Empress of All Space and Time
» BDSM, D/s, S&M: Speculations
Word, titles and power exchange: a topic I’ve been helplessly drawn to since I started this site.
Living in the Post-Postmodern 21st century we’re all too aware of the false assumptions that cling to words. Language seems tainted by commerce and blemished by banality.
We don’t want our kink life - our sex life - corrupted by the seemingly inescapable implications hidden in terms and honorifics.
OK, some people aren’t. Though if you are literate and analytical it doesn’t seem possible to not be put off by the unwelcome associations. But if you are happy to be called subbie cutie pie or the Empress of Ecstasy … well - I’m not talking to you.
The issue of honorifics if you use them to distinguish scene space from the rest of your life or you just plain want to be addressed by something other than your legal name can seem insoluble.
Recent discussions of D/s honorifics made me wonder:
- Do some people just use a different name? Jay becomes Jason (or Fred for that matter).
- Do some tops have the bottom address them simply as Ms. RealLastName?
- Some obscure character from myth or legend? (Really obscure, not somebody from Star Wars / Trek!)
Perhaps some - like Ms. Reciprocity - adopt a quality they value as a role name.
I can’t recall whom but I know one woman said something about being addressed by a Japanese word of respect.
One of the more interesting titles I remember seeing was Trainer. People will call someone their Owner, but ever as a title?
Ideally you create your own private vocabulary just as you create your own style of living.
Given sufficiently imaginative force of will perhaps some words can be shorn of the dross.
On Fetish Lore: “Mistress”
On Femdom Blogs: Goddess, Lady, Ma’am, Mistress?
(All opinions are subject to change without notice. Refunds will be given where appropriate.)
Comments
The history and etymology of “mistress” deserves more investigation.
I believe it was used in the past for women of a higher social standing, originally, and I suspect it was commonly used for brothel madams. I don’t know when it was used to refer to a man’s extramarital lover.
I think the use of titles in BDSM is part of a tradition of people in subcultures granting themselves titles in mockery of established authority.
Posted by: Peter Tupper | July 29, 2007 7:46 PM
I have a faint impression that it was used in Elizabethan, Jacobean plays as a title for a pompous woman. I’ve always tended to assume that at some point it was the same as “Mrs.”
titles in mockery
I wish I felt that kinky people had that much humor and irony. But this whole honorifics business seems too often be taken with tedious earnestness.
Posted by: Richard | July 29, 2007 8:21 PM
This entry is still playing through my mind:
1 - Ms. LastName
2 - Ms. PersonalQuality
3 - “Owner”
All resonate in different ways in my imagination.
2 Seems like an interesting idea but I can easily imagine it fizzling.
3 - might be hot only in fantasy.
Still it is fun to let my imagination play with possibilities.
Posted by: Richard | August 1, 2007 6:05 PM