2011 Keynote: Race Bannon
The Ultimate Tradition
Master/slave Conference 2011
Good evening. I would like to thank the Master/slave Conference organization for asking me to be here this weekend. I consider it an honor that I promise to try and do justice to during the next 30 minutes or so. Thank you also for honoring me with your presence tonight to listen to what I have to say.
As you may or may not know, the person who was originally scheduled to speak to you this evening was Guy Baldwin. Due to transportation difficulties beyond anyone's control, Guy was unable to attend.
The speech you're about to hear was originally written to be delivered as part of tomorrow night's program dedicated to traditions and history. Having been asked to take over this keynote speaking spot, you'll now be hearing that speech tonight instead.
When I asked the conference organizers for guidance about what it is I am supposed to focus on in my speech, all they said was that the evening is devoted to leather and Master/slave traditions. They kindly and generously gave me free reign to say to you whatever it is I wanted to say.
Also, when I use the words Master and slave, please know I am including everyone of every gender or role identity for which this form of erotic bond resonates.
My Experience
Over the course of my nearly 40 years in kink, I have owned 5 remarkable men, one of them being the man who was supposed to be speaking to you right now. 6 if you include the man who is currently collared to me, but we both tend to prefer to refer to him as my boy rather than slave for various reasons.
Those experiences, combined with extensive involvement with people in all walks of this scene, and what I have tried to accomplish in my writings and other sexuality work, has hopefully led me to a point in my life where I feel confident I can impart some wisdom when it comes to Master/slave dynamics and to its traditions in particular.
The Nature of Traditions
When one thinks of traditions, the tendency is to think of milestones in our history, our subculture's mores, rituals we've developed, protocols, and so on.
Now I'm someone who continually attempts to stand back from life's happenings and tries to deduce what I see, hear, feel or experience to its most basic components. Being that type of person I take pride in what I believe is my ability to look at those dissected components and arrive at some useful overarching principles.
I've asked myself… What are the common elements across the traditions? What is the purpose of the traditions? What are people trying to achieve through the various traditions?
A Thought Exercise
Let's do a thought exercise. Close your eyes for just a moment and imagine yourself in a time long long ago. That time before the internet. Let's go back further to a time before we had kinky publications catering to our kind. Back further to before we had clubs and organizations within which we could gather. Open your eyes.
Take note that in the grand scheme of the modern timeline, where you just went is not so far back in history:
- 1954: The Satyrs - first gay motorcycle club that served to foster the modern iconography of the gay men's leather scene
- 1971: The Eulenspiegel Society - North America's first SM organization catering to all orientations
- 1974: Chicago Hellfire Club - first club to organize gay men around BDSM play itself
- 1978: Samois - first lesbian BDSM organization in San Francisco
So when you do this thought exercise and go back far enough, eventually you reach a time in the not too distant past where there were no organized leather or kink communities. Everyone was essentially a soloist, an individual sexual maverick desperately trying to get their kinky needs met in whatever way they could.
Thus, there really were no traditions, per se, such as the ones we now look to when we refer to leather, kink or Master/slave traditions. But I contend there was one tradition in place then, one I deem the ultimate tradition and it's a tradition I also contend is the ultimate tradition even today.
The Ultimate Tradition: Happiness
So what is this tradition? Happiness. Ultimately, everyone in this room, and everyone in our scene, is doing what it is we do for one ultimate purpose…to be happy. At least I hope that's the case. If we get honest about why we do all the things we do…sex, kink, power dynamics, it's to be happier human beings as a result of doing them.
Some might identify why we do what we do as seeking fulfillment, finding erotic meaning in our lives, or some other objectives. But I contend that this all falls under the banner of seeking happiness. As human beings, and as kinky human beings, our ultimate objective is to be happy.
We might be seeking to strengthen our character. We might be seeking to improve our level of commitment. We might be attempting to add elements to an existing relationship in the hopes of making it better. But, the final destination is hopefully individual happiness. Happiness is the ultimate tradition.
We Lose Sight of This Tradition
We lose sight of this tradition far too often. We get wrapped up in extensive sets of rules, guidelines and protocols. We become mired in ever increasing complexity and nuance when it comes to configuring our Master/slave and other role-based relationships. At times, inflated egos belonging to charismatic figures prevail in groups, both large and small, to imprint their own perspective of what being a Master or slave is supposed to look like.
Sometimes these various rules, guidelines, protocols and other subcultural structures are great intellectual exercises, but unless they are aimed directly at the target of happiness as the end result, they are, in my opinion, misguided.
What Brings About Happiness?
At first thought, many of us believe we know what makes us happy. But the abundance of unhappy people in the world, and by my estimation the number of unhappy people in our scene, lead me to believe that many of us do not know what makes us happy. And if we don't know what makes us happy, how can we configure our Master/slave relationships and other erotic choices to help bring about the happiness we rightfully deserve?
Because I believe happiness is not only the ultimate tradition, but also the ultimate civil right of every human being who walks the face of the Earth.
The Self-Determination Theory
Based on research, there appears to be a consensus among social psychologists that humans have three primary psychological needs. I'm going to use what's become known as the self-determination theory as the model for achieving happiness. The self-determination theory is a model devised by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan and proposes that every human being needs three things in order to achieve optimal happiness:
1. Autonomy
Autonomy can be a tricky need when it comes to Master/slave relationships. Autonomy means we must feel as if we're making free choices uncontrolled by others. This seems to be, in some ways, the polar opposite of our way of life as Masters and slaves.
