Apologies for the cross-post

There are those who will will whimper and moan and complain that this tired old Mistress is at it again, complaining about the behaviors of others and making judgements and being all strict and inflexible and…

And there will be those who read this and think long and hard about the repercussions of their own actions or inactions, involvement or apathy, in situations which would appear to be far removed from the one discussed in this article, but are only removed by varying degrees. 

I apologize in advance to Mr. Millar for not taking the time to gain his permission for reprinting a portion of his article.  It was poor form on my part, but the message was too important not to relay. 

“A Few Declarations Of Ethics:”

“Though this doesn’t present a close question at all, inevitably people look for clarity. What is it that happened here that was unethical, as we see it? If I get into specifics, there’s almost too much to list, so I’ll keep it general:

“(1) It is unethical to ever have an irrevocable Master/slave relationship. Here in the United States, we wrote it right into the Constitution in the aftermath of the Civil War that slavery does not exist. All dominant/submissive relationships, no matter how strict the rules, no matter what kind of written agreement there is, no matter how extreme the sensation play, are subject to the submissive partner deciding the relationship is over. We killed 660,000 Americans for that, and it’s not negotiable.

“(2) It is unethical to leverage an existing vulnerability or power imbalance to push someone into any kind of dominant/submissive relationship. Nobody should be pushed into a D/s dynamic at all; it has to be freely and consciously chosen to be consensual. This girl, when she fell into his clutches, was a sixteen year old runaway from a series of foster homes, which means she was extremely vulnerable and had no place else to go. Right there, any sexual involvement is just wrong. Then, he became her source for drugs. By the time she signed the contract that he said bound her for life, she was an eighteen year old with no other options, possibly a substance dependency, in an abusive relationship with a terrifying person. She wasn’t in a position to say no to anything he wanted.

“(3) It is unethical to do things beyond one’s capabilities as a top.* And this is one of the places where, even if we didn’t know any of the other stuff, we could tell the difference between abuse and BDSM. BDSMers don’t want to damage their partners. Hurt, sure, sometimes a lot. But we don’t want to do things with each other that result in unintentional injuries. We like each other, we like what we do, and we want to have good experiences, so we control risks as much as we can and still have the experiences we want to have. Like mountain climbers. Not like abusers, who ignore risk and cause injury on purpose.

“I said the physical specifics didn’t make me blanch, and I meant it. I won’t gratuitously repeat the detailed descriptions, because they’ll be offputting to some readers. Some of those things I’ve done and some I have not, but I know sane people who have willingly done a whole lot of things in that indictment. The thing is, they’re highly specialized skills. Among people who know what they’re doing, a lot of this stuff is considered appropriate only for people who really know what they’re doing. Responsible BDSMers don’t just hang someone from the ceiling; they learn suspension bondage. Responsible BDSMers don’t just hook electrodes up to people; they learn electrical play. It’s easier to do that in communities where there are classes or more experienced folks to teach; but more isolated people can access books and online materials and do their own research. If they care about their bottoms, they do. Being a top is a lot of responsibility, but it’s worth the work to have the big, moving, out-there experiences and walk away from them with no more boo-boos than intended.

“People who don’t do the homework don’t care. The indictment contains some things which just flat should never be done in a scene and constitute medical care. It also contains things that are heavy medical play. With an amazing top with a background in medical scenes and piercings, with autoclave-sterilized equipment, in a clean environment, those things are some people’s idea of an amazing scene. But it’s not something you see on the web and say, “hey, go get the Neosporin, I want to try something.” No ethical top plunges cavalierly into things that carry a high risk of injury, and it really announces that he didn’t care if he did permanent damage.

“Breath control and certain kinds of electrical play, done wrong (and depending on who you think it right on the medical stuff, maybe even if done right) can cause cardiac arrest. That’s what happened here. Some combination of electric shock and suffocation stopped her heart and the hospital saved her. I’m guessing he didn’t really care about her, but thought his chances of getting out of it with a live kinky woman accusing him of abuse were better than his chances of hiding the body and pretending he didn’t know where she was. We’ll find out if he was right.

“(4) It is unethical to do things with newbies that they don’t understand and can’t make decisions about. If they don’t know anything yet, they don’t understand the risks and cannot give meaningful consent, which is at the heart of RACK and SSC. (I don’t need to get into the difference between the terminology, as the culture of which term people use varies somewhat from the literal meaning, and a lot of it has to do with who gets to be the safety police.) Getting someone to do things that they don’t understand is neither risk-aware, nor safe, nor sane, and generally isn’t consensual. If someone is just too ignorant to fully grapple with the risks they take, that’s negligence, and that’s full of fail. But the allegations don’t paint a picture of someone who didn’t understand the risks. They paint a picture of someone who didn’t care. That’s an abuser.

