Transcription
Hello, this is [Music] VI. This is Viola, and you're listening to Obedient Love.
So often, I refer to D/s relationships as symbiotic. So, what do I mean by that? First, the word symbiosis is a term in biology to refer to the interaction between two different species with different sets of survival needs. In so far as the definition has been extended into metaphor to describe human interactions, it must be noted that it's typically seen as a positive interaction and somewhat transactional. In other words, both parties are getting a need met through the symbiotic relationship.
And in biology, parasites are also considered as living in symbiotic relationships, even when the outcome of the parasite's survival can often lead to drastically harming or even killing the host. Nature embraces creation, perseverance, and destruction as equals without judgment. In its essence, symbiosis means either one or both parties has a need that is served by its close relationship with the other.
Because we are born into a long-standing tradition of capitalist relations, the question comes up: so, what's in it for me? It's funny how we pretend to be concerned with fairness when we live in an overwhelmingly parasitic economic system, which we view as symbiosis. And in the strictest definition, that is correct. The fact that our life energy, time, and efforts within this system for the majority of people who must work at a job that is gets funneled upward into an increasingly narrow flow toward the top pyramid fashion, making it so that a few don't have to make much effort at all to survive. The fact that it's a coercive system that most have no choice to participate in if they want to survive doesn't seem to bother many people, or else this system would have crumbled from the sheer refusal of those at the bottom to participate in such an unfair exchange. Without them, the ones at the top would wither and die.
There's a lot to be said for habit and education, both of which work to ingrain this system as the best system in the minds of those who lose the most from it. In fact, the hosts often will defend the parasites and express gratitude for having been given the opportunity to be sucked dry. Perhaps they imagine that one day they too will be able to take on the opposite role and instead become themselves a parasite. That's the story they are told. The brainwashing they're conditioned with from birth for many generations now. They need only be given the bare minimum to prevent their own suffering and death to continue on in this fashion. Even when they are not given that and they struggle for an entire lifetime and sacrifice themselves, wearing their lives away in the process, the conditioning goes so, so deep that they still cling to this model as the best idea. And anything else is, well, parasitic to those at the top, and that's not good, right?
So why do these human parasitic interactions not crumble? I personally think it has to do with something innate and beneficial within the human makeup. I think we have an instinct for the survival of our species over the survival of the individual. Put simply, this is why we have proliferated on this planet. Our willingness to cooperate and sacrifice for one another has been our greatest evolutionary advantage. It's our ability to be self-aware and self-conscious that gives us empathy. It's our most advanced trait, something to strive to advance even more. The problem is this innate positive can be perverted and exploited, and that exploitation has rapidly increased in recent times. And it is actively rejected by a few, except to use it as a tool to control the masses. The idea of serving the self became fashionable among some groups and is leading to the rapid decline and devolution of the human race.
So, first, we must not see the concept of symbiosis in biology or in human relationships as a necessarily even or fair situation. There are three basic types of symbiosis: these include mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. In mutualism, both species gain something essential to their own survival and well-being from their close relationship with the other. Though their needs may be very different, both need each other to survive and thrive. In commensalism, one species gains something needed, while the other neither gains much nor loses anything through the interaction. The species that gains nothing is simply benevolently and selflessly helping the other. Parasitism is where one species gains what it needs by doing harm to the other. So, as it can be seen, the majority of symbiotic relationships are not strictly fair. And these three types of symbiosis exist on a spectrum and not as strict delineations.
To my mind, the ideal D/s relationship exists somewhere between mutualism and commensalism, evolving further toward the latter while never veering fully into the parasitic realm. And rather than being coercive, it is 100% consensual, meaning that the submissive can, in fact, leave at any time without dying or being seriously harmed. And by extension, in staying, does not come to any serious harm as well. Remember my motto: the only legitimate authority is the authority to which you can consent with open eyes and an open heart.
I view D/s as naturally evolving toward commensalism because the greatest and most valuable thing that a submissive can gain from the symbiosis of D/s is the heart-opening experience of SAA, selfless service, and the sublimation and the annihilation of ego. Beyond the pleasure of fulfilling fetishes and kinks, submission can have the same aim, an ultimate goal, as so many religious and spiritual practices throughout the ages of human advancement. Empathy, service, and sacrifice being our best evolutionary advantage, as I stated before. These are the innate motivations and qualities that have made the human race most successful and prolific. They are the fruits and the gain of being a submissive, better than getting off. You get the gift of your own evolution. Submission is in itself the reward for submission; serving the reward for service.
