Slave-buying motivations

Ok, first a few words of my setting: demons are the convolutedly hierarchical master race spanning a large number of city-states (that are run like a mix between small countries and corporations, including area politics). The great majority of demon population forms the homogenic upper class of society that owns, employs and rules the rest (think benevolent mafia and the White Man's Burden). A number of races, including humans, naga, fae, and woodlings make up the rest of the population, and have their own, more or less lawful subsystems. Race right legislation exists to ensure race-appropriate circumstances and treatment of each of the major races; slave rights, citizen rights, and alien (immigrant/traveler) rights make up the rest of what would be considered human rights in our world.

Slavery comes in two main types: utility and pleasure, and is subject to both social and government regulation. For rough comparison, think agricultural industry and pets. Slave ownership is legal for demons only. Slavery is a major topic in politics, with some parties looking to ensure better rights for slaves, and some looking to ensure their own financial benefits, to name two main approaches. (To be noted: "pleasure slave" in this context does not equal "sex slave". When I mean sex slave, I'll use that term.)

A pleasure slave would be any slave to serve in non-utility manner; they would not be tasked with what would be the help's (or the utility slave's) job, i.e. menial work, industry, housekeeping etc. A pleasure slave's function would be any mixture of the following: television (entertainment), pet animal (company), concubine (sexual activity), work of art (decoration, symbol of status), person (any use requiring intellect and personality) etc...

TL;DR: there is slavery.

So let's get our brain some exercise and come up with as many motivations to buy or keep a pleasure slave. (Keep as in "not pass on after receiving one without one's own intention".) Cultural, personal, utilitarian reasons...

Let's be specific also. "For sex" would be too generic: after all, there are a myriad of reasons why an individual would purchase (a costly) pleasure slave instead of acquiring their pleasures in some other way.

I'll begin.

• to have sex without the complications of courtship.
• to have sex/company despite one's insecurity or undesirability.
• to flaunt status, wealth, connoisseurship etc.
• to take on a "charity case" for amusement
• to have sex/company without fear of being used, manipulated, played for politics etc.
• to reduce stress or improve health. ("Having a dog is good for your health.")
• to gain sympathy of pro-slavery parties.
• to provide amusement, company, etc. for family.
• for guest accommodation, platonic or sexual.
• to respect tradition or custom.
• to respect a will, a dying wish, or some such.
• to gain a long-lasting acquaintance. (If living on the move or such.)
• to take on a "charity case" for monetary profit.
• for sexual learning. (Young/inexperienced owners.)
• to learn a new language.

edited 28th May '12 9:46:07 AM by peccantis

To, you know, do actual work you don't want to be bothered with? Pleasure can be defined any number of ways: say you buy a really good scribe with a passion for poetry? That's your nicely-turned, social letters and/or documentation sorted, then. With a side-order of showing off. Bonus points if they're also decent accountants: two birds with one stone.

Ahh, actual work you can't be bothered with would fall into the realm of utility slaves of course :) In that specific situation, the slave would be considered as a worker no matter how much the master/mistress enjoyed their handwriting... (and also lucky for having such easy duties :P)

edited 28th May '12 3:38:49 AM by peccantis

Perhaps as a model for a painter or sculptor, or someone with a beautiful voice to sing the songs that the owner composes? Or just to sing in general.

edited 28th May '12 4:01:42 AM by LoniJay

Readers: a good voice (or voices: don't underestimate a good mimic), a certain style...

Hmmmm: by extension... Public speakers/ performers in general?

In a way, can't anything be considered work you can't be bothered with? Or can't do for functional reasons, like lacking the necessary skills, or not enjoying your own dancing or looking at yourself in the mirror. Presumably there must be some kind of specific historical legal distinction that gets argued over (possibly for tax reasons, such is often the case with unnecessary distinctions), but I think it's worth considering exactly what the distinction is and why it exists.

Also, what's the function of this list? From a worldbuilding perspective I think it might be more effective to just take the premise that slaves can be kept for any reason, and then work out specifics based on reasons actual characters in the story (or their masters) might keep slaves that would work with the plot. This seems more like 'let's fantasize about keeping sex slaves'. Which is fine too, of course but let's be clear here.

edited 28th May '12 7:51:28 AM by Kesteven

Pffft... entertainers of all kind. Singers, storytellers, poets, dancers. Possibly gladiators and sparring partners.

Ooh, more tasks, that's always nice. I guess, if it can be taught, somewhere is a slave teaching her master that. Algebra, bookkeeping, dance, falconry, golf, etiquette, painting, underwater basket weaving...

Oh I hoped someone would bring up some excellent questions such as these! I get to world-build :3

(A word of warning: I take pleasure in creating a messy, hierarchical, bureaucratic system :P)

My inspiration for legal distinction between working/non-working slaves was taxes on entertainment (for instance, seeing films, going to concerts or theatre or cabaret or dance halls) and taxes for sweets and soda drinks. I decided there would be a "luxury tax", for things such as large homes, certain foods, certain fabrics, having more than N help in your household, what have you. It would serve to both bring money to the court and (in world-building context) widen the gap between classes. In such a context it would make quite a lot of sense to have additional taxes on pleasure slaves.

