I was highly entertained by this short animated film featuring a particularly hapless ‘submissive’. He manages to provide an excellent example of two particularly annoying traits. There’s the excessive use of honorifics and what I like to think of as Meat Loaf syndrome – ‘I’ll do anything for you….but not that‘.
When it comes to honorifics I tend to veer strongly in the other direction, and omit them unless it’s really clear that I shouldn’t. Partly that’s down to playing a lot with Lydia. She’s not big on protocol and formality. I don’t think I’ve ever called her ‘Mistress’ in a scene and that has conditioned me for when I play with other people. It’s also partly because using formal honorifics doesn’t do much for me. I’m happy to address people however they desire, but I don’t get a buzz out of using a formal title. Perhaps in a more structured and personal D/s relationship it’d make more sense, but for casual play I tend to default to first names unless I’m told otherwise.
For online interaction I like the advice in this thread from Mistress Lilyana. Adopt the username that you’d like to be called. And, the logical inverse of that, call people (at least to start with) by whatever username they publish. That makes life simple.
The image is from Mistress Lilyana’s tumblr. My internet sleuthing tells me it’s by the German photographer Robert Recker and is from a sequence simply called Hotel Room.
Oh, and if anyone’s wondering about the post title, you need to listen closely to what the guy in the animated clip is really into.
“When it comes to honorifics I tend to veer strongly in the other direction”
Interesting you should say that. I’ve tried the honorifics with my Mistress, and she sometimes refers to me as her ‘pet’, but in truth, we are such good loving friends outside play that most of the time we don’t bother.
I think there can be a difference between personally assigned labels in relationships (which might overlap with those often used for honorifics) and the generic honorifics that often get used in casual play or in the ‘scene’. Not using them unless they’re meaningful in some way makes sense to me.
-paltego
Honorifics are an interesting subject….most of the time, they just strike me as cornball. Very cornball. And the “higher” the honorific, the cheesier the Dom(me). Like “Master Darth Vader Wolf Owner of Sluts.” Or “Czarina Ivanka.” barf barf barf
My parents are Southern and so they were big on good manners. I call almost every stranger older than myself Sir or Ma’am. It’s reflex; automatic. Occasionally, when I’m the domme in a session, I fuck up and slip and call the sub “Sir.”
Fortunately, almost every time I’ve done this, the guy thinks I’m being sarcastic and humiliating him in his predicament. Especially if he’s on the floor, lol.
When I sub, “Master” sounds so cheesy I can hardly say it without laughing. I keep picturing Frankenstein’s graverobbing assistant saying “Yesss…Maaaaster.” “My Lord” invokes Shakespeare. I prefer “Sir,” or, best of all, “Mr. (Last Name).” It’s just formal enough to make a distinction…and I can go back to his first name after the session is over and we’re equals again.
I’m with you on the cornball. I think a lot of people get off on either saying them or hearing them, but for me they always tend to the cheesy. I’ve played with a few people who insisted on a lot of ‘Yes Mistress’ and ‘No Mistress’, which I just found kind of forced. But then my style of play is very much informal and collaborative, even if it happens to be quite heavy in some sessions, so honorifics don’t fit all that well.
‘Mr’ certainly sounds better to me than ‘Master’. That always brings to mind the movie Young Frankenstein and Marty Feldman doing his best Igor impression.
-paltego