towards an Understanding of M/s in Western Thought

With the need to manage various real-world events bearing down on me, most of my writing in the past few weeks has been in response to writing on FetLife. This started life as a post in response to a very intelligent question about M/s and inequality, suggesting that it was a division of responsibility rather than negotiated inequality. I began to enlarge on that theory and...a lot of thoughts of the past few months came pouring out, albeit in somewhat rough form.

This is not an end-all-and-be-all philosophical breakdown of M/s, but rather the core and germ of an attempt to build an understanding of M/s from a standpoint of modern thought that can serve not as a "justification and defense" but as a model for building future culture and directions. My intent in writing this is not to set forward "rules" or "laws" but rather observations about how things are and notes about correspondences and similarities that help us to see the shape of what already exists.

Nobody has impacted human thought a lot by telling people what they ought to do. People who tell you how you "ought" to behave are usually voices crying in the wilderness...I'll leave that for the Objectivists. The best thinkers have shown us what we are doing and therefore made it easier for us to choose how to do it better, or in ways that bring us or those around us greater benefits.

Towards an Understanding of M/s in Western Thought

It is my position that M/s is not a recidivist philosophy, hearkening back to the middle ages or the time of Pharoahs, but rather an extension of our growing understanding of the human mind to create lifestyles which meet our diverse emotional needs within the framework of post-enlightenment thought.

I think that the whole concept of "inequality" creates confusion, and I think it's worth digging through two and a half centuries of history to look at the evolution of the concept of equality and inequality.

The Enlightenment

Most Americans and many other people derive their concept of equality from Jefferson's assertion that "all men are created equal." The statement, in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, is a distillation of the concept of Nautral Law, which was framed in the two centuries before, notably by Hobbes and Locke.

Locke writes of "life, liberty and property," as natural rights.

In Leviathan Hobbes says:

Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science, which very few have and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto

In short, he says that while there are differences in strength and intelligence among us, they are not so great that the very greatest of us deserves to be considered something greater than the least. In talking about "prudence" Hobbes means "common sense" and he makes the...questionable assumption that with time everyone gets it equally.

So, that frames the thought of two and a half centuries ago. But the men who wrote these things did not yet understand the scientific fact of evolution, and the science of psychology did not really exist.

Post-Enlightenment

About halfway between then and now, Friedrich Nietzsche laid the groundwork for post-evolutionary post-enlightenment thought. Nietzsche was, and is controversial, but his core work cannot be disputed and is merely iconic of his period. The Enlightenment held the seeds of the rejection of the concept that all human meaning is defined in relationship to God, a looming inevitability in human thought which boils from roots in Erasmus and before through Voltaire. Neitzsche put forward in no uncertain terms the proposition that it is a disservice for us to accept the then-prevailing idea that man's life is given meaning principally by a relationship with the Divine, and that our suffering is either our "pitiful lot in life," as beings inherently inferior to God, or actually visited on us as judgment by the higher power of God.

I am not putting forward Nietzche as a "one stop philosophy source" or personal deity. I'm merely calling him out as iconic and significant in an array of human thought that includes hundreds of others, such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, and Adler. Nietzsche himself was anti-Darwinian, nobody is right about everything.

Despite the fact that some of the Nazis embraced a distorted version of Nietzsche's doctrines, he is still considered one of the most important thinkers and writers of his era, and the foundation of the world after Darwin can be seen clearly in his writing. The Atomic era only added relevance to his picture of a scientific universe.

This isn't the time or place to go into a full investigation of Nietzsche, but he puts forward several concepts that link closely with modern M/s practice, including the concept of the "Superman" and the concept of "Will to Power," both of which sound cooler in German.

The "Superman" is Nietzsche's term for what we might well call a "humanist guru." A person who has through realism and suffering arrived at "a point of enlightenment beyond and removed from the constraints of society."

"Direct experience of the harsh and impersonal nature of the universe leads to a unique understanding of reality that sets a person above and beyond the comparatively shallow belief systems and illusionary hopes of the mass of humanity."

The concept of the "will to power" at firsts contrasts with Freuds' "pleasure principle" but was central to the work of Adler and through Maslow has found its way into the core of modern psychology and our understanding of human thought.

