by
Editorial
WRITTEN BY FEMINISTA JONES
I’m a black American woman, and I identify as a “slave.”
Yes, the word is fraught with shameful history, but it has another meaning—one that’s sexual and freeing, rather than oppressive and controlling. As a longtime practitioner of BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance and submission), I see slaves as people who willingly surrender control to their partner or “master.” As a descendant of African-Americans who were legally enslaved for centuries, however, the word also conjures up violent images of my ancestors’ pain and suffering.
For 18 years, these two definitions clashed in my mind, so I denied being a slave. But now, at 36, I’ve finally embraced it. The impulse to offer myself completely to another person is too overpowering to resist.
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