 |
Main site page
The largest section of the site
More essays and weblog posts
Definitions and pointers to more information
Answers to common questions & objections
Analytical approaches to D/s or Psychology
Other TPE and IE resources
Aims and background
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
The
O&P website and blog,
forums,
and wiki
are where most of my new writing on M/s appears. The IE website will stay
online indefinitely to host the IE Essays and lili's writings.
|
Frequently Asked Questions about Internal Enslavement
|
|
|
What is Internal Enslavement?
|
| | |
Internal Enslavement ("IE")
is a collection of ideas about how to take
ownership of a slave, in a consensual context (ie where the
submissive to be enslaved consents at the start of the process.)
|
| | |
IE has grown out of the Master/slave subculture, which is
part of the Dominance and
submission aspect of BDSM by definition. However, there are a lot
of differences between a relationship that is pursuing Enslavement,
and most BDSM relationships or scenes: in particular, the master
has to shoulder a lot more responsibility than a Top does in a BDSM
scene lasting an hour or two.
|
| | |
Many people in the M/s subculture have been intuitively using the ideas
of IE for years. We make no claim that all of IE is an original
discovery: all we're doing is describing it and trying to put it on
firm theoretical foundations.
|
|
How much of this applies to male submissives?
|
| | |
This website concentrated on relationships involving female
submissives and slaves due to the limits of our experience.
Most of the material on this website was written between 2000
and 2003, and after that time many people, of all orientations,
subsequently described their M/s relationships in terms of IE, on the
open IE web boards we set up on
The Slave Register.
|
|
How are you defining "slave" then?
|
| | |
One of the key concepts of IE is the literal slave: this is just the
everyday definition of "slave"
that everyone grows up with, and it
doesn't include the roleplay slaves you sometimes meet elsewhere in
BDSM. For example, this is from the definition of "slave" in
the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary:
"One who is the property of, and entirely subject to another
person, whether by capture, purchase or birth; a servant completely
divested of freedom and personal rights." When we say
"slave", we mean literal slave, defined in this way.
|
|
Can't people just decide for themselves what they are?
|
| | |
No one is stopping people in other types of relationship calling
themselves anything they like. However, if they're not literal slaves
then we do not see how they can reasonably claim to be such (rather
than making perfectly accurate statements that they like to be treated
as a slave, to serve as a slave, to roleplay life
as a slave or whatever other aspect of the idea of slavery they enjoy.)
|
|
But how can you claim that literal slavery is possible?
|
| | |
The Enslavement Hypothesis is that there are submissives who
have an overwhelming need to be owned by a dominant.
Given the right environment, the submissive can be coaxed out from
behind the protective walls she has built during her life and made to
expose all of her Self to her master. Among other things this
requires that he creates an environment which is emotionally safe
and in which her underlying character will be accepted, probably
for the first time in her life. During this process, the bond
between the submissive and her master becomes sufficiently strong
that she can no longer break it herself, and she has then been
enslaved.
|
|
So it's all done by the submissive?
|
| | |
Not at all: the process of enslavement involves a huge amount of
work by the master and an ongoing effort to hold her in slavery.
To do this, he needs to achieve a deep understanding of her emotions
(including her emotional history) and her view of what is happening
in the relationship.
Armed with this information, he is able to maintain
an environment she cannot get herself out of (partly
because he continually adjusts it so that he remains in
control.) This is sometimes called
Psychological or Emotional Bondage.
|
|
Emotional bondage? Is that like emotional blackmail?
|
| | |
Definitely not. Some dominants try to use forms of emotional
blackmail to obtain the obedience of submissives and to persuade
them to stay in the relationship. This involves playing on the
submissive's self doubts, guilt and fears (especially the fear of
being alone.) These dominants use this kind of ploy:
"If you were a true submisssive you would do it";
"I wonder why I waste my time with you when you do this";
and
worst of all "Do you want to keep my collar or not?" By
presenting the relationship as a confrontation, they force the
submissive into a defensive position which guards her Self.
