Collaring, Part 2

So with my last post getting so long, I let it go without actually answering my feelings on the matter. So how do I feel about collaring? As I said, I am actually of mixed feelings on the matter - or rather, depending on the context, I fit into both of the major categories I talked about last week.

On the one hand, I find collars exceedingly useful, and use them frequently when fooling around with someone. Ash and I, for example, have a metal choke chain and a nylon collar on our headboard which admittedly haven't been used in the last couple of months, but are convenient when we want to grab them. They're convenient for grabbing onto; both only have a single attachment point, but it's enough for a leash or a carabiner or a padlock or attaching to some convenient hook, when appropriate.

I actually used to have a very nice leather collar with two d-rings on it, which was part of a matched set with four leather manacles; sadly, they were all lost when a backpack with a number of my toys in it was lost to an unusually uncommunicative ex. Let this be a lesson to you, kids; never leave your toys at someone else's house, just in case they break up with you and you can't reasonably get them back...

My point is, though, that these collars have no significance to me other than their convenience in the area of attaching them to people or other things. They do that job very well, but signify nothing else.

On the other hand, when I have a serious submissive or slave, at some point - if we want it to be permanent - we will talk about collaring. I've never done a formal collaring ceremony myself; but it still has significance to me as a symbol of my control/ownership. A submissive I will typically buy the collar for; while a slave will buy the collar themselves and present it to me to put on them - symbolically, it's the only thing they actually own, having given up everything else to their new owner.

(Obviously, that doesn't hold any legal standing... But so little of the lifestyle does.)

So yes - just to make it even more complicated than it otherwise might have been, never forget that a collar is just a collar... Until it isn't, and then it's something far more and significant.