Dominance and Submission

“Power exchange” relationships involve one person voluntarily giving up a certain amount of control or authority to their partner. Common pairings include Top/bottom, Dominant/submissive, and Master/slave. In the multifaceted acronym BDSM, DS and SM can stand for dominance/submission and slave/Master respectively. (SM also stands for Sadomasochism) Roles like Dominant or slave might be temporary, like a game that you play for a night, or they may help define your relationship permanently. Many people are “switches” who feel and behave more dominant or submissive depending on their mood or current partner. Some people change over time, gradually finding a better fit in another role.

“Playing” with power imbalance and inequality makes some people uncomfortable. Particularly in American political discussion, individual freedom and equality are enshrined as fundamental values. To outsiders, the power exchange relationships in BDSM seem to demonstrate a lack of appreciation for that freedom, maybe even a disrespect for historical slaves who never had a choice. Setting aside these important misconceptions about BDSM, it’s worth examining whether Christianity really preaches universal equality. Is there a sense in which consensual D/s roles might help modern Christians better understand the worldview and message of the New Testament?

“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16

Gender Inequality

Dominant Christian husbands can see BDSM as an extension of their role as “spiritual leader” of the household, but we need to be careful about justifying our bedroom preferences with Biblical mandates. A submissive wife shouldn’t be afraid to set boundaries and say “no.” Rather than asking the Bible to set an exact limit for a husband’s authority, it’s safer for roles to be negotiated between the couple. A wife who doesn’t feel submissive in the bedroom shouldn’t be pressured with scripture, even if some verses (Col 3:18-19, Eph 5:21-33) support a traditional view of marriage overall. Some Christian couples are happy with the woman taking a dominant role in the bedroom. Compared to Christian Domestic Discipline, the BDSM community often sees gender roles as flexible from one couple to the next.

In his essay “Membership,” C. S. Lewis discusses the “legal fiction of equality.” The Bible seems to affirm a hierarchical society with kings over subjects, priests over laity, and husbands over wives, but husbands and kings with unlimited power tend to abuse that power. As Lewis explains, “The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us.” Lewis proceeds to defend progressive laws about property and equal voting rights (at least for men), but he gives an interesting warning: “the function of equality is purely protective. It is medicine, not food.”

C.S. Lewis’s 1945 essay “Membership”

**Lewis also argued for the great worth of each individual human soul in his sermon, “The Weight of Glory” saying, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Coverture and Wife Selling

Most of us are aware that women had fewer rights at many phases of history. “Coverture” is a sweeping legal term for the protection and authority of a husband over his wife, where the marriage once ended a single woman’s ability to own property or enter into contracts. It’s well known that American women didn’t gain the right to vote until 1920. Other examples of gender inequality are less well remembered.

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, you could actually witness the remarkable British custom of “wife selling.” Because legal divorce was expensive and difficult, husbands would actually lead their wayward wives into market on the end of a rope, auctioning her off. Usually, it wouldn’t be a real auction, and the only bidder would be the woman’s extramarital lover. Occasionally, it would look more like a genuine livestock auction.

Biblical and Historical Slavery

It should go without saying that historical slavery was profoundly evil, particularly the form of racial slavery that defined the American South before the Civil War. Although some controversial forms of “race play” draw inspiration from real historical slavery and plantations, the majority of BDSM “slavery” is modeled on fictional stories like The Story of O and Tarnsman of Gor. It’s important to note that even when contracts are used, modern BDSM relationships are voluntary and negotiated by the participants, unlike historical slavery. Most of the time, a submissive or slave has the power to stop everything with a word or signal, although the specific arrangements vary. Although “romance” novels and pornography may explore fantasies about “forced” slavery and kidnappings, the actual lifestyle of BDSM is 100% dependent on consent.

That said, we should also acknowledge that a great many earnest Christians thoughtfully and prayerfully decided to defend the institution of racial slavery in America. Both the Old and New Testaments were written in eras when slavery was accepted as an unavoidable fact of life. It’s debatable whether the Bible treats slavery as inherently evil. Christian abolitionists played a major role in bringing an end to slavery, but theirs was far from the only interpretation of scripture before the Civil War. The question of slavery (and racial equality) became a defining issue for major Christian organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The recent “Southern Project” and the 1995 Resolution on Racial Reconciliation attempted to address this complicated history.

Resolution On Racial Reconciliation On The 150th
Anniversary Of The Southern Baptist Convention

“Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention; many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery”

Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“The founding faculty of this school—all four of them—were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery. Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the twentieth century, advocated segregation, the inferiority of African-Americans, and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery.”

Why Dwell on the Past?

It’s true that many couples happily explore BDSM fantasies without overthinking the darker realities like historical slavery. Plenty of secular guides (and educators) provide practical how-to introductions for people who are ready to dive in (or take an experimental dip). This website is obviously intended for an audience that’s still wrestling with the moral implications of BDSM in its many forms. The idea of playing with slavery can sound viscerally offensive to many modern people, and so it’s helpful to reflect on that historical context, remembering why the subject is so sensitive today. Outside of the BDSM community, mainstream Christians might take it for granted that Biblical Christianity could never be compatible with BDSM roles like slave and Master… and yet generations of Antebellum American Christians owned literal non-consenting slaves.

Learning to be Slaves of Christ

John MacArthur published a book titled Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ. The marketing for the book is a little melodramatic (A COVER-UP OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS) but his essential point is profound. Biblical translators have consistently and deliberately mistranslated the word doulos as “servant” when it actually meant “slave.” The word appears 130 times in the New Testament, including in Matthew 25:21⁠ —”Well done, my good and faithful _____!” The translator’s switch from slave to servant is significant. MacArthur expands on the point and gives several examples in the hour-long sermon “Slaves for Christ (Selected Scriptures)”, available on YouTube. To be clear, MacArthur is not advocating for BDSM slavery, but his argument will resonate with BDSM couples who experience a consensual and romanticized but very real kind of Master/slave relationship.

Would it be unreasonable to say that BDSM slavery can give Christians new insights into way New Testament writers use the term doulos? Hopefully, your marriage should be more loving and mutually consensual than the vast majority of Master/slave relationships in the Roman Empire. Then again, the Bible also uses romantic and marital analogies to describe the relationship of Christ and the church, with Christ as the bridegroom. With BDSM, kinky Christian couples have the framework to fully embody scripture like Ephesians 5:21-33 and also explore concepts like doulos in a healthy relationship.

Book Trailer for “Slave” by John MacArthur

“Slaves for Christ (Selected Scriptures)”
2017 Sermon at Grace to You