Rituals threads on O&P groups

Posted by Tanos on Tue 22 Sep 09, 12:13 PM to the Internal Enslavement blog

I've started another couple of threads, this time about Rituals, on the O&P groups on IC and on Fetlife, and on TSR.

For reference, here is the OP of those threads:

Tanos wrote: A ritual is a set of actions mainly performed for their symbolic meaning, rather than purely for their practical result. O&P uses rituals to reinforce and maintain feelings of ownership and possession. For example, if a slave must always ask their owner's permission to leave the room, the purpose is not only to determine whether it is convenient for the slave to be absent, but to reinforce the owner's general authority over the slave's actions. Some rituals are of purely private significance and their meaning isn't readily obvious to others. Others, such as the collar, are more widely understood. As an ancient symbol of slave ownership, wearing a collar is of particular symbolic weight in O&P, where bearing a dominant's collar always signifies that a submissive is in the possession of the dominant at that time. This is not universally true in many areas of BDSM, where collars are sometimes used as fashion accessories, are loaded onto models along with other random items bought at fetish shops by photographers, or take the form of "dom/me collars" sold by some vendors - for which there is no recorded history before the market for "sub collars" became saturated By reserving the collar for submissives in a dominant's possession, O&P not only clarifies its meaning, but reinforces collar-wearing as a ritual because it is shared with others with the same broad intention. It is then the dominant or owner's responsibility to clarify the exact meaning of a given collar beyond that: from a temporary symbol of possession that day, to being collared in a permanent and lifelong committment. It is undignified and inauthentic for dominants to be rushing in to repeatedly collaring submissives in relationshps which are presented as long-term but that don't last. No one can predict the future, and that's why we're capable of caution and patience. Are there rituals you've found effective in this kind of relationship? Do you have experiences of collars being devalued over time by casual use?

Edited Fri 25 Dec 09, 5:22 PM by Tanos