I have just read this fantatic quote given to me by another online friend:

"Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other."
--Metastasio

Risk is something we encounter every minute we live.  The riskiest time in a human's life is the moment we are born.  The reason for the reduction in neonatal deaths and of those of the mother may be due to improved care before, during and after the process of birth itself, but that does not detract from the fact that risk is our birthright.

Risk is the realm of the gamblers.  We all gamble.  Gambling - with feelings, with lives, with money becomes addictive because no noble acquisition - nothing in fact - can be gained without the danger we may fail.

The more noble the acquisition, the more to lose.

BDSM has its own language associated with risk.  We may talk about Safe, Sane, Consensual or Risk Aware Consensual Kink but it boils down to two things: what you do with the risk that is always going to be there, and doing it with full and certain positive desire.

I have read many medical ethics papers which talk about the nature of consent.  The reason I talk of medical ethics in the same breath as BDSM is because, without doubt, you lay your life on the line when you undergo medical treatment but it is for your benefit.  In BDSM we lay open our bodies and our hearts and our minds to the real risk of genuine physical, emotional or financial harm for our own benefit and the benefit of others when we receive or take up the lash.

In terms of medical ethics, we talk about "consent" and "informed consent".  Is it sufficient to rattle off a list of what is to be done with our bodies and for us to say "yeah, OK then?".  Or do we have to understand the nature of what may go wrong if we do say yes?  Medical ethics has evolved from agreeing that the patient needs to say yes, to the patient has to know what might go wrong before that yes is said and signed off.  This leaves us with the question of what must the patient understand might go wrong.  The physician must answer the question, what are the attendant risks?  This leads to further question on how much must the patient be told of the risks, so what are they?  Those that the patient are able to comprehend?  How "informed" must "informed consent" be? 

In BDSM, Risk Aware Consensual Kink could be rephrased as "Informed Consenual" Kink.

(Hang on - that leaves us with ICK rather than RACK - which doesn't actually do much for me, but this is by the by.)

It is the nature of the awareness of the risk that we need to consider, and it boils down the following: probability and impact.  If something is likely to go wrong, would we do it even if its impact were minimal?  If the probability of it happening is minimal but its impact devastating does that make it less important?

No.  Both are equally important, although this might be viewed very differently.  Therefore we need to take steps to either a) ameliorate that risk or b) deal with the impact of the risk.  This is where the risk assessment comes in.  Assessment of risk - quantifying the probability and impact is inherently unsexy.  It is.  It's like turning trying to understand the need of a sub through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  It's turning sex into a technical exercise and one, which may detract entirely from the point of the sex and turn the pleasure from visceral thrill to ashes in the mouth.  This does not mean it is any less important than making sure our doors are locked at night.

Such is life for a responsible dominant.

Submission consents: does it give consent or informed consent?

And this is the hardest part to write because I feel the answer is one that I believe is personally risky - i.e. it says more about me than of my understanding of the nature of BDSM - and I too have assessed that risk and found it acceptable.

Submission does not give informed consent.  Submission says "yes", not "I understand what will happen to me, do it".  The dominant wields the power as the surgeon the knife, with every skill and art they have and can bring to muster to ensure that the sub's consent is not illadvised, that their trust is misplaced.

What can be done to ameliorate the risk?  Ultimately it is down to certainty of intention of outcome.  What is the dominant intending to achieve?  Does the dominant know for sure what they are going to achieve through doing it?  Are they capable of achieving it?  I speak only of myself when I say that there is only one thing worse than a too-trusting subbie and that's an incompetent dominant.

There are, of course, safewords.  Their use too requires a great deal of assessment of risk - risk that the subbie may not use them when needed, risk that the dominant may mishear, misread signs, mistake their intention and misplace their confidence.  There are other options, such as bringing in another party to act as observer.  There is, in my view no substitute for giving up the one thing that brings me here as a dominant; my own sexual enjoyment of the act itself.  If I lose myself in that moment, then I am not aware of the risks and I cannot dominate if I am lost.  So is there anything, anything which can possible ameliorate any of the risks at all?  And that brings me back to why I write, to clarify my own understanding, to amplify and define my senses and sensibilities.  I write to inform.  I write to inform myself.  And it is through that knowledge - both of self and the subject which allows me to ameliorate any of the risks that come my way.

Knowledge is in itself power and that alone is sexy.

What I do with that knowledge is the difference between me being a responsible and irresponsible dominant.

