The Process of Enslavement

By Yaldahtovh <yaldahtovh@aol.com> - May 2000

The essay below was originally posted to the newsgroup alt.lifestyle.master-slave and is reproduced here, in the Essays section of Enslavement.

A Master takes away his slave's free use of time. Her time no longer belongs to her. She rises in the morning when instructed, and her use of time is at Master's will. She will work at what Master orders when he tells her. If she works outside the home, she is expected back at a certain time, her time belongs to him. When she eats, sleeps, perhaps uses the bathroom, when she does her chores, and when and if she has leisure is not for her to decide. Her time is not her own. If Master calls her to his side, she goes, no matter what she was doing. Her time is not her own, it belongs to Master. When you take away a woman's free use of her time, it no longer belongs to her, but becomes Master's time. I think there is no more powerful psychological experience than that of not owning your own time.

Physicality: The experience of one's body as one's own. A slave's body does not belong to her. She is instructed on how to wear her hair, whether and how to use makeup, when to be clothed, and in what clothing, and when to be naked, how to care for her skin and nails. She can be stripped and inspected at will. She is denied free access to her own pleasure. She may not masturbate without permission. She may not climax without permission. She may not take aspirin for a headache without permission. She has sex when, how, and with whom her Master decides. She must bear whatever pains are inflicted upon her. She has no right to say "no" to the use of her body. After a time, her psychological reality becomes "my body no longer belongs to me." When you take away a woman's free use and handling of her own body, it no longer belongs to her, but become's Master's property. It is a powerful shock that first moment a woman recognizes that her body is no longer her own.

Privacy: We free beings are used to the right to privacy. We close bathroom doors. We perform our ablutions in private. We would prefer to be left alone when we are ill, perhaps, or cranky, or not looking our best. We hide the evidence of our menses: flush the tampons, wrap the used napkins. We take our deepest fears, our most intense angers, our illogical primitive emotions and hide them from others, lest they turn from us in disgust or fear. We note our dreams in morning and consign them to the dream ether from whence they come; they disturb us and we wish to forget. A slave has no right to any of that privacy. There is no private space in which a slave can hide from Master, either literally or metaphorically. She may not close a bathroom door. If Master wants her to experience her lack of privacy, he may choose to intrude upon her bathroom functions. She may not hide her fears, her angers, her emotions, for when Master intuits she is astir, he will be in her face until she opens them to him. When a woman has no privacy, neither physical nor psychological, she no longer owns her space, her external or internal space. When you take away a woman's privacy, she no longer owns her internal or external space, her very essence belongs to Master.

We can see why this takes time. It takes time because one must repeatedly, consistently, doggedly take ownership of a woman's time and body, and strip her of the right to privacy. And it's no wonder there is resistence along the way: it's not only willfulness that must be addressed, but resistence out of fear when a woman begins to be transformed, when she feels her ownership of her time eroded, her ownership of her body stripped away, her privacy gone. A woman enters this process a free agent, comfortably familiar to herself, and is truly transformed.

She becomes a slave.

Last updated 5 February 2001.