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We dont need to have a parade with our respective colored-coded  feathers in our caps so that everyone knows who is a bottom, a subbie, a dominant, a master.  If you need to explian it, explain it the same way you would explain anything else to a person that they're not familiar with.  If you needed to explain marriage to someone, you would explian your idea of it, then you would have to say "but thats just my way.  Not everyone's marriage works like this".  Im not sure why we feel we need our very own labels.  I mean..yeah we need some general terms when talking amongst ourselve so we know which end of the power exchange we are on, but thats about it.  When I was married, I never met anyone for the first time who had the need to ask me what my marriage meant to me or how I defined marriage.  I cant imagine than any non-bdsmer that I meet will have to need or frankly even care to have me explain to them my definitions of a top vs dom vs master.  Good lord, people, we're not special.  

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it's rare that you'd see a *dom* saying that he's a *submissive*, for instance.

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ORIGINAL: amayos

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ORIGINAL: HollyS

Marriages take a million different forms and I invite anyone on this board to tell me exactly how marriage should look for a couple to be allowed to use that label.

[...] We aren't talking about cars and camels - the concepts surrounding D/s relationships are not so different from each other.

Indeed, it has nothing to do with cars, planes, trains or buses...or marriage, for that matter. Marriage is a social institution—a formal, culturally recognized union between one male or more and one female or more. The social engineering of modernity redefines it to include same-sex couples, too. Regardless, marriage, by its very definition, is a general term to include many social, ethnic or religious practices, just as the BDSM acronym is a general term to include a variety of specific acts and lifestyles. Terms like master and slave, while still bearing some wiggle room for interpretation and method, are far more precise.

This has nothing to do with trying to own a word. We needn't try. The universalities of many of the terms used (or misused) do not stop within the limits of the BDSM underworld—they in fact, pre-date it. A Master of Mistress may marry a slave, but the two forms of interrelation—husband and wife and Master/Mistress and slave—are not synonymous; they are two separate designations, which may or may not co-exist. The suggestion that they are comparable, even in philosophical argument, is an excellent example of how I feel the terms have become muddled and misunderstood. Granted, what I write here is ultimately an opinion, but one formed strongly of literary and experiential observation.

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ORIGINAL: ShiftedJewel

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it's rare that you'd see a *dom* saying that he's a *submissive*, for instance.

Wanna bet? Ask a bunch of female dominants... I personally have received quite a few proposals from men telling me how submissive they are yet their profile says male dominant.
 
Jewel

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ORIGINAL: agirl

Fast reply.

A couple of things..........One is that, as Celeste and marietoo said ( I think)  getting hurt has a lot more to do with lack of communication (maybe from both sides) than from a label itself.

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ORIGINAL: marieToo

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ORIGINAL: agirl

Fast reply.

A couple of things..........One is that, as Celeste and marietoo said ( I think)  getting hurt has a lot more to do with lack of communication (maybe from both sides) than from a label itself.

 
yes, exactly, agirl.  I think that relying on the labels instead of relying on communication and intuition, is more dangerous than danger itself.

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There ARE definitions that are useful as a basic guide and they are used.........it's rare that you'd see a *dom* saying that he's a *submissive*, for instance.

 
Agreed. I too use these terms in these forums or around others who engage in wiitwd, because it's a starting point in showing one's orientation.  I use the terms very loosely to show say the difference between the dominant party (master, dominant) and the submissive party (sub slave).   If you don't speak the language of the country, no one will understand.  As long as I know that the context that the term is being taken in is correct, Im ok with utilizing these terms as such.  Its when we try to define them for everyone that the problem comes in.  I mean...in my mind..hell yeah...I have an exact idea of what slavery is.   But who am I?  I certainly am not here to tell someone that they're not a slave or not a top or whatever it is they chose to self-identify as.  And the fact that no matter what, people will always have their own interpretations of these terms,  makes me even more sure that we shouldnt rely on them for some kind of acid test of what/whom we are getting involved with.  

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In the OP, the examples sited were more about *lack of communication*  than about *labels*.

 
They may be legitimate examples, but each of them could be avoided with common sense.

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have seen a LOT of people getting into things that they aren't prepared for, from *lack of communication* over time, lack of awareness or from deception ( self, or otherwise for whatever reason).

 
Yes.  I would imagine this statement would apply to just about any important decision that anyone makes regarding anything in life.  Im not ashamed to admit myself, that Ive learned my most important lessons in the hardest possible ways. And I would say that this is true, not because I lacked specific definitions, but because of the decisions that I chose to make, the things that I chose to ignore, overlook, embrace or deny.  All mine to own;  the good the bad and the indifferent.  I wish I could blame it on not having a labeling system, but that would be pretty lame on my part.  

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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I appreciate having general definitions, I have read them , seen them enough times to have a grasp of them as a basic zero point. The dullest *newbie* could find them and get a basic grasp too. You can't factor in someone's common-sense when exploring this. It hasn't taken a great deal of discernment for me to know the general orientation of the people that interact in this forum, almost ALL use a basic label.

agirl

 
I have had very little trouble communication my desires to dominant men when I was looking and my label seemed to be understood by the vast majority of them. That is the whole point in my mind, words are supposed to translate a concept to another person, so if my words are adequately transmitting the concepts I wanted to communicate then I must be using the "right ones" to describe my reality..

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spanklette:  Hmmm....I wonder if I was the gunman on the grassy knoll too?

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ORIGINAL: twicehappy

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ORIGINAL: catize

First, I have interpreted your goal as not just 'definitions as starting points' but more as a campaign to create final, immutable definitions for terms within the lifestyle; that you believe it is necessary to have a majority rule regarding use of these terms; that only the definitions which have been agreed upon by the community are valid.Is my interpretation in error?

I00 % wrong at that.