The material I post here is almost all femdom. I’d hate to make my blog’s URL, title and tagline out to be liars. Yet my browsing habits cast a wider net. Kinky writing is often translatable to a variety of D/s and gender combination and my libido is an omnivorous consumer of kinky imagery. I might not want to tie women up, but a hot female bondage shot can still press my buttons.
One of the things I find fascinating when looking at a variety of blogs and tumblrs is how gender and D/s dynamics interact. I’ve written in the past about the type of imagery the different F/f/M/m groups post. Today I thought I’d braindump on the hairy topic of the worthless/worthy submissive. If we split the world into those who get off on a negative view of submission and those who don’t, what do we see? Or more accurately, what anecdotal observations am I about to pull out my ass?
From a submissive perspective it’s clear that there are both male and female submissives who get off on being insulted and abused. Words like worthless, pathetic, useless, dumb and weak often appear. They enjoy being told that they’re of little value. There’s not perfect symmetry here. Female submissives of this type tend to skew towards sexual objectification (bimbo, toy, ornament) where males skew towards sexual failure (cuckold, premature, small). I also suspect, based on nothing more than a hunch, that there are proportionally more submissive men than women of this type. But regardless of the ratios, it’s easy to find examples of both genders that kink on being demeaned.
When it comes to the dominants the story changes. It’s easy to find example of male dominants who get off on the idea of a worthless woman. Depressingly easy in fact. While some can appear to distinguish between consensual kinky play with a partner and the other 3 billion women in the world, you sadly don’t have to browse to far to run into some highly unpleasant misogynistic attitudes. I can only hope most of the bloggers are pimply teenagers in their parents basements who wouldn’t know what to do with a submissive woman if they found one tied to their computer.
In contrast most dominant women appear to strongly dislike this kind of submission. If you keep up with my blogroll, and writers like Ferns, D, Stabbity, Vista and Miss Pearl, you’ll see a consistent preference to strong, confident and self-assured male submission. Self-loathing, as stabbity recently asserted, is not an attractive trait. Even Fm couples who play with humiliation and objectification (Scott and Em perhaps or maybe Suzanne and tammy) tend to have a far more complex and nuanced approach that the stereotypical ‘worthless worm’ attitude. In fact the only dominant women I’ve seen clearly cater to this style of submission are pro-dommes. They’ll happily tell a guy he’s a pathetic sniveling failure – just as long as he can pay. Maybe I’m too cynical, but I suspect that the payment might be a significant factor there.
Personally I don’t get off on degradation, so all this is just observation and idle speculation. Anyone likening me to an invertebrate is likely to get a ‘Fuck you!’ followed swiftly by a ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ But I do think the potential for mismatch in F/m desires compared to M/f is interesting. I’m also intrigued by the correlation with conventional cultural stereotypes for the genders. Apparently weakness can be an attractive attribute in Mf, but not typically in Fm.
After all this talk of degradation and humiliation I thought I should finish with something cute and happy. I found this on the Domination on My terms tumblr.
Right on !
Thanks! đ
I thin that this is one of the reasons why so many submissive men and dominant women wander around complaining that there aren’t enough of their complements; many of the sub-minded guys are looking for women who will play to their worthless worm fantasies, and many of the women don’t even consider those types of men.
I think there’s certainly a degree of truth here, and I think Fern’s comment plays into it. The men lead with the fantasies rather than lead with the person, and conflate themselves with guys who treat dominant women as fetish delivers. I’m planning a follow-up post to comment more deeply on this. Thanks.
-paltego
Hi paltego,
Youâre right about the worthless worm concept. Em wouldnât stand for it and I would probably end up hating myself if thatâs how I truly felt.
Mostly she mocks my manhood but not my self-worth as her slave. Being a slave means that I have to perform in a multitude of ways in order to make up for my lack of masculinity and expertise as a lover. The humiliation is supposed to make me try harder and it usually does.
Best,
scott
Mrs. Kellyâs Playhouse
Thanks scott. What you describe here is what comes through from your blog, and hence why I worded the post as I did. You’re one of the rarer couples (at least measured by blogs) who play on some of these edges, but your sense of self-worth and her sense of care and concern come through in what you write.
-paltego
Hi again paltego,
Em and I connected as people first. We talked easily and had much in common. Femdom was on the radar almost immediately and was initially how we bonded sexually. Lifestyle aspects evolved over time. I donât see how a lasting and mutually supportive relationship of any sort could form if a party to that relationship held the other in contempt or if one party lacked a grounded sense of self-worth. Itâs because thereâs love and trust between us that Em and I can play on the edges without serious issues.
Best,
scott
Mrs. Kellyâs Playhouse
Thank you for including me in a fine list of female bloggers. đ
And yes…what you say is true…at least for me.
