Mistress
The social and aesthetic associations with the term “Mistress” as it is used in female domination is a thread currently running on Fetish Lore.
… I would have a very hard time maintaining top space if a submissive addressed me as ‘Mistress’, especially if accompanied with the ‘as you wish’. I’m pretty sure I’d bust out laughing and have to call “cut”
One of my biggest fears in D/s is for the top or myself to say something that violates the internal integrity of scene space.
BDSM as Theatre
While some people resent describing power exchange sessions as theatre, BDSM as constructed drama works very well for me. The objections are much of a kind with those of describing it as play.
Some of that can be dismissed as a lack of genuine literary aesthetics: were you able to go back in time and visit a civilization like classical Athens during the age of the great tragedians the idea of theatre as trivial would be wholly foreign.
Many people also see evoking literary drama as an image of D/s as saying that the interaction is insincere. Acknowledging that we are engaged in a deliberate creation doesn’t diminish anything.
Honorifics & Titles in D/s
In a thread on BDSM honorifics and titles Lavender Scorpion wrote:
I love to hear my name. I find this to be so totally thrilling. It is so intimate in ways another honorific could never be.
My guess was:
I’m surprised more people don’t feel that way. It is two individuals that are exchanging power, not two generic roles.
But some people do use the titles as a way of distinguishing scene space.
Have you given thought to the theatrical nature of BDSM? To the title you use for yourself or addressing the other person?
How does all this work for you? In actual practice? In what you’d like or prefer to do?
- Is it OK to call BDSM play?
- To see D/s as theatre?
- Is it deadly serious stuff?
Is your title something you take seriously? Even if you are bottom and addressed as “slave” or similar?
- Would actual names be better for you?
- Or why not?
- Do you like your title / role term?
- Is there a secret one you want to use but haven’t?