Master/slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice (5 page)

Henry Ford

A Guide to Thinking:

• Think more slowly.

• Don't limit yourself to two alternatives.

• Don't confuse hindsight for insight.

• Think on paper.

• Don't set out to prove yourself right.

0 Do learn from mistakes.

• Ask questions.

What are your skills and personality assessment scores?
I'm an educational sociologist by training, but spent my career in
business settings. My slave is an RN-paralegal. We are used
to working differently. When we first came together as a Family
there were some stress points. Given a task to look something
up, my slave worked any problem to DEATH and created a paper
trail of EVERYTHING done - reams of copies of Internet find ings, for example. In an effort to figure out how to approach her
and how best to use her ample skills, I put us through a battery of
tests. So, I pass this tip on to you: use some objective measures
to figure out how YOU work and how your partner or prospective
partner works.

• What's are the Meyers-Briggs scores for you and your
partner? Have you studied how your type gets along
with his/her type? (Hint: the personality test offered on
alt.com is essentially a Meyers-Briggs and it enables
you to compare YOUR test against any other member
of alt.com. If you and your slave take their test, the
resulting analysis and compatibility discussions can
give you a good starting point.)

• How do you take in (process) information? There are
a number of ways that you can think about the way
you learn. One of the most common ways of cutting
this topic describes three basic modalities in which we
convert information to memory: visual (learning by
seeing), auditory (learning by hearing), and kinesthetic
(learning by doing). Most people use one predominant
modality, but some use a balance between two or even
all three. As it relates to M/s relations, not only must
you be in touch with the way YOU learn, but also be
sensitive to the ways your current or potential slave
learns.

• What are your preferred working styles? Are you
mostly a fact finder or are you mostly good at follow
through? Are you a quick start or are you better as an
implementor? We found that the Kolbe A test (http://
www.kolbe.com) was the single best test to reveal how
each of us worked as individuals and what we had to
know (and do) to improve our abilities to work together.
Yes, there is a modest cost. YES, it's worth it.

A true story. The person who introduced me to Neuro-Linguistic
Programming (NLP - the folks who have mastered learning
modalities) commented that until he understood about this process, he would get furious at his wife for coming up behind him
and putting her hands on his shoulders while he was reading at
his desk. He later came to understand that she was a kinesthetic
learner and was expressing her love for him through touch. He,
though, was a high-visual learner who would get completely
absorbed in reading. The act of being touched at that time not
only broke his concentration, but also broke his emotional state
- he didn't like to be touched.

There are many ways of understanding how you and/or your
partner understand things. For more information about learning
styles, try a Google search on "learning modalities."

Been married?

• How did that work out? Are you still friends with your
husband/wife? Is there more than one ex? Were
there similar problems with each marriage? Are you
carrying problems from one mate to the next? How
could you change to make this new relationship different from prior relationships? Without changing yourself, have you ever considered that this is as good as
it gets?

• What's causing the breakups? Have you spent time
thinking about what went wrong? Have you had help
thinking this through - been through some therapy?
If yes, can you express what you learned and how
you changed? If not, what makes you think you won't
repeat the patterns you went through before?

• Did you nurture your prior spouse or partner? Can you
explain how they grew under your care - either as the
Dominant or submissive in the relationship? Did YOU
do all the growing? Did THEY do all the growing?

• What will you do this time that will be different?
What have you learned over the years? Remember
Einstein's comment: the definition of insanity is "doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

How's your work history?

• Do you have a history that demonstrates stability or
transience?

• Do you have a history of working well with small groups
and with your peers over a long period? If not, what
makes you think you can lead a slave?

• Have you had special training in managing people?
Do you read body language easily? How are you on
picking up non-verbal cues?

• Are you a visionary or an implementor? Think about
that one: if you're an implementor at work, how do you
become a visionary leader in your M/s relationship?

Do you have "leadership power?"

• Are you able to get tough when the situation demands
it?

• Are you able fully to show your human qualities instead
of wearing a mask?

• Do you have a clear vision for your future?

• Do you share your vision with the people who follow
you - bringing them enthusiasm, high energy and conviction?

• In a work setting, when subordinates ask for directions
or decisions, are you able to direct and decide without
delay?

What do You Seek?

At the risk of proposing polor extremes, consider some of
these:

• Do you seek a servant to follow all your orders and
whims or do you seek a cherished partner who
expresses love through service?

• Do you seek a live-in sex object or do you seek a spiritual partner with whom you have hot sex?

• Do you seek an invisible chef and maid or a personal
assistant with privileges?

Hazy goals produce hazy results. Clearly define your goals.
Write them down, make a plan for achieving them, set a deadline,
visualize the results, and go after them. Doubtless you've heard
the aphorism: What gets written down gets done.

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is
a nightmare.

Japanese proverb

Can you describe the life/lifestyle you seek?

You are going to have to tease out the building blocks of this
kind of structured relationship. You can't drift into a Master/slave
relationship. You will have to design this lifestyle - you can't just
go along for the ride. That brings us to a question:

• In life, are you proactive or reactive? If you tend to be
reactive, then what consequences might that have for
your M/s relationship?

