INTRODUCTION TO SLAVECRAFT: Part I
INTRODUCTION: Myth of slave training
The traditional slave-training myth asserts that:
"Any self-proclaimed Master can teach a slave all she needs to know about surrender."
This myth seems to persist because there is a common belief that since many kinky people switch back and forth across the Master/slave boundary, the best teacher a slave could have is a good Dominant, who has also enjoyed submission. In my opinion, this is probably rarely true. To begin with, good teaching skills do not automatically come with being a Dominant, switch, slave or anything else for that matter. Secondly, the experience the individual has with submission may be insufficient in either quantity or quality to be of much use at all. Third, those previous experiences as a slave may be useless in guiding him in training now because the issues may be totally different from the ones the submissive is facing.
Fourth, and most importantly, even when there is adequate experience it is not at all clear that switches take all the information from one role to the other. Or when they do take information back and forth across the Dominant/submissive role boundary, they do so mostly from the neck up; it is intellectual and far less useful.
Put differently, when we switch into the other role, we may take the information with us but not the passion, which we must leave behind in order to perform honestly in the new role. I honestly doubt that a person can be in two "passion places" or "headspaces" at the same time and still do a very good job. i suspect that this may be because the information about a role only really comes to life when it is coupled with that role's passion. Without that passion to bring it to life, the information is only partially useful for slave education: like instant coffee without water.
To teach a slave about submission, especially the subtle refinements and internal processes of deep submission, the teacher must first feel the deep passion of submission itself, and/or have a truly meaningful understanding of the process behind the feelings. And the teaching must be done from that passion.
Furthermore, to most, though certainly not all Masters, "slave training" means little more to them than issuing orders and rules which may later be followed by corrections. But orders and rules are only the jumping off place in the submission process. Masters can tell us to obey but they are usually at a loss to explain to us where we are to reach down inside and find it in ourselves to do so. That's even more true whenever those commands bump up against any internal slave obstacles, encounter internal resistance, or lack of experience.
The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that very few of us are lucky enough to intuitively find these skills within ourselves early on during our slaving, without benefit of much direct explaining from anyone. For most of us who aspire to deep slavery, these abilities must either be learned by long-term trial and error, or go unlearned altogether.
It is in this spirit that i offer the following information about the process of deepening submission.
SUBMISSION:
What is submission?
Submission is an agreement i make first with myself. i decide that decisions about my behavior will be placed under the control of someone else. Someone who through experience i have found to be "worthy" and someone who knows himself or herself well. i do this because it makes me feel good, so from this point of view slavery is something i do because i like how it makes me feel - joyful, free, blissful. For me, with slavery, giving is getting.
So slavery is a paradoxical way to generate happiness by surrendering control over one's behavior to another. The act of surrendering is accomplished by following certain principles and using the tools of submission implied by those principles. Understanding the principles and using the tools is the real work of slavery. Once a slave can do that, cleaning the toilet is easy.
The work of slavery, however, does not "show" for the most part because it happens in our minds, our hearts, our guts. It must first be done internally. Only when the work of slavery is first done inside the slave's mind can it ever be witnessed externally when a slave is observed serving a Master.
OBEDIENCE:
There are few things more important to submission than the principle of obedience. It is important for each of us to learn how to actually be what we know we are...slaves...and since slaves, ideally, do what Masters want them to do...we must first become accomplished at obedience to honor the role of slave.
It is probably safe to say that very often the goal for slaves who have given themselves to a Master....is that obedience becomes absolute, automatic, instinctive, and immediate, given the limitations of our bodies. This is a process wherein the slave gives up her inclination to challenge the Master's authority (an act which is actually challenging the relationship, itself) until only the act of obedience remains.
Obedience can become much more than just following orders....This can happen when a slave comes to understand that a Master’s order is an opportunity to demonstrate to Him the sincerity of the slave’s craving for surrender; that it is her privilege to bring the Master pleasure by obedience. In submission to her Master’s will is the slave’s only hope of finding true bliss. Each order is her chance to show gratitude for His attention, and the slave’s respect and/or love for Him at that moment. So even the smallest order becomes an act of submission, a renewal of love....kneeling quietly while Master talks, going to bed at a certain time, greeting His boot in a certain way....all these are ways to show obedience, and demonstrate our submission....and our love.
SLAVE IDENTITY AND RECENTERING:
Ideally, a slave is a person who always knows who and what she is--a slave first, and anyone or anything else second. Whenever the slave identity begins to feel distant from me for whatever reason - maybe i'm tired, maybe He doesn't want anything from me right then, maybe we're involved in some mundane task - "identity drift" can sometimes creep over me. By that i mean that sometimes slaves can drift away from their slave identity.
