Here, I have written for you a list of all the times that it is okay to use the word slave. Oh, it is a one item long list. Best wishes, John Green. So what exactly makes slavery so horrendous? Well, definitions are slippery, but I'm going to start with the definition of slavery proposed by sociologist Orlando Patterson. It is the permanent, violent, and personal domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons. According to this definition, a slave is removed from the culture, land, and society of his or her birth and suffers what Patterson called social death.