Is it real or is it memorex?
There was an interesting thread on Fetlife (where else!?) that I was following before I went out of town. And since I had a total of 16 hours of driving time packed into 4 days, I had lots of time to think about it.
Here’s the question: Slavery? For real or playing?
Pretty much everyone was falling all over themselves to reassure themselves anyone reading that they were REAL. No playing for them, nuh uh, no way Jose, they are teh serious slabes!
And so, yanno, I disagreed.
Sort of. I did and I didn’t.
Here’s what I said on the thead.
It’s an illusion that only works because the two people involved believe in it enough to make it their own personal “reality”.
Nobody is really a slave, bound and held in the same manners that real-life slaves are. Nobody is owned. Nobody is property.
It’s mindgames and headfucks and brainwashing- and it works because we make it work. Because we’re dedicated to making it work and because we put equal effort into making it “real” for us. I am a slave, he is my owner and that’s how we live. That’s our reality, our day to day life and it’s how we choose to live.
But it isn’t real. None of y’all are. Stand in a police station one time and tell an officer that you’re an owned slave and your owner won’t let you leave. Face it, the only people believing in your “reality”, is the pair of you.
Well that went over like a fart in church.
One person said that in her definition of ‘real’, if it influenced how she behaved everday, then it was real.
Interestingly enough, that same person in that same comment slammed Goreans by referring to their chosen lifestyle as “gorean games”. I was amused. Even after I pointed it out she failed to see the irony. Hee.
I mean, what better case is there for people who are influenced to behave a certain way by something other than Gorean folk? And why are they playing games but she is A Real Boy Slave?
But to answer this question, “what better case is there for people who are influenced to behave a certain way by something other than Gorean folk?” even better-
I immediately thought of the bible. Religion.
Does just believing in it make it real, though? What does define ‘real’ and ‘reality’?
It’s real to them, I assume. And I’m certainly not up for barging into church and challenging their reality.
Except for when they lose sight of.. well.. of reality.
For instance, the woman whose daughter died of diabetes last year. According to her religious beliefs, prayer was going to save her child.
She is now in prison. Convicted of reckless homicide, possible 25 years.
So is it the law that defines what is real? Society? Society makes the laws, the laws dictate reality?
Later in that thread I said:
There are things that are real. I am human. I am a female. I am a mother.
I choose to live as a slave and conduct my life as closely as possibly to those ideals and practicies. But no amount of wanting it to be so is going to make me become owned property.
None of that is to say that I wake up every morning and prepare to play the game of M/s. I don’t see it that way at all, and I don’t think thats what you or anyone else does. It is a way of life and there is little thought behind it anymore. It just IS. Slavery, Mastery, ownership. It’s just there. It exists within us.
But one can’t pretend that the law and society support my lifestyle. Or yours. That is the reality.
It was argued then that society and the law aren’t what decides what can or cannot be real. That I give them too much credit.
Blacks, women, homosexuality. Examples of where society, and the law, have been wrong. Failed.
Same sex couples aren’t recognized by the law- are they not real then? An illusion?
So I’m confused. Perplexed.
What defines reality? It HAS to be something more than what one believes. There has to be something more definitive than that.
Wordnet.web defines reality in two opposing ways. It says:
reality: all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you.
And then it says:
reality: the state of the world as it really is rather than as you might want it to be.
That website didn’t help a bit.
6 or 7 months ago I decided I was going to leave this relationship. I remember still how shockingly easy it was to pull my head out of the clouds and know that I could leave. That for all the words, the scars, the brainwashing, all I had to do was open the door and-
Go.
Just. go.
He could not stop me. I was a free thinking independent adult with all of the rights and privileges offered as such.
I am not owned property outside of Master’s and my tiny little world.
I am not a slave outside of our world.
I am not a cunt – (Hush out there in the peanut gallery!)
It is not real.
Except I couldn’t go. I didn’t go. I wanted to go and I was set to go and I was ready to go and I couldn’t go.
