Some stone individuals are Tops, the ones energetically running the sexual encounter, and others provide themselves as a service to their partner. What consists of the sexual touch that a stone individual desires to give, and what they choose not to receive, is as unique as each person who engages in stone sex. For those who choose stone as a form of sacred calling, instead of as a way to hide from past pain, the possibilities of finding spiritual pleasure or fulfilling spiritual service through the active choice of not receiving but giving instead can be delicious indeed.
“Stones get lots of different things out of stone sexual expression: pleasure, connection, embodiment, safety, orgasm, energetic exchange, control, intimacy, service, the joy of pleasing another, just to name a few. I will say this; put together someone who gets off on strong reactions that is vested and skilled in reading and creating responses with someone who gets off on attention, focus, sensation and expressing/communicating intense responses, and you have an amazingly hot time.”
- Corey Alexander, http://tgstonebutch.livejournal.com
Playing Privately
Sometimes, being in big dungeons and public events can fill us up with energy and leave us hungry for more. But sometimes the intimate details of our connections are lost when we are surrounded by so much noise and chaos. Choosing to play privately, we can enter into an erotic equivalent of sensory isolation. The partners involved have no one but themselves to focus on. We become aware of the faintest changes in the sound of a moan and able to absorb what it means when our lover writhes just so. Instead of subconsciously putting on a show, we bare ourselves to one another and become vulnerable, open, and available for each other’s energy. Though these things are possible in public play, we often dive deeper if our focus only has one place to go, much like the difference between meditating on a crowded public street corner and standing alone at the center of a labyrinth.
Breaks from the Scene
Whether as a form of detoxification, isolation, fasting or abstinence, sometimes we are called by our own intuition or by a higher power, to have a break from the public community or from kink altogether. Online forums can sometimes leave us carrying heavy burdens that get in the way of finding our true bliss. We might over-obsess or over-indulge, making kink a hindrance in the rest of our lives. Perhaps we have other spiritual work that needs doing. For some, abstinence for an extended period can be a form of ritual before doing significant Sacred Kink workings. Whatever the reason, sometimes these things we call burn-out, frustration, a call back to private exploration or a need to give it up for a while, might be sacred work in disguise. For others of us though, these breaks are manifestations of our intuition, with our patrons or inner self ordering us to back away and come back later—refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready for new adventures.
Release of Attachment
“Recount for me the commandments of your service.”
I stand before him in the bedroom. His eyes are curiously stern. The playfulness he usually wears is nowhere to be found. I start to list the commandments, a frog in my throat. I speak of service and dedication, of speaking up for myself to provide transparency. Our commandments have nothing to do with specific activities, just of the rules behind the rules, the structure of what our relationship is at its core. Finally, I speak that in all of this I hand myself over to his will, and through him, the will of the world.
He asks again, to clarify. “What possessions do you have?” Confused, I answer, none that he does not grant me. What did I do wrong? I’m shaking, afraid to ask.
Opening up the closet, he pulls out a long latex dress I bought when we went to an event last year. He orders me to put it on, and nervously I do. It clings to every curve, my breasts tight against the shiny material, straining to escape. Inside me, I’m straining to escape. He zips me the rest of the way in and has me turn around. He examines me, kisses me softly, then rips it off of me. Hundreds of dollars in finely made custom latex falls to the grounds in shreds. I go silent, shocked. My eyes are wide, unable to move.
He pulls out a print-out from my online-journal from this morning and reads me the entry. About how much I loved wearing my latex dress last night as he spanked me, everyone’s eyes on me, being the center of attention. He pauses. He asks me again what possessions I have. None, I answer, that he does not grant me.
In gentle and loving terms he explains that was his dress he just destroyed, he says with a slight tear in his eye. Destroying it was hard for him, but that according to our agreement, it was his to do. That when we had been at the play party, I had been wearing a dress he let me wear. I had been spanked at his whim and desire.
He grabs my hair and pushes me down into the shreds on the floor. “Recount for me what possessions you have,” he says. None that he does not grant me.
Again.
None that he does not grant me.
Again.
Torn shreds between my fingers, I let my attachment to them go. I breathe deep, and raise my head.
May I speak, Sir? “Yes.”
My dress is not destroyed. He destroyed his dress, and I was a witness to his actions. He is not angry at me, he is showing me a lesson. These objects are just objects. They only have as much value in our hearts as we give them. What matters is our journey, and our connection, but even that is not to be strangle-held, but appreciated for what it is now, in this moment. I thank him for helping me release attachment.
He lifts me up to his level. A gentle kiss, and he thanks me for reminding him of the same thing. He had been afraid to shred the dress, he confesses, but realized that he, too, had been too attached to physical things. What mattered was our journey. We gaze into each other’s eyes and as I bow my head, he kisses my brow, lovingly smacks my ass, and sends me to go make dinner.
