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My sister, whom I’m quite close with, has been getting into S&M. Recently she announced that she has acquired a slave. After much thought and discussion on the matter, I am still having a very hard time coming to terms with it. The problem I have is that she treats him like a slave 24 hours a day. They are planning a "collaring." I’m the first person to admit that I don’t understand all this. For this reason, I have had conversations on the topic with my sister, but our last conversation ended in her hanging up on me and we haven’t spoken since.

My husband and I are complete equals in every way and I just can’t imagine how I can feel comfortable watching my sister humiliate and degrade someone by ordering them around like a slave. I sure wouldn’t sit back and allow someone to treat her that way! We are all expected at my mom’s house for the holidays, where we will be staying under the same roof. My mother is not comfortable with the situation either. I realize that I don’t have much choice but to suck it up if I want to have a relationship with my sister. My sister compares my feelings to the way gay people were treated when they first started struggling for social acceptance. It makes me very angry that she is so impatient with me. She told our father about her new relationship when he was in town last week.

_Sister & Mistress

This advice may come too late, S&M, so please accept my regrets if your sister and her slave have already come and gone. But just in case everyone is staying at mom’s place through New Year’s Eve — and your sister is still ordering her slave around in front of the whole family — I wanted to address your sister directly: KNOCK IT OFF, MISTRESS FUCKWIT.

Asking people to accept BDSM — the pastime, the lifestyle — doesn’t give you the right to force other people to take part in it. Your slave is no doubt humiliated when you treat him like shit in front of others, and doubtless this humiliation turns him on. BDSM subs are like that. So, MF, when you humiliate him in front of your family members, you’re forcing them to play an active role in your sex life. That’s not asking for tolerance, that’s demanding participation. And that’s not okay.

You brought up gays and lesbians, and our struggle for acceptance. Sorry, MF, but the comparison is not apt. Not once in our struggle for social acceptance have gays and lesbians demanded the right to have sex in front of our relatives. We want to be accepted by our families, tolerated by strangers, and treated equally by our government. But people who don’t want to watch us have sex aren’t compelled to.

This mistress/slave stuff is, at bottom, about sex. Yeah, yeah: it can be sooooooooo much more than that, some 24/7 BDSM folks insist. Some people feel dominant or submissive deep down in their kinky souls, and they build their lives around those roles. I get it. And dare I say it? Some of my best friends are 24/7 BDSMers. But BDSM isn’t ultimately who you are, it’s what you enjoy in bed — or in the dungeon, the playroom, the fetish club, etc. Here’s a rough rule of thumb: if you’re talking about something that gay, straight, and bisexual people can all do — fisting, snowballing, BDSM — then it’s a sex act, not a sexual identity. However many times you collar your slave, however many slave contracts he signs, however many nights he sleeps in a cage, it’s still a sex act, and forcing your family to watch you treat him like your slave compels them to participate in your sex life. And, again, that’s not okay.

I’m a 26-year-old woman and a "devotee," which means that I am primarily attracted to men with disabilities. I appreciate the recent column you did on the sex lives of people with disabilities, although I was a little dismayed by the follow-up letter from a disabled man who said that having a relationship with a devotee is "emotionally crippling." While I thank you for sticking up for us, I also want to point out that there are a lot of devotees who have no desire to torment a man in a wheelchair. I simply find wheelchairs very sexy and it has nothing to do with helplessness. I know for a fact that there are plenty of men out there who have had wonderful experiences.

_Loves Guys In Chairs

Thanks for sharing, LGIC.