Anti-depressants?

QUESTION: I have been playing odalisque games with an older woman and looking towards a serious Master/slave arrangement, but I discover she has been on anti-depressants for years. I am worried that because she is on medication then legally there are questions about her consent… 

You are right to be concerned. Mental health is a safety and a legal issue as well as raising questions about consent. The Code motto is: Consent. Safety. Legality. This issue touches upon all three of these imperatives.

In law consent is a minefield. In some places now a woman who has had even a drop of alcohol can claim that her judgment was impaired and her consent compromised. It is entirely conceivable that a case could arise where a woman lived as a slave in full consent but then claimed that her psych meds blurred her judgment and that the man took advantage of her sickness. So be careful. Men in Code d’ Odalisque must protect themselves from possible litigation or criminal charges by ensuring full and complete consent. If there is any question as to whether consent might be compromised by psychiatric medication then you would be best advised to not enter a Master/slave relationship with that woman. There are, though, many different types of medication for many different conditions and many different levels of dosage.

In general, people with psychiatric illness should not adopt the odalisque life. Depressed women should not go into occlusion to be treated as living sex dolls. Any woman who enters that lifestyle must be in full mental health - as well as the sex, there is lots of mind-fucking that can happen in odalisque slave play and slave training. Women who are mentally fragile should not be odalisques. For moral reasons, if not for legal ones as well, a man should not take a woman into slavery if he knows her to be mentally fragile or if he thinks the experience would be emotionally or psychologically beyond her.

Occlusion means living as a captive slave. Isolation. Only women who have aptitude for such a lifestyle should become odalisques. Women who need company and stimulation and who are prone to depression will be unsuitable. If a woman falls into depression during her time in occlusion, this strongly suggests she is not suited to the role. Any woman who has real aptitude for the role will thrive and find fulfillment in it.

All the same, mental illness ought not be exaggerated or stigmatized. It is common and many people live with it. Some people experience “winter blues” (S.A.D.) Some people – for metabolic reasons - function much better with a low dose of St John’s Wort or 10 ml of an SSRI every day. This sort of general or seasonal low-level depression – mild depression - is common and would not necessarily disqualify a woman from the odalisque’s role. Chronic and deep depression would. Everyone has ups and downs and some depression is entirely due to biochemical dispositions and is easily corrected with the new generation of psych drugs – it need not be regarded as a dire disability.

There is a problem with anti-depressants, though. Many of them squash sex drive. For obvious reasons, any drugs – legal or otherwise – that inhibit sexual response or render a person incapable of orgasm are contrary to the whole purpose of odalisque slavery which is inherently sexual. Any medication that effectively castrates or neuters a person has no place in Code d’ Ode.

It is a complex question. These days there is an epidemic of depression, bipolar disease, autism spectrum syndrome and so on. Generally, sex slave play – especially serious play – is only for people not suffering from psychological disorders. That is the simplest and safest policy to adopt. Mental health is a safety issue. Safety comes first.