[EDITOR'S NOTE - this is a humor piece with parts that some readers may find objectionable. Before you flame this person, please keep in mind that this is written tongue in cheek . If you read carefully, there are also some very insightful comments]

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So one day your wife turns away from her computer and says, "Honey, I've been looking at some very interesting sites on the internet and I've decided I want to be a slave." What are you supposed to do now?

Don't panic. She doesn't really mean it. Trust me on this one; no matter what she says and how loud her protestations of sincerity, she doesn't really want to be anybody's slave, and especially not yours. Don't bother arguing with her; she'll eventually realize this for herself. Meanwhile, though, if you play your cards right, you can extract great personal benefits from her new interest. Use the battle-won insights and simple guidelines I will explain here, and for a while you will get all the sex you want, however you want it; you will have a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity to get your wife to change behaviors you find annoying; and you can whip her for all the bitchy things she's said to you since you agreed to the wedding. You can also have fun, make new friends, and, if you're lucky, you may end up with a marriage that is not only sexier than it was but closer and more loving as well.

If she doesn't really want to be a slave, what is she saying? For one thing, she isn't talking about housework. She isn't necessarily talking about obedience, either, so don't think that you're now going to get your own way all the time. (One of the most frequently heard jokes in the D/s world is that submissives want to be ordered to do exactly what they want to do anyway.) I assure you, your wife has not suddenly been transformed into a willing, pliant, and eager to please fantasy woman.

She is talking about sex. Specifically, she is trying to tell you that the idea of slavery turns her on. Be sure to keep this in mind, because you can only get her to do what you want when you can tap into the eroticism of it all. This is all about feelings. She wants to feel weak, and she wants to see you as strong, because that is what turns her on. Of course, making her feel that you are strong will take some work on your part. MAKE THE EFFORT. This is the only way to get the benefits of having a wife who likes to think of herself as a slave, and, more importantly, if you don't, disaster may result. Instead of having a chance to realize that she does not want to be a slave in the comfort and safety of her own home, she will keep the desire inside her and conclude instead that you are not worthy to be her master. She might pack up and run off in the middle of the night to enter the service of MasterDoom in Portland, or, worse, resent you for decades. So suck it up and do your husbandly duty.

For a start, pick one minor behavior of your wife's that gets your goat and order her to stop it. Don't pick something big, like eating two pieces of chocolate cake and then complaining about her weight. This is called "setting her up for failure" and she will let you know. Pick something manageable. I demanded that my wife stop responding to all my compliments with "no I'm not." (For example, "You look beautiful tonight." "No I don't. I look fat.") This has worked wonderfully, and now, years later, she still keeps to it. If she takes easily to the first one, try another. But don't overdo it.

You will, of course, insist on lots of sex. At least initially, she will be so turned on by your new arrangement that she may want it as much as you. You may even get her to agree that you can take her any time and any place, in any way you want--heck, she may insist on giving you this power. By all means, take advantage, but don't take her promise too literally. Sometimes even the most willing slave girls have headaches, and you will lose points if you insist on screwing her anyway. So either be sensitive to how she is feeling, or, if that sounds like to much work, do what I did and give her an out: if my wife wants to refuse me she has to do it on her knees.

Buy her a symbol of her slave status. You don't want something too obvious, like an iron collar, because you want her to wear it all the time. A gold necklace is the most common choice. If you don't like gold necklaces, use a watch, or an ankle chain, or whatever. Part of your wife's slave fantasy is about feeling pretty and feminine and wanted, and her new slave jewelry ought to touch all the right submissive buttons. When you give it to her, stage a little ceremony. Have her kneel in front of you and promise to be yours forever while you clasp it around her neck. Women love this shit, and if you do it with dignity you will rise several notches in her esteem.

Even though you know she isn't serious about slavery, don't let on that you know this. Never say, "you aren't really a submissive." You may feel a strong desire to say this, both to reassure yourself and to point out her hypocrisy, but don't. It never did any good. The erotic charge flows from the fantasy, and all the other benefits flow from that erotic charge. Break up the fantasy, and the charge will dissipate. Instead of a slave you'll just have an irritated woman on your hands, and surely you've had enough of that in your marriage already. If you are really angry, put on your stern dom face (practice that face) and say, "Are you acting like a good slave now?"

