Freedom, Glorious Freedom?

By Justin Tanis
JETanis@aol.com  
JETjrnyr@aol.com 

Read the SCENEprofiles Interview with Justin


The other day, in the course of doing some work, I came across a poem praising freedom and longing for the day when all human bondage shall cease. I felt torn in a way that I was pretty sure was not shared by my co-workers, torn between the desire for liberty–the right to live my life as I see fit–and the knowledge that bondage is so wonderful, why would you want to get out of it once you get in it? Okay, so I know the poem didn't actually mean that kind of bondage, but as one who is a consensual slave, I do have a conflicted view of freedom.
 
I recognize the irony of having spent my adult life working on causes, campaigns, jobs and projects working to bring about freedom-not just tolerance or even equality, but genuine freedom-for sexual minorities while putting just as much, if not more, effort and desire giving up my personal freedom to Masters. For some of us, freedom is both a blessing and a curse.
 
Americans are so desirous of our personal liberty-our individual rights to do as we damn well want (although sadly expressed by too many people wanting to live just like the neighbors). We who are sexual deviants-defiantly and gladly different than the neighbors-need the freedom to be who we are. Freedom is, after all, the issue behind the temper tantrum that I threw at age 10 or so in which I yelled at my mom and said that when I was grown up, I was going to eat only oreos for dinner and I would stay up every night until the then-unthinkably late hour of 11:00. Yeah, that'll show her what to do with her rules.
 
But some of us grow up from being that little kid to being the kind of adults who crave, cherish and need a Master to say that we certainly will not be having only oreos for dinner and that staying up until 3:00 a.m. on a worknight is absolutely unacceptable when 11:00 p.m. is so much more sensible. To tell you the truth, I don't exactly know how or why I turned out to be this way, but I did. I know that having too many freedoms leaves me feeling like a skydiver without a parachute, the wind rushing past me in a fierce roar as I plunge to what feels like a rapidly impending doom. Not to mention the fact that the absence of restrictions and bondage (literally and metaphorically) leaves me erotically very unfulfilled. Now, I am a perfectly competent adult, able to navigate my way through airports on various continents, hold down a job and keep the dog's shots current. But managing too much freedom, too many choices, makes me absolutely miserable.
 
Slave-wired people prefer a simpler existence. While traveling to visit my Guardian (I'm not owned, but am well-supervised and cared for in the interim) recently, I was trying to figure out if I had time to grab some food between flights as I dashed through the Phoenix airport, since my first flight had run late. It was with great relief that I realized if I didn't get lunch, my only responsibility upon landing would be to report the fact that I was hungry. Beyond that, it would be out of my hands whether the response would be an order to prepare a five-course meal, a trip through a fast-food drive-through or nothing at all. Knowing that it would be out of my control … that feels like absolute freedom to me. There's space in that freedom, space to breathe in, space to be in. The freedom from having to make decisions is heavenly to me. Liberty is something I keep trying to get rid of. Unlike most people, I'd gladly exchange any day the freedom to choose for myself for the freedom from having to make choices. This is a special kind of freedom known to slaves.
 
You must always remember, though, that this kind of freedom always brings with it the responsibility to select wisely the people to whom we give those choices. The chaos of having too many choices is actually nothing compared to the mess an unqualified person can make of your life. Where I live, the job I have, the way I cut my hair–all of these are choices that a previous Master made for me and I have to live with both the consequences of his choices as well as the result of my choice in allowing him to make such decisions in my life. Fortunately, these particular things were excellent decisions (well, the hair thing a matter of personal taste, but you know what I mean), but there are other things that are much harder to live with. A wise Mentor of mine says that one thing that slaves should look for in a prospective Master is a strong belief, based on your own experiences, that this person will make better choices for you than you will make for yourself. Anything less really is courting disaster.
 
Before turning over your decision-making power, and relaxing in that blissful freedom, think carefully whether this is someone who is qualified to make decisions for you in whatever arena you are handing them that power. Consider their common sense, their level of responsibility for you and their experience. Letting a novice Top select your dinner for you from a menu is a pretty safe place to start, for example, unless you have, say, diabetes. Then, knowledge of your medical condition is the experience that counts, not years of SM practice, because you risk a lot more than having to swallow a hated food (which can even be its own thrill) and you may have to substitute the adrenalin of a trip to the emergency room for the excitement of an evening of submission. No contest which one of those is more fun. This points up another responsibility for those of us who want to soar in the freedom of giving control of decisions to others–the responsibility to keep the Top fully informed of necessary information (your allergy to tomatoes, not necessarily your dislike of them).
 
But what a joy it is to turn the decisions over to someone qualified to make them who is glad of the opportunity! Because our desire for freedom from choices, and our willingness to act on those desires, facilitates another kind of freedom for Masters-the freedom to control and make choices for us. For the people who may have been constantly told as kids to stop being so bossy, we can give them free rein to be as bossy as they darn well please. After all, their desires for the right to control their own destinies and those of others are much more ardent than my one tantrum. To Masters, we can give the gift of the liberty to tell someone else what they want them to do, to order the right thing off the menu, to have someone dress as they think they ought to be dressed. In short, the freedom to live unconstrained by the societal pressures to curb the desire to control others and the option of living in control as they see fit. Of course, this also brings the responsibility to make appropriate and healthy choices for us.
 
Ultimately, the interactions between Master and slave (and other leather partnerships) should give us the experience of being freer to be our essential selves, freer to move through the world in ways that feel comfortable and fulfilling to us. If our relationships feel like they are limiting us, why do them? We should feel better, stronger, richer and freer because of them. We can give one another greater liberty than we have alone. One of the dangers of "topping from the bottom" is that it curtails the freedoms on both sides-the freedom of the Top to exercise dominance and the freedom of the bottom to experience submission.
 
For us to live in these unique freedoms-the freedom to make decisions for others and assume control of another life as well as the freedom to relinquish decision making and will-we must ensure the political liberty that creates and safeguards the rights of individuals to forge our own erotic lives without intrusion from the government or the neighbors. We will have to claim our space and demand our rights-they aren't going to be just given out-to be the creators of our own destinies in the bedroom, the dungeon, and in all of life. Our proclivities are a threat to society's one-size-fits-all view of sexuality and all of the limitations that come along with that view. We challenge simplistic views of human psychology and desire. A truly free society, however, allows multiple and complex ways of living within it, including our ability to claim or relinquish personal freedom with one another.
 
 

~~~

Copyright 2004

This article is reprinted here with the explicit permission of the author. If you would like to share it with others, please link directly to this page or contact the author for permission. It is a violation of copyright law to distribute or reprint this piece without that permission, however you may include a short quote from it, not more than 20% of the total text. Please respect the integrity of this work.