"The Control Book" by Peter Masters

Posted by Tanos on Tue 17 Apr 07, 5:38 PM

Peter Masters had an outline of this book on his website since the early 2000s and if you're really curious some of these versions are still there on the Internet Archive site. However, he's now produced a printed edition, published by Jack Rinella in March 2007, and this review is based on that expanded version.

I'm going to cut to the chase and say I really liked The Control Book. It doesn't have lots of details about the "culture" of D/s: instead it spends its time on the psychology of control itself, and reads more like a short textbook or scientific monograph than the kind of chatty BDSM manuals that are usually put out.

When it came out in March and I added it to The Slave Register's books listing, I was a bit unsure whether to classify it as an M/s book, and it is in fact written in terms of dominants and submissives. However, Peter Masters' (P.M. from now on) private M/s definitions are very realistic and he aims for a level of understanding that's needed to practice M/s in a way that's not always essential for other types of D/s:

The Control Book, p8 wrote: I think that the terms masters & slaves and mistresses & slaves are doomed to eternal confusion. Possibly because of the intensity historically and socially associated with the words people seem to use them for practically any BDSM activity, even extending into just plain ol' fetishism where control plays no part at all. My own take on master (or mistress) & slave is that they deal with control as a need where dominants and submissive might deal with control simply as a want. Well... that's what I like to think the terms mean but, as I say, they vary in meaning enormously depending on the terrain. I won't be using master, mistress or slave in this book any more.

The rest of the book's Introduction lays out the framework of evolution, archetypes and the conscious / subconscious / unconscious division of the mind that P.M. assumes for for the subsequent chapters. If you've read my recent essay on IE and Evolution you'll see why I liked the book from the start This section isn't just window-dressing either: P.M. assigns D/s activities like training to the divisions of the mind, and refers to parallel communication: eg that the dominant's conscious mind is saying words to the submissive's conscious, but that subconscious signals are also being communicated. He also brings in the evolutionary interpretation of Jung's archetypes inherited in the unconscious, and talks about summoning up dominant archetypes from within yourself.

This tripartite conscious / subconscious / unconscious division, like the parent / adult / child of Transactional Analysis, the neo-mammalian / paleo-mammalian / reptilian brain of Maclean's Triune Brain, and the superego / ego / id of Psychoanalysis, are all clusters of modules in terms of Evolutionary Psychology: they correspond to some universal aspects of the mind provided by the genetic make-up of humans, that do some identifiable set of tasks. These models are just ways of sign-posting the mind (fundamentally it's all just neurons that we're trying to understand by assigning what they do to concepts that we can work with), but they do correspond to patterns of what the human mind does and by understanding those patterns, we can better predict human behaviours, and in the case of submissives, control them.

P.M.'s summary of what he's after introduces the idea of control-sensitivity:

The Control Book, p47 wrote: My own focus, or interest, in BDSM is control-sensitive relationships. In other words, I like control. Not just being in control, but the awareness of control, the feel of control, and the ability to manipulate control itself.

which is, I think, pretty much unique in referring to control rather than power or authority.

Central to the book is a model for how control is transferred from the submissive to the dominant (and maybe back again):

• Submissive offers control
• Dominant takes control
• Submissive gives up control
• Dominant accepts and asserts control

and subsequently:

• Dominant consolidates control

and even:

• Dominant loses control
• Submissive retakes control

(If these sound like computer handshaking protocols, then don't be surprised as P.M. has a background in computer networks.)

All of these steps are given a page or more, and P.M. describes processes with overlaps of control and no control vacuums. (eg taking control prompts the submissive to relinquish it, not vice-versa.)

It may also sound rather self-consciously "worthy" of P.M. to talk about carefully ending D/s, but, like rewards, it's something that needs to be thought through with the same care as obtaining control in the first place and P.M.'s discussion isn't just empty platitudes.

The chapter on management applies these ideas to a long-term relationship itself, with sections on explicitly planning (do you both want the same type of relationship?) and ongoing re-evaluations, for example.

The short section on rituals applies the same kind of analysis and clarity to these components of D/s - for example, the clear statement that "rituals are about symbols", and his stressing of the importance of ritual:

The Control Book, p144 wrote: Ritual is a vital part of the relationship between a dominant and their submissive. One of the roles which rituals play is that they allow the nature of the submissive's relationship to the dominant to be expressed. Just standing around knowing that they are submissive is usually not enough to satisfy any need or desire the submissive might have.

I've briefly mentioned in a previous post the four-parts he identifies in a dominant's structure:

• Standing orders - "do X every morning"
• Rules - "when you do Y, do it this way"
• Ethical and moral values - "we never lie"
• Preferences - "I take my coffee black"

Each of these provide for continuation of control even when the dominant isn't present:

The Control Book, p150 wrote: For a submissive to be able to feel the dominant's control when the dominant is not around, and to know what options to choose, how to behave, and what tasks to perform, the submissive requires a well-integrated set of rules, orders, and awareness of the dominant's values and preferences. These all combine to create a structure which encloses the submissive. Ideally it will provide them with constant awareness of the dominant and the dominant's control.

All of the chapters include "things to think about" sections, with questions prompting further reflection or discussion, and the final chapter is a set of long, open ended questions which serve as discussion topics.

From my point of view, there were only a couple of notable omissions in the book: I think a discussion of reactance would have been very relevant, although the idea of "control stress" (p68) sounds like an intuitive version of reactive stress; and although the ownership section talks about ownership becoming real when submissives feel owned, some more detail about the necessary conditions for Internal Enslavement (security etc) would have rounded out the coverage of this type of control.

As I said, I've been very impressed by The Control Book and I was glad to see that the early web drafts have matured into an important contribution to the psychology of D/s and M/s.

Edited Tue 26 Feb 08, 11:49 PM by Tanos