2. Competence
Competence piggybacks on top of autonomy and can also be tricky for folks like us. You can be quite competent at something, but you don't always have a true sense of being good at something if you're doing it for reasons not of your own making.
3. Relatedness
Relatedness means meaningful interactions with people. We need to feel connected to, bonded with and cared for by other people. The degree to which we satisfy this need is a thoroughly validated predictor of personal well-being.
Two Additional Principles
I think two other principles need to also be considered in order to have the best Master/slave relationships:
Individuality
Individuality means honoring the uniqueness in each of us. As the poet E.E. Cummings wrote:
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.
And my favorite quote of all time from Dr. Seuss:
Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
Remaining truly ourselves, and allowing others to truly be themselves, should be a guiding principle in our scene right alongside Safe, Sane and Consensual, Risk-Aware Consensual Kink, or any of the other mantras we repeatedly mention.
Simplicity
My favorite book is Henry David Thoreau's Walden. In that great work Thoreau puts forth the contention that the simple life is the good life. He writes:
Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
The need for simplicity in our scene was driven home to me recently when a Master explained that he had an 18-page, single-spaced document that listed everything expected of his slaves. 18 single-spaced pages! There's strong research to support that our brains can't adequately support more than five bullet points in a slide presentation let alone multi-page, complex documents.
Practical Applications
So, I've mentioned five specific things that I think go into making us happier:
1. Autonomy
2. Competence
3. Relatedness
4. Individuality
5. Simplicity
On Autonomy in M/s Relationships
Some see the entire Master/slave arrangement as the intentional relinquishing of autonomy by the slave. Perhaps this is so in the idealized and, in my opinion, overly romanticized version of this style of erotic relationship, but is that truly what plays out in our daily lives? I don't think so in most cases, perhaps never.
Instead, I think the best Master/slave relationships confront directly the reality of these diametrically opposed concepts of autonomy and slavery, freedom and control. They negotiate their relationships from an intellectually aware place of accepting these opposing concepts. They figure out how to arrive at a mutually agreeable and liveable approach that meets somewhere between the two.
Translation? Contrary to popular lore, the level of control and submission in a Master/slave relationship is not set in stone, at least not in what I consider the healthiest of relationships.
The tree that bends and adapts when it confronts strong winds of change lives and thrives. The tree that remains rigid and intractable in the face of such winds snaps and dies. Thus it is with Master/slave relationships.
On Competence and Learning
How can a Master or slave come to the conclusion that they are competent if they stop learning? Through conferences like this as well as social media sites, local clubs and organizations, books and publications, other events, and so on, the best of us continually seek out knowledge.
Masters and slaves need to foster increasing competence in each other in their daily lives also. This means:
- We must allow for mistakes
- We must encourage dialogue, not squelch it
- We must acknowledge that there is no perfect Master and there is no perfect slave
On Relatedness and Community
We live in a kinky world that now allows us to relate to and interact with each other in numerous ways. With the click of a mouse, we can connect directly to individuals who share our interests.
But you're here today. You're offline. You have paid money, set aside time and expended some effort to be here because you rightly value the offline experience. We must continue to encourage more and varied ways for us to meet and interact offline in order to arrive at a balanced level of relatedness in our lives.
On Individuality and Uniqueness
We often give lip service to honoring individuality. We say we're all unique. We say we're all individuals. But then turn right around and tell folks there are only certain ways to act, certain ways to dress, certain ways to play, certain ways to be a Master or slave. We in the kinky scene, and the Master/slave scene in particular, are guilty of this a lot.
In 1989, Guy Baldwin pointed to nature and how everything in nature was unique. Flowers, mountains, trees and snowflakes. All completely unique with no two alike. Since all human beings are part of nature, Guy contended that people must also be 100% unique.
Masters, remember that slaves come to us not as blank canvases upon which a Master paints the picture he or she wants to see, but rather slaves come to us as already beautiful works of art that a Master is charged with attempting to make even more beautiful in a collaborative exercise of erotic and character self-improvement and joy.
slaves, remember that Masters come to us not as blank canvases either. Masters also come to slaves as already beautiful works of art that slaves are charged with attempting to make even more beautiful in the same collaborative exercise.
As Edgar Degas said: Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.
As Masters and slaves, let's make each other see the best art in ourselves and in others.
In Closing
So I offer to you these unsolicited bits of advice:
- Honor the ultimate tradition. Make the happiness of everyone involved in a relationship always the prime directive
- Foster autonomy, competence and relatedness while always remembering that every human being is unique
- Keep things as simple as possible so everyone can be on the same page consistently
Since no two people are alike, there is no one right way to do anything, including Master/slave relationships. There is just your way. And your way, so long as it never has the intention of harm behind it and you are always open to growing and learning, is probably the right way.
Honor that and it will guide you to great Master/slave experiences.
Thank you for listening to me. Enjoy the rest of your evening and weekend.
This keynote address was delivered at the Master/slave Conference in 2011 by Race Bannon, exploring happiness as the ultimate tradition underlying all Master/slave dynamics and relationships.