Marriage and/or collaring (24)

Collaring on the other hand, in a D/S relationship can serve to act a lot like getting engaged. It cements the fact that you're making a commitment to one another and allows you to share this event with "scene" friends.

Of course, you could do both a collaring and marriage at the same time, indeed build it into the ceremony, but you'd need to be part of a very small percentage of people in this lifestyle who are 100% open and public of their kink with their family, cow-orkers, and friends.

That said though, how do you handle Children in a D/S relationship? Can you even have a 24/7 D/S relationship with children? Just curious to see how people handle it...

Most people work around their psychological demons, we harness ours up and take them out for a ride.

To Honor! if you can't come in her, come on her!

I can't say that I am too fussed about any of it.

I was married for the first time in a big church do with all trimmings. I felt like a fraud.

I was married a second time ,also in a non-kinky relationship, this time secretly at a registry office and the wedding night was in London at a 'Sisters of Mercy' gig. Better but still a bit wrong for me.

Now, p and I could marry sometime soon but I don't want to. I love him and us the way we are and see nothing which marriage would give us that we do not have already.

Collarings...well, p is collared in as much as he wears my chain and lock 24/7 and has done for five years of our nine year relationship.There was no ceremony. I just bought it and put it on him.

I find the concept of collaring almost as debased and diminished as that of marriage. So many collar indiscriminately so as a concept it has lost meaning. On a personal and individual level it is obviously special and meaningful. I would hate to have a public collaring or bdsm ceremony maybe in the same way I hated a public wedding.

I suppose to me, the meaning is private and personal, the worth in the length of time the relationship is happily honoured by both people. Neither marriage nor collaring mean anything if the intent, love and commitment are not there.

Dominant partner in an FLR with @paulss

Your question reminds me of threads asking whether any given act, x, is dominant or submissive. Any act is invested with the meaning that you and your partner choose to give it -- even an act as burdened with vanilla connotation as marriage.

And it is worth remembering that the obey clause can be reinstated by request -- no matter the changes to the wedding service and cultural presumptions about the place of women, getting married can still be viewed as a submissive act and marriage a profoundly submissive state.

Harbour Master.

You could argue that mariage is simply the Dom/Master's way of ensuring that the submissive/slave will be taken care of if the mariage ends

I think as others have said, it is an action which is neither submissive nor dominant, it has the significance that the couple in question give it

There's a somebody I'm longing to see, I hope that he turns out to be, someone to watch over me
I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood, I know I could always be good, to one who'll watch over me (Ella Fitzgerald, singing George Gershwin)

Edited 20 May 12, 8:49 PM by Shypeachybottom

I'd love to marry my girl - That would be big of her. Bigamy too: so that's NOT gonna happen.

We did organise a ceremony of commitment for ourselves, and we did it with friends, not privately: I'm thinking we might do it again this year - renewal would be fun. We didn't do a collaring, because she's shared, but she does wear a dress collar to non-vanilla occasions and sometimes just out and about. Sometimes i feel bad about that, because of the seriousness with which some regard a collar, but mostly I manage to put the guilt behind me because she's as close to collared (I think) as a poly person could be.

I haven't really looked at the civil partnership thing - probably because, even if they extend it to het. couples, they aren't going to allow poly people to do it. Are they?

Also, i really don't think marriage is necessary for a couple who are committed to each other.But, the public pronouncement of vows can feel very special and the legal status seems to effect the way others see you - mostly in a good way.

And then, collaring - you do see BDSM people who take collaring incredibly seriously (that'd be me) and you see some who think of it as a bit of fun for the time they play together.

And, from this thread, there are some who feel it is important and intensely private & personal.

I guess, for me it boils down to this. Commitment is commitment, and I don't think I'd collar anyone I wouldn't marry - and that the one would mean, to me, as much as the other - no more, no less. That doesn't mean i don't think you can't have an M/s family with more than one collared individual (why should that depth of commitment be exclusive to couples) - but I couldn't see that happening for me.

My goal - to save women from nature (Dior)
Follow me on twitter: @belasarius99

Edited 8 Mar 12, 4:31 PM by Belasarius

It made me sad though, that people think marriage isn't about commitment. It might not be for them, but it sure as hell is for me. I take my marriage vows very seriously, I didn't enter into marriage lightly, and we work very hard to make it the success it is. How is collaring much different to marriage, if collaring is about showing your commitment to another person? No-body enters marriage thinking "oh, this won't last" - my marriage has lasted longer than both the collaring's I have done up til now!

~ It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure ~

I always regard myself as being in two parallel relationships when I am with a committed submissive. There is our vanilla relationship and our Ms/Ds/OandP relationship.

So far, I have never collared anyone (other than in play), so my D/s relationships have not yet reached that level of significance, as I tend to regard a collar as akin to marriage level commitment, but I would hope one day to do this ... and I can't help thinking that marriage would later follow as a way of cementing and celebrating the vanilla side of the relationship too, in that case.

As to the equality aspect of the marriage ceremony - yes, I have thought about that, in fact when I originally got married (a so called vanilla marriage), we did ask then if "obey" could be included (for him to say, not me), but it couldn't, so I guess in a D/s M/s marriage we'd just have to grin and bear (playfully smile at) any references to equality, inwardly both knowing that that equality only applies within the context we've agreed.

Put me on a pedestal, but be there to catch me if I fall.

I wouldn't want a marriage ceremony where Paul had to publicly say he obeyed me as it would just be obvious to those who have no business knowing what our personal relationship is based on. I wouldn't have a 'collaring' ceremony in front of those who were outside of kink and wouldn't understand, and so I wouldn't want him to say 'Obey' in that way if our non kink friends and family were around.

I don't think for me and probably Paul it matters what we say in public because nothing you say necessarily relates to what you do. Plenty of people take vows to love and many (myself included in the past) fail to manage that. What matters is not the big day but all that comes after it, the building up of the fabric of the relationship, reinforcing it with the right actions day after day.

Viewed simply, a marriage is just the coming together of two willing people to join together in a state (and perhaps religion) approved way.

The removal of the requirement of 'obedience' in marriage does not imply or promote equality but merely leaves the state of marriage open to be one that you must join the dots for yourself. If all you must do is 'love' then everything else can be added in as suits each couple.

If I were to choose one over the other, I would get married before I would have a collaring ceremony. I might well have even changed my mind and get married to Paul at some point.

I am not moved by following traditions or etiquette at all, and particularly within bdsm as much of it seems irrelevant to me. I can at least see a point in marrying as certain practical issues are far easier resolved when a couple are married. All of those things are less important than how you behave day in, day out together. Ceremony or no ceremony, that is what matters. Public affirmations are nice but in themselves butter no bread.

Going through ceremonies should in my mind be taken seriously and so I see collarings as a semi-ceremony with no subsequent ceremony or ritual at the other end for when the relationship breaks down. No paperwork, no formal actions to go through, just off with the collar and that is that. If I want to go through a ceremony, I would expect it to be one that is meaningful not just personally but in terms of what it obliges you to do.

I imagine if collarings preferred upon the couple the same onerous responsibilities and by definition important rights that marriage does then less people would go for them.

All this suggests that I see collarings as a life commitment, well, yes, guilty on that count. If it doesn't mean that, what does it mean? Why have a ceremony for something which is ultimately short term and/or casual? Ceremonies by definition are normally kept for very important rites of passage moments and that is how I feel comfortable using them or more often avoiding them

Dominant partner in an FLR with @paulss

Edited 17 May 12, 7:37 AM by Ms_Valentine