# Does dom/sub sex play tacitly support slavery? (Warning: potentially graphic) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2003, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dom-sub-sex-play-tacitly-support-slavery-warning-potentially-graphic/164423 "2003-03-27T01:00:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dom-sub-sex-play-tacitly-support-slavery-warning-potentially-graphic/164423/41 "2003-04-01T01:50:26Z")
Don’t you mean _forwards_, **Bippy**? ::d&r:: ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dom-sub-sex-play-tacitly-support-slavery-warning-potentially-graphic/164423/42 "2003-04-01T02:06:03Z")
**Super Gnat** sorry I don’t swing that way 😉 ---
**Author:** ![IEatFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c5a1d2/32.png) [@IEatFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IEatFood)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dom-sub-sex-play-tacitly-support-slavery-warning-potentially-graphic/164423/43 "2003-04-01T08:51:44Z")
Hey there Bippy > [@](#): > > To call such a person ‘it’ because of their lifestyle would be a verey nasty insult. It is clear however from what you said, that you weren’t attacking gender choices, but were attacking someone whom you have reasons to hate without tarring others with the same brush. Well I am glad we understand each other then [:)] I really don’t have a problem with anyone’s sexual ideosychracies, so long as A. It’s legal & B. It doesn’t effect me personally. As for Homosexuals, Transgenderals (Lack of more appropriate term, sorry), etc… (no I am not lumping them into one catagory!), I think if anything, they are symptomatic of our social evolution as a species. The more advanced & specialised we become, the more unreasonable it becomes for uniformity in these and other areas to be demanded. The only problem I have with the D&S crowd is the way that some of its members have a tendency towards condescension when dealing with people who do not prefer their lifestyle. However, this is a common beef I have with all types of humans, so its really not limited to them. In truth, I really am much more of a “live & let live” type than I think I come of as. I just get carried away sometimes I guess. Just to clear one thing up, you said that I have reason to hate her. I never said that at all, but perhaps you can read enough into what I have said about her(it), to garner that opinion, and no, you would not be completely wrong in that assesment. So, perhaps you are gifted to analyse people’s writings. If so, keep up the good work then! However, I do not in fact, _hate_ the subject in particular. I just have no respect whatsoever for her and rarely think of her outside the context of feeling sorry for her anyway. Of course, there is much more than this simple issue to atribute that to. In fact, it’s probably worth an enitrely new OP just for it, so I’ll leave it be. Cheers then ---
**Author:** ![Tansu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/67e7ee/32.png) [@Tansu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tansu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dom-sub-sex-play-tacitly-support-slavery-warning-potentially-graphic/164423/44 "2003-04-01T12:20:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lilairen \* > \*\*Incidentally, the BDSM culture people I know have as their motto “Safe, sane, and consensual.” I can’t speak to the consensuality of your friend’s stuff, but I think it’s pretty clear that “safe” and “sane” are not being managed consistently or at all. > > One thing that I can speak to as a sub: it can be really psychologically difficult to get out of a situation where the dynamic isn’t doing good things. I’d guess that that’s especially true for someone without much experience with BDSM, and possibly also someone who’s in some way trying to measure up against the people who take extreme behaviour as a merit. The urge to get this thing right for a dom can be very, very powerful, especially if it’s a difficult thing to handle and thus has a personal-accomplishment cookie attached. > > If your friend is in a dynamic where all of that gets in the way of an ability to safeword – which sounds like a possibility from what you’ve written and my own experience with a similar mental issue – the dynamic is _broken_. I also suspect that many experienced BDSM-folk would get very, very twitchy with two inexperienced people doing the sort of extreme stuff that you’ve described. \*\* As a dom, I just want to back this up wholeheartedly. I feel uncomfortable with the idea of **Avalonian** ’s friend being actually traumatised and troubled rather than gaining sub’s pleasure from the domination. I am very uncomfortable with the idea that she feels shy of saying anything about it, or safewording. I personally wouldn’t want to have _any_ kind of scene with a sub who would let things cross the line into Really Not Fun and not tell me. I am very, very uncomfortable indeed with the choking play. This in NOT something to mess around with. Certainly not if the sub is unwilling to make a clear and accurate assesment of where her boundaries actually are. Certainly not if the sub is placing trust in the dom that the dom doesn’t merit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dom-sub-sex-play-tacitly-support-slavery-warning-potentially-graphic/164423.md?page=2)