Wednesday 16 November 2016

Why male subs are crap 2: Warped or missing role models and prototypes

Listen to the chatter around Femdom: "Goddess... Mistress... Queen... punishment... service... worship..."

Look at the posturing and the posture taking!

Roman widows kept male slaves as
lovers....never depicted in
mainstream culture. 
It all points to a prototype:  a mutually fulfilling sexual relationship in which the woman holds all the formal power, not just over the sex but over the man himself.

Unfortunately, it's a protoype that never existed.

Oh sure, some Roman widows kept male slaves as lovers. Some of those relationships had to be about more than just captive masseur who does happy endings. However, these are never depicted in mainstream culture.

Instead, our cultural heritage views female dominance through the lens of the Battle of the Sexes: there to be defeated - Cruella De Ville; tamed - Kate from Taming of the Shrew; - or laughed at - every comedy housewife who wears the trousers.
The powerful woman spends the movie trying to
submit her way into his world.

Think about the film Notting Hill.

Hugh Grant's character is a penniless bookseller. He's in love with Julia Roberts' screen goddess. The whole film hinges on overcoming the power imbalance between them, and ultimately on her escalating attempts to surrender to him.

The powerful woman spends the movie trying to submit her way into his world.
Imagine if the genders had been reversed?

So, yes you can have a living goddess like She or Cleopatra or Julia Roberts, but - since sex is surrender - when the right man comes along, she's revealed as "just a girl wanting to be loved" (presumably this is the origin of the idea that dommes are just waiting for a real alpha male to come along and tame them).

 She's grotesque, and he's a figure of fun. 
Think about... how about... yes! Do you remember Suburbagatory?

Sheila Shay is clearly - explicitly! - the dominant partner in her relationship, but she's grotesque, and he's a figure of fun. Moreover, he's weak in his relationships outside the marriage, and therefore less of a man.

That's fine because this is comedy, but can you think of a non-comedy show where she rules the roost and that doesn't constantly generate challenges for them as a couple?

So, yes, the wife can be in charge, but that makes the man defeated and emasculated.

It seems our mainstream culture doesn't know what a happy vanilla Femdom - "Female Led"- relationship looks like, let alone what kinky Femdom sexuality might look like when she's actually in charge.

This is perhaps why some male subs have odd or unhelpful ideas.

They envisage Femdom as a simple reversal of traditional roles.

In the crudest form, they present themselves as feminised in the expectation that a dong-wielding domme can't wait to peg them "for her pleasure". In a more subtle variation, they assume that if a woman is in charge then her approach to sex will become "masculine": just as a manly man wants to "force" one extra orgasm out of his woman, so should a True Femdom want to milk her sub dry. (Of course, some women do want to do this, but not all.)

Castle: very much a happy vanilla Femdom relationship
Or they narrate their submission as an inevitable act of surrender in the battle of the sexes, and portray themselves as weak while loudly proclaiming the truth of gynosupremacy - because that's attractive, right?

Finally, they read female sexuality as being inevitably submissive, so focus on anything other than satisfying it.

This is one reason why they imagine being done to rather than doing for.

In this view, receiving a hand job is a form of surrender. Where the sub is the active one, it must be about his submission. She must either be the scornful goddess - e.g. having her boots licked - or else take pleasure in an aggressive posture, classically through pegging and face sitting, but also - if she really must lie back and enjoy cunnilingus - through gloating over his inevitable denial.

God forbid they should actually have sex!

These warped substitutes for role models and prototypes must affect not only male subs, but also dominant women as they grow up, thus making what should be a very simple idea - she's in charge, we do kink - into a minefield of conflicting expectations.

Hopefully things are changing. Market forces are slowly generating shows about powerful women, some of whom have supportive partners who are neither weaklings not brats.

...hints that there is actual Femdom in the bedroom
from time to time.
The best example of all is Castle

Beckett clearly calls the shots, owns the sex, and the entire series is about his struggle to fit into her life, and ultimate acceptance that she will mostly go her own way and that he can only support her in that.

This is very much a happy vanilla Femdom relationship, though we have hints that there is actual Femdom in the bedroom from time to time.

It's a start.

Learn how to how to walk the Femdom path with your partner! 

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5 comments:

  1. Very good indeed.

    I don't know if "a girl wanting to be loved" is inherently in conflict with "she's in charge, we do kink". For a dominant girl, being in charge and doing kink (whether it is by being done for or doing to, or some combination of both) is EXACTLY how she wants to be loved.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I thought the "just" part of "just a girl" had a vanilla submissive feel to it...

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  2. Thank you for your post. My husband and I have spent the last two years exploring kink, BDSM, submissive female roles and found it was fun at times but not fully satisfying for both of us. He just asked this week if we could explore our dynamic differntly, the results so far feel more wholly satisfying for both of us.

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