BDSM - House Elves

[kempermentor]

No: HPFGUIDX 181109


> Kemper earlier:
> Slave: The bottom or sub (submissive) in a BDSM relationship.
> 
> For those of you only ever licking vanilla, there are another 30
> flavors. BDSM stands for
> Bondage/Discipline,Dominate/Submissive,Sado/Masochism.
> 
> In the BDSM community, there is what's known as a 'slave contract'.
> The long and short of it is that the slave has veto power for 
> certain demands/commands of the master.
> 
> Unfortunately, the House Elves didn't think this up and so their
> psychological need for being bound and submissive was abused by
> unscrupulous masters.
> 
> House Elves are bottoms who need to be topped. They want to be bound
> (collared) to a master. But not just any master, a master who is
> compassionate. ...
> 
> House Elves are slaves, [that] want to be slaves under safe and sane
> conditions: kind of like, but not exactly like, slaves in the BDSM
> community.

> Sharon:
> ... That's an interesting theory. Certainly house elves are
willingly submissive, but is that becuase they've been socialised that
way?  Would they be so willingly submissive if they were born free? 

Kemper now:
Both questions I've pondered.  And I go back to the BDSM example: in
the US, submissives are born free but they grow up with a certain
kink.  Some are so into the role, that they are slaves for their
master 24/7.  Similarly, House Elves desire a master 24/7.  I
speculate that it has to do with their magic.  Here's my brief
prediction for The Scottish Book, the name JKR refers to her upcoming
encyclopedia on the HP world:

House Elves evolved to be so powerful that they couldn't control their
magic effectively and discovered that if they bound themselves to
another magical being then they became more magically grounded making
their magic easier to control.

The prediction would then allow for Dobby's inability to make it in
the world.  Perhaps he bargained with Dumbledore for less pay and less
money in order to be bound a bit tighter to maintain control of his magic.

> Sharon:
> Also there is no evidence that they get any sexual satisfaction from
being submissive or being beaten, although it does appear they get
SOME kind of satisfaction. So the parallel is clearly there, at least
in some form. ... The fact that BDSM has sexual connotations, though,
somehow makes me stop just short of agreeing completely to the comparison.

Kemper now:
Whoa!  I did not mean to intend that the House Elves were sex slaves
nor to suggest that they received any sort of... stimulation from
being bound or collared to a wizard.  I merely wanted to suggest a
alternate perspective than what's been discussed on other threads. 
BDSM submissives and House Elves seem to feel the need to be bound,
but for completely different reasons. 


> Sharon closed:
> Sharon, who now has an alarming image of a house elf  with a studded
collar, tied to a bedpost. Eek!
> Thanks for that Kemper!

Kemper now:
You're welcome!  Just be sure to give your imagined house elf a safe
word like 'yellow', or a safe phrase like 'welcome to walmart'