For the Saturday Night (and Sunday) Slave Auction - Originally posted to Adult BackWash.

Auction Page: http://www.cuffs.com/submission/auction.html Chatroom: http://www.cuffs.com/submission/local.html

I have a guest column.

Guest column by astraea.

eBay misses a niche. There is good news about a slave auction.

Good news only because they no longer exist? Well, no. And no. They do exist, and they can actually be fun, stimulating, and not at all soul-destroying.

Let me clarify, in case it seems I've wandered very, very far from PC territory. Buying and selling people is generally a very bad thing indeed. Slavery is abhorrent to most civilized societies, and even some that aren't so civilized. We like that about civilization.

But in the bright-yet-shadowy world of BDSM, auctions of submissives (and sometimes Dominants) thrive, both online and in entirely corporeal environments. A BDSM slave auction is voluntary, and unless someone has a particularly unusual fetish, no one is going to end up spending their days in the cotton fields, although there may be shackles involved.

For BDSM IRC channels, auctions tend to be about simply having fun. The auction currency is usually earned by making contributions to the channel in a variety of ways, from scening in public to creating content for a website or discussion forum, to playing a Truth or Dare game.

A good example of how an online auction works takes place this weekend. Over two evenings some 45 Dom/mes and submissives will make their way to the virtual auction block in the EFNet irc channel #submission. After each auction "lot" makes a brief statement about her/himself, there will be bidding every bit as fierce as those last-second clickfests at eBay - or perhaps more like the flurry of paddle-waving you might expect at Sotheby's.

The auction process is completed when the buyers and sellers decide when and how they will spend the time that has been purchased, and that can also be entertaining to experience, or to watch.

For your introduction to a world of auctions that's more about vintage kink than vintage kitsch, check the #submission auction information at www.cuffs.com/submission/auction.html - from there you can also join the auction in progress using their java-based chat.

Don't cast off those chains! Pick up your whips and paddles, ropes and chains, and see how they can be put to good use this Saturday and Sunday at an online BDSM auction.