My post ‘Worthless worms : Hot or not?‘ attracted a lot of thoughtful commentary. It’s clearly a topic that provokes strong opinions from both sides of D/s slash. This post is intended to address a few follow-up points that struck me after writing it and reading the responses.
In the original post I used degradation, humiliation and objectification interchangeably. That was careless as they’re related but different concepts. If I had a virtual whiteboard I’d be standing at it now drawing partially overlapping circles. The worthless worm trope is primarily about the sense of self and personal identity. It’s very directed degradation (you pathetic sniveling coward, you’re not fit to lick my boots, etc.). Humiliation is more situational. Anyone can be humiliated in the right circumstances, no matter how self-assured and confident they might generally be. Objectification is about removing humanity and personality. It’s not about being worthless, but identifying worth through function and utility. A lot of people get off on a mixture of these kinks, but when writing about a possible F/m mismatch, I was primarily thinking of the first. I rarely observe female dominants write or blog about degradation, but objectification and, to a lesser extent, humiliation, does crop up in positive contexts.
Ferns astutely observed that this is a style of play that often conflates the person with the kink. Presenting themselves primarily through their fetish is a common problem for guys who’ve spent too long surfing femdom porn. I think it’s particularly likely to happen with this kink, because it’s primarily about the perception of the person and their value. i.e. Exactly the things that are emphasized, normally in a positive fashion, when building a new relationship. I guess the (badly broken) thought process is ‘Why bother to put myself forward as a valuable person to know, when I ultimately want to be treated as if I’m not?’
It’s also true that cliches of commercial femdom don’t help anyone into this style of play. For men it gets them lumped into the same bucket as the jerk offs writing emails about how they’re not fit to lick the dirt from the boots of any female dominant blogger they encounter. For many dominant women it’s a stereotype they’re trying to push against, and writing about it is only likely to lead to more emails from the aforementioned jerks offs.
All that said, I do standby my entirely anecdotal observation that there’s a mismatch here in F/m that doesn’t exist in M/f. As someone who doesn’t have this kink, I’m selfishly kind of glad about that. Many of the F/m tumblrs that focus on degradation and humiliation tend to veer all to easily into misogyny. I’m happy that it’s incredibly rare to encounter misandry in femdom blogs or forums. If you are a submissive guy who occasionally enjoys a bit of pathetic sniveling, then the best advice would be to make sure you compartmentalize it and treat it strictly as a kink like any other. While there might be male dominants who’ll respond to a new submissive describing themselves as a worthless slut in need of training, your odds of success with that opening line and a female dominant will be very close to zero.
Trampling beneath a dominant woman’s feet often seems to be a theme of the ‘worthless submissive’ style of play. This is from the appropriately named Woman Worship site. I particularly liked her choice of reading matter.
Hi Paltego:
I don’t at all like being thought of or referred to as “worthless”. I need to feel appreciated and valued by my Mistress. I strive to be a good slave. Yet some of my fetishes seem to personify the essence of being “less than”; “ass kisser”, “bootlicker” etc.
The act of humiliation can be very exciting in certain contexts but to be called a “worthless worm” in public does not appeal to me at all. The act of humiliation must be willingly entered into on my part and appreciated by my Domme to be meaningful and fulfilling to me. D/s is so full of paradoxes…
I think it’s true that most dominant women are not attracted to male subs who projects themselves as being worthless. The same goes for vanilla women. Most guys know they must project self confidence when wooing a potential partner.
Yet a woman’s tongue is often her most formidable weapon and speaking from experience she can lay a man low with just a couple of words. Her Majesty is very adept at dishing out verbal humiliation whether I am in the mood to receive it or not though she almost never does so in public. She dishes out the verbal degradation when she is annoyed with me whether I like it or not. But she values me greatly and I know that. She would never call me worthless.
The best I can do with this complex and controversial subject before my second cup of coffee….
Hey hmp,
One of the tricky things in writing these fairly general posts is slicing and dicing up kinks. The same activity (like bootlicker) can be humiliation to one person, worship to another and simple costume fetish fulfillment to a third. I think humiliation is slightly different to degradation, where the former is situational (you look stupid in that outfit) and the latter is intrinsic to the person (you’re stupid). Of course some people kink on both, and some people kink on one and call it the other. Public play adds another complex variable into the mix. As you say it’s all very paradoxical.
The trope is an easy and common one to observe in femdom porn, particularly in tumblr captions. It’s a lot more complicated when mapped into real life play like yours and her Majesty.
-paltego
Well, as anyone who has ever looked at my blog will instantly be able to tell, I am afraid I am one of those subs who is utterly turned on by the whole worthless worm thing. I just can’t do the strong alpha sub-male. Sorry. I didn’t choose my kink.
But I do know perfectly well, that my style is never going to be a turn on for any genuinely dominant lady. And that’s a bit sad, I suppose, but it’s just something I have to live with – and overall, I have a pretty good life compared to so many people in the world, so it doesn’t bother me.
So I visit pro-dommes, of course. My ‘thing’ in session is to be mocked, abused and punished essentially for what I am. If I dress as a schoolboy to get whacked with a belt, for example, I’m not pretending to be a child – the real turn-on is how absurd it is, that a grown man is paying to have his sexual needs met in such a laughable fashion. In session, I do indeed present myself primarily through my kink. That’s why I am there. I am not going to find a life-partner by paying someone, but I can play and that’s what I do.
What has amazed me is that essentially every one of the pro-dommes I have ever played with has done her best to let me live this fantasy, usually very precisely judging when I need to be treated as the worthless worm in-scene and when to be… well, nicer. I do choose with great care and preparation and research (not to be confused with Internet stalking), but nonetheless, before I started visiting pro-dommes, I had expected so much indifference, half-heartedness, making-do and so on. I am grateful and awed (genuinely – not in a creepy subbie way) by the professionalism, skill and humour of the Ladies I have visited, as well as their beauty and poise.
So… it’s just possible that I am quite genuinely not fit to lick their boots. But they let me, for what is frankly rather a modest payment, and sometimes perhaps I even make them laugh for real, and that’s pretty cool.
I did contemplate (ha) linking to some of your comments and work as an example of the genre. However, I’m always nervous about pigeonholing people’s kinks. I don’t want to get angry comments after a post saying “No, No, No. You completely misrepresented me. I like being thought of as useless, not worthless. It’s completely different…” :).
I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s something that’s never interesting to a dominant woman. I think there’s a potential mismatch in percentages, but that doesn’t mean there’s nobody on the D side into it. Or into something close that pushes similar buttons. Or interested enough to be GGG and stretch their play a bit. But difficult to find for sure. That’s just generally true I think for male submissives.
You’ll not be surprised to hear that your preaching to the choir when it comes to the dedication and skill of pro-dommes. I’ve had a couple of less than great experiences with people I’ll not see again. But overall I’ve had astonishingly great experiences with pros, both in terms of my success rate in meeting new ones and in the many repeated sessions I’ve done with dommes like Lydia and Yuki. Glad your experiences have been equally rewarding!
-paltego