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| In chess it is the woman who wears the crown, or in this case lipstick. |
Apparently I have a Flickr account and last week somebody subscribed to my "feed." Thank you, I guess. It reminded me of the good old days on Tumblr where people like you and me shared chess images of the queen. Only we understood what that images stood for. In case you're not a chess player, the queen is the most powerful piece. On the other hand the king is the most important one. The goal of chess is to capture the king.
"Chess was invented in India in the fifth century CE and was spread by Islamic conquests to Europe, where the piece known as the vizier became the queen—the only female in the all-male club of chess pieces. Feminist author and historian Marilyn Yalom makes a credible, though circumstantial, case that this rise reflects the power intermittently accorded to, or seized by, female European monarchs." [link]
The internet being the internet, if three people link to the same site, it's contents must be true. The web is littered with pages telling us queen Isabella of Castile, the monarch who unified Spain and sent Christopher Columbus to discover America, is the inspiration for the figure of the queen in modern chess.
"Sadly, the queen’s supremacy made the game so much faster and more competitive that it was considered unsuitable for upper-class women." [link]
"Does this mean kings are hopeless and queens are ruthless? Not exactly, practically speaking, if the king were any more powerful, checkmate or capture would be impossible." [link] BTW, it's just a game, remember.
After all this time I still don't care who came up with the idea of the triskelion as the so-called ultimate BDSM sign, but it's wrong. Life, power, control and submission are all about balance and counterbalance, by choice. "Well before the queen's powers expanded,it was already being romantically described as essential to the king's survival, so that when the queen was lost, there was nothing more of value on the board." [link]
"Perhaps the chess king’s vulnerability reflects the perception of many men surrounded by strong females that women actually hold the power, even if it’s not wielded through the sword."
But what if king and queen in chess are partners in crime? "Once one partner is lost the other would revert to the vulnerability of the contemporary king, as it is the strength of the union from which their power is derived."
"Once the king is captured, the game is over, reflecting the fact that there is no point being a queen without a king. Like I always say: partners in crime." [link]
But there’s a sting at the end of this history lesson. When a pawn, the lowest ranking piece on the board, one, whose role is that of cannon fodder, makes it to the other side, it gets promoted. Usually it's transformed into a queen. Since there are no spare pieces in a chess set, a knight that has been lost is turned upside down, literally. Both players have eight pawns, so in theory you can have nine queens protecting a single king. Unlikely but still.
Continuing our analogy between chess and femdom, is it tricky to explain those eight imposters? Not really. The queen is the ruler of your heart, the one you give your heart to, serve with all of your heart, etc. In the end there can be only one. Those eight wannabes don't have a heart. A desire for expensive stuff - good taste is optional - they do have. In the world of BDSM, there's a name for that: findoms. It's an exclusive, female-only club. Perhaps that's why the word maledom is unsuited for similar word games. Moneydom doesn't work. Besides "dom" in Dutch means dumb. Pardon my French, but that's the end of it.
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| "You'll never make it to the other side. Pretending to be a pawn - for the goodies - in this thing you call "a game" but know nothing about." |
Bonus
According to Wikipedia an amazon (also known as a queen+knight compound) is a fairy chess piece that can move like a queen or a knight. Once again, you have to know the rules of the game to appreciate the angel dust here.
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