I am still, all these months later, unsure of what is reality and what isn’t.
I know what I know.
Yet I live what I live.
Maybe I don’t know what I think I know.
Bah.
Maybe I just need beat and fucked.
*nods*
Tags: M/s rambles, reality
Uncategorized | kaya | 
Wednesday May 27th, 2009 1:12pm
I’m not entirely sure what reality is other than an amalgamation of what I believe and what those around me believe. It’s murky but I don’t think I can make it any clearer.
An interesting demonstration of belief held in communion is French philosopher Ernest Renan’s “What Is a Nation?” (1823-1892) – obviously written during the rise of nationalism in Europe. He argues that a nation isn’t bound together only by language, religion, history, common culture, or geographic area – nations can be composed of many things, look at the USA for the perfect example. Nations exist and impact daily life predicated on the citizen’s continuing belief in their existence and their desire for them to exist.
“A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation’s existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.”
I think this says something that those of us in power exchange relationships can relate to – the desire for an abstract idea to impact our lives in a significant way. This is such an abstract point and I fear I’m not getting my view on this across. I’ll come back to add onto this when I distill it a bit more. Maybe someone else will grab my meaning or it’ll spark something for someone.
(Didn’t think you were going to get French philosophy tossed at you now did you?)
We wear blue gloves at work. Blue gloves that aren’t form fitting. They’re big on the guys, HUGE on me. I cut lemons and I generally cut at least two or three of the tips of the fingers into them. That’s gross, and I pick out what I can…but my only other alternative is to not wear gloves.
Why do we wear these specific gloves, instead of clear, close-fitting ones? Because customers like to SEE the gloves on our hands when we’re doing things involving their food. Why?
Because perception is reality.
At least in my little world.
You could always move to a country where men really are masters of women; there are still many countries where that’s a fact. Your husband can beat you, basically he owns you; you and your property, your money, the clothes on your back and even your children and you cannot leave him. Well, not easily. He can even have you killed in some societies.
And it’s very very real.
On the other hand, as hard one might wish it, you can never become a vampire or an animal or live on Gor or fly like Superman, etc.
That’s pure fantasy.
But living a lifestyle that is similar to bona fide lifestyles elsewhere on the planet…don’t a lot of people do that? In various ways? Whether it’s legal or not isn’t the point. I could REALLY be snorting coke at home all day and walk into a police station, hold up my coke and say, “I snort this all day, every day” and I think they’d take me in for that, too.
I still really snorted the coke; doesn’t mean it’s not real just because it’s illegal or frowned upon.
Am I making sense? No?
Okay, well, I must need more coke then…
/wanders off muttering to self
;P
Btw, to reply to my own comment: Your husband can beat you, basically he owns you; you and your property, your money, the clothes on your back and even your children and you cannot leave him
Hawt….
You have hit upon something. The M/S lifestyle is that – a lifestyle. Real slavery is horrible oppression and can’t be compared with a sexually charged choice of lifestyle. Recognizing it as a lifestyle does not belittle that style of life, but claiming that the lifestyle is the equivalent of the reality belittles the reality of slavery – which is an immoral economic and political system.
You’re right. You’re not really a slave. It’s a role you occupy in your relationship.
But just because it’s not real, doesn’t mean it’s not important.
I think it’s simply that the terms of the relationship are not legally recognised, like (here in the uk) a couple that co-habits, gay or straight. Does it make those relationships less real?
When a couple gets married and they agree in their vows to be faithful, we don’t tend to question the reality of that commitment, even though that there’s a good chance they might not keep those vows.
All relationships have their terms and their roles. We’re not pretending, we’re just romantic.
Tp
I agree with everything you wrote. That being said, your post makes me want to reread The Velveteen Rabbit. Perhaps I shall.
