Using Marriage to Create a Legal Form of Slavery in BDSM
Informal contracts for couples in a power exchange can be an important way to lay down boundaries and expectations, but they aren’t legally enforceable.
There is an institution that has long been criticized by feminists as essentially a legal form of slavery, however, and that’s marriage.
For gay couples looking for a power exchange, what better way to twist a traditional institution into something homoerotic and even a bit sinister than marriage? Thus marriage becomes a way to legally bind a slave to its Master.
Marriage won’t give a Dom unlimited legal benefits over his sub, but it does mean that there are extra bureaucratic layers if the sub wants to leave the relationship.
This is one scenario I’ve long found to be deeply erotic: one in which a man is my husband to the outside world, but my owner in a Total Power Exchange in private. In the absence of legal slavery (which, for the record, I’m not saying should be a thing), marriage becomes an alternative that creates semi-permanence.
Over the years, I’ve talked with some people that have offered even more ideas to further an even more permanent marriage commitment for the sub. I’m not a lawyer, and I have no idea the extent to which these are legally enforceable. Nonetheless, they are:
Sign a pre-nup that has very unequal terms for the Dom and sub. Essentially the sub could lose all assets in the event of divorce or be forced to pay the Dom large sums of money in “alimony.”
The Dom can get Power of Attorney over the sub so that they will have unrestricted access to all legal, financial, and medical records and can make decisions on their spouse’s behalf.
Enter a “covenant marriage,” which is a special class of marriage created by religious conservatives in Louisiana, Arizona, & Arkansas that restricts divorce in a number of circumstances and now is legally available to same-sex couples.
Get a guardianship or conservatorship over the sub (must be able to prove they have some sort of medical issue which prevents their decision making).
Of course, this needs to be emphasized that the sub is willingly entering this arrangement with the the understanding that there’s no going back once they do. They can’t rush into a decision like this and must build up the trust with a Dom over time.
And this scenario isn’t without risks to the sub’s health and well-being. They have to assume the Dom will always have their best interests at heart, which is never a 100% guarantee as a Dom could always change or snap into a crazy state of mind years down the road.
But this kind of legal bondage is, at least, really hot to think about.
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