Gaslighting is Slave Training???

[barefootgirl69]

In another part of the internet, someone asked if gaslight was a form of slave training. My first reaction was anger...because I lived through gaslighting in my marriage. I also lived through slave training beginning when I was 24 (and unmarried).

This person even posted a photo of something he read on the internet that stated that it was gaslighting that brought the slave around to seeing things the way the master wanted.

Then, before I could capture it, and after others set him straight, he deleted everything. Grrrrr

Gaslighting wasn't how I was taught by my Master.

What do you say?

 

[pplwatching]

I think you're both right, but it's important to differentiate between a consensual, caring relationship and a manipulative, abusive one. Your training experience sounds like the former. He's talking about the latter, which you experienced in your marriage.

Both are built on trust. While the gaslighting dynamic has no place in a consensual relationship, in an unhealthy one it's an abusive manipulation that abuses trust to make the recipient question what they know and believe. It's done to control the recipient's thinking - which is what that poster is eluding to.

Gaslighters depend on a trust relationship with their victim, because they need the "slave" (in this case) to trust that whatever "master" says, even if it's not consistent with the slave's own beliefs, experiences, and truths. When you tell me something that contradicts my own experience, feelings, or needs I'm much more likely to question my thinking if I trust you. Gaslighters work hard to build that trust before beginning their manipulation because they need it to manipulate their slave rather than having a consensual relationship with them. Once the seeds of doubt are planted and begin to take root, consistently nurturing that doubt while reinforcing the master's "truths" is a nasty kind of training.

In that sense, the post you read is right; the master abuses the slave's trust to bring the slave around to seeing things the way the master wants. Unfortunately, it's done through psychological abuse by making the slave question and change their own beliefs, experiences, and even desires.

Training a slave based on mutual respect and trust is a completely different thing than training through psychological abuse and manipulation.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I guess it is a case of ”when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so good”.

Gaslighting is not a positive word both because of the movie it came from and the relationship behaviour it is used to describe.
As several said, in BDSM there has to be consent.
Could some of what is done in the BDSM slave training look very much like or even be the same as what is done by a person gaslighting their partner? Yes, I think it can.
I don’t know what this person wanted to get at, but I do think it is important to be aware of how things in BDSM can look from the outside and how it can cause trouble. Consent isn’t always obvious to the outsider.

 

[cookiecat]

I think I'd have to understand the context.

A good mindfuck could look a lot like gaslighting from the outside.

 

[barefootgirl69]

I think I'd have to understand the context.

A good mindfuck could look a lot like gaslighting from the outside.

That's why I wish he had left his post up. I've searched Google and can't find where he got his original idea from. Basically, it was what I asked in my OP. Training your slave to think like the Master.

I get training so the /s knows what the M/ would want in certain situations, but I don't see how gaslighting would work ...especially if it's a trigger for certain people. Like me.

 

[Primalex]

I get where he is coming from.

Gaslighting with the intent of creating a slave is a subset of all methods to create a slave.

(I deliberately avoided the term "train".)


Let's say I hate your favorite skirt and I don't want you to wear it. The nefarious approach would be to make you believe that the skirt looks bad on you even though it does not. And if I ramp this up, you will lose all confidence in properly selecting your outfits on your own, requiring me to make the decision.

 

[barefootgirl69]

I get where he is coming from.

Gaslighting with the intent of creating a slave is a subset of all methods to create a slave.

(I deliberately avoided the term "train".)


Let's say I hate your favorite skirt and I don't want you to wear it. The nefarious approach would be to make you believe that the skirt looks bad on you even though it does not. And if I ramp this up, you will lose all confidence in properly selecting your outfits on your own, requiring me to make the decision.

That manipulation is where I get lost. Why? Why take her confidence? To build ego? To "require" dependence?

I had a marriage like that, no thanks.

If a man can't inspire me to want to please him in all things, depend on his decisions out of choice, we won't be together.

Again, I see gaslighting as emotional abuse.






Thank you, everyone for your input. ~ bfg

 

[Primalex]

That manipulation is where I get lost. Why? Why take her confidence? To build ego? To "require" dependence?

Why someone would choose a nefarious method to create a slave instead of an ethical one?

I didn't study psychology, but I would say the simple answer is: efficiency.

Again, I see gaslighting as emotional abuse.

This is not mutually exclusive to being effective in creating a slave.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Ethical BDSM is consensual, meaning that the sub has a choice. Gaslighting removes choice through psychological manipulation. Gaslighting in effect takes way the sub's safeword. I would never want to be in a relationship where the other person was mindless, incapable of choice, so dependent that they're incapable of making any decision. It's not the same as willingly following somebody else's directions as part of a power-exchange game; it's mind control, programming.

Gaslighting may be part of some people's BDSM, but then, the same could be said of kidnapping, rape, torture and murder.

So, no. And, come to think of it, FUCK NO!

 

[MeekMe]

Threads like this give me pause. There’s definitely a very thin line to be crossed here if you can somehow argue there was consent between both parties. I can only think that one would resort to gaslighting to avoid having to discuss what it is they want from the submissive side with minimal input from the sub. A manipulative tactic to get something and avoid a confirmed or denied consent. With deniability from the other as to whether they did or didn’t do something.

Make someone feel bad/unsure about their choices so they’re dependent on the choices of the other. I can honestly say I think this is downright awful to do to someone and is abuse.

This is also coming from someone that has been gaslighted and has felt the negative mental health effects from it. Gaslighting is a coward’s game.

 

[IrisAlthea]

That manipulation is where I get lost. Why? Why take her confidence? To build ego? To "require" dependence?

I had a marriage like that, no thanks.

If a man can't inspire me to want to please him in all things, depend on his decisions out of choice, we won't be together.

Again, I see gaslighting as emotional abuse.






Thank you, everyone for your input. ~ bfg

I don’t know if you remember OSG, who used to post here. Some of what she mentioned about her relationship was very much the kind of things that would show up on any list of signs of abuse. While it did mske me uncomfortable, over the years I still got the impression that there was full and informed consent.

It can certainly be discussed how healthy it is to consent to what can certainly as you said be described as emotional abuse, so you could of course say that it doesn’t meet the ”sane” criterion. You could just as well deem willingness to consent to what would be physical abuse to most people, just as non-sane. That is why it comes down to consent for me.

What makes it difficult for me is the question about how consent can be both ongoing and informed as you get further into it. I guess you could say the same for the whole slave concept though.

a Friend of O/ours keeps saying that efficiency is the laziness of the intelligent but maybe this scenario is an exception

Haha, I love it!
Why does everyone think it’s ok to stigmatize laziness though? I’m blaming Luther.

 

[IrisAlthea]

and some other reformers?

Probably yes. Perhaps even not Luther so much. He did have a good taste when choosing a Gasthaus…

 

[lovecraft68]

Absolutely.

Millions of slaves sit in front of MSNBC, CNN and Fox every night.