Gag (BDSM)

A gag is a device sometimes worn during sexual bondage and BDSM roleplay. Gags are usually associated with roleplays involving bondage, but that is not necessarily the case. The person who wears the gag is regarded as the submissive partner, while the one not wearing one is regarded as the dominant one.

People may wear gags for a variety of reasons. Some people derive erotic pleasure from a gag, either in a submissive or dominant role. When combined with other physical restraints, the wearing of a gag can increase the wearer's sense of helplessness and anxiety level within a BDSM scene, by depriving them of a means to influence the progress of a sexual activity through speech. Some people enjoy the feeling of surrendering the ability to speak to another person in an activity.

For some people, gags have connotations of punishment and control, and thus can be used as a form of humiliation. To some, wearing a gag without restraints is still an act of humiliation, as is an open mouth gag. Some fetishists are sexually aroused by the sound gagged people make when they try to speak, or by seeing a person drool uncontrollably.

Gag (medical device)

In the context of surgery or dental surgery, a gag is a device used to hold the patient's mouth open when working in the oral cavity, or to force the mouth open when it cannot open naturally because of forward dislocation of the jaw joint's intraarticular cartilage pad. Applications for medical gags include oral surgery and airway management. Gag designs, like other medical instrument designs, are often named after their inventors. Common examples of medical gags include the Jennings, Whitehead, and Hallam gags.

Gag (album)

Gag is an album released in 1984 by British musician Fad Gadget. It is a combination of electronica and industrial styles, and features the German band Einstürzende Neubauten on the second track, "Collapsing New People", which was also released as a single. ("Einstürzende Neubauten" translates as "Collapsing new buildings - specifically, tower blocks".)

Recorded for Mute Records in 1984, Gag was a fairly experimental, and ultimately, not a commercial album.

Track listing

Personnel

References

Order and disorder (physics)

In physics, the terms order and disorder designate the presence or absence of some symmetry or correlation in a many-particle system.

In condensed matter physics, systems typically are ordered at low temperatures; upon heating, they undergo one or several phase transitions into less ordered states. Examples for such an order-disorder transition are:

The degree of freedom that is ordered or disordered can be translational (crystalline ordering), rotational (ferroelectric ordering), or a spin state (magnetic ordering).

The order can consist either in a full crystalline space group symmetry, or in a correlation. Depending on how the correlations decay with distance, one speaks of long-range order or short-range order.

If a disordered state is not in thermodynamic equilibrium, one speaks of quenched disorder. For instance, a glass is obtained by quenching (supercooling) a liquid. By extension, other quenched states are called spin glass, orientational glass. In some contexts, the opposite of quenched disorder is annealed disorder.

Fictional universe of The Guardians of Time

In the fictional Guardians of Time Trilogy, author Marianne Curley constructs a highly detailed alternate universe in which much of the action of the series takes place, unknown to the regular world. In this universe, two organizations battle for control over time.

The Guard

The Guardians of Time (known also as The Guard) is a society dedicated to preserving history against the attempts of the Order of Chaos to alter it. It is headed by a sexless immortal called Lorian, who is backed by a Tribunal of nine members, each a representative of a house.

The headquarters of the Tribunal, as well as the Guard itself, is located in Athens, year 200 BC, outside of the mortal measurements of time. For their purposes, they also use a place called the Citadel, connected to another area known as the labyrinth (also used by Order of Chaos) which serves as a disembarkation point for the Guards' missions into the past. Guard meetings frequently take place in Arkarian's, a Guard member's, abode hidden within the depths of a mountain. Connected to this mountain is the hidden city of Veridian and later learned, also connected to Neriah's fortress.

Order (business)

In business or commerce, an order is a stated intention, either spoken or written, to engage in a commercial transaction for specific products or services. From a buyer's point of view it expresses the intention to buy and is called a purchase order. From a seller's point of view it expresses the intention to sell and is referred to as a sales order. When the purchase order of the buyer and the sales order of the seller agree, the orders become a contract between the buyer and seller.

Within an organization, the term order may be used to refer to a work order for manufacturing, a preventive maintenance order, or an order to make repairs to a facility.

In many businesses, orders are used to collect and report costs and revenues according to well-defined purposes. Then it is possible to show for what purposes costs have been incurred.

Spoken orders

Businesses such as retail stores, restaurants and filling stations conduct business with their customers by accepting orders that are spoken or implied by the buyer's actions. Taking a shopping cart of merchandise to a check-out counter is an implied intent to buy the merchandise. Placing a take-out or eat-in order at a restaurant is a spoken purchase order. Putting gasoline in one's tank at a filling station is an implied order. The seller usually expects immediate payment by cash, check or credit card for these purchases, and the seller provides the buyer with a receipt for the payment. In legal terms, this form of business order is an "implied in fact contract".

Government of Ireland

The Government of Ireland (Irish: Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.

Members of the government

The structure of the Government of Ireland is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach. The deputy prime minister is called the Tánaiste, and is nominated by the Taoiseach from among the members of the Government.

The Government must consist of between seven and fifteen members, according to the Constitution of Ireland. Every member of the Government must be a member of the parliament of Ireland, called the Oireachtas. No more than two members of the Government may be members of Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas. Therefore, all other members of the Government must be members of Dáil Éireann, the lower house. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance must be members of the Dáil.

The Taoiseach is nominated by Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, and appointed by the President. Other members of the Government are nominated by the Taoiseach, approved by Dáil Éireann, and appointed by the President. Members of the government are often styled "cabinet ministers", as opposed to Ministers of State (before 1977 Parliamentary Secretaries), called "junior ministers", who are not in the cabinet. A minister is usually in charge of a Department of State and thus technically a "Minister of the Government" (before 1977 a "Minister of State"). Occasionally a minister without portfolio is appointed who is a minister and a member of the Government but not a "Minister of the Government".