All of these push the submissive into maintaining and even heightening
her protective walls so she can keep the dominant out.
|
|
So how does the master get this deep understanding of the slave?
|
| | |
By observation and more importantly by getting the slave to talk
about her internal process and then listening. Since it's
essential for the master to tear down the protective walls the slave
has built during her lifetime, it's not sufficient to instruct her to
report everything
important and then just wait: he has to "go in" and
examine what is actually going on inside her head in response to
the environment he is creating.
|
|
That sounds almost like counselling?
|
| | |
Yes, they both have a lot in common (infact, one of the role pairs
of IE is Counsellor / client.) It's important that
the master doesn't coach the slave into giving the kinds of answers
he wants when he is examining her thoughts and feelings - a
technique shared with counselling. For example, if the slave is
having difficulty accepting one of her master's decisions, then it's
essential that she be made to disclose this, so that he can resolve
her feelings and then work on whatever is preventing her internal
acceptance of his
decision (in addition to just her external obedience to it.)
|
|
Doesn't that involve the slave being disrespectful, even rude?
|
| | |
It often involves "disrespectful" comments and even
outbursts in the short term, but buys the master genuine (rather
than just superficial) respect in the long term. Every disobedient
thought and rebellious feeling is another portion of the slave that
he does not truly own. IE is a method for taking ownership of
the whole slave over time.
|
|
You mentioned role pairs?
|
| | |
A useful way of thinking about an Enslavement relationship is in
terms of roles: these are different ways of interacting, which
nevertheless, all share the fundamental reality of master and slave:
the three we talk about are Master/servant, Teacher/student and
Counsellor/client. The different roles reflect different degrees of
formality and explicit discipline: for example,
a client is being asked to
describe her feelings freely, but a student is being taught the best
way to perform a task, and a servant aims to serve perfectly and
without detailed supervision.
|
| | |
The "safeword" is an ambiguous concept - they're sometimes
signals rather than words and they are used to mean everything from
a veto like "Stop - I want to go home" to the mere passing
of information like "I'm being physically harmed by what's
happening". Leaving aside the various dangers associated with
relying on them for information, a safeword which is a veto is
contrary to the kind of literal slavery that IE aims for.
|
|
Don't people need timeouts in any long term relationship?
|
| | |
Some do, some don't. The submissives described by the Enslavement
Hypothesis need to be under their master's authority all the time,
but this isn't to say that they should be following detailed
commands and living under continuous direct supervision all the
time: in a relationship which nurtures the slave and promotes her
growth as a valuable piece of property, it is necessary that she
have times to express her creativity, to spend time with family and
friends and even just to rest. These needs are not incompatible with
her overwhelming need to be owned.
|
|
Why is it called Internal Enslavement?
|
| | |
When a submissive is internally enslaved, she has internalised
her slavery. Furthermore, the process of enslavement takes place
within, even if her external, physical environment contributes to
it. For this reason we make a distinction between Internal
Enslavement and the External "Slave Training" schemes
you often read about - approaches which concentrate on the
form of
slavery (speaking respectfully, assumming numbered "slave
positions", acting in a "slavelike" manner) rather
than on ownership which is the substance of slavery.
|
|
Isn't this dangerous? Isn't this like brainwashing?
|
| | |
IE leaves a submissive very vulnerable to her master, and for this
reason, submissives need to be extremely cautious when pursuing
this kind of relationship. We feel that publicising these ideas
will help submissives who need slavery (by helping them to see
through time wasting dominants, emotional blackmailers etc) and that
almost no abusive dominants will have the patience and the empathy
to apply Internal Enslavement in a convincing way for any length of
time.
|
|
This is immoral. Slavery is evil!
|
| | |
Making someone a slave without their consent, abusively denying
their needs and preventing them from growing as an individual is
both evil and fundamentally contradictory to the IE approach. IE is
based on consensual non-consent.
|
|
Isn't consensual non-consent a contradiction in terms?
|
| | |
Not really, since it means giving legally valid consent to start
the process of enslavement, in the knowledge that the process will
remove the ability to withdraw consent in the future. Outside of
military recruitment, Western societies tend not to acknowledge the
possibility of handing over your personal freedoms to someone else,
but this is ethically what we're talking about.
|
|
It all sounds wonderful, but is it really for me?
|
| | |
It may well not be for you. We notice a lot of people attracted to
the honesty of M/s relationships, who don't really need a
relationship based on ownership. Our advice is that if you just
want it rather than actually needing it, then look for
something else. There is also a tendency for some people to see
becoming a master or a slave as admission to the elite of BDSM, and
pursue it as a status
symbol, rather than because it is right for them. Again, if you think
this might apply to you, then we urge caution.
|
Published 25 August 2000.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
