Talk:Hiram Burrows/@comment-99.230.242.195-20130515201454/@comment-5607198-20130516192303

See, anon, if you actually had a better grasp of what you're talking about, you wouldn't sound stupid.

But you probably aren't stupid. After all, you managed to make your way to this page, type up your thoughts, and even make them perfectly communicative, which is more than I can say for many anon.

So instead of treating you like an idiot, let me instead enlighten you.

Mistress, as a classical term, refers to the woman with whom a man would engage in a recognized sexual relationship out of wedlock. These women were usually unmarried themselves, or widows. The man, again, did not need to be married, though he often was.

Today, we do tend to use mistress exclusively as a euphamism for a man's extramarital affair, usually when the actors in question are of upper economic class.

The use of mistress as a title in sadomasochism has similarly become common.

The problem with your original query is that you completely failed to use context to establish the use of the word. More specifically, nothing in the game suggests the usage of the S&M term, particularly because the idea of such things being bandied about is mostly in the realm of the adolescent imagination. In addition, there is no indication of Burrow's having married. This, coupled with the setting of the game should indicate the use of the term in it's classical, Victorian sense.

Now, it is possible you are (or were) unaware of any use of the word aside from the two you mentioned. This either means you are too young to have experienced enough literature to encounter such usage (which bodes ill for our educational system), or have willfully chosen not to expose yourself to such material, which garners the utmost disrespect from me. However, since there is no telling, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and simply hope that you will continue learning and absorbing the works of man, enriching your appreciation for the world around you and your fellow man.