it's the right and responsibility for every individual to be free-thinking. it's the right and responsibility of friends to keep their friends out of trouble...worse trouble than they want anyway. it's the balance of this, i think, that you're asking about.

in relationships, even in M/s relationships, especially in M/s relationships, one must be conscious of what we're getting into. it's particularity important to be conscious of this when, in D/s your actions give the impression of compliance and loss of free will to any degree, it is easy for your mind to believe it. and that's why it's easy for us to get sucked into unhealthy relations - our mental state aligns with our actions. "act" "action" and "acting" all have the same root for a very good reason.

a friend can be that lingering question once that mind responsible for our well-being has also submitted along with the body. if one is in a positive power exchange, that can be enormously liberating, but in the case of a negative power exchange can be devastating. and in that case we need a friend to be that part of us that can see more objectively and ask 'hey honey, are you ok? i haven't seen much of you recently, how is everything going?' - and in that way snap the reverie. no one likes to be told what to do, especially not the proud slave, and you are not this person's Master. but you can ask questions, you can state observations, you can hold their hand. it's not your place to say "i told you so."

this is complicated by the fact that you've never met the slave in question. it's harder to be a friend, but that doesn't mean you can't look out for the slave's well-being. community feeling about a person is a powerful force, and serves to either remove negative members from the midst, or pressure them to change. in that way it's ok to state your feelings on the matter - but realize they are only YOUR feelings, and you are no fortune-teller, and you do not have the right to be free-thinking for someone. so you cannot tell them what to do, but you can tell them how you feel about Master A.

if you don't believe Master A is intentionally malicious, and just inexperienced, then you can certainly coach them, suggest classes, interactions with other Masters - this person isn't going to get better by being maligned. who knows? maybe this will be a match made in the dungeons of heaven. maybe slave will learn something about being conscious, and choose to improve slave. but the bottom line is: if you act in good-will to all parties involved (i.e. not holding a grudge against this Master), and believe that no one is a bad person, then you cannot help but to improve the situation for all involved.

of course, that's my feeling about it, and far be it from a lowly me to tell someone what to do ^_-

best wishes in helping people. be well.
aiyami

This same question has come up in other groups i belong to and is usually gets a lot of responses stating these are adults who should be able to figure out for themselves whether the person they meet isn't going to be the right one for them. It IS scary that many folks whether Masters or slaves, that are especially new seem to jump into the first thing that comes along without testing the waters first. They just get anxious and agree to a relationship on the first meeting.

It would seem worth it to you to attempt a friendship with Slave Z and get a better understanding about who he/she is as a person and what their level of experience is. Maybe Slave Z will have that first meeting with Master A and realize he was a far better match in e-mails and posts than he is in person.

I would REALLY hope that Slave Z would know that it's best to spend a LOT of time with this Master A before jumping into a committed M/s relationship.

As far as "etiquette" of letting the potential slave (or a Master in a similar situation) know about your misgivings...well...this sort of reminds me of a parent that tries to warn their kid that the person they are about to marry isn't the right one for them. The kid is most likely going to ignore the advice of the wiser parent. Most of us have to learn our lessons on our own.

Unless you know this Master A is a convicted sex offender, violent person or some other such thing then just making friends with Slave Z and being there for him/her if needed seems like the better path to take.

We always have to add also, without knowing the details..the one who seems wrong, scary or a bad dom/me for some..may be just perfect for others.

I personally feel that half of the people who claim to own slaves are too inexperienced to do so...but their slaves seem perfectly happy so who am I to get between them. It's my own stuff not theirs.

So, like others have said. Unless they are molesting children, or some other equally horrible act.. I would let them work it out.

People have made it to this age by being able to make their own decisions. They know what a M/s relationship means as well as we do. A warning from a stranger she never met and who's opinion she doesn't value at all will mean nothing to her.

Let's do the woman a favor and assume that she got to this stage in her life by being able to think for herself, make good decisions and access the people she is entering into relationships with without the help from perfect strangers. If indeed his only crime is that he is new and learning then perhaps they can learn together. Lots of folks do that. People did SM before it was so organized and people had the opportunity to warn each other and they did just fine.

That's my two cents,

MsBootLegged

Pam
Who (when she was subbing only dated from the bad dom/me list)