He has been generous enough to have given me some symbols that help keep me centered, such as his collar; in addition, He often keeps me nude, i wear the hair that i know he prefers. Because we are not always together i sometimes catch myself drifting when we are apart. And if the drift is more serious than touching His collar around my neck will correct, then i must use stronger, more articulate tools to become re-centered.
When the slave identity has drifted off center, she may find that obeying an order can feel like drudgery. Warning signs that this has happened include feelings of resentment or a declining mood....getting "bitchy" or "moody." Certainly there are things that the Dominant can do to help her to get back, centered...but i want to talk briefly about what the slave, herself, can do to refocus and give herself an "attitude adjustment." i call it "recentering" myself.
There are many ways you can go about recentering your thoughts and bringing back into focus the feelings of submission that pave the way for obedience. In the book, "SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude" there is a mantra that i am including part of here, as an example of what a girl might do as i think the principle is sound:
"What are you doing?"
"i am at work."
"And why do you work?"
"i work because there is joy to be found in my labour."
"And how do you find it?"
"i find joy by reminding myself that my labour pleasures my Master, and that obedience is a cornerstone of my identity."
"And why is that important?"
"It is important because when He is pleased, i am at peace, and when i obey, i am at peace."
What i do is either actually emote kissing my Master's boot, if he is around...or spend some concentrated time thinking about the varied sensations and thoughts associated with that boot kissing. i started doing this early on when i was distressed about some feeling or thought i was having...it seemed to help me to refocus my thoughts, my entire being, on what is important, pleasing my Master.
Here's what i do....
i focus on all the feelings, physical sensations, and thoughts that come to mind when i kiss my Master's boot in greeting. For example, the scent of the leather overlaid with the scent of the polish/wax....or the feel of the grain under my lips as i press them to the boot leather....or the feeling in the pit of my stomach when i consider his total ownership of me as demonstrated by my kiss of his boot....and i consider what those feelings mean to me, to my entire existence, they mean that i am owned, controlled, possessed...and safe.
TRANSPARENCY:
Transparency is "openness." A Master cannot exercise ownership over what he does not know; i believe that he cannot Master me if i am hiding from him in any way. In fact, to the degree that i am hiding from him, i am not surrendering to Him. The capacity within me for secrecy has become my enemy, my slavery is compromised by any obscurity within myself. He can see my body and can take and use it for His toy, but He cannot see within my mind unless it is transparent - open to him. And it is my job to make and keep it transparent.
When i have thoughts or feelings that i suspect he will want to hear about, i will probably wait for an opportune moment and then ask something like, "May i speak with you, Master, about some thoughts i've had." Perhaps i will suggest, "would You like to hear them now, later, or not at all?"
Transparency is not a two-way street. Privacy is one of a Master's rights and priveleges. Yet, often after i have become more forthcoming, i have noticed that my Master may become more forthcoming, also. It's almost as if transparency is contagious. Perhaps They feel safer when in the presence of such mental vulnerability as transparency generates. i don't know. I do know that the feeling of intimacy such transparency generates feels very good to me.
To make transparency work, one technique is to assign part of my mind the role of "watch dog." That part of my mind has the task of monitoring my inner, mental life. When the watchdog notices that i am witholding something he sounds an alarm. When the alarm sounds, turning your attention to the information or feelings that you are hiding. You may not always get the complete answers from inside yourself right away. Sometimes you may only be able to detect a piece of the hidden information and you may not know why you want to keep it secret.
About 90% of the time the hiding and secrecy are about fear, plain and simple: fear that He will think me disloyal, stupid, without ethics, shallow, vain, self-important, arrogant, mean-spirited or what have you. Most of the rest of the time it is shame of some sort or another. You must learn to trust that even if you are all of those things, they only make you human with human failings, your Master will love and accept you anyway, sometimes, even, because of them. And the more He accepts you for what you are, the more completely you become His.
HUMILITY:
The principle of humility is an easy proposition for some and a hard one for others. This is because we were raised in the world of human where we learned to desire credit or recognition for a job well done. We are taught that it is a good thing to be proud of who we are, our talents, our ambitions, and many other things as well. We learn that seeking attention through achievement of worthy goals is a good thing.
Humility takes great inner strength; it takes strength to overcome all the human training that teaches us to be proud, vain, and self-important.
