This month's article was started with the loftiest of intentions: A clinical look at humiliation as a training tool. Something happened though. Reading the detached words, definitions and examples, it just all looked so ugly. It did not offer anything at all to do with the name of this column. It was not about a slave's heart, but about a slave's description. The words themselves are ugly too; humiliation, degradation. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it sounds like hell. It certainly does not sound like something someone would want to do to property they cared about. Those words don't sound like something anyone would want to do willingly. Humiliation, degradation. Bald descriptions of what they are takes away from the sense of freedom that comes with being released from one's self.

Speaking about humiliation in the third person made for a flatness of affect that was difficult to read. It sounded about as exciting as a description of dissecting a frog so kessia sent off an plea to be allowed to write this as she would write this for her Master, without using the shield of third person. So, here she offers her real heart; the one that beats all the time, even when she is scrubbing floors, changing diapers, ironing uniforms.

You asked me to explain this. You asked me to tell You why this works so well, and why it hits the core of me and stays. Better than punishment. Better than reward. Humiliation, degradation. Taking away all status, pride and dignity and corrupting what is left into a creature that pleads to be of use, that lives to be of service. I wish these words were not so loaded or so ugly sounding: Humiliation, degradation. Still, there they are in all of their hideous sounding glory. The most powerful and useful training tools of all.

Because you are not arbitrary, punishment relies on me doing something wrong or something that needs fixing. Because you are just, you tend to offer rewards as you can, wishing to praise me for the long hours and hard work you get from me. Because you wish to remind me of what I am, you need to strip away my self. What better way than making me beg?

When you think about it, it is only the words that are ugly. How about voluntary humiliation, voluntary degradation? Even if I don't like it as it happens, I did beg you for this, remember? I begged you to own me. Asked you to take me farther than I thought I could go, show me so much of myself that I would see how little I am, and then maybe even still love me as your pet.

I know you do not understand how freeing this all is. You see restrictions and rules, crawling and begging. You would rather die than be told to beg for dinner. Me? Even if I had the choice, I wouldn't have it any other way. Snap my leash and embarrass me when my tongue gets out of control, and I am released to wear my heart on my sleeve, to rub up against your arm and shamelessly beg you not to make me suffer too much for my mouth. Living here and now, nothing but a warm body that belongs to you, I feel truly free. Released from everything except this moment, here and now with you, your warm little pet that will plead and suffer at your whim.

I know you relied for a long time on my intrinsic desire to please, my fire to serve. The fire is always there, but the expression of it waxes and wanes, and I know you do not like that. Maybe my attention wavers, or all the other details of life get in the way of my showing that I know what I am. How easy it is to take away my ego, remind me of where I belong. All it takes is taking away a plate, or even a simple word. I know this power you have worries you; you don't want to break your favorite toy. Yes, you can take me over some dangerous emotional ground, but so what? Every single admission you force from me, however painful, takes me closer to the white heat of total vulnerability and I will thank you for it. I do thank you for it.