Circling back, perhaps this is the appeal of capitalism: a drive to work towards this evolution, but it has unfortunately become perverted, parasitic, and coercive. Why not instead enter into a fully consensual relationship which will, in turn, accelerate your own evolution? A symbiosis which is neither unfair nor harmful. In our innate drive to evolve our empathy and selfless service, the craving to open your heart fully and sublimate and annihilate ego, humans need something or someone to serve, a focus, a purpose. Often, a cause is too abstract without a leader. The job of the dominant is to be a good leader and to guide the submissive on their path. The job of the femdom is to embody the goddess and become that to which the submissive will sacrifice. It's also to protect her submissive from veering too far into parasitic relations. The goddess is the safe container in which the submissive is free to let go and annihilate his ego without destroying himself completely in the process.
As selfish a position as it may seem, being dominant and a leader is just the flip side of service. We must be empathetic and care for ourselves, and we must also push them hard to advance on their path of sacrifice and selflessness. In my thinking and writing, I keep going back to the Bhagavad Gita. In the Gita, Krishna explains that the leader must not have any hard and fast motives. They must simply be a dominant leader, and that is enough to make sure that those who follow and serve them are working to become more evolved beings. In this, we are ensuring the success of the human species, not through procreation, but through social reproduction of the traits that make humans advance.
I know this is a lot to digest, but if you come away from this with anything, it should be this: your drive to be submissive to another is evolutionarily advanced, and it only needs a focus to be honed and refined. And so long as it does not become entirely parasitic, the best and most coveted thing you could strive to attain is your own deepening submission and drive to SAA, to selfless service. And for dominance, we have a duty to be that safe container for our submissives so they can expand and stretch their SAA to extreme ends of sacrifice without coming to any serious harm. It is our duty to maintain consent and to set the pace. It is also our duty to become the focus and the purpose of their journey and to embrace that without becoming parasites. It's a delicate balance, and it requires both confidence and empathy, but we all have much to gain in our mutual enjoyment and fulfillment in this life together. A happy mistress will make for a happy slave. Positive symbiosis.
Never ever hesitate to demand and expect great service and pleasure from your sub. As women, we sometimes feel hesitant to make demands, and there are many books written about how that serves a patriarchal and capitalistic parasitic system. But we must take our role seriously and command without fear, taking the lead to further push the advancement of a thriving human race. That seems like a tall order and a huge responsibility, and it is, but it can be enacted as simply as telling your slave to kiss your feet and get back to work on folding the laundry.
The final question many may ask is, couldn't women just as well benefit from being in service to men? And technically, the answer to that is yes. But as we've seen, the extent to which patriarchal rule has become parasitic, abusive, and coercive, and has been harmful to the spiritual evolution of the majority of men as well as women, it is in fact reversing the course of human evolution altogether with irreparable damage to the planet, selfishness, greed, and manufactured scarcity. A woman could benefit from service to a highly empathic man, but the chances that a woman's capacity for such empathy would not be already much greater than her male counterpart is frankly unlikely. A woman would advance her own evolution much more by being in service to another woman, if that's her preferred path. With male dominance, they have a tendency to have women serving only their most basic primal sexual desires, and they tend to echo and reinforce the abuses of the patriarchy. In short, they have a conditioned tendency to become parasitic and coercive without even knowing it.
Also, women have been so psychically harmed by the abuses of patriarchy from day one of their lives that a woman may have a higher likelihood of further abusing herself in following that path rather than using her empathy to help men spiritually evolve. This is a massive generalization, of course, but also an observation after years of exploring BDSM myself. I find the femdom-male sub relationship to be much more healing to society and acts as a kind of salve and recompense for oppression. Of course, all women should feel free to pursue whatever path they wish toward their own fulfillment. So, I try, rather unsuccessfully, not to judge. I'm not perfect in this regard, but the feminine has been repressed for such a very long time. I feel so strongly that it needs and deserves to be served. I'll have more to say about that in the future, but I personally feel that it's important to reverse the damage done by patriarchal control and for men to step down from positions which can serve to inflate their egos. The time for that is over, to my mind, and has gone on much too long.
Symbiosis, though not necessarily even and fair, whenever possible, should not result in one party being destroyed and irreparably harmed by that relationship. At least in human interactions, we've seen how badly that can go wrong, and we should steer away from it for our own collective benefit. The needs and roles between two symbiotic beings can be vastly different but very complimentary, and done right, it can further the best and most highly evolved traits of our human species. Thank you for listening. I am Viola STS Voline, and this has been Obedient Love.