Among other things, slavery is about selflessness. Without the selflessness that comes with humility, as a slave, you will encounter all sorts of difficulties. When we are prideful, we can find ourselves competing both with and for Master's attention. We may find ourselves manipulating people and situations in the hope of coming to Master's attention. When we slave with a humble attitude, the gift of our service and pleasuring is uncontaminated with pride.
The Master we serve becomes the center of our universe. For this to happen, we must first take ourselves out of the center of our world to make room for Master around whom our lives may then revolve.
For many slavery is a spiritual path, and finding one's way along such a path is made smoother without pride; it is for me, so i work to cultivate its neutralizing opposite - humility.
For me, the cultivation of humility begins, i think, with careful observation of my external behavior and the internal motives for that behavior. Any time and every time my motives for my behavior are about me, my insecurities, my doubts, my neediness, my ego, my satisfaction, my vanity, my fear, then i am very far from the goal of humility.
Progress is the objective here, not perfection. The slave who is perfected in humility would not know it, for the conscious thought of perfection in one's self is prideful and therefore not humble. And so, the first step in the direction of humility is self-awareness...not self-preoccupation.
It may be helpful for you to build into your daily life a series of rituals that are designed to help you to become less a less prideful and arrogant person and, hopefully, a better slave. The following is a list of little rituals that you might use:
- try not to attract attention
- try to put one's self last in situations where it is practical and unobtrusive to do so; always being last in line can attract attention, too. Sometimes the middle of the line can be less conspicuous.
- try to leave the most comfortable accommodation free for others to enjoy. Attend to the comfort of others first.
- put the Master ahead of yourself, unless he wishes otherwise.
- try not to be grand, arrogant, or loud.
- avoid activities that might generate pride.
One of the paths to humility that is even more powerful than ritual reinforcements is obedience, because to be truly obedient is a genuinely humbling thing. To me, humility seems impossible to me without obedience.
SUMMARY AND CLOSING:
It is hoped that the forgoing is helpful to those wishing to deepen their slavery. i have tried to briefly illuminate the processes through which one may find the skills necessary for deep surrender to their Master.
We've discussed the paradox of submission, the importance of obedience to submission, how getting in touch with one's slave identity and learning to recenter oneself facilitates this process, as well as the essential nature of transparency in the Master/slave relationship. We've actually barely touched on these concepts but perhaps, by solidifying their importance to slavecraft, you will be motivated to learn more and to develop the skills necessary to achieve deep submission.
Thank you for coming and participating today.
The traditional slave-training myth asserts that:
"Any self-proclaimed Master can teach a slave all she needs to know about surrender."
This myth seems to persist because there is a common belief that since many kinky people switch back and forth across the Master/slave boundary, the best teacher a slave could have is a good Dominant, who has also enjoyed submission. In my opinion, this is probably rarely true. To begin with, good teaching skills do not automatically come with being a Dominant, switch, slave or anything else for that matter. Secondly, the experience the individual has with submission may be insufficient in either quantity or quality to be of much use at all. Third, those previous experiences as a slave may be useless in guiding him in training now because the issues may be totally different from the ones the submissive is facing.
Fourth, and most importantly, even when there is adequate experience it is not at all clear that switches take all the information from one role to the other. Or when they do take information back and forth across the Dominant/submissive role boundary, they do so mostly from the neck up; it is intellectual and far less useful.
Put differently, when we switch into the other role, we may take the information with us but not the passion, which we must leave behind in order to perform honestly in the new role. I honestly doubt that a person can be in two "passion places" or "headspaces" at the same time and still do a very good job. i suspect that this may be because the information about a role only really comes to life when it is coupled with that role's passion. Without that passion to bring it to life, the information is only partially useful for slave education: like instant coffee without water.
To teach a slave about submission, especially the subtle refinements and internal processes of deep submission, the teacher must first feel the deep passion of submission itself, and/or have a truly meaningful understanding of the process behind the feelings. And the teaching must be done from that passion.
Furthermore, to most, though certainly not all Masters, "slave training" means little more to them than issuing orders and rules which may later be followed by corrections. But orders and rules are only the jumping off place in the submission process. Masters can tell us to obey but they are usually at a loss to explain to us where we are to reach down inside and find it in ourselves to do so. That's even more true whenever those commands bump up against any internal slave obstacles, encounter internal resistance, or lack of experience.
The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that very few of us are lucky enough to intuitively find these skills within ourselves early on during our slaving, without benefit of much direct explaining from anyone. For most of us who aspire to deep slavery, these abilities must either be learned by long-term trial and error, or go unlearned altogether.
It is in this spirit that i offer the following information about the process of deepening submission.
SUBMISSION:
What is submission?