Seeing how the majority of working slaves would be working in handicraft industry or menial jobs, not within homes (hired help is more popular for such; in other words your boots would be shined by a footman and your accounts booked by a secretary rather than a slave), I have thought that the legal definition for the difference between a working slave and a pleasure slave would be the productivity of tasks. In other words, a working slave's tasks create products or services that can be traced, a pleasure slave's tasks are other. The other legal difference is whether the slave in question lives under the owner's household.

For slaves making products proof of working status is straightforward. How about non-material products? Take massage for an example. The difference between a working slave whose task is to provide foot massage in a parlour, and a pleasure slave who's called to relive her mistress' aching feet is that respectively, you can show your accounting and receipts to prove that the former works for your parlour. If for any reason that masseuse slave working for your parlour should live in your attic, you can still prove that they are doing enough productive work for them to be recognised as working slaves for taxation purposes.

Now let's say you have a dual-purpose slave who works part-time in a parlour, and the rest of their time dedicate themselves for her mistress' personal needs? Just provide the proof of their productive work and that slave can qualify for dual-purpose slave taxation. Of course, most of the time you keep your workers and pleasure slaves separate. If you only have a few and need for them all to work full-time, but also want some pleasure-type use of them, well, you get the lower tax for workers, and no one really cares what you do with your slaves once the parlour closes for the rest of the night. (Except if it starts to seem that you exhaust them enough to count as abuse. But slave rights legislation and enforcement is a story for another time.) While dual-purpose taxation exists, it's mostly a legal leftover that no one has been bothered to remove since it was once added as an embellishment some too-important committee once thought was a necessary addition. Most dual-purpose slaves are taxed as pleasure ones; their status mainly matters for bragging rights and trade negotiations.

For non-material productive work made for the owner (or their friends or guests or family or pet or help or whoever who doesn't pay), it counts as pleasure. These include things such ad modeling for an artist, performing music or dance, or, say, caddying for you while you golf. Ok, those sound more or less clearly luxurious. How about having a horse groom slave? Because your horses live in a stable in your yard, your slave needs to live in. It's non-material productive work—but you won't be able to provide receipts or such to prove the work he does. Now, either you're rich enough that one slave's tax status matters fly droppings to you, or you were smart enough to purchase a slave whose registry info includes proof of his horse groom training (or you pay for his training and/or examination to add that mark in his registry papers yourself). Bears to mention the latter route does cost you money too. If you're desperate enough, you can appeal in that you have ten horses, but only hire enough paid grooms to care for five. Or then you just accept that your horse groom is a pleasure slave for taxation matters. And probably get rid of him to hire another paid groom because it's less trouble and cheaper too.

edited 28th May '12 10:22:51 AM by peccantis

Beautiful/Handsome slaves that serve food when the demon has guests. A kind of slave-holding version of keeping the best silverware for your guests.

Oh yes. To build on that, once the lord/lady of the house and their guests retire to lounge, those same slaves would serve drinks, lit pipes/incense, perhaps take part in some games or maybe just look nice and stay out of the way.

I don't know, what would you do with such people when you don't have guests? After all, when you're not using your best silverware you just put it away in a drawer. It doesn't need to eat, sleep, bathe and all that stuff, nor does it get bored and go around making trouble.

Oooh good point! You make them read you good night stories and rub your aching feet perhaps and amuse your cats? :P

Well anyways, if you're in a position where custom dictates that you just have to have a handful of pretty slaves for the amusement of your guests, I'd also guess your position makes you have guests quite often whether you want it or not.

Never mind the fact that buying good-looking slaves is a remarkable cost (and if you need good-looking slaves you likely also need to pack a matching pair or two of handsome footmen, which can be very very costly too), you'll also have to upkeep them (a room, food, such), and keep them presentable (exercise, grooming, fashionable clothing and accessories, keeping updated on etiquette fads). And of course pay the taxes.

"My Lord Chancellor, as honoured as I am of this offer, I would have to, with my uttermost respect and thankfulness, decline."

What you don't say is "don't promote me, I can't afford it!" :P

I don't know, what would you do with such people when you don't have guests? After all, when you're not using your best silverware you just put it away in a drawer. It doesn't need to eat, sleep, bathe and all that stuff, nor does it get bored and go around making trouble.

If people own slaves SPECIFICALLY FOR GUESTS, that would automatically mean they can waste money on feeding/housing people who are only "working" a few times a month or less. After all, there's plenty of real folks who live in gigantic castles/mansions, have twenty luxury cars, and private islands.

Edited by Sharysa on May 11th 2019 at 7:45:50 AM

If you only need some kind of servants on an occasional basis, I would imagine there's some kind of temp service out there for such needs, really.

