I spent many months researching the profiles of men on various online kink networking sites who sought to serve the darkness. Though they used a wide variety of terms, they all wanted one thing: to become objects of degradation and intense control. Their posts included the words dark, satanic, objectification, filth, permanent, mutilation, scat, worship, and incarceration. These posts are examples of what I mean:
Sick twisted filthy sewer bottom, ashtray, doormat, gutter rat, barn hand and kennel keeper seeks a perverted sewer top.
Filthy, perverted, twisted, brutal, sadistic, nasty, top, dom, master needed for sewer pig, gutter rat.
Looking for noose Master, gloved hands or maybe garrote and KO Master. Also into racial play and religious play.
There was, too, another aspect to my curiosity. In recent years I have been struck by the increasing presence of edge play in our BDSM subculture. Everywhere I turn, I see, hear about, or read about another seminar featuring blood play, highly risky behavior, and taboo-breaking practices of all kinds—public fetish behavior that would have been frowned upon 10 years ago has become almost commonplace.
I wondered what it means that our community is becoming increasingly more inclusive of the darker kinds of play. Where does it lead? Where does it end? I found that I couldn’t resist exploring these questions, knowing that there were aspects of myself that sought the same darkness, even as the PC Jack resisted such an admission.
So I posted a new and relatively anonymous bio from an invented (though not really far from reality) persona called the Dark Lord:
Experienced Lord and Master seeks additional property. I seek to be obeyed and worshipped. My primary fetish is control, which I exercise both sexually and sadistically.
I have an exceptionally high libido and the primary objective of my search is to find men who will be used to satisfy my every sexual desire, without limit or hesitation. I seek to transform you into another toy for my pleasure and sexual gratification.
About you:
You seek a relationship where you will experience slavery to the utmost, becoming the subhuman property of your Lord and Master.
You know you were born to suck and get fucked regularly and thoroughly. My semen is your food; my piss your drink.
You desire to be subjugated, degraded, dominated, humiliated, and violated so that you thoroughly realize your authentic low-caste self.
You have the courage to experience this abject state, if only for a weekend.
You want to confirm [or deny] through actual experience your inner conviction that you were born for life in this abject state and nothing else will satisfy you until you are completely controlled by your Lord and Master.
You will obey and surrender. Resistance on your part will be met by punishment.
I approach this process as one of testing your suitability to serve me. Show yourself serious and worthy of my attention or go chat with some other poser. Serious applicants may begin the interview process with a message to the Dark Lord that includes an email address, a chat ID, and a phone number. COMPLETE DISCRETION IS ASSURED.
This enslavement may include: Anal penetration and violation, Ashtray slavery, Ass fucking, Begging & pleading, Behavior modification, Bacchanalian celebration, Blasphemy, Bloodletting, Branding, Breath control, Chastity, Chores, Clamps, Cock and ball torture, Cock sucking, Confinement, Crucifixion, Cum control, Cutting, Degradation, Dehumanization, Demasculinization, Deprivation, Dionysian initiation, Domestic service, Encasement, Enforced exercise, Face fucking, Filth, Flogging, Groveling, Hobbling, Humbling, Humiliation, Idolatry, Inferiority, Isolation, Light deprivation, Long-term bondage, Marking, Milking, Nakedness, Obedience, Objectification, Oral invasion, Orgies, Ownership, Pain, Phallic worship, Piercing, Pimping, Piss, Praise and adoration, Predicament bondage, Prescribed dieting, Public display, Punching, Punishment, Raunch, Restraints, Rimming, Scheduling, Sex magic, Service, Shit, Silence, Slapping, Slavery to the Dark Lord, Smoke, Snot, Spit, Subjugation, Submission, Surrender, Suspension, Sweat, Tantric training, Total Control, Violation, Whipping, and Worship of the Dark Lord.
Over six months, I received numerous hits on my profile and a large number of “cruises,” where members signaled interest in serving me. To those who did so, I wrote back asking if they were interested in “serving my dark desires.” Many replied yes and were invited to apply.
Applying became the standard for evaluating their interest. I asked for their email address, chat ID, and phone number so I could contact them off-site. About 120 men responded with contact information, and it is on my communications with these men that I base the following reflections. (If you were one of these men, let me assure you that my interest was, and still is, genuine. It was more than just a research project.)
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Over the ensuing months, I found myself in the position of explaining what I, the Dark Lord, meant by several of the terms in my profile. Among them were words we often use but that have troubling implications in our Judaic-Christian society. Let me begin by trying to shed some light on what I mean by some of these terms.
Dark: Lacking or having very little light; gloomy; dismal; sullen or threatening; difficult to understand; obscure; concealed or secret; mysterious; lacking enlightenment or culture; exhibiting or stemming from evil characteristics; sinister; absence of light.[22]
For numerous social, religious, and historical reasons the polarity of Light and Dark is often equated with the polarity of Good and Evil. Therefore the “Dark Lord” is immediately identified with Satan, as is the Dark Side.
In nature, both light and dark are neutral phenomena. Only when we enter the realm of morality and theology does the imputation of evil to darkness begin to cause serious problems. If indeed God is everywhere, then God is in the darkness as well as the light. Is Satan really the opposite of God? Is Satan “outside” of God? I doubt it.
In much of the correspondence the Dark Lord received, there were inquiries into satanic worship. My response was to refer the applicant to Elaine Pagels’s excellent book The Origin of Satan. This renowned Gnostic scholar shows that Satan is the creation of Hebrew/Christian intolerance of others. I came to the conclusion that I was not a satanist insofar as I refused to worship a creature that I did not believe existed as the caricature depicted in my childhood.
Similarly, I was asked about blasphemy and eternal damnation. It became obvious that most applicants had a strong belief in basic Judaic-Christian paradigms, especially the ones that condemned them to Hell. Over and over again, I saw that both the fantasy and the discussion were in fact based in religion, and unfortunately based on unclear—and unconscious—beliefs.
I also noticed that many terms (some of which I used in my profile above) were relative, interpreted according to the applicants’ religious perspective. What is blasphemy, for instance, to one devotee is holiness to another. Muslims think that Hindus are blasphemous idolaters. I don’t get the idea that Hindus agree with them.