Submission is an agreement i make first with myself. i decide that decisions about my behavior will be placed under the control of someone else. Someone who through experience i have found to be "worthy" and someone who knows himself or herself well. i do this because it makes me feel good, so from this point of view slavery is something i do because i like how it makes me feel - joyful, free, blissful. For me, with slavery, giving is getting.
So slavery is a paradoxical way to generate happiness by surrendering control over one's behavior to another. The act of surrendering is accomplished by following certain principles and using the tools of submission implied by those principles. Understanding the principles and using the tools is the real work of slavery. Once a slave can do that, cleaning the toilet is easy.
The work of slavery, however, does not "show" for the most part because it happens in our minds, our hearts, our guts. It must first be done internally. Only when the work of slavery is first done inside the slave's mind can it ever be witnessed externally when a slave is observed serving a Master.
OBEDIENCE:
There are few things more important to submission than the principle of obedience. It is important for each of us to learn how to actually be what we know we are...slaves...and since slaves, ideally, do what Masters want them to do...we must first become accomplished at obedience to honor the role of slave.
It is probably safe to say that very often the goal for slaves who have given themselves to a Master....is that obedience becomes absolute, automatic, instinctive, and immediate, given the limitations of our bodies. This is a process wherein the slave gives up her inclination to challenge the Master's authority (an act which is actually challenging the relationship, itself) until only the act of obedience remains.
Obedience can become much more than just following orders....This can happen when a slave comes to understand that a Master’s order is an opportunity to demonstrate to Him the sincerity of the slave’s craving for surrender; that it is her privilege to bring the Master pleasure by obedience. In submission to her Master’s will is the slave’s only hope of finding true bliss. Each order is her chance to show gratitude for His attention, and the slave’s respect and/or love for Him at that moment. So even the smallest order becomes an act of submission, a renewal of love....kneeling quietly while Master talks, going to bed at a certain time, greeting His boot in a certain way....all these are ways to show obedience, and demonstrate our submission....and our love.
SLAVE IDENTITY AND RECENTERING:
Ideally, a slave is a person who always knows who and what she is--a slave first, and anyone or anything else second. Whenever the slave identity begins to feel distant from me for whatever reason - maybe i'm tired, maybe He doesn't want anything from me right then, maybe we're involved in some mundane task - "identity drift" can sometimes creep over me. By that i mean that sometimes slaves can drift away from their slave identity.
He has been generous enough to have given me some symbols that help keep me centered, such as his collar; in addition, He often keeps me nude, i wear the hair that i know he prefers. Because we are not always together i sometimes catch myself drifting when we are apart. And if the drift is more serious than touching His collar around my neck will correct, then i must use stronger, more articulate tools to become re-centered.
When the slave identity has drifted off center, she may find that obeying an order can feel like drudgery. Warning signs that this has happened include feelings of resentment or a declining mood....getting "bitchy" or "moody." Certainly there are things that the Dominant can do to help her to get back, centered...but i want to talk briefly about what the slave, herself, can do to refocus and give herself an "attitude adjustment." i call it "recentering" myself.
There are many ways you can go about recentering your thoughts and bringing back into focus the feelings of submission that pave the way for obedience. In the book, "SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude" there is a mantra that i am including part of here, as an example of what a girl might do as i think the principle is sound:
"What are you doing?"
"i am at work."
"And why do you work?"
"i work because there is joy to be found in my labour."
"And how do you find it?"
"i find joy by reminding myself that my labour pleasures my Master, and that obedience is a cornerstone of my identity."
"And why is that important?"
"It is important because when He is pleased, i am at peace, and when i obey, i am at peace."
What i do is either actually emote kissing my Master's boot, if he is around...or spend some concentrated time thinking about the varied sensations and thoughts associated with that boot kissing. i started doing this early on when i was distressed about some feeling or thought i was having...it seemed to help me to refocus my thoughts, my entire being, on what is important, pleasing my Master.
Here's what i do....
i focus on all the feelings, physical sensations, and thoughts that come to mind when i kiss my Master's boot in greeting. For example, the scent of the leather overlaid with the scent of the polish/wax....or the feel of the grain under my lips as i press them to the boot leather....or the feeling in the pit of my stomach when i consider his total ownership of me as demonstrated by my kiss of his boot....and i consider what those feelings mean to me, to my entire existence, they mean that i am owned, controlled, possessed...and safe.