What, like a rented tux?

That is a terrible but brilliant comparison.

I imagine if folks want more bang for their buck without using temp workers, they'd want to train their special-occasion slaves in at least a FEW regular tasks—lighter chores that aren't dangerous or appearance-wrecking, watching the kids, or running errands/messages, so basically "high-end house slaves."

Edited by Sharysa on May 14th 2019 at 4:10:51 AM

I wonder how far you could push this system. For example, farms only really need extra labor during planting and harvesting. A farmer could rent slaves for this short period rather than own them year round. At the same time, the slave owner now has a vested interest in keeping his property alive and well so he's investing in their welfare.

It might be an interesting way of curbing the excesses of slavery if it's not practical to do away with the institution altogether.

I mean, it's historic fact that slave owners would hire out their slaves and collect income from that; it was the situation with Dredd Scott and his family for a while. Not all slave owners were plantation owners.

There's always work to be done on a farm. Especially on large farms like plantations. Slave owners who weren't farmers were the ones more likely to hire out their slaves. Which is why I suggested the temp agency thing.

Edited by AceofSpades on May 29th 2019 at 10:54:57 AM

Yeah, just check out one of my bookmarks about "the medieval farming year" and SOMEONE'S gonna hate one of the million tasks that's on there.

Weaving cloth and spinning yarn/thread? It takes forever. An average family with 1-3 women (the farmer's wife and 1-2 daughters) takes weeks if not months to make enough cloth for the family, and that's the biggest reason weaving and spinning were the first tasks to be automated. Also, weaving is often seen as a feminine job in Europe, but it actually takes a LOT of arm-strength/endurance; Egyptians had mainly male weavers, and European men frequently took over weaving at the professional levels. Don't want your wife worn out every day? Hire out the weaving to an able-bodied young man.

Milling doesn't seem like a "farming" job, but that's assuming you can actually go to a miller and afford to pay them a portion of your grain for their work, or that the local lord is nice enough to wave that fee for you. HAND-milling grain with a set of quern-stones is, again, a task that takes weeks/months for a whole year's harvest. Modern bakers love the experience (and taste) of freshly-ground flour, but they only do that for a couple loaves of bread at a time. Your average farmer is going to have a LITERAL TON of grain to mill in an average harvest—14 bushels of grain per person at minimum is 560lbs, and if you have 4 people in a family, that's a long-ton of flour you need to grind.

Quern-stones are heavy and while some might prefer finer flour, average farmers would probably be fine with "well, you can bake it and it tastes okay." (Again, there's a reason the types of bread were so stratified in pre-modern Europe—milling flour to special fineness and THEN sifting all the wheat chunks and pebbles out takes a lot of work.) Since most medieval farmers actually baked the family's bread in giant batches once or twice a week, I'm guessing the milling would have been geared to that schedule at a weekly/twice-weekly interval.

So yeah, there's just two tasks that do NOT sound like fun, and I'm pretty sure anyone who can't hire proper farmhands would be gunning to rent some temporary slaves. Aside from a down-payment to the slave's owner, I'm guessing all you'd really need to do is keep them fed and healthy until they're done working.

Edited by Sharysa on Jun 12th 2019 at 11:25:26 AM

In the real world, historically speaking, the kind of people who owned their own family farm typically couldnt afford to hire slaves. It's typically cheaper to pool labor resources with your neighbors and rotate the tasks. That's where "quilting bees" and "house raisings" came from. But in a fictional universe, the author is free to create different circumstances.

I figure you'd rent slaves for the harvest when the workload was at it's peak. As I understand it, harvest was something of a race as you try to pack everything in before it spoils.

But whoever owns the slaves has to maintain them year round. Renting out slaves is the kind of business where you need a steady, reliable demand.

There was also a LOT of gray-area in terms of "maintenance" and "steady income," and all those labor ethics issues that modern people automatically think about.

I suppose demographic wise, the slave-renting business would be limited to mid-sized towns and cities—at least a couple thousand inhabitants for the towns, and cities would have bigger scales of “renting” locations. Or 3-4 villages with an equivalent population.

Edited by Sharysa on Jun 12th 2019 at 9:26:53 AM

I remenber someone in a quest(and interactive role play) someone ask what is the nature of slavery and concluted that slaves are by logic, the sum of all free labor you can do by the most minimal invesment.

In that way the question is pretty much: how much I can makethis job by just throw slave at them, everything just kinda go after that.

Yeah, but the problem is that economies run on slave labor are empirically less efficient than economies run on wage labor. One of the biggest problems facing the Southern states prior to the U.S. Civil War was that their economies were just plain worse than the North's, and modernization would have meant giving up their slaves.

I'm not trying to say that racism wasn't a primary factor in the Civil War, but rather that what doomed them, whether a war was fought or not, wasn't politics or culture but economics.

Slavery is never a rational macroeconomic choice when compared to alternatives.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 1st 2019 at 12:10:07 PM