[Merlin]

Originally Posted by oreo_is_back

It's the concept of following someone elses rules in YOUR relationship. I'm sorry but I think that is pretty wrong. It's the same as someone in the street coming up to you and saying 'Hey, your relationship sucks, please follow my rules.'

I have to agree that noone should take these rules 1 to 1 as their own rules, but the idea behind them is being an example, so to use your own idea... you go to another master asking him for help and he is saying what you could do...The point is there was never said that it all has to be like that... Of course there is the chance of new people seeing this and thinking it has to be like that but i don't think that is caused by the rules but by the hubris of some persons that think they don't have to think about what they do and are a good master because they copy some rules and ideas.

[...]S&M is indeed different,but it is still a RELATIOSHIP, and in a relationship you should make your own rules(If there needs to be some) not follow other people's.

agreed! but the rules never said that someone has to follow them... they are examples. And even if i have to agree that a lot are way to specific or way to general it makes them maybe bad examples but no one said that they are guidelines you have to follow.

I think Merlin told me that a Master needs to take responsibility for his slave,[...]

Yeah i really think that and i also see this as important!

these rules promote abuse in some senses. I.e. Branding or tattoo'ing. It may not seem serious, but a serious consequence may come from it. HIV for example,rare, but it COULD still happen.

now we get to a complicated area ... what is abuse and what not. Like Chloé said if 2 people really agree to do something i don't see it as abuse. Even if it is something dangerous (and getting a tattoo is not that dangerous). The important part here is that both people need to be aware of the risk something involves. So is Asphyxia games (breath control) one of the most dangerous things you can do but still there are a lot people liking it and if both agree to it and both know that there is a chance that it can end deadly it is no abuse.
What i may have said is the following. A Master forcing his Slave to do something like that is abusing the slave and there is also an area where things get even more tricky, if the slave agrees to something because he thinks that he has to do it to please the master but in reality will have mental problems with it. What i say in this situation is that you as master have to stop your slave from harming himself just to please you and watch out for it. If you know about it and dont stop him it is also abuse.

How can a Master take responsibility for his slave if he's following someone elses rules? That's just a BIG contradiction.
In my oppinion it's just wrong. But that's just -my- oppinion.

If he is copying them 1 by 1 without thinking of them he can't but that is not tha fault of the rules but of the so called Master...

[...]One more thing, yes some of these rules ARE agreeable, like the safe word,respect sense etc. But they ARE just common sense not rules.

Now you are doing what you should with these rules... reflect them and see what fits and what not. And yes for me most of these rules are also not really usable or not even a rule at all. But again even bad examples are nothing but examples and for some people they may work.

Wait, ok, another thing. Considering we're discussing it in chat. If they are GUIDELINES, why not state them as such instead of putting '128 BASIC RULES'--This gives impression to the reader that they should know these 'Rules' That they should WORSHIP their Master.[...]

As Chloé said the article is telling that they are not ... still setting them on a website as basic rules you have to know is really quiet silly but that would be the fault of the website and not of the master who wrote them.

And as final word were we all agree is that you should have your own rules and copying some rules from somewhere without thinking about it is just wrong, but you can take things like that (or better examples) as a place to get ideas...