What's in a name?

As graduate students, both laerie and I are quite familiar with the power of language. Despite largely semantical differences, certain words are often laced with deeper meaning than others. This is especially true in the BDSM community where vagaries abound. It seems that everyday brings another post asking for clearance on the sub vs. slave debate or the role of the Master as compared with the Dom, or my personal favorite: the service top.

Since I've already written about the inherent biases regarding the phrase "service top" (and will likely again... be forewarned), I'll move on to other ground for the time being. In particular, the word "slave" has become very fascinating to me recently. I've yet to see any other topic in the BDSM world be so contentiously debated as the concept of consensual slavery.

As you (hopefully!) know by now, laerie and I went through significant struggles trying to categorize our relationship. We wanted to know which little box we fit in on the BDSM spectrum. After all, it makes it very hard to discuss your relationship with others without relying on a shared vocabulary. As it stands today, we're still not entirely sure how to characterize ourselves, or even if we need to... but I digress.

To me, slavery is a word laced with many meanings. As a white male, it carries the burden of guilt for the unspeakable actions of history. As a dominant in the BDSM community though, it brings up thoughts of sacrifice, loyalty, and unshakeable trust. Shamefully perhaps, the BDSM definition has become the first response in my mind when I hear the word, and I won't deny that it usually arrives with a little tingle in the special part of my brain where all the sadistic thoughts hang out. However, for laerie, it is impossible to move past the historical definition of the word, even for the sake of discussion.

The impact of such latent potency in rhetoric is fascinating, at least to me. I don't have any grand revelations on the topic at the moment since it is still bouncing around my head. It simply has served to help make me aware of how easily meaning can get lost in translation, even with a couple like us who prizes our communication and honest discourse. Perhaps laerie's initial query to me way back when of why we even needed to define ourselves was right. There is something to be said for eschewing the traditional boxes and blazing the trail to meaning hand-in-hand. Afterall, actions speak far louder than words.