ishyB
Posts: 555
Joined: 9/2/2008
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Greetings kushiels,
*warning, long post ahead, brevity is not one of my virtuous, especially not when I wish to be clear on a topic as complicated as this one.*
the instincts anna named are a good example of involuntary reactions humans might have.
What a man does when he masters a woman, and compels her to bend to his will is play into whatever involuntary reactions he can.
In a context of involuntary (legal) slavery, the most obvious of these is "fear".
A legal owner will ensure a slave's obedience by making them fear punishment.
If you can keep a human in a state where they know that disobedience will have sever negative consequences, a lot of them (though not all) will start responding in such a way as if obeying is their only choice.
This is obviously not true though, seeing that we always, in all situations, have a choice... even if that choice is accepting the negative consequences for disobedience.
Thus, even in a situation of legal slavery, one can do what the owner says (or not do what the owner says) based on making the CHOICE of doing so. (For instance, complying with what is demanded of them, to meanwhile make planning an escape easier.)
If one, however, responds as if obedience IS the only choice (in a legal context because one looses the hope of ever gaining freedom), then one is obeying the commands, instead of making a personal choice.
Note that it is therefore possible to be legally enslaved, while meanwhile remaining "free" on a mental level.
Now when it comes to voluntary slavery, playing on the fear response is usually not the preferable course of action.
Instead, what most seem to do is bind the girl to them emotionally to such a degree that the girl cannot imagine living without the owner.
The very basis of consensual slavery is that the girl must be absolutely unable to imagine herself living without him, and the man must be absolutely unwilling to compromise on what he wants from her in order to have her.
When this bond is established, obedience is easily enforces if the man puts forward the idea: "the only way you will be allowed to remain with me (the one you need) is by doing what I say."
If the girl is so in love with him, and has such a need for him, that she cannot imagine living without him as being a reasonable choice to make, then she will respond to his will as if she has no choice at all. She will no longer choose to do what he says; instead, she will obey him.
Of course, in the legal sense, she will always have a choice; technically she can walk away from him.
But her heart has become so enthralled by her need for him that she no longer perceives this as a choice.
In a situation like this, the man will rarely have to enforce physical discipline to actually punish an errant slave. Instead, the act of displeasing him in itself becomes her biggest fear, because she knows that if she displeases him on an ongoing and consistent basis he will not want to keep her as his slave.
He doesn't even have to state this, as a threat, or a warning, or anything like that, but it IS very important that they BOTH know that the very basis of their relationship is that she is only allowed to remain his by her continued obedience.
This is also the reason why a Gorean saying is that "only a fool loves a slave."
This is not to say that it's impossible for Gorean men to love, or deeply care for slave girls, but more a warning that if he falls in love with her, and particularly if she knows he has fallen for her, it will usually undermine the idea the she is only allowed to remain his by her ongoing obedience.
After all, if he comes to love her, then maybe that means that he becomes to need her as well, thus become unwilling or unable to enforce her absolute obedience any longer (again loving a slave doesn't mean that's impossible for a man to enforce obedience, but it does make it harder in some situations.)
In a lot of instances relationships based on mastery seem (in my opinion) to have a distinct evolution when it comes to "compliance based on obedience" versus "compliance based on making the choice to comply".
In the beginning of such a relationship, before the love-bond is established, the girl will comply with the will of the man not because she needs him, but because she wants him, and wants to be his slave. She will weigh her options (obeying him and being his versus disobeying him and not being his) and will choose to do what he wants because she wants to be his.
At this point in their relationship, should he demand something of her that goes directly against her sense of morals or ethics, she will basically decide that he's "not worth it after all" and disobey and walk away.
A lot of M/s couples, as far as I can tell, never get passed this state, even if they are together for years (and the only reason they remain together for years is because he never orders her to do something that goes against her own moral and ethical code.)
A step further in the process is the point where the girl comes to need him for whatever reason, be it love, fear, financial comfort, safety (think about women in war zones), because of their children, etcetera, to the degree that she feels leaving him simply isn't an option. (Incidentally, I think this is also the state of mind that many women who stay in abusive vanilla relationships have. At the same time, it is also the state that many vanilla lovers are in, though their relationship is different, because it is not based on the expectation of a one-sided obedience.)
At this point, when she complies with his will, she is no longer making the choice to do so, instead she is obeying because she absolutely, categorically perceives to have no other choice. Even if she disagrees with his commands, or it goes against her whole sense of right/wrong, or she fears obeying because of the consequences, or she doesn't want to obey... she still will, because she has lost the perspective that there is any other choice but obeying.
This is sometimes called "internal enslavement", but I have also heard it referred to as "brain washing", "Stockholm-syndrome", or "abusive mind control", the later most often when the relationship was abusive in nature, the former when the relationship was positive.
At this point, the legalities of her ability to leave basically become irrelevant, because she is unable to revoke them on a mental level ~ she is mentally enslaved by him.
I hope that makes a little sense... and that you're still awake. 
I wish you well,
ishy
Edited to add: BTW, I don't consider either state of relationship to be "better" or "more real" and so on then the other one. As long as both partners are happy within the framework of their relationship, the details of its working really are irrelevant to me. The only benefit I see in clearly distinguishing and labeling both types of "slavery" is for the purpose of easing intellectual debate about them... which makes labeling them pretty irrelevant in the grander scheme of things...
< Message edited by ishyB -- 3/8/2010 9:03:32 AM >
_____________________________
I want you to know that it doesn't matter where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
and I want you to know you couldn't have loved me better
But I wanted to move on
So I'm already gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoJFn_RIdkg
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RE: slaves thread: support and girlie time - 
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) But the way it reads to me is the following: 
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