“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.”— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

Gimp had time for deep introspection over the weekend during a kink roleplay prison event. Like many entries before it, this post is an exercise in understanding what makes the gimp tick and how it can better serve its OWNER.

While at the event, it learned something important: the difference between submission and compliance. Gimp is profoundly driven by submission, while compliance does very little for it.

These terms may appear similar, but gimp has come to recognize a few key differences that make submission far more meaningful than compliance. Submission involves surrendering its will and choices to a Superior, primarily its OWNER, whom this gimp adores, worships, and is completely obsessed with. Its will becomes secondary to HIS.

As gimp has noted before, submission is deeply ingrained in it. Without submission, gimp becomes depressed and unsettled. Gimp thrives under SIR’s will, HIS rules, and HIS structure. It knows it is extremely fortunate to have an OWNER who understands it, its headspace, and ultimately its needs as HIS property.

Compliance, by contrast, is simply the act of following rules given by a faceless and impersonal system. The lines did blur at times during this event, because OWNER participated as a guard, and gimp was more than willing to comply with HIS orders. When HE closed the gimp’s cell door, gimp felt an inner peace because it understood that this was where SIR wanted HIS property. When someone else did the same action, gimp felt restless and uninterested. It had no desire to remain in that cell for anyone but HIM.

The same was true of restraints. Gimp knew several of the guards and considers many of them friends, so it was content to be cuffed or ordered to the ground by them. This also applies to men SIR instructs it to serve or submit to. In those moments, gimp is not submitting to the men themselves. It is submitting to SIR’s will, and that is what makes it acceptable and arousing in the gimp’s mind.

The rest of the rules, the arbitrary orders, and the system-level compliance were simply irritating and mostly unarousing. This is surprising when taken at face value, since gimp loves being de-individualized and treated as an object rather than a person. One might assume that lining up with identical inmates in matching uniforms and being reduced to a number would be intensely hot for gimp. Instead, it found it far less engaging than expected.

Gimp suspects this distinction is common among many who identify within the submissive, slave, and gimp spectrum of kink dynamics.

What gimp learned this weekend is simple:

Gimp wants to submit, not comply.