“This is especially true of introducing a teen to BDSM through a 24/7 relationship. I’m not a big fan of 24/7 anyway. Lots of BDSMers have no interest in ever doing dominant-submissive roles. Folks who do D/s have clear boundaries, often time limits on the scenes. Many who have pervasive D/s dynamics in a relationship live apart, which inserts a certain amount of breathing room. A few folks really have those power dynamics in effect basically all the time, but that’s a very hard thing to do and make work, and people generally only try that when they already know a lot about D/s and how they react to it emotionally and undertake it with the understanding that it’s a very, very advanced. Leaving all the other things aside, taking someone with no BDSM experience and saying, “24/7 slavery, that’s what BDSM is” … that’s delusional, evil, or both.

“Responsible BDSMers, when playing with newbies, are extra-careful about the basics, like negotiations and safewords – not only because newbies don’t know how they’ll react to things, but because they don’t know how to do things like negotiate yet and they need to learn. Someone teaching a new submissive needs to teach zir how to set zir boundaries, how to communicate with a prospective top about desires and expectations. Not doing this means virtually guaranteeing that something will go wrong, if not in the next scene then at some point in the future.”

Do take the time to read and digest the comments attached to Mr. Millar’s piece. 

This is how we learn.  This is how we become more informed and responsible, not just inside the confines of an old steel shed with a winch and cable, or a deceptively plush master bedroom suite with silken cords and used needles scattered on the nightstand, but out at events and small house parties, munches and meetings, sloshes and arranged meetings.

Ms Lila

Food Punishment

I like to make it a practice to search BDSM on the Google News page at least once a week to see what the insane, the inexperienced, the anti-social and the just plain stupid have done to damage the BDSM, Leather and other Lifestyle communities recently.  Sometimes I find horror stories, and sometimes I actually find Helpful Household Hints.  Today just happens to be one of those days.

Although these are not something I personally practice, a great many Dominants do:  punishments and dietary/food domination. 

Dominants sometimes dole out punishments and they do so for a variety of reasons.  Some do it to correct poor performance or bad behavior.  Others do it to reinforce the household or interpersonal dynamic.  Still others do it because it feeds the headspace of both partners to the dynamic.

Dietary/food domination also achieves the same goals but does so by making certain foods into highly prized and much sought after rewards.  It takes a bland, unapetizing yet nutritious diet and makes it the daily norm, while making “people food” a treasure that comes solely from the font of Dominant kindness.

Good idea for some.  But what to use?  No one makes Subbie Kibble, Slave Chow, Riskies or Oww Mix, so one must be imaginative or be a Mistress of Google to find an appropriately nutritious yet vitally unappealing diet.

Look no further, gentle folk.

In the Savage Love column over at A.V. Club, there is a reference in the September 15th piece to a lovely item called Nutraloaf.  To quote the original poster on Nutraloaf,

“Served in some prisons as punishment for inmates’ bad behavior (namely, throwing, spitting, or wasting their regular, non-loafed foodstuffs), Nutriloaf is essentially a day’s worth of meals ground into a wet, bland brick. There have been a handful of lawsuits protesting the use of “meal loaf” in correctional facilities; however, most courts have found that, as long as the loaf in question meets certain daily nutritional requirements, it does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Therefore, we had no legal recourse when faced with this reader suggestion. The only question is, who among us would be willing to inflict such a thing upon his or her esteemed co-workers?”

Sounds appealing already, doesn’t it?  And so flexible as well.  Again I quote the original article.

• 2 oz Cooked Ground Beef
• 4 oz Canned, Chopped Spinach
• 4 oz Canned Carrots, Diced
• 4 oz Vegetarian Beans
• 4 oz Applesauce
• 1 oz Tomato Paste
• 1/2 cup Potato Flakes
• 1 cup Bread Crumbs
• 2 oz Dry Milk Powder
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder or Flakes

“Preparation: mash the fuck outta everything and slap it into a loaf pan. Cook until non-toxic.”

Pretty straight-forward and to the point.  It appears to be very workable, not entirely paletable, but definitely more nutritious than a huge part of the world eats on a regular basis.  And I see huge areas for tailoring it to suit individual needs as well.

Own vegans or other non-carnivore types?  Substitute that textured soy protein product that you see in healthfood stores as a meat substitute, and delete the dry milk powder. 

Want to save beef for rewards, or beef has just too much flavor for your property?  Substitute ground chicken or turkey.

Want to give them some flavor but not make it all that good?  I can see where a little basic salt and pepper would go a long way.  You could also use breakfast sausage, italian sausage, or any other seasoned bulk sausage if you didn’t want his or her diet to be any worse than necessary.  Maybe use Chili Ready beans, or black-eyed peas with jalepenos instead of the vegetarian beans to add flavor.

The possibilties are pretty much endless with this.  You could even custom blend this to help your boy or girl acheive any diet or fitness goals if you knew what you were doing and used a bit of common sense.

Helpful Hint?  Perhaps.  I’m sure the hungry mouths in your household won’t think so.

And that’s a bad thing how?