Consensual Enslavement
Titles
Humans have been called the animal that names. Putting names to things and making categories to put them in seems to go back about as far as we have any sort of records and undoubtedly much further. If it wasn't useful, scientists wouldn't have made a discipline out of it. Taxonomy as a field goes to at least medieval or ancient times.
Most scientific fields name things within their field to make finer and finer distinctions to identify exactly what they are talking about. The soft sciences such a sociology and anthropology do that with the relationships they observe and categorize so there is no reason for those who do consensual slavery and wish to treat is more as a science not to do it as well.
What do you call someone who is involved in consensual enslavement, BDSM or similar relationships? When you limit it to consensual enslavement, you pretty much are down to two titles, Master/Mistress and slave. However, in practice, a lot of other titles get used as well especially in the BDSM environment where things can be very blurred at times. I am including a number of the BDSM titles as well. The list is partly by type, not strictly alphabetical. There is a theme to the presentation. I try to keep connected titles together especially the ones usually separated by a slash in writing. Where there are male/female versions I am usually including both.
The titles are not absolutely gender dependent and there is currently a trend to remove gender and use the nominally male form of the word regardless of gender. My default in writing here is male dominant and female submissive but for the practical application of most things gender is completely interchangeable with or without the grammatical changes.
Free:
This is a person who is not a sub or a slave but usually only used as the opposite of slave. It can be the controlling partner without a specific title or refer to anyone who is not a sub or slave and not in a consensual slavery relationship.
Top:
This person who does things in a BDSM scene or play to someone else. There is no male/female differentiation for the title.
Bottom:
The person to whom things are done to in a BDSM scene or play. There is no male/female differentiation for the title.
Dom/Domme:
Male/female forms which are short for Dominant in the BDSM sense. This is the controlling partner in a Dom/sub relationship.
Sub:
This is short for Submissive in the BDSM sense. This is the non-controlling partner in a Dom/sub relationship. There is no male/female differentiation for the title.
Master/Mistress:
Male/female forms which indicate owners of slaves, usually in the BDSM sense. This is also what a slave will call any non-slave or free person in the Gorean community to show the slave’s status relationship to them. They will add “my” to this to indicate their own Master/Mistress. This is the controlling partner in a Master/slave relationship.
Slave:
This is the non-controlling partner in a Master/slave relationship. There is no male/female differentiation for the title.
Owner:
This is the controlling partner in an Owner/property relationship. There is no male/female differentiation for the title.
Property:
This is the non-controlling partner in an Owner/property relationship. There is no male/female differentiation for the title. It is also sometimes used generically for anyone in a consensual slavery type relationship who is a slave.
Kajira/Kajirus:
These are the female/male terms for a slave in a Gorean relationship. The words come from the fictional Gorean language in the Gor books. Gorean slaves use Master/Mistress to refer to any free man or woman. That usage does not indicate ownership, only the relation status of the slave to any free person.
Boi:
A term for a female submissive who acts and presents as a male.
Sissy:
A term for a male submissive who acts and presents as a female.
Pet:
A term for a submissive who is kept as a pet as opposed to another type of submissive. It may or may not mean the pet is pretending to be an animal.
Daddy/Mommy:
Male/female forms where the Dominant acts more like a parent controlling their child than an owner of property plus sex. This are mostly male dominant/female submissive relationships. The dominant males are sometimes called a Daddy Dom.
Little/Baby:
This is the child portion of an adult/child dominant/submissive relationship. There is no male/female differentiation for the title.