Illusions and realities

December 13, 2008

Illusions and realities

Lots of other sub bloggers have been writing about the 'illusion' of slavery and D/s relationships recently, kicked off i believe by kaya's sudden and surprising post that she and her Master had stopped being M/s due to her discovering a hard limit that she would not go against for Him. If you read kaya's blog you'll know that the situation is more complex than that, but it did start off an interesting chain-reaction among other bloggers, with lots of subs seeming to be of the opinion that if a 'solid' BDSM relationship like kaya's and her Master's could suddenly fall apart over one issue, then surely so could anyone's and therefore the fundations of D/s relationships in general are based on illusion and only work so long as both people keep investing in that pretence. i have been mulling this whole issue over for a while, and feel ready to post my own opinion on it now:

Firstly i don't go along with the whole 'illusion' idea. What me and Sir have is a relationship choice, structured the way we want it, and yes we both have to keep up our roles in it in order to make it work, but that doesn't make it an illusion. We both know that the D/s will only work so long as we keep to our sides of the bargain and act towards each other in the ways we have agreed, but surely that's the same for any relationship? In a traditional vanilla marriage, the man and woman make an agreement about how they will treat each other and there is a shared understanding about what being married means (normally things like being monogonous and not having sex with/kissing/flirting with other people, etc, etc.) But there is actually nothing to stop one or other of the people going against that agreement and suddenly deciding to sleep around with whoever they feel like. In most cases that would destroy the relationship, but it doesn't mean that marriage itself is an illusion, only existing as long as both people keep up the pretence and act in certain pre-agreed ways, it just means that there is a 'contract' that they agreed to, which if broken threatens the entire basis of the relationship. The same as in a D/s relationship, though the terms of the 'contract' there may be very different.

And when you come to think of it, the way society functions in general is based on agreements between people on how they will act towards each other, and what roles people will play in each 'relationship' - be that employee and boss, mother and daughter, teacher and student, doctor and patient. It doesn't mean that any of those relationships are an illusion, it just means that all relationships depend by their very nature on the participants behaving in an agreed fashion and adhering to prescribed roles. Any deviance from those roles makes the relationship break down and cease to function. And sometimes that is done on purpose, and sometimes not, just as in BDSM dynamics. Sometimes people decide they don't want to be in that relationship anymore, and sometimes they realise that type of relationship is not for them - but that's definitely not exclusive to D/s relationships, it happens with every type of human relationship in general. So i don't go along with the BDSM illusion thing, unless people also accept that all ways of relating to each other are also based on the same type of illusion.

That's just my take on it, but it makes sense to me - i'd welcome any comments people might have, though.