i was going to stay off here tonight but alright, i'll bite *smile*:

a slave is someone who is owned. and that's pretty black and white, either you belong to yourself or you belong to someone else.

a submissive is someone who belongs to themselves but submits themselves to someOne else's descisions at given times, and given areas of their life. sometimes almost all the time, but ultimately they are their own responsibility to some degree. there are all sorts of shades of grey when it comes to submissives and how far it goes with their Dom/me/Top/Master/Mistress/etc and how they choose to exspress their submission but the key difference is that they still have an underlying ownership of themselves. they may commit to someOne to whatever depth, whatever form of exspression, but at the end of the day they are their own person and ...they need to watch out for themselves and their own interests to whatever degree.

i think it's a huge difference, personally, but.. i guess not everyone agrees. *shrugsmile* please dont flame me too bad. it IS a local holiday after all *L*