• Have you written down your goals for the next five or
ten years? How does a slave or two fit into that vision?
For example, if your vision is to live in a beautiful
mountain cabin overlooking a lake and far away from
a city, how does that mesh with your slave's thirst for big-city living, nice restaurants and theater?

• How's your imagination? Can you think outside of
the box? To use Meyers-Briggs language, are you a
"concrete-solid" thinker or a "creative risk-taker?" Do
you have experience taking your vision and moving it
to reality? (If the answer is "no," then you may want
to consider books/courses that can train you in this
art form. Hint: it has to do with clarity of purpose and
intent. The key question is: "What are you willing to
pay to get X result?" "Pay" means time and effort, as
well as money. There's a cost to recreating yourself.)

By the way, if the words within the parentheses in that last
paragraph whizzed by you, you may want to spend a bit
more time on them. In my experience, the ability to create
my own world is among my most valuable skills.

• Do you read much? Fiction? Non-fiction? What do
you do with your knowledge? That is, do you keep
knowledge to yourself or do you have a way of giving
back to your community?

• Can you translate your ideas into words? How can
you communicate your vision to your partner?

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come
to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to
me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

Albert Einstein

How clearly can you describe the PERSON you seek?

• What are you seeking in a slave? What kind of slave?
If the slave is not a vanilla (non-kinky) boyfriend or
girlfriend, what IS your slave to be??? Pleasure slave (play partner)? Service slave (servant)? Business
helper? Companion/lover?

• What is your slave seeking in a Master? What kind of
Master? Companion for their future? A sage/teacher/mentor to rely upon? A path for sexual release?
Financial and/or emotional security? A life-travel
buddy? A spiritual guide? Leather? Why?

• Does what you offer match what your slave seeks?
Financial or emotional stability? Sense of purpose?
Adventure? Great sex? How are your assets? Can
you afford to remake your slave (or slave-under-consideration) in your image?

• How smart, lucid, and articulate must your partner be?
Does quickness matter to you? Does it matter that
your partner can explain him/herself succinctly and
with precision and clarity? Speaking personally, quickness matters a great deal to me. So does vocabulary
level. IQ primarily helps people get quickly to answers
- it's a "crunching power" issue. In that light, it may be
reasonable for you to be concerned about IQ because
the intellectual demands you can make on someone
with an IQ of 100 will be different than you can make
on someone with an IQ of 135.

• Do you want to have shared values with this person?
Rather than a general "yes," let's explore...

I would propose that at some point in your M/s relationship you
sit down with your partner - or partner-to-be - and probe how
each of you feels about words that describe values. You might
want to create a values list - very much like a pre-play negotiations checklist. Consider it a pre-M/s relationship checklist. And
there are no right or wrong answers. For example, my own
values concerning biological family and orderliness are substantially different from those of my slave. This is simply information.
Discussing these points helped us to understand our reactions to the other on these specific points.

Here is the start of a list to consider. You will have to find longer
lists from which to create your own list, this is just a starting point
for thinking about values. An Internet search produces dozens
of exhaustive lists from which to work.

Once again, the goal, here, is to take each word on this (and
your expanded) list and discuss it with your slave in order to
learn more about your slave's (and your) basic beliefs. Since
your basic beliefs color your everyday reality, the more you know
about yourself and your slave, the better you'll be able to work
together harmoniously.

What is a "Master" to you? What is a "slave"?

In my experience, relationships sometimes falter and fail because
core values or basic assumptions differ between the partners.
While each partner uses words such as "master" and "slave,"
they are unlikely to have a 100% match about what those words
(and many other "concept words") actually mean. Unless the two
of you sit down and carefully work through each other's personal
values, traits, dreams, wants, and needs, there are likely to be
recurring surprises as you get to know one another. The risk in
NOT working through this exercise is that each of you may have
been attracted to the superficial representation of the other person - you've been drawn to your partner's "public face," rather
than to the person's "core being." While that may not be a bad
thing, it may lead you to have to re-evaluate and re-adjust your
on-going relationship more than you had initially expected.

While hardly an exhaustive list, here are some ideas about what
a Master candidate might look like to a slave-in-waiting:

• Someone who understands that an M/s relationship is
between equals - that the slave has no less value as
a person than Master.

• A person who admits his/her personal weaknesses
and is committed to turning those weaknesses into
strengths and growing emotionally and spiritually.

• Someone emotionally, physically, and intellectually
equal to or stronger than the slave.

• Someone to be responsible for the slave's wellbeing
and the wellbeing of the relationship.

• A person who enough life experience, knowledge, and
wisdom to serve as a mentor and teacher.

• A person who will hold the slave accountable to higher
standards. This includes a Master who is spiritually
awake and uses the M/s relationship to further spiritual
development.

• A person who establishes an atmosphere of safety,
even as he/she must discipline the slave for transgressions.

• A high-level communicator who maintains well-defined
boundaries regarding accepted behavior.