So I stumbled across a post on FL that asked if M/s couples were also friends. The majority of answers were of the negative: No, they couldn’t be friends *and* M/s, or no, they never wanted to be friends because of some social construct that would invalidate the dynamic if they were friends. The thought for some posters was that if they were friends with their owners/masters, they would then be equal, have the right to demand certain things, a right to fairness, and then it wouldn’t be slavery anymore.
I started thinking about N and I being friends. I certainly consider Him my friend, in fact He is the closest friend I have. He is the only friend I have who has been there through my worst and my best, who has held my hand and stroked my hair as I faced my biggest fears, who has shoved me forward and demanded that I take what I deserve from the world. The very nature of our relationship forces me to regard Him as my friend, because if He wasn’t my friend, wasn’t my biggest supporter and most loyal companion, I would never trust Him long enough to let Him into the funhouse of my mind.
It’s like a farmer and his working dog. If you have ever seen a pair that have been together for a while, that dog is treated like a child of the family. The farmer will have expectations, and he will train the dog and discipline the dog, but it is never considered another work tool. It is cared for, looked after, fed special treats on holidays, given affection and a deeper understanding. I have seen grown middle aged men sob at the death of their canine working partner. I’m pretty sure more in-depth conversations were had between the man and his dog than the man and his wife. Dogs are called “man’s best friend” for damned good reasons.
No one tells the farmer he can’t consider the dog his friend because it would erode the working relationship with the dog. Friendship doesn’t necessarily equal egalitarian. It doesn’t equal compromise, nor fairness. All friendships are inherently unequal in some fashion.
My services to Him include companionship, carrying out duties, providing Him with support, encouragement, the occasional WTF, amusement and entertainment. Consider me His faithful farm dog. I’m deadly loyal, eager to please, affable, I adore Him, I won’t let anyone else rub my belly and I’ll rip the arm offa anyone who makes one false step towards Him. I might even whine and whimper when I see Him pull in the drive. I’d fetch the metaphorical ball for Him off of a cliff.
He says I am His best friend as well. He can tell me anything (but won’t tell me what I am getting for my birthday). He can count on me to always be there, wagging my tail and asking “what next?”. He sees no reason a Master cannot consider the slave a friend, as long as the slave knows the boundaries of the friendship and act appropriately.
While quite a few people I like muchly have answered in the no column, I have to wonder if this isn’t another elaborate construct to either allow people of low emotional intelligence to function with a partner or another way to set apart M/s from vanilla cultures.
“We’re such bad-ass M/s’ers that we aren’t even friends. We can’t be, because we’d no longer function anymore. Our M/s can’t handle that much intimacy while still transferring power.” is the worst situation I can imagine.
For what it is worth, I haven’t met a person yet who is local, in a current relationship and can say “My partner is not my friend, just my Dom/sub or Master/slave.”
In fact, replace “friend” with “lover” and you see an eerily close match to the nauseatingly continuous bickering about whether a Master can love a slave without becoming a slave to the love. For many M/s purists, love weakens the M, makes Him as sturdy and manly as play-doh or something. It’s a corrupted version of slavery to them, and the purists can go straight from “Owner loves slave” to “Owner is really pussywhipped”. Fuck, man. Can a guy love eating rib-eye without becoming a slave to the steakhouse? Can a Master, I dunno, like *master* their own emotions and be able to chew gum and walk at the same time?
N really really loves the land we live on. That doesn’t stop Him in the least bit from digging it up, re-arranging it, tearing shit down, lighting it on fire. Why? He does it out of love for the land, and the potential of the land. He is able to transform His love of the land into a work of beauty and effort. He is quite adept at doing the same with me. He won’t spare the rod and spoil the slave, no matter the amount of love we share, Or friendship we share.
alwayshistora 