The Point of Having a Slave

(A while ago, I posted this online and completely forgot about it until yesterday, when someone reposted it on BDSMLR. I read the post and thought “I 100% agree with that” and then I saw the tagline and realized I’d written it. After a good laugh, I decided I should post it on my blog, with a few additions.)

Periodically, I see posts on various kink sites that ask for or offer “ways for a dom to use his slave” or things like that. And we regularly get questions like that on a FetLife forum I moderate. These posts always puzzle me. They suggest that doms are supposed to be fiendishly inventive about how they use a slave, that the dom should be constantly puzzling over the challenge of using a slave, or that using a slave takes work.

To me, that TOTALLY misses the point of having a slave. A dom has a slave to make his life better in some way. That means that the proper way to use a slave is in whatever way makes the Dom’s life better (within the limits of safety and the slave’s consent/negotiated submission). The power ought to be flowing from slave to master in terms of the slave giving his time and effort to make life better for the master.

So if it makes my life better to have my slave’s mouth around my dick, that’s how I’m going to use my slave. If it makes my life better to have my slave cook dinner or wash my car, that’s how I’m going to use my slave. If it makes my life better to have him manage my money or plan my vacation or find other boys for me to fuck, that’s how I’m going to use my slave. In all cases, the power is flowing from him to me; I’m calling the shots and I’m getting the benefit.

In contrast, telling a slave “wash your kitchen floor wearing your sissymaid uniform. If anyone knocks on the door, you have to answer it” or “write the word ‘pigslave’ on your chest and walk to the gas station in your short shorts” is a task, but it isn’t using the slave, unless the master genuinely enjoys knowing that the slave feels sexy and humiliated. If these sorts of things really turn your crank as a master, great! But if that’s the case, why would a master need to ask for suggestions? These tasks don’t generally benefit the master–his floor isn’t getting washed, after all. Instead, these are tasks that mostly benefit the slave by humiliating him. If the master is putting a lot of effort into coming up with tasks that mostly benefit the slave, the power isn’t flowing from slave to master, but from master to slave. The master is serving the slave’s erotic experience without getting much benefit.

Using a slave isn’t some great mystery. It’s a really simple concept. Use your slave in ways that make your life better, either in the short term or the long term. There’s no point in asking someone else for ideas about how to use your slave; only you know what will make your life better. 

Now, having said that, when I use my slave, I need to make sure that my slave is getting what he needs to enable him to submit. All slaves need something that makes them feel like the autonomy they are giving up is worth what they are getting from the dom. For some slaves, it’s pleasure. For some, it’s humiliation. For some, it’s a sense of service. For some, it’s a sense of being valued or loved or relied on. The things that motivate slaves vary a good deal, and it’s the master’s job to provide those things in order to help motivate the slave to continue serving. So if what your slave needs to be happy is periodic humiliating chores or orders to dress a particular way, the dom needs to make sure that those become part of how he uses his slave. But no one else can tell you what your slave needs. Only you and your slave can figure that out. 

Asking for suggestions about using your slave suggests that the dom is thinking of power exchange more as a game than as a serious way of living. That’s certainly ok–not everyone who explores slavery is in it 24/7. I think part of the reason this question arises is that a lot of people find partners online and they may claim a slave who is 1000s of miles away. Because the slave cannot wash his master’s clothes or suck his master’s dick, online masters often resort to giving slaves make-work chores so that the slave feels controlled. To me, that doesn’t work very well, because it doesn’t benefit me to have my slave cleaning his kitchen. (That’s the reason I do findom–it’s one of the few things I’ve found that allows me to feel like the slave is genuinely serving me at a distance, and I feel that the balance of the power is flowing to me, even if I am spending a good deal of energy on making sure the cashslave feels my attention and power).

There’s no great mystery here. Figure out how your slave can make your life better, and have him do that. To me, that’s the whole point of having a slave.