Collaring

What is collaring?

Collaring is the ritual in which a dominant puts a collar on the submissive, who accepts it. It marks a step in their relationship. The encyclopedia notes that the same word is also used for putting the collar on at the start of an agreed scene.

What does a collaring ceremony look like?

There is no prescribed form. The encyclopedia describes how the commitment to the relationship, after a contract is signed, is celebrated with a collaring ceremony that can be simple or elaborate and is often attended by invited friends.

In practice that varies widely. Two people at the kitchen table saying a few lines they wrote themselves. Or an evening with fifty guests, borrowed wedding forms, and a photographer. What both share is that something known only privately until then gets said out loud.

That same source names the other customs around it: a name chosen by the other person, entry in a register, or a public declaration. The collar is the best known of these, but not the only one.

What stages does a collaring have?

Many relationships build it up in steps, each with its own collar. That system comes from the community itself and not from any literature, so read it as custom and not as rule.

The first step is the collar of consideration, which according to Kayla Lords means you are “under consideration” as your partner’s submissive. Then comes the training collar, which she describes as the sign of where someone stands in the course of the relationship. And finally the permanent collar, which she says carries the same weight as a wedding ring.

Handler David describes the same three steps with colors attached, blue, then red or black, then black with hardware, and adds right away that he personally likes this system for its simplicity and that there is room to adapt it. Lords is just as clear. There is no single right answer; couples have to find the path that fits them.

What a collaring does and does not bind

What it binds is the intent. What it does not bind is something else. On the contracts that often come with it, the encyclopedia states that they are not enforceable the way legal contracts are, and that both the dominant and the submissive can withdraw consent at any moment.

That does not mean it amounts to little. For Journal of Homosexuality, Dancer, Kleinplatz, and Moser surveyed 146 people who call themselves slaves, men and women between 18 and 72. They found a power difference that reaches beyond the span of a scene and works through into daily things like housekeeping, money management, and morning and evening routines. Their participants described these relationships as long-lasting and satisfying. And the researchers established that these people exercise their free will when it is in their own interest.

Misconceptions about collaring

“It’s a BDSM marriage.” Partly. The comparison holds for weight and for form, but not for status. There is no authority and no registration, and you cannot dissolve it either. Just two people and what they agreed.

“A collaring is final.” No. Consent can be withdrawn at any moment, by either person. That is not a weakness of the ritual. It is the condition it rests on.

“You have to hold a ceremony for it.” Also no. In the word’s other meaning, collaring is nothing more than putting a collar on at the start of a scene, and that happens without an audience.

What I see of it myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, more than twenty-five years into BDSM and with a background as a psychotherapist. Collaring in the second meaning belongs to people building something lasting together, and that is not what I offer. I see it from the side, at parties and in conversations.

People who otherwise like to keep things in perspective take this strikingly seriously. I have seen solid, level-headed people standing there trembling as they spoke a few lines they wrote themselves. Rituals do something, even when you think beforehand they are nonsense.

And something else I see. It almost never goes wrong during the ceremony. It goes wrong in the year after, when it turns out plenty went undiscussed because the moment was so beautiful.

What you can do yourself

• Have the conversation before the ceremony, not after. Money, time, other people, illness. A ritual does not cover subjects left undiscussed.
• Take a stage in between. The step-by-step build exists because otherwise people overestimate themselves.
• Agree on how it ends. How you part is a more painful conversation than how you begin, and that is exactly why it belongs here.
• Choose your own form. There is no prescribed text; something you wrote yourself works better than something borrowed.
• Celebrate small if that fits. Having friends there is common, not required.

Read more about collaring

On this site, the object itself is described at collar, the first stage at collar of consideration, and contract covers what goes on paper beforehand. For the relationship that often follows, see 24/7.

Outside this site, the encyclopedic description is the best starting point, because it puts the ritual in context.

Sources

• 24/7 SM slavery. Peter L. Dancer, Peggy J. Kleinplatz & Charles Moser, Journal of Homosexuality 50(2–3), 81–101, 2006. Questionnaire study of 146 self-identified slaves aged 18 to 72; provides the power difference that reaches beyond a scene, the carry-over into housekeeping, money management, and daily routines, the long-lasting and satisfying relationships, and the finding that participants exercise their free will when it is in their interest.
• Master/slave (BDSM). Wikipedia. Provides the ceremony after a contract is signed, simple or elaborate and often with invited friends, the other markers such as naming and register, and the fact that consent can be withdrawn at any moment.
• Collars in BDSM. Wikipedia. Provides the two meanings of the word: opening an agreed scene, and making a bond visible.

Related terms

• Slave contract. The document often signed just before the ceremony.
• Collar. The object this ritual revolves around, from its material to its clasp.
• Collar of consideration. The first, temporary stage.
• Rose ceremony. The elaborate variant, with two roses and a blood segment that has real consequences.
• Contract. The agreement that in many cases precedes it.
• 24/7. The relationship that often follows a permanent collar.
• Consent. The permission that stays revocable even after this.
• Master. The title that takes effect with this ritual.
• M/s. The relationship whose start date a collaring marks.
• Slave. The role that takes effect at that moment, and what the word otherwise carries with it.
• Total power exchange. The form in which the collar marks the broadest agreement, with TPE as the abbreviation.