In shortest description, it puts foward the idea that since we are self-aware beings, we can understand our control or lack of control of our environment, and that we have a central and defining need to exert control over it. This concept can be seen in modern developmental psychology as well as 19th century philosophy.

Inequality in M/s

So...what does all that have to do with M/s?

The M/s relationship is best seen through the window of the Will to Power and the needs it creates in us, as an answer to lack of equality in the individual.

I would further suggest that this view of M/s presents a philosophical core that makes us different from Eastern European or Central American sex traffickers, who may carry out actions that are superficially similar but morally and ethically different in the extreme.

To understand that, consider that a man being whipped for a crime in public and a man being flogged at a recreation of the Passion on Easter would appear identical to a visiting Alien from another world, but carry vastly different meanings for us, even though the events have some shared roots.

Perfection of Will

In M/s we create a hierarchy of will that suits the "M" and the "s" partner. The only real distincton that is shared by all M/s relationships is a subordination of will of one partner to the other.

The concept of Natural Law, that "all men are created equal" falls greiviously short of the experience of the modern world. Or we may say "they are created equal and are never thereafter equal." The "Rain Man" is not equal to his brother. But the enlightenment philosophers provided the first key...we need to see all men as of inherently equal worth...no one less important in the universal sense than another.

The problem is that we cannot live in an idealistic vacuum that denies the existence of specific inequality born of nature and nurture (our genes and our upbringing). So we need new, modern, models that respect the enlightment concept of equality in terms of universal worth, while addressing the needs of situationally unequal humans.

M/s provides a number of structures that have the potential to be healthy for certain people with certain needs. That does not mean they are right for everyone or should be visited on people who do not want or need them.

There is the presumption that those who seek Mastery are more comfortable with the Will to Power than their subordinates, whose pursuit of the Will to Power may have been frustrated. This suggests that the "M" is further along in progress towards personal enlightenment in the sense of the "Superman" than the "s," or is at least more comfortable walking on that road.

Feeling powerless is one of the most negative of human experiences. Through surrender to the "M" the "s" gets to experience the benefit of power by proxy...a feeling that through taking control of their own life and surrendering they have the benefit of the Will to Power in terms of their own protection. I consider this the very most basic level of M/s, a core on which everything else may build.

A characteristic of many M/s relationships is some form of suffering, whether through Discipline or BDSM. The very act of giving up is to some extent a "suffering," and discipline is a "suffering" through hardship and deprivation. The discipline and or suffering may expand the ability to experience enlightenment in terms of the Will to Power and the progress towards enlightenment.

Other Angles

I would add that the prevalence of kink and sexual power dynamics bridges the perceived rivalry between Adler's Power principles and Freud's Pleasure principles, showing them as closely interrelated.

There are also many couples that believe that sprituality should form a strong element of M/s tradition and teaching.

In the esoteric world, Aliester Crowley wrote in 1904 "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law," which is understood by those who study the esoteric to mean the pursuit of the concept of "True Will" not an injunction to party down and do whatever you want. The line is drawn from Rabelais, at the start of the Enlightment "Do as thou wilt, because men that are free, of gentle birth, well bred and at home in civilized company possess a natural instinct that inclines them to virtue and saves them from vice. This instinct they name their honor."

Crowley's "True Will" is similar in most regards, and probably not coincidentally (Crowley was familiar with Steiner, who wrote extensively though sometimes critically of Nietzche) with Nietzche's concept of the "Superman" enlightenment.

Through the later rephrase of "An it harm none, do what ye will" by Doreen Valiente following the general direction of Gerald Gardner in 1964, it became the "Wiccan Rede" probably the most widely adhered principle in modern esoteric tradition, and is a profound underlying concept of most modern esoteric thought.

Summary

"Equality" is an Enlightenment ideal, at odds with the Post-enlightenment experience of the real world in which birth order, socioeconomic status, trauma, and genetics produce profound inequality. M/s represents a partnering of those with a strong Will to Power and those whose Will to Power is conflicted or has been damaged to allow the fruits of equality, and the potential for an environment in which both partners can experience personal growth, whether that takes the form of healing, new growth, or both.

Brooks and Hughes attack on Sex Educators

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