It seems to me that the answer to all of this is that reality is subjective….to everyone. How many times have you witnessed a car accident and everyone around has a slightly different story about how it happened? Quite frequently, my husband and I argue because we remember something very differently. We were both there and we were both paying attention–but we walked away from the situation with completely different memories. It doesn’t really matter to either of us, though, because our particular individual memory is what is real or “reality” to us. We eventually just agree to disagree…..we’re never going to reconcile those memories.
It seems as though the master/slave dynamic is similar. It might not be real to anyone else in the world, and it might not be validated by society or law. It doesn’t mean it isn’t real. It doesn’t mean it isn’t your reality.
That’s just my thought….(and we do tend toward the vanilla a little)….but there you have it.
By the way–screw the definition of reality given above….it’s wrong. I still argue that reality is subjective.
When I hear discussions about what is real and what isn’t I am instantly confused of my own reality. No one maintains the reality like Master and I do, so it is really real? Is just our understanding of how we want to live enough for reality to exist between us? Do we need acceptance of what we do to really thrive in that existence?
I am real, Master is real, what we create in our relationship is… real? A beautiful illusion? I just don’t know.
I come to your blog often questioning my own thoughts and feelings with this life and while I don’t identify myself as a slave, I feel deeper in my submission when you bring these thoughts out and I appreciate it.
kaya…
i didn’t read the post you read… too busy reading the uhaul relationship ones…
BUT it seems to me that there is a huge fear of being labeled a player .. and everyone wants to be “real” and to fit in… and maybe even consider themselves better than the next person….
And it seems to me that way tooo much time is wasted on proving we are real or fake or players or two headed alligators……..
i just don’t understand why it is so important… life would be so much more…. peaceful??? less stressful?? if we just all accepted each other… the real ones.. the fake ones.. the players. .the two headed alligators..
funny thing is.. i thought that was the premise of this lifestyle to accept everyone’s differences… shrug.. but hey that is me.. the cranky old lady
morningstar (owned by Warren)
Kaya,
I remember seeing that thread and I think I kept out of it. A couple of thoughts come to my mind. First, Schroedinger’s cat. This was an attempt to explain quantum phyics (warning, science for the rest of the paragraph). Lock a cat in a box with a cyanide capsule that will release when a readoactive atom decays. Quantum physics says that until someone OBSERVES the atom decay, it exists in both potential states at the same time, so that the cat is both alive and dead until some one looks in to check non him. In that way, reality is truly a matter of perception.
What does that mean in the greater scheme of things? Much of our reality is how we precieve ourselves and those around us. In teaching, the ability to learn is, in part, the belief that you can learn. I see this all the time. When you tried to leave, you couldn’t because YOU percieve your life as such that you can’t leave. Elephants are chained at the foot as infants and learn that the chain can’t be broken. As adults, they have the strength to break the chain, but have been convinced that they can’t, so they don’t.
On the other hand, belief in and of itself can’t change the world or reality. Regardless of what you think, if you have no hands, you’ll never play the piano. That’s where religious people who “put their faith in God for healing” get into trouble. Yes, we’re (Christians) are supposed to have faith in God, but we’re also required to do what we can for ourslelves. Christ pointed out how God provides for all the birds, but have you noticed that the bird still has to go get the worm? So, for you, kaya, yes, you’re a “real” slave because you believe you are, but you’re also not a real slave, because Scott doesn’t keep you enslaved against your will.
In some ways, this is like the Doctor Who episode (a Tom Baker episode that I’ve spaced the title of) where the Doctor says that people believing the world is flat, didn’t make it flat; and the old woman who believed in magic replied, “but, the behaved as if it were.” No, you’re not a slave, but you behave as if you were.
Dave
PS You weren’t expecting a physics lesson and a sci-fi reference in the same reply, were you?
It’s an illusion that only works because the two people involved believe in it enough to make it their own personal “reality”.
That’s it!
‘Nuff said, simple to the point. The only way to make it simpler is to use this quote from a great philosopher;
“I yam what I yam and tha’s all what I yam.” — Popeye the Sailorman
As far as further discussion goes …
That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands n’more!