The Callings of Slavery and Mastery
The language of Slavery and Mastery is a loaded one. We cannot deny the pain laced into the language by our history (and current practice in more places than we like to admit) of trafficking in human wares. Yet it is the term I will use in in this segment. It is not done so to harm others, but only to speak my voice as an author. Because the calling of Mastery and Slavery is a deeply personal topic for me, and the following pair of essays are of a very personal nature.
For me, the word “service” has become watered down by volunteering once a year at the homeless shelter to stop feeling guilty about our privileged lives in the West, or in the case of kink, an evening of carrying bags for a Top and expecting to be played with at the end. Submission is a useful term, but in my mind does not evoke an emotional call, a long-term state, but instead speaks of the constant dance of dominance and submission within our tribal and pack mentalities. Dominant partner is useful, but there is more. There is a lack of a truly gender-neutral term for the other side of this equation, and I get tired of putting “/” in my writing.
So I will speak of Slavery and Mastery. Slave, Master, and the dances between, within, and without. There are those for whom the terms I have listed have a deeper and more spiritual meaning, and I encourage you to hear what I am trying to share of my journey and insert what might serve you with the vocabulary you prefer. For those this language hurts or brings up generational and personal trauma, please find new terms and share them with us all, for we are hungry from the call.
Because there is a call. A need deep in the heart of some individuals to serve not just for a time, but as a personal truth, a piece of core identity. For some of us, it sneaks up out of nowhere due to a connection with one partner, and others, there has always been an innate need. Some carry this call into their spiritual work or dedication to the divine, finding fulfillment as priests, priestesses, monks, nuns, and other forms of clergy and holy men and women. Others carry this work into a secular drive to feed the masses, clothe the cold, and bring clean drinking water to lands far from their place of birth. But some of us are called to express this calling in service to another human, or through a specific human, to a greater good.
There are lots of different ways to reference this work. Many theories have been cast. Mine are shown here as a pair of essays—two sides to a coin, two faces to contemplate, two pieces that inform one another. My hope is that as you read my thoughts, you find scraps of wisdom that you might find useful.
Of Slavery and Service
It calls like a siren song. A thought, a fleeting feeling that your tongue can’t quite voice the fullness of. A need to give. A longing to be part of something more than one’s self.
Some describe it as a need to be taken, to be owned. There is that, too. But there is so much more. If I needed convincing, it was only to convince me to stop blocking out the truth that my inner wisdom already knew. I fought so hard at first. Child of a feminist, history buff, the type of person who helped replant forests. How could I possibly want to hand over all I had, all I was, to someone else?
In the world of kink, I had played around with giving and receiving, topping and bottoming. I’d been bound to a bed, shivered in anticipation. Waiting on my knees I had consented to wear a collar, moaned in bliss as I called my partner by the title that their dominance demanded. But topping and bottoming had been physical. Dominance and submission had been mental and emotional. This call though, it tasted of the spirit, it felt like the serpent coiled inside me stirring to awareness.
I know some who believe that if they offer not just service, but surrender, in the bedroom, some mystical trigger will be switched that makes you a pushover to everyone. This is not true. Slaves are some of the most powerful individuals in the world. But how can this be? How can you be owned, and be strong?
One of the first things I learned in Slavery was that I was valuable. Why in the world would another individual want to invest time, energy or resources on me if I wasn’t? In the eyes of my owner, I found a mirror for me to see myself in my greatness. To dive into all I am.
I realized in my dive that in my earlier attempts at submission, even when using the word Slave, I had no capacity to be a Slave. How could I think I could sign over myself, as if I were a car to drive home, if I did not have the title to that car? I had to have ownership of myself first. We can’t sign over what we don’t own. And the reality was, before then, I had not owned myself.
Pain owned me. Sadness. Regret. Trauma, drama and self-pity. I thought that if someone wanted to own me, they must see something useful in the trash heap of my spirit.
I came to my service from a place of waste. Of being worthless. In turn, what I offered was tainted with this. I could not surrender the gold of my soul because I did not believe it existed.
When my owner offered up their eyes as mirrors, they saw in me what I, on some level, knew. I had finally come to know that I was of value. Before then, no matter how much a partner said, I would sabotage the relationship or sabotage myself to prove to them how worthless I truly was. I had to believe myself powerful enough for the hard work that is Slavery to believe that I could ever be a Slave. No one can make you a Slave but yourself.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
There is awesome confidence to be found in knowing that we have a role in the universe, and that we are stepping into the fullness of that role, that calling, each and every day. Even if we don’t do service each day by chopping wood or carrying buckets of water, we do the work of refining our spirit, learning new things, investing in that which is owned.
It is this day-to-day work, of finding ourselves, of handing ourselves over to another (be it a cause, a god, or a human worthy of all that we are) that enables us to find more layers of ourselves. It demands vulnerability. It deserves to have you come forward, naked and eyes wide-open. Though our bodies may crawl, we who hear the calling of Slavery in our hearts walk tall with our head upright and looking forward.
