I have a strange problem for you. I have this friend, a guy in his 30s I’ve known for maybe ten years. I always knew he was in to different things, we’d talk about kink a lot, but we have always and only ever been good friends. He would tell me a lot about his personal life but nothing prepared me for what happened last year.

He called me up last winter to let me know that he had been "adopted" and that he wouldn't be able to talk to me for a while. I asked what this meant and he said that he belonged to someone now, so please not to be concerned if he wasn't around. What I eventually came to learn is that he had found someone who was willing to allow him to live the life he claimed he had always wanted to live and was moving in with this man he didn't know to be his dog. After a few months of silence he started to be allowed to have short conversations online with me.

I have come to understand that he is now completely mute (he wears a shock collar when he's at home), sleeps in a cage he can’t open from the inside or chained outside, wears diapers as he has lost control of his bladder many times by force, isn't allowed to contact anyone without permission (he is presently allowed to talk to me about once a week online for a few minutes) and has repeatedly been sexually used by a guy even though he'd told me previously that he is strictly in to women. He tells me things as they happen as if it's this is a wonderful adventure he is on, and he seems overall happy to be in his current position.

This time last year he was eagerly advancing in a job he liked, engaged to be married to his long time girlfriend, and very much involved in an active social life and hobbies. When he met this guy, he broke off the engagement, told most people who knew him that he was moving away, quit his job went radio silent. He no longer visits anyone including his elderly parents, has hobbies, or does anything, really. He sleeps a lot of the day and stares off in to space, by his own account. He claims that being cared for relieves him of the worries and stresses of daily life, but this is far beyond anything that we had ever talked about. I thought this would be a short term lifestyle experiment but that seems less and less likely.

I get more concerned every time we speak, as there are a lot of things his “owner” does that seem dangerous to me. This is already long so I’ll spare you the details, but I'd be happy to talk discuss them. He has been told that if he ever wants out, he’ll be left at a bus station with $100 and a change of clothes and that’s it. He doesn’t have a savings or a fallback plan.

What concerns me about this is that it’s very extreme, and while I respect his free will as an adult I sometimes wonder if he’s able to consent to these things given the state he's kept in, chemically and physically? Most people I know in the BDSM community plan their scenes in advance, discuss options, have safe words, and practice after-care. But my friend is a dog full time. They never drop their "roles" to discuss how things are going and I don't even think they have a safe word, and he has confirmed that he couldn't contact anyone even if he wanted to much of the time. But I’m thinking, what if there’s a fire while his “owner” is gone? What if he realizes he didn’t know this guy and he’s unable to get out? What if he wakes up one day at 50 with no savings, no credit, and no employment history?

I’m not sure if I have any right to try to change the situation, or what I should do. Advice from friends (not mutual ones) has fallen on a spectrum of “call the cops now” to “this is none of your business." I worry because I think I’m the only person he talks to, and maybe the only one besides them who knows what’s going on.

How can I be sure that my friend is consenting to his current lifestyle and how can I convince him to plan for the future, assuming I should?

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie?

Um... gee.

You could call the police and ask them to conduct a welfare check... but you would have to provide the police with an address, LSDL, and it doesn't sound like you know where, exactly, your friend is living. And there's always the chance the police will go in, guns blazing, and your friend will be harmed—or killed—by the people you sent in to rescue/check on him.

In all honesty, LSDL, I don't what to tell you. Someone needs to check on this guy, and someone needs to determine if he's in his right mind.

Thinking, thinking...

You say you're only communicating with you friend online—are you Skyping with him? Have you actually seen him? Are you sure you're communicating with him and not with his "owner"? Are you positive your friend is still alive?

If you're positive he's still alive—if you've actually laid eyes on him—and if he's of soundish mind...

This may be the life he wants for himself. It isn't hard to find people online searching for no-way-out/no-escape slavery and imprisonment—men and women who want to disappear, forever, into dungeons to live as slaves or kennels to live as dogs or stables to live as horses. Very few of these people ever find what they're looking for—and most, I suspect, are only fantasizing about no-way-out/no-escape slavery, not actively seeking it. Even the hardest of the hardcore kinksters I know tell me these kinds of fantasies, while more common than you might think, are so impractical as to be unrealizable—and not just impractical for the wannabe slaves/dogs/horses. It's not just the sub who has to give their life up to realize this fantasy; the dom does too.

Maybe your friend is the exception, LSDL. Maybe he wanted this for himself and, unlike most others out there seeking it, he somehow managed to find it. No sane person would want to trade places with him, LSDL, but no sane person would want to trade places with Melania Trump either.

A final and, perhaps, comforting thought: It's entirely possible your friend is bullshitting you.