It’s nice to see you back. i noticed you were away and missed you
i think your definition of “real” is the center of this post. No matter how many times the word real is defined; no matter what resources you use to define it, “real” will never have the same definition. Since this makes it subjective as opposed to definitive or standard, if you choose to believe your situation is real, then it’s real. There will always be others who disagree or object no matter what you do or what’s being judged as “real” or “not real”.
There are others who have more of a reality than you and others who have less than one (by their definitions only). But your reality is defined and driven by what you and Master have mutually labeled as “your reality”; and anything else sort of just pales in comparison, wouldn’t you say?
You can chase rainbows forever in search of the gold or you can stand still and embrace the beauty of the gift.
xoxx
toy
I’ve probably said it 10,000 times or more, and someone else said it earlier, perception is reality. As long as you perceive yourself to be a slave that is what you are. That’s your reality and you have the history and home life situation to prove it. If one day you decide you’re a woman in an abusive relationship, then your reality is that you’re now a victim. The situation didn’t change. The actions didn’t change. The history didn’t change. Your perception changed and through that your reality was altered.
I’ve never been to Fetlife so my only knowledge comes second hand from those that do go there. Why go at all? There’s that old analogy about wrestling with a pig; You get dirty and and the pig is happy as hell rolling around in the mud.
Ok, Tess that has to be one of the most profound posts you have written and I followed you from two websites before your live Journal and read all the archives. You never cease to amaze me and I love your honesty, candor, insight and your transparency. I realize these posts are just a snapshot of your life and who you are but they are damn good photographs and I’m not talking the smut although they have been interesting (I’ll never forget the pillar candle, the bitch bench or the accessorized dog walking. I look forward to your posts and wish you, Scott, Jess, Am and B-Man the best for the rest of your lives. I smile when I think of you as a doting Grandma. Anyway I just want to say you always make me think and seriously ponder things that would never have crossed my orbit had I never accidentally found your blog. I would never have ended up on LJ or met the people that I live here if I hadn’t found you first and it’s here I felt save to explore what I always percieved as the darkness of my sexuality and have found the freedom to express all of who I am.
Thank You for sharing bits and pieces of your life
Aww! Thank you Adele! You made me blush..lol
Welcome home, glad you made it safely!
I am reminded by your post of a quote I heard years ago from a Scientologist, “reality is that which is agreed upon.” Pretty good definition.
I think I might add that reality is the intersection of space and time, coupled with the significance that you attach to it… the “now”, “present moment”, whatever you want to call it, with the individual perception of what is occurring.
All recollection of anything that happened in the past is by the nature of personal reality subjective.
Well, now that I’ve cleared that up…LOL…
I like what Baron Travis said. Whether or not it’s real has no bearing on whether or not it’s important. And if it’s important… fuck reality.
I also like what you said. I’m very much in favor of some beating and some fucking
Philosophy has been trying to fathom out what reality is for years. Why the hell would betty slave or Joe dom have any greater success?
Winner of the best comment award.
grins, you said succinctly and well what it took me three blogs to say LOL
Isn’t reality like happiness? Different for everyone? Sometimes they go hand in hand. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you give up one for the other.
With any luck we get both reality and happiness to come together.
We are owned all the time. It just pulls more of our attention when our owners are there with us. No matter where you are or what you are doing he is with you. As you are with him.
“I am human, I am female, I am a mother.”
These statements, you define as reality, and no one so far has questioned them or challenged them…but I wonder:
Human is simply the word we have chosen to describe ourselves. WE get to do that because we use the language in the way we do, and the other critters don’t. But, the notion of “human” is a construct that we humans made up to describe ourselves. I doubt very much that it is at all “real” within the perception of a blue whale for example…
Female is another “reality” that is real in your experience. The definition is based on your chromosomal inheritance, and thence the genitalia that you came equipped with, but there are surely those with “female” genitalia that don’t see themselves fitting into that supposed reality, so who’s got it right?
