Love and Remembrance

If "it's all about Dominance and submission" (the title of my blog), then what is Dominance and submission all about?

Love and remembrance.

In a world gone mad, we have become loosed from our moorings.  We are adrift in a relativist sea where "man" and "woman" have both gotten lost.  Those of us who have been fortunate enough to get back ashore, have - as with an exclamation point - planted the flag of Dominance/submission, so as to help us stay recollected of who we are.

The brilliant philosopher/theologian, G.K. Chesterton, wrote, "We have all read, in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name.  This man walks about the streets, and can see and appreciate everything, only he cannot remember who he is.  Well, every man is the man in that story.  Every man has forgotten who he is....We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names.  We have all forgotten what we really are.  All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that, for certain dead levels of our life, we forget that we have forgotten.  All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant, we remember that we forget."  (Chesterton, from "The Ethics of Elfland", in "Orthodoxy")

The rise of the subculture of Dominance/submission is merely a dramatic exaggeration of a fundamental truth, made in an attempt to help us remember, to recollect ourselves, and to never again forget the essence of who we are as man and woman.  Collars, crops, and shackles are merely our talismans, visible, tangible reminders, meant to sustain and reinforce our recollection.  Men assert their authority in a dramatic fashion - commanding, punishing - in order to remember what in hell a man is supposed to be.  Women likewise submit themselves to physical bondage and as "slaves" to help them recollect how they are to be tied to a man.  It's ironic that, in an insane world, it's the people walking round in leather and collars who turn out to be closest to sanity.

I think those who have discovered what has come to be referred to as "Christian domestic discipline" have come closest to getting it precisely right.  They do not, by and large, suffer from the excess of exaggeration that plagues the general world of Dominance/submission.  Or, rather, they have simply gotten more nearly right the whole concept of proper Dominance and submission.  They have reasserted within themselves and their relationships the proper roles of "Man/woman", "Husband/wife", within the overarching Truth of God's unique creation of both.  They have a fundamental understanding - a clearer vision - that is lacking in the lives of those practice Dominance/submission outside of, or without, a basic Christian philosophical foundation.  Not that they couldn't perhaps benefit from having some T-shirts printed up that say, "Spank your wife for Jesus!".  (What can I say? - I'm twisted, and hopelessly irreverent.)

If, just to wrap things up here, I can borrow a line from Sean Connery in the film, "The Untouchables" - "Thus endeth the lesson."