To get back to housework: it is a sad fact that most modern American women don't find scrubbing floors or cleaning bathrooms sexy. If your wife does, excellent: take advantage. But don't count on it. Your wife wants to serve you only in ways that are erotic to her. To find out what those services are you could experiment, but this runs the risk that her erotic charge will run out in the middle of cutting the grass and all your naughty fun will collapse into a heap like the grass clippings she left by the mower when she ran off to her sister's. No, the safe way is to ask her. This has to be done delicately, because she wants to feel like she is not in control and you have to humor this belief. So you can't just say, "Umm, dear, I mean slavegirl, what exactly are you willing to do?" That makes you look unpowerful. So put on your stern dom face and ask her to suggest some ways that she might serve you. My wife enjoys clearing the table after dinner while I stay in my chair: this is done in front of me, it isn't too burdensome, and it makes her feel servile. Look for the things that do this for your wife.

If you really want her to clean the house, try this: Have a dinner party and invite some other D/s people. Using your most serious face, tell her that "experienced doms" will be there, and you expect her to behave well for them. Until she figures out that "experienced doms" are people just like you whose wives did this a year or two earlier, she will be enthralled by the notion of their wisdom and power, and she will clean like a madwoman.

Buy some toys. Don't ask why leather straps, chains, and whips turn people on, just accept that they do. Look at catalogues with her, or take her to stores, and watch her eyes. If something makes them get big, buy it. You may end up buying things that you try once and then never use again, but remember that what you are really investing in is your wife's erotic submission. This is not the time to be stingy. Using this stuff and the atmosphere it helps to create you get to tie up your wife, beat the hell out of her, use her however you want, and then demand that she thank you for it on her knees. What's that worth to you?

While bondage and S&M are parts of almost all D/s relationships, punishment for infractions is one of the most difficult topics to negotiate. If you're like me, the first thing that will come to your mind when your wife mentions slavery is, "great, now whenever she pisses me off I'll turn her over my knee and spank the hell out of her." It may work for you, but it probably won't. Punishment is one of the main topics on D/s e-mail lists, and from these discussions I have gleaned that it doesn't work much better for most other couples than it has for us. Serious disagreements have to be worked out the old way even with slave girls. Have the long discussions first, and, once you have worked things out, stage a scene and whip her hard. She doesn't have to know that you're just doing what you wanted to do when she started making unreasonable demands six hours ago. On the other hand, you may sometimes be able to incorporate your actual disagreements into your scenes, once they are worked out over the kitchen table; this works for us sometimes. You'll just have to see.

Your wife may be very eager to meet other D/s people, to attend public events, or other interruptions to your golf schedule. Agree. She needs to draw erotic energy from somewhere to keep her submissive drive going, and, hey, you may need help too. D/s people are a mix of almost every human type, except that they all have a certain disregard for convention, and you are almost certain to meet a few that you like. You'll meet weirdoes and assholes, too, but just consider the weirdoes fodder for amusing stories--and where can you go and not meet assholes? So go to parties and dinners, and act as in control as you can manage. Your wife will feel reinforced in her slave identity, and you will reap the benefits.

Public play is something of a mystery; nobody has ever been able to explain to me why so much S&M takes place in front of an audience. I suppose it is because of the strong element of theatre in all sceneing. In a sense, all doms and subs are performing, even if only for each other, and it may just be natural to extend the action to a larger stage. Besides, there's a lot to learn, and some things are much easier to do after you've seen somebody else do them. There is certainly no requirement that you participate in public play, but don't write it off too quickly; once you see some you may change your mind. Some of it is hot as hell. In what other context can you look at naked, writhing women with your wife at your side and have it turn both of you on? Besides, it's one thing for your wife to kneel for you in private and another for her to do it with others watching--the more public she, the more she loses deniability of her slave lifestyle and the more expectations she builds up, in herself and in others.

Over time, the madness that overtook your wife when she first discovered erotic slavery online will fade. It will occur to her that she is not really a slave, and that she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life doing what you say. At this point you will need to figure out what you can incorporate into your marriage and what you can't. Be flexible, and accept that over time your relationship will continue to change. Think hard about what you most enjoy from the slave interlude, and ask that it be continued as much as possible. Your wife hasn't changed, and she finds submission as erotic as she ever did, so she will probably want to continue to do some submissive acts. I like having my wife apologize to me on her knees, and she still does. And by all means keep doing whatever things make you both feel sexy, whether it's bondage or attending events or buying new toys or whatever. Every marriage needs all the spark it can get, and if you are lucky dominance and submission will bring sparks to yours for decades to come.

Meanwhile, live it up. Order the bitch to her knees, use her as roughly as you want, and send her to bed naked. It's a terrific feeling, isn't it?

Copyright 5/5/01