Code d'Odalisque - Contemporary Pleasure Slaves

5.10. - The traditional threat of beheading

At her Vows of Devotion, by long tradition, an odalisque is threatened with beheading should she run away or be willfully disobedient or bring disgrace to her vocation or her Keeper. Thereafter, the sword may be presented at her training sessions or other times as an emblem of authority and a constant reminder of the dire fate that awaits a slave who dishonors her vows.


Many aspects of Code d’ Odalisque allude to or appropriate aspects of slavekeeping from former times. These, of course, have been brought up to date and are under the provisions of a fully consensual framework – they are residual motifs from historical odalisque slavery.

One of these such historical motifs is the use of the sword as a symbol of authority and – during the initiation of a freewoman into slavery – the threat of beheading. In historical slavery, of course, this was a real threat. The penalty for an odalisque that ran away or was guilty of some serious breach of her duties (for example, if she tried to harm her Master) was beheading.

In consensual odalisque slavery under Code d’ Odalisque the threat of beheading, and the use of the sword, is retained, but it is of course purely symbolic. When a freewoman is brought into slavery she is threatened with the sword. In this sense, she lives “under the sword”.

As a corresponding gesture of submission, the slave will expose the nape of her neck to her Master. This gesture alludes to the residual threat of beheading. When a woman is “under the sword” she lives under the (symbolic) threat of losing her head if she violates the terms of her slavery.

Note that in Code d’ Ode odalisques do not usually wear collars and the symbol of authority is not the lash. Instead, Code d’ Ode is built on historical traditions concerning piracy and slavetrading. The appropriate sword is the cutlass – the Eroll Flynn-type sword. Slave play can be built around this theme.