Censorship vs Laziness
This has nothing to do with the following post, but I thought it would be nice to give you an inside glimpse into my weekend. While typing this intro, three times now my fingers have hovered above the keyboard, my mind ordering the words into coherent sentences, when He has said “I want…” I need…” and “Go get me…”. Each time I would go get said item, settle back into the office chair, wrapping the blanket around my legs, dredging back my concept for today, to hear another command sent my direction, always issued nicely, but with no room for objection.
At least He said “Thank you” the last time, or He would have had a very small torx-head screwdriver sticking out of His ear, and wouldn’t He have looked stupid. 😀
I have seen quite a bit of comments and theories about censorship of a slave’s reading materials, internet usage and friend-to-friend communication. The two most common reasons given are:
- The Master does not want to have to deal with the slave learning undesirable information or developing a negative/questioning attitude
- The Master is limiting information to protect an easily swayed or overwhelmed slave from being inundated and confused on a subject
We will start with reason number one. This is the more problematic reason in my opinion. Most often I have seen Masters professing that they limit the information their slave can access to make sure the Masters’ influence is the only influence. I can see how that would be sound reasoning in the beginning of a relationship, with the Master is just making inroads and rearranging the slave’s thought process. But in an established relationship, where the Master claims they are completely in charge and have thoroughly enslaved the slave? If the enslavement is so thorough, how can the Master’s conditioning of the slave be so easily washed away from the mind of the slave by a few web pages? In other words, if he’s such hot shit about being a Master that she is hopelessly enslaved to him, why such worry about what a few web pages or other broads on the big wide web say? Is the hold on the slave’s mind so tenuous that any contrary information could dissolve it?
That’s why I tend to view Masters who offer this as their reasoning as too lazy or unskilled to effect lasting change in their slave’s mindset. Given that they are so vigilant in guarding against any differing viewpoints lest it erase all their hard (or not so hard) work, I wonder if they wouldn’t be better served by focusing the effort in getting a firm grip on the cerebral matter and worrying less about what goes through the ears.
On to reason number two. This one is much more grey-area. There are people who are just naturally more gullible, more prone to being persuaded. Anyone with a slick manner and silver tongue can swing their mindset around whichever way they fancy. These slaves, most of them can recognize this tendency and acknowledge it as a double-edged sword. With that self-awareness in mind, I wonder if the Master couldn’t use the unusually strong power of persuasiveness to reinforce that His word is the only word to be believed and followed. I understand the limitations of Masters and can totally accept that slaves with the tendencies of gullibility do need an extra layer of defense to keep them from believing the wrong people and ideas. I believe it is a balancing act, between keeping the slave and the relationship healthy, vs making every effort to instill a system in the slave’s mind that devalues others’ contributions in comparison to her Master’s, unless he indicates otherwise.
I realize that many people will have voluble vocal complaints about my suggestions to tinker and readjust, sometimes even demolish and rebuild parts of their slave’s personality. That’s fine. I still stand by my ideas. In a long-term O/p and some M/s relationships, some amount of conditioning, brain-washing, re-aligning is happening from the Master to the slave. Bitch all you want, there it is.
I’m not addressing the reason behind door number three: Because he wants to. What is there to address? Whims are often not very logical anyhow, and who I am to critique another kinkster’s fun?
What do you think?
I think it’s extremely problematic to restrict a slave’s access to information. Slavehood should be based on the informed consent of the slave. (The consent to be owned, I mean, not that the slave necessarily has the right to consent to everything that happens once they are owned.) If the master restricts his/her slave’s access to information, their consent is compromised. Now, I think that’s different from restricting a slave’s access to toxic people or comments (such as are often posted on blogs and message boards) where the slave is essentially engaging in self-destructive behavior by continuing to engage.
I think that the readjustment and realigning of slave to master you mention is something that happens in frankly every relationship, regardless of structure. The main difference is that Lachaise and I readjust to each other, instead of one of us to the other. Inevitably, the people we love (and especially, live with) affect who we are and how we act. That’s a lot different from brainwashing, which in my opinion is again problematic because it damages the slave’s ability to consent to slavehood.
On further reflection, the issue of censorship (like most issues) can’t be covered by blanket rules like “always wrong.” It all depends on what is being censored and why. If, for instance, I had a slave who spent so much time reading that it interfered with their duties to me, of course I would restrict or temporarily eliminate their reading privileges.