TRANSPARENCY:
Transparency is "openness." A Master cannot exercise ownership over what he does not know; i believe that he cannot Master me if i am hiding from him in any way. In fact, to the degree that i am hiding from him, i am not surrendering to Him. The capacity within me for secrecy has become my enemy, my slavery is compromised by any obscurity within myself. He can see my body and can take and use it for His toy, but He cannot see within my mind unless it is transparent - open to him. And it is my job to make and keep it transparent.
When i have thoughts or feelings that i suspect he will want to hear about, i will probably wait for an opportune moment and then ask something like, "May i speak with you, Master, about some thoughts i've had." Perhaps i will suggest, "would You like to hear them now, later, or not at all?"
Transparency is not a two-way street. Privacy is one of a Master's rights and priveleges. Yet, often after i have become more forthcoming, i have noticed that my Master may become more forthcoming, also. It's almost as if transparency is contagious. Perhaps They feel safer when in the presence of such mental vulnerability as transparency generates. i don't know. I do know that the feeling of intimacy such transparency generates feels very good to me.
To make transparency work, one technique is to assign part of my mind the role of "watch dog." That part of my mind has the task of monitoring my inner, mental life. When the watchdog notices that i am witholding something he sounds an alarm. When the alarm sounds, turning your attention to the information or feelings that you are hiding. You may not always get the complete answers from inside yourself right away. Sometimes you may only be able to detect a piece of the hidden information and you may not know why you want to keep it secret.
About 90% of the time the hiding and secrecy are about fear, plain and simple: fear that He will think me disloyal, stupid, without ethics, shallow, vain, self-important, arrogant, mean-spirited or what have you. Most of the rest of the time it is shame of some sort or another. You must learn to trust that even if you are all of those things, they only make you human with human failings, your Master will love and accept you anyway, sometimes, even, because of them. And the more He accepts you for what you are, the more completely you become His.
HUMILITY:
The principle of humility is an easy proposition for some and a hard one for others. This is because we were raised in the world of human where we learned to desire credit or recognition for a job well done. We are taught that it is a good thing to be proud of who we are, our talents, our ambitions, and many other things as well. We learn that seeking attention through achievement of worthy goals is a good thing.
Humility takes great inner strength; it takes strength to overcome all the human training that teaches us to be proud, vain, and self-important.
Among other things, slavery is about selflessness. Without the selflessness that comes with humility, as a slave, you will encounter all sorts of difficulties. When we are prideful, we can find ourselves competing both with and for Master's attention. We may find ourselves manipulating people and situations in the hope of coming to Master's attention. When we slave with a humble attitude, the gift of our service and pleasuring is uncontaminated with pride.
The Master we serve becomes the center of our universe. For this to happen, we must first take ourselves out of the center of our world to make room for Master around whom our lives may then revolve.
For many slavery is a spiritual path, and finding one's way along such a path is made smoother without pride; it is for me, so i work to cultivate its neutralizing opposite - humility.
For me, the cultivation of humility begins, i think, with careful observation of my external behavior and the internal motives for that behavior. Any time and every time my motives for my behavior are about me, my insecurities, my doubts, my neediness, my ego, my satisfaction, my vanity, my fear, then i am very far from the goal of humility.
Progress is the objective here, not perfection. The slave who is perfected in humility would not know it, for the conscious thought of perfection in one's self is prideful and therefore not humble. And so, the first step in the direction of humility is self-awareness...not self-preoccupation.
It may be helpful for you to build into your daily life a series of rituals that are designed to help you to become less a less prideful and arrogant person and, hopefully, a better slave. The following is a list of little rituals that you might use:
- try not to attract attention
- try to put one's self last in situations where it is practical and unobtrusive to do so; always being last in line can attract attention, too. Sometimes the middle of the line can be less conspicuous.
- try to leave the most comfortable accommodation free for others to enjoy. Attend to the comfort of others first.
- put the Master ahead of yourself, unless he wishes otherwise.
- try not to be grand, arrogant, or loud.
- avoid activities that might generate pride.
One of the paths to humility that is even more powerful than ritual reinforcements is obedience, because to be truly obedient is a genuinely humbling thing. To me, humility seems impossible to me without obedience.
SUMMARY AND CLOSING:
It is hoped that the forgoing is helpful to those wishing to deepen their slavery. i have tried to briefly illuminate the processes through which one may find the skills necessary for deep surrender to their Master.
We've discussed the paradox of submission, the importance of obedience to submission, how getting in touch with one's slave identity and learning to recenter oneself facilitates this process, as well as the essential nature of transparency in the Master/slave relationship. We've actually barely touched on these concepts but perhaps, by solidifying their importance to slavecraft, you will be motivated to learn more and to develop the skills necessary to achieve deep submission.
Thank you for coming and participating today.
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