Just stumbled upon The AfroMystic's article "4 Reasons Why 'Binding' a Lover to Yourself is Not Smart." I'm glad she wrote this. Now I don't have to. But it needs to be said. Out loud. Regularly.
Now I know not everybody sees eye-to-eye on all the finer points and nuances of potential situations where things like Binding and Intranquility and such get brought up a lot. I don't necessarily see eye-to-eye with all of my colleagues about every single nuance of this stuff and vice versa. And I absolutely allow that not everybody from every culture, society, or country has the same autonomy, access to resources, and legal status as everybody else (and she touches on this issue as well in her article).
But if you're a rootworker in the 2000s here, or even if you've just been hanging around in rootwork circles long enough, you know exactly the kind of thing she's talking about 'cause you've seen it yourself. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some version of these:
"Met him last month, want to do binding spell."
"Takes advantage of me and never spends time with me, want to do binding spell."
"Regularly sticks his dick in the crazy, comes home, lies about it, and gave me an STD. Want to do binding spell."
And people get *shirty* (i.e. super offended) when you suggest they should maybe consider this spell instead:
Now don't anybody get defensive and don't anybody dismiss this outright. If you are considering love binding work, read this as neutrally as you can, and just check and make sure none of this applies to you. Maybe it doesn't. If the shoe doesn't fit, etc., never mind.
But probably 90% of the folks who've brought up love binding work to me in the last few decades could have stood to ask themselves these questions. Just give it a read, that's all I'm saying!