See! That's why I originally had such a hard time with Spike/Angel. Because so much Spike/Angel is Angel being dominant and Spike being submissive, using the "sire/childe" thing as a way to take away all Spike's independence and make him Angel's slave. deborahmm addresses this in her post when she talks about how there was this original view of Spike as always secondary to Angel, hot and useful as a sexual object, but he always has to be "put in his place." Any fic that maintains that Spike needs to be "put in his place" makes me want to vomit. It plays on all those racist, judgemental "soulless vampires are the less-than-human 'other'" aspects of the whole soul/no-soul divide that make me angry and sick.

I know not all S/A is like that, and I'm definitely starting to develop an appreciation for it now based on what I see onscreen. (Which is that Angel's more powerful, but there is no way in hell Spike's going to submit to him.) But originally it was a big stumbling block, because the slave kink tends to be very prominent in S/A fic. The writers looking for a more equal relationship tend to gravitate toward Spike/Xander, which is a dynamic I've always preferred for that reason.