Service is an important part of most D/s and M/s relationships. The term “service” can be applied to both sides of these relationships, but this discussion will be limited to the more obvious service rendered by the bottom, submissive or slave.
Disclaimer: I will also be using the terms Master and slave as well as He/His for the Master and she/her as the slave for convenience purposes. So please insert your own identity tag where necessary.
There are two viewpoints held by those seeking service.
Result oriented – These Masters do not care how it gets done, so long as the result is pleasing. They will give their slaves an order and expect it to be completed within the prescribed time, but give the slave discretion regarding the details.
Task oriented (often called micro-management) – These Masters will give explicit instructions on how to carry out the steps necessary to complete the task and are very interested in compliance about the process. For these Masters, attitude is often more important than skill. They want to see obedience more than they want efficiency.
Neither position is wrong, nor is it necessary for one Master to hold to the same viewpoint consistently. At times, micromanagement may be used as a training tool…Not so much about the task, but about the slave’s attitude toward service.
This brings up another important distinction:
Compliance vs Obedience
Compliance – Acquiescence passive assent or agreement without protest
Obedience – The condition of being obedient
Yes, that second definition can be viewed as a bit of a circular reference, but pay attention to the distinction.
Compliance is yielding to the authority of another. It does not say anything about the condition of the heart. You can comply fully with an order you fully disagree with. It is all about action.
Obedience, on the other hand, is about the condition of the heart and mind. To be acceptably obedient to many Masters, you must align your will with Theirs. For these Masters, compliance is not enough.
They want obedience.
A mentor of mine, Master Sebastian calls this the Directed Response Gap. He defines it as the time between when the slave hears the order and when she makes the Master’s desire her own. Obviously, there will always be a gap. The slave will think things like, “is that really the best way to do this?” or “but there’s not time” or “is Master thinking this through?”
It is perfectly acceptable (in most cases) for a slave to ask for clarity, bring ideas, suggest alternatives, or otherwise relay information that the Master might not have considered. But in the end, the order still must be obeyed. Spending a lot of time questioning the order can be highly counter-productive and frustrating for both parties. The ideal is to move from compliance to obedience as quickly as possible.
It makes everyone’s life more pleasant.
Next, we have…
Reactive vs Proactive Service
Many have said that there are two basic styles of service:
Reactive – The slave does exactly what is asked and no more
Proactive – The slave does everything that is asked and learns to anticipate the Master’s needs, providing service that is not specifically directed.
The Master must decide which of these two models to which He expects His slave to conform.
Reactive service is desirable to a Master for whom control is most important. These Masters are often said to “micro-manage” their slaves, controlling them in much more specific ways than those who prefer proactive service.
For a Master that desires more general control, proactive (or anticipatory) service is preferable. He will generally give orders that begin with, “unless I order you otherwise….” so the slave knows His general preferences. If those desires change, He will issue a different order, but generally He expects things done a certain way and doesn’t want to have to specify every time. These Masters may or may not micro-manage those tasks, meaning that they may or may not set down specific steps to be taken in performing repetitive tasks.
Where we get into difficulty is when the Master desires “presumptive” service. This is often described as wanting a slave that can read the mind of the Master. In my opinion, this is setting the slave up for failure. No slave can mystically discern what Master will want. When this is successful, the reality is that the slave is deciding what Master wants. If this pleases the Master, it is not wrong – but it is certainly a shift in control.
For example:
In a restaurant, two Master/slave couples have dinner:
Reactive – The Master drives to the restaurant. The slave follows the Master into the restaurant. The Master chooses the table, orders for both from the menu (usually without the slave’s input), decides when the dinner is finished, pays the bill, and leaves with the slave dutifully following.
Proactive – The slave chauffeurs the Master to the restaurant, chooses a table, seats the Master, orders for the Master (because they have been previously schooled on His tastes), deals with the wait staff throughout the meal, pays the check and generally supervises every aspect of the dinner.
Neither model is wrong and often in most cases, are some combination of the two.
Which leads us to…
Expectations in Service
In our consensual framework, there is usually an expectation attached to service.
Service is conducted in one of three basic ways:
Transactional – service is exchanged for some benefit. This benefit may take many forms. In business, service is exchanged for money. In Top/bottom relationships, service may be exchanged for play. In D/s or M/s relationships (as much as we would like to deny it), service is often exchanged for security, attention, play, and a host of other things that meet the needs of the sub or slave. There is nothing wrong with this. The needs of both parties are being met and as long as both feels they are making an equitable exchange, it can be highly successful.
Devotional – We tend to think of religion when this word is used, and it is an accurate reference because those with a call to clergy or other religious service fit this definition…But it is also possible to serve a Master simply because you love or respect Him sufficiently that providing such service is reward enough. There is no payback from the Master, other than being who He is.
This type of service often manifests itself in short term situations where a slave has an opportunity to provide service to someone they admire, for a short period of time. The experience and ability to show gratitude for what they have received from this person in teaching or inspiration is benefit enough. In long term devotional service situations however, there usually needs to be significant caring on the part of the Master to the slave in order to sustain this type of devotion.
Positional – This type of service is rendered without significant regard for the object of the service. Those of you who have read the fictional “Marketplace” books can recall that the slaves were sold to anyone who had enough money to place a successful bid. The service was predicated upon the position of the slave within the marketplace and that slave served without regard to the identity of the Master who owned them.
Can this occur in real life? Yes, but only in limited circumstances. A slave might “sell” her services in an auction to benefit a charity or for the erotic appeal of the experience. A Master might “give away” His slave for a limited period of service. A slave often serves in a function or event in this manner. The idea of positional service is hot! However, in reality, slaves are people too and they normally need some fulfillment of their own needs in order to continue to serve. Situations where this need can be fulfilled by interchangeable Masters is probably quite rare.
And in conclusion…
A few additional notes about service:
When a slave has a hard time understanding the “why” of an order, especially when they can clearly see a more efficient way of carrying out the task, it is sometimes helpful to consider the Master’s motivation.
The Master may be training the slave to be obedient
The Master may be training a specific task that He wants done to His specification for reasons He may or may not choose to share with the slave
The Master may be optimizing the task for His own comfort or pleasure in a way that the slave may not immediately understand.
Examples:
a. Master may have a physical limitation that makes it beneficial to do a task less efficiently in order to shorten the duration of the task.
b. Master may enjoy doing a task in a less efficient manner because of some peripheral benefit that the slave may not see.
The best answer for this type of dilemma is to communicate.
