“Your will be done, in heaven as on earth” Mt. 6:10
17 Pisces 28 Rx
SALVE ....
How do we do this? We will start each blog with a historical introduction and then look at the lessons we can learn from that. Then we will apply the relevant factors from the biblical concepts of Mastery and slavery to our current ideas about consensual slavery; isn’t that sexy? WWMD; what would master do …
Bossy man, slutty woman?
Traditionally in Western culture, males are regarded as dominant and females as submissive. When you look into the emerging BDSM subculture, you can see that many new kinky first define themselves around this role and try out in these roles what they according to their traditions should be doing. It is often argued that this tradition is a result from, or due to, the literal text of the biblical canon, but this is to be seen.
Recent historical research shows that in early Christianity women and the female principle were much more prominent as in later times. This should not surprise us, as early Christianity was in many ways different from the ideas that we might get from the teachings of theology: the Scriptures were written much later as we initially thought, the many errors show that we have numerous copies, but cannot be sure about what the originals would say. Moreover, many more texts were regarded as authoritative (up to 40 gospels) and it took three centuries to sort things out to a situation that is similar to what we know now.
The conviction that the Bible and particularly the New Testament would teach a fundamental inequality of male and female and in addition reserves the dominant role to men and the submissive role to women, does perhaps not sufficiently see that much of the texts show a remarkable disagreement with this view. For now we will leave the question of historical Christianity and gender equality to feminist theologians and instead focus upon the second assumption with regard to dominance and submission.
Who is Master, who is slave?
For those who think slavery is not a New Testament issue, they are right in a way. It was not an issue in the sense that the biblical authors regarded all men created equal and were actively opposing slavery. On the contrary, it was regarded as belonging to their cultural heritage and it took ‘christianity’ another eighteen centuries to finally get rid of slavery. The reason is obvious; Judaism had forms of slavery and Greek and Roman society completely relied on slaves doing the hard work, whereas the civilized upper class were busy spending money, having orgies and planning the next war. Also known as politics.
In later times, being a Christian also became a touch of being asocial, particularly because Christians renounced accepting the Roman Emperor as (lower) deity. It started as a religion of the poor and as such does Western development partly own thanks to some of the ideas that can be found in the Christian-Judeo heritage. But enough about that and back to the time that the teachings about Jesus became popular. When slavery was not battled against, what was then thought about it?
From the New Testament text it is clear that the early Church did teach that all men were sinners and came short of the glory of God. St. Paul (in Romans) calls all men ‘slave to sin’, so sin was not even an option, but a natural result of being enslaved. The freedom however, was not to be freed as a slave, but to change Masters; from being a slave of the devil, the redeemed would voluntarily become slaves of God and Christ Jesus. This held for men and women alike, so the idea that the New Testament would teach that men were natural Masters and women naturally submissives is seriously flawed; not women were submissive, but all of humanity were regarded as slaves from which obedience and repentance was expected in order to get redeemed.
The perfect submissive in this sense, can be found in the person of the 'Son of God'; always true to his father, loyal to the core and willing to sacrifice his life for the need of atonement by carrying the wrath of God. He was the perfect servant. Consequently, being a slave to God and a follower of his most prominent servant, Christianity was taught that the ideal life is a life of servitude, self-denial and modesty. As grossly half of humanity is submissive in nature and from the dominant half most never learned to be a Master, it does not have to wonder us, that the message of Christianity is still governing our society and culture, even when we have stripped religion out of our daily lives. Its heritage is still there.
What’s in it for us today? What is the kinky lesson?
Being a sub or a slave is a high call. It is a long quest to reach self-acceptance and self-respect and it takes a lot of courage to find your branch of BDSM that gives you both pleasure and fulfilment. In our mental world of dreams and fantasy, being a slave and serving a Master bears similarity to paradise and being in heaven. For obvious reasons, this is a huge turn on.
In reality however, we see a different story. It is a story of trial and error and a continuous struggle to find out where we end and the other starts. There is an important reason that so many submissives and slaves fight for their pleasure, revolt and display renitence; it is the ignorance of their weakness and the lack of knowledge concerning the will of their Masters. This brings us to our fists principle:
#01 – Your Master expects from you that you do his will.
This is the whole definition of being a slave; you are there to serve and your Master has the right to demand it from you. Provided of course, that your Master is worthy of service and cares about your needs, your joy and your happiness too.
What hinders us …
Perhaps you are a young or a disappointed or a weak slave; indecisive with regard to your allegiance, unsure about your quality and attractiveness as a slave. But let that be your Masters concern, not yours! The whole reason for doubt can be found in the inner attitude of the slave; the idea that you have to take care of your own needs (but although you can switch, you cannot be both slave and Master at the same time); the idea that you cannot trust a Master to be good for you (but they can and will); the idea that your Master will reap all the benefits and that you go out empty (while in fact, mostly the Master is the one that does the majority of the work, as the Master is responsible for his slaves).
This attitude – in biblical terms – we can call ‘a lack of faith’. It is the fear of evil, of abuse and that of insufficiency that stops us to get beyond that threshold and to give ourselves over to our inner call. It is however, like the Letter of John shows, love that drives out fear. To experience bliss, you must get past that point of insecurity, of feeling not safe and not at ease. For a slave in order to be a true slave, it is essential that you completely surrender yourself – in an act of consent – to the will of your Master.
How to do that will?
Sounds hard? And nevertheless, this is precisely what you do inside your head; you are not worried about who you are, what others think of you or if your ‘dream’-Master is good; you know he is; you know it will be mind-blowing, you know it is ‘heaven on earth’.
All that it requires is that you ‘believe’: in yourself, in your sufficiency, in your ability to select the proper Master to serve, in your Masters devotion to make your relationship rewarding for both or all of you. The funny thing is that in koine Greek - the language the New Testament was written in - the words for ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ are one and the same; ‘pistis’. So the step from believing someone into trusting someone is not as hard as you think. If a Master is trustworthy, reliable and has a good reputation and you find him sexy; go and ask. Perhaps he has been waiting for you too.
Any Master will be thrilled to find a slave that is seeking to do his will. Most will find, that slaves are seeking their own will and try to get the Master to do what the slave wants. An example for this is the mechanism of masochist slaves to annoy their Masters in order to get disciplined for it (which is what they enjoy), but does it not empower their Masters as they are topping from the bottom and the Master becomes the servant? In a way this is hardly avoidable; we are humans and we need to learn how to have a functioning Master-slave relationship. A slave that understands that its job is to serve, brings excellent goods into the relationship.
What is in it for us?
All of us are driven by lust and desire. Without a strong desire no difficulty will ever be tackled. So it is for a slave to direct his desire toward to abide by his Master’s will. It is an effort, it requires work and determination, but by attempting it you will discover that your Master is pleased. He does of course require your services, he is entitled to it, but nevertheless, he is pleased by your zealous striving to give yourself over to him and by finding out what it is that serves him best.
So, if you are a submissive or a slave who considers on how to improve your life; start today with setting your mind on your Master's will. Your Master comes to you in his wishes, in his needs, in his rules; by giving you over to his will with all your heart and determination, he will relish in you. He will take all of you and by doing so your mutual heart’s desire is fulfilled.
Monsignor C. Cameloni
