I'm pretty sure anything short of death is okay for a dominant to do to a submissive unless the submissive's dominant objects. Hell, there were murders a bit back and the guy was out of jail in weeks.

I know Gotham has her issues, but she's nothing like here. If you have a mark, you can't spend money without having a dominant say you can, even if you earned the money yourself. You can't do anything without permission, really. And fighting the system means they do more things. There are people who used to be dominants who ended up submissives for acting improperly, and the submissives get punished publicly for overstepping.

It's probably worse than you want to know. And fighting is nearly impossible.