Bright blessings on you all,

Gloriana 

One of the great things about being online in a community such as this, is that it facilitates an exchange of ideas and a greater understanding of the "why" of our lifestyle and community.  FemDom is a topic which interests me greatly (hey I'm a Domme, I'm not going to say I'm bored rigid by it) and I've been doing some thinking about this subject.  In order to fully understand my own views on this, I have had to look back to both religion (pagan, i.e. native religion, and pre-Trentine catholicisim i.e. when the Church was the Roman Church, rather than having been reformed).  I also feel it pertinent to comment on the dynamic and psychology of submission to a Dominant woman in order to fully express my own views.

Why do some men submit to women?

For centuries our societies have been mostly patriarchal, and where there has been reverence of a female figure, this has been in terms of the mother, or the virgin.  There for procreational purposes (implanting of the seed to grow into future generations) or sexually innocent.  These figures are both passive, bordering on the asexual.  So why do grown, responsible men say "Mistress, I am Yours to command"?  I have thought long and hard about this and I believe there are two strands to this answer, both of which are worthy of consideration.

Firstly, men are born to command (feminists, don't shout at me too loudly - bear with me).  They lead, they are responsible.  At work and at home they are the Head of the Corporation, the Head of the Family, the Head of our Societies.  Power is theirs (so it seems) by right, and they use it relentlessly.  With power, power's darker side if you will, comes responsibility.  Flip sides of the same coin.  Power without responsibility is tyranny, and although we have borne tyrants throughout history, responsibility is something that the men that wield the power know all too well.  That is a heavy burden.  It requires self control as well as control of those for whom they have that responsibility, and although authority - the ability to wield that power - can be delegated, the responsibility remains at the power's source.  How sweet it would be then to be able to lay down that burden, give it to someone else, let someone else make those decisions when minds are occupied with high finance and people's lives.  An act of surrender as well as release. 

Where can these poor captains of industry and heads of the household lay that responsibility?  At whose feet can they say "take away this hurt and free my mind".  Ultimately, the first person to soothe their wounds and heal their hurts, and nurture their minds and bodies were their mothers.  But therein lies Freud and a wealth of issues I am not qualfied to talk on.  So they look for their ersatz-mothers, the strong female figures whose shoulders are strong and can say to them "rest little one, you will do as I say".  They turn to the Dommes.  We are not their mothers, for lo we are sexual creatures.  We are not the virgins, the innocent and malleable.  We are the women on whose strength these societies have been built; whole, uncompromising, complete within ourselves.  We have that sexual awareness that patriarchal societies have been afraid of for centuries.  We are worthy of worship.

Hang on, there's something.  We are worthy of worship, of veneration because we are who we are; because we are complete and unmalleable and sexual and powerful.  Worship?  Worship?  Yes!  There is something that these men are missing.  Something of which all societies mourn the loss.  Permission to adore women as sexual creatures.  And this brings me to my second strand.  Why can these men not worship us?  The answer lies in millenia of patriarchy, itself a heady notion. 

Before, women were the core of all power, the mystery of the bleeding that did not lead to death, the mystery of procreation within their own bodies.  Mystery because they could not experience it and therefore could not possibily understand it.  And so the priests proclaimed us unclean and jezabels and whores and unworthy of their worship.  We, who gave them life; we, at whose breasts they were nourished.  They ran scared and demonised us. 

Through centuries of reform and reinterpretation, women's roles were further diminished.  St Paul and St Augustine bear much of this responsibility, but without the lust for power of Constantine who gave the christian church an administrative structure would this contempt of the power of women have been given such opportunity to thrive?  I don't know.  Constantine's conversion enabled many more men to see that redemption was through structures that men could understand.  Jesus, a man, bled and died for our sins.  That must be true, unlike these strange women who bleed every month and do not die.  That they understand, that they accepted.  And yet the longer these patricarchal structures have been in place, the more guilt was placed on men for not being able to access the strength and procreative power of women.  So secretly, they crave being able to worship us again.  And so they come to us, ask "Mistress let me worship You" because they require permission to be *allowed* to recognise the core of the woman that we all are; not passive, not desexualised but proactive, powerful, sexual because *we* so choose to be.  They call us by the name that our roman forefathers used before the Goddess: Domina.  They worship us because they need to release the guilt of wanting active, powerful, sexual women when they are told by society that we are passive.  And by so doing, they recognise and embrace their Principia Femina, their X chromosome that they inherited from us.

So, captains of industry and heads of houses, lay down your burdens of responsibility and embrace your love of us on this feast of St. Valentine.  We will instruct, control and command you and do so in the full knowledge that we wield power with wisdom and responsibility.  You are safe with us.

Dedicated to my powerful sister Dommes.

Bright blessings on you all,

Gloriana