Motherhood, is another one of those things we just assume is true and real because we can define it by an event — the birth of a child. But is that all that is really required? I know plenty of women who mother children they never bore. Likewise, there are a whole host of people who give birth and never ever come anywhere close to being “mothers.”
I understand that the world which I experience as solid is, in fact, made up of atomic particles too small for me to see and composed mostly of empty space. So there is no “real” solidity to the world, although I experience it as very solid. What I know does not match my reality, but I live in that reality in spite of the scientific truth of it all.
So, once again, I am left with places where I can quibble philosophically, linguistically, scientifically, legally, and just about any other way you can imagine with the reality of whatever condition one would choose to call “real.” It is just that it isn’t that important to me. My life is my real life, done the way I do it. Whether it qualifies as real in any other context doesn’t change my understanding, experience, or perception of it. I understand the intellectual and factual argument that I am not legally a slave, and it is a simply fact that my life is not lived under the hideously oppressive dictates of someone who cares not a whit for my well-being. I chose. I chose, well and wisely, and so my “reality” is pretty benign though I label it as slavery. That is the fact from where I stand. Others may see it differently and their opinions do not have to agree with mine for my reality to still seem just as real to me.
I’m doing my Pooh Bear impression.
Think, Think, Think.
Everyone is right, or, at least I find myself nodding like a window bobblehead as I read each comment.
It must be my nature to “borrow trouble” (as Magdala used to say).
[...] the Master/slave side of things, Kaya has put up what may be her bestest post to date (this is not easy — she’s so good, it’s hard for her to top herself. Errr, yes, [...]
I loved your comments back to the group. Your comments were insightful and thought provoking. I feel that you hit a nerve because you dug deeply beneath the surface and removed the blindfold that they were using to shield them from realizing that reality is a subjective term, totally related to the individuals participating in that particular reality.
I think rather than “real” or not – I think the lifestyle you enjoy is “constructed” You and S make it a point to construct this reality for yourself, and put the time and effort in to keep it alive and thriving. Without that time and effort – it would not stay real.
It isn’t really a judgement call whether its “real” or just a “game”. It’s something that you need, want, makes you happy. Even if it is just a game – what would that change?
All those people who obsess over the One True Slavery – they need to take themselves a lot less seriously and get over themselves.
I looked all over for this thread on fetlife, btw and couldn’t find it. Can you link?
Here: http://fetlife.com/groups/814/group_posts/179664
Thank Ya Ma’am!
Wow .. that was a mouthful. I had the same kind of conversation with Masters sister. She couldn’t understand what it was all about or how on earth i could let her brother tell me what to do … she thought i was too headstrong and stubborn for that. Well i gave her an explaination of how it is .. using refrences i thought she would know. Told her i was like June Cleaver .. Beavers mom .. June did everything for her man .. and anything she was “asked” to do… they just had to clean it up for the 1950′s viewing audience!
For all we know June was as much of a slave as we all are. But then again, as you said, no amount of anything can make any of us do something we don’t want to do. When i get told to pick Master up at the airport in my new dress with no panties … even if the thought mortifies me .. i do it. Not necessarily because he told me to but because somewhere inside i really want to … (not keen on bein without the panties .. LONG childhood mistreatment story behind that).. i am a stubborn bitch, but i choose to be HIS bitch and do it HIS way. Our “Masters” only have the power they have because WE allow them to have it. We give them the power to master over us because we want it that way.
Who the hell knows what reality is… that changes from day to day. The only thing real is birth and death … the reality that happens in between those 2 dates is something different to each one of us. Parts of YOUR reality may not be for me … and parts of MY reality may not be for you. But that doesn’t make them any more or less real to the owner of said reality.
Maybe our reality is really something we choose. A choice we make to surround us with people, things and events that fit into the way WE think reality should be.
*whew!* I think i had better go sit down!! Too much thinking, I’m suppose to have today off!!