Definitions – so what is a BDSM Slave?

Article revised – 31 January 2013:

 

I have stopped taking answers to the first poll on this definition today (145 people voted), but you can see the results below – they show:

• 72% thought the definition was accurate and appropriate
• 26% thought it required further work
• 3% thought it inaccurate or inappropriate

No-one has commented said why they think the original definition (see below) needed further work. I’d really welcome people’s views. But here is a go at a revised definition anyway:

“A BDSM slave is a person who has given informed consent to continuing voluntary submission, without limit, to another. The person owning the slave has all the rights of ownership whilst that consent exists”

I realise that this definition is controversial because many say that BDSM slavery is different to continuing voluntary submission and that, through internal enslavement, a state is reached where a person is so in thrall to another that not only do limits not exist, but the person’s ability to leave their state of slavery is lost too. But I am putting it forward as a discussion point and, I guess it is closer to my idea of consensual BDSM slavery too – please tell me what you think by using the poll immediately below – and by commenting if you can. Thank you.

Original post

I started a thread on “Informed consent“, to discuss this. It got a little distracted by discussion of whether trying to define anything was at all useful, but hey ho!

At the start of the debate, this was the definition I proposed:

“A person who has freely consented to defer to the will of another, without limit, within a relationship that is intended to last as long as free consent exists between the persons’ involved.”

This differed from my view of submission principally in that it’s my belief that a slave gives submission without limits.

By the end of the thread, my views had been changed and the definition I am happy with for now is as follows:

“.A BDSM slave is a person who has given informed consent to being owned by another. The slave is only such whilst owned and the person owning the slave is entitled to all the rights of ownership whilst that consent exists.

I don’t think this is bottomed out yet. But, I think I now understand why a lot of the Ownership and Possession (O&P) manifesto seems so very appropriate for this kind of relationship.

Have you any further thoughts – please do comment if you do! I promise not to hide anything (except spam)

Helpful Links

The following links may be helpful if you are thinking of responding to this thread:

• IC dictionary definition of slave
• Wikipedia article on Master/slave relationships
• 2004 article on differences between a sub and a slave
• 2008 article on different types of submissive
• 2008 article from “taken in hand

Feel free to add your own citations too.

Related articles

• Definitions in general and submission in BDSM in particular (belasarius.com)