One of the most profound things anyone can do, from a place of strength, is choose to follow a path of conscious submission. In feminist thought it is argued that women are not naturally submissive to men, and our culture has painted the picture over millennia, that women are lesser than men and weaker. We live in a culture full of class struggle, racial and religious oppression. Within the word “slavery” echoes the real truths of people purchased and sold as chattel.
This is far from the courageous act, this calling. A calling of conscious and consensual Slavery is an act of power, an act of cultural rebellion. It says to the world that we know the story, the origin of this oppression, and yet we personally choose to serve another, as our own path and way to operate in the world. That we choose to submit here, even while knowing that we are not required to be submissive throughout the entirety of our life. For women it is a deep act of feminism to make a conscious choice to follow our truth, no matter what it is. Men find deep personal authenticity through making a conscious choice to follow their truth, no matter what our culture paints as a pre-determined story of how we should behave based on our genitals or gender identity. This calling says that every human on the planet should be empowered, and within that full empowerment, make a choice to follow their truth.
There are also those who find themselves as Prey in a world full of Predators. They come hungry to serve, for their calling in life says “I am Omega, and I heed my call.” They know the path already, and open their heart to the world like a beacon, calling those who would be their best Alpha along the path. But even in this place of Omega identity, they listen to their inner wisdom rather than settling for a life of being devoured and broken down by the world around them.
We come to a moment, in our Slavery, where we find ourselves raw, naked of spirit, exposed, unguarded, unprotected, and defenseless. Through a thousand possible journeys and tools, the moment comes. Two paths lay before us. One path is to run. Run back to comfort, security, and a road that everyone will understand. A life you can explain to your coworkers and family.
The other path is surrender. Surrender of the body, surrender of the mind, surrender of the spirit. We each make a choice. Neither choice is wrong. It is not more exalted, more profound, or better to be a Slave. You are not the highest and mightiest on the totem pole of submission. You do not become the best beloved or gain super powers.
It’s a calling, or it’s not. Or it’s not right now. Or it is for this moment.
If we do make that choice, if we are called with all our beings to follow the road that says surrender, an alchemical process takes place. In the crucible of surrender, and with our hearts exposed and held safe by the universe and our Master alike, we can find a new route to growth, awareness, power, and vitality. And the amazing thing is that, as slave Caroline once said in her own thoughts on the matter, “the power a Master has is only equivalent to the extent their Slave is willing to be vulnerable. If a Slave is unwilling to be surrendered, a Master has little to virtually no power to make them vulnerable.” This becomes yet another gift we grant to the one willing to walk the path with us.
Of course “slave” can also be a nice pet name. It can be hot porn in the bedroom. It can be a term of endearment that makes us feel special. Slave can mean anything to anyone. Slave can also mean worthless, meaningless thing, or filth. But consensual Slavery as a calling is a different notion. It is of vital importance to determine which voice a potential Master is speaking from. You may be the best Slave in the world, with the deepest calling, but without someone willing to journey with you, walking the path is far more ch
allenging.
That is not to say that a Slave who has no Master is not a Slave. If this is your path, your calling, it is not needed to have a Master to serve, as long as service and surrender takes place. Then what are you surrendering to? Universal Will. A cause. The community. God. There are so many things worthy of vulnerability, service and surrender. Some will treat you better than others. Some give more direct feedback than others. But the choices do exist.
Whomever or whatever serves as a Slave’s mirror, know that this is hard work for everyone involved. Do not idealize it. Even in the most matched relationship, it will not always be beautiful, glossy, or perfect. Sometimes in profound openness, we find the love we feel is not returned, or returned in different forms from what the Slave offers. Sometimes misunderstandings take place. Sometimes there is frustration, fear or pain. There is uncertainty as we doubt whether handing over our free will was the best choice.
What makes a good Master/Slave relationship is not that it always be perfect, but that when troubles come, everyone involved rises to the occasion. Each person supports or makes space for the other’s journey from a place of excellence in their respective roles.
And yet fear comes. Fear of what other people will think. Fear of a journey with no map. Fear of what we’ll see as we find ourselves, a day at a time. Fear that we aren’t good enough. Fear of letting go of attachments. Fear of not making the plans. Fear that we are not the perfect Slave.
Slave Jan from Washington state, when debating running for the International Master/Slave contest with her partner and husband of over twenty years, Master Bob, said, “I’m not a posterchild! I’m not the perfect Slave.” But as she explored the point, she realized that it’s not about being perfect. It’s about being authentic. Winning a title will neither prove nor disprove your path. Neither will caps, collars, boots, o-dresses, Slave silks, piercings or brands. The calling of Slavery and Service requires faith. Requires power. Requires love. Even if it is a love that others might not recognize from their own relationship framework.
The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond Page 33