~ Vista
Thanks Vista. Glad I didn’t attribute incorrectly here.
-paltego
“In contrast most dominant women appear to strongly dislike this kind of submission.”
I think the main issue that confuses things when this comes up is conflating the belief that ‘I am a worthless worm’ and the kink ‘I love humiliation play’.
Submissive men who *present* as worthless worms up-front as if this is normal behaviour are creating this problem and women who play up the ‘you’re not worthy to spit on’ angle exacerbate it.
The problem is that they don’t do it in a play context, there’s no negotiation, they’re all “Hello Mistress, I’m not worthy to lick the ground you walk on, may I approach with my tiny useless dick in hand…?” as their intro, in their profile etc. In short, they ARE totally presenting as ‘that guy’, and that’s all there is. And fuck yeah that’s unappealing.
It’s JUST as unappealing as any man who presents as his fetish, but the problem with this particulare fetish and the reason it creates a such a strong knee jerk reaction is because most of us are *fighting* this horrible stereotype that that’s what male submission is.
THAT’S why you see the visceral ‘aw hell no’ reaction from a lot of people.
Personally, I know a lot of women DO get off on sexual objectification (calling him slut, fucktoy, whore etc), and quite a few (though not AS many) do some hard core humiliation play. That doesn’t mean they don’t value their submissive, just as hitting him with sticks doesn’t mean they don’t love them.
My last submissive totally got off on being reduced to ‘nothing’ (not ‘worthless’, just ‘nothing’, as if he was completely irrelevant), and that kind of play was super hot. But while the play feels real in the moment, neither of us was under any illusion that we *actually* believed it for real, and he would *certainly* never present himself that way.
Ferns
Darn it Ferns. I was planning to write a follow-up post on exactly this line of reasoning. Now you’ve stolen my thunder, and I’ll be forced to broadly plagiarize your comment while claiming it as my own. These insightful kind of thoughts are not how internet comments are typically supposed to work.
So yes, I very much agree with your thoughts here :). I still think there’s a degree of mismatch at some levels, but a lot of guys ruin any chances to explore what overlap that might exist by presenting themselves as the fetish first rather than the person. Stand by for another post saying exactly that and passing it off as brilliant insight…
-paltego
*laugh* I will come back full of outrage and fist waving and incoherent accusations of plagiarism (and maybe some references to Nazis). I DEMAND that the normalcy of vitriolic internet interactions be restored!!
I’m readying my spittle for battle!!
Ferns
*Coughs*
I’m a Pro-Domme and most certainly don’t dismiss my thoughts on the steriotype you’ve mentioned when money is involved.
I’ve written briefly about my feelings on the snivveling worm persona here http://ladyannisa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/typical-submissive-vs-stereotypical.html.
I also have the following text on my website
‘As Iâve said before, I donât see you as a worm or worthless slave. I have a very high opinion of myself. So therefore, I feel I deserve play partners who are worthy of my attention, who also see themselves as self assured individuals. I like my submissives or slaves to be happy in their submission, to be confident in giving up control and get a buzz from the power exchange.
I totally agree with Ferns that to be presented with that persona first off is terribly offputing. The downside of that is when someone presents as such, there is nowhere for me to take that. If during our time together we decide to explore that element then it will be driven by me, he can become nothing as Ferns says, and then I can build him up. He can work hard and strive hard to improve on that. Having said that, it’s not a dynamic I explore very often and have had more experience in my personal life with it in the past. The person involved was the most confident assured individual I’ve ever met and we both knew that I was never going to harm his self esteem by going there, it was a release and super hot in the moment.
Hi Lady Annisa. Thanks for leaving the comment and sorry if my wording on the pro-domme aspect here was clumsy. I certainly didn’t intend to suggest that all pro-dommes will play to this type of dynamic. Or that money will always change opinions or interests.
I was trying make the point that just because some pro-dommes advertise this style of session, that shouldn’t be taken as evidence that dominant women enjoy or fantasize about this dynamic. Some may well do so, but it’s hard to draw a conclusion one way or another. When so few lifestyle dominants seem to write or fantasize about it, the case for money being at least sometimes a distorting factor here seems strong.
-paltego
Great blog entry, paltego! And I loved reading the comments as well! Cheers for having such a thoughtful commetariat!
I have much more experience with submissive men than submissive women, so I could be wrong about this, but I’m inclined to agree with you: boy subs enjoy humiliation play more than girl subs do, and the type of humiliation varies by gender.
Humiliation is a very popular fetish for my clientele. It’s so common that I forced myself to learn how to do it, because it’s not something that comes easily or naturally to me when I top. I’m still not very good at it, though I have my moments…I think my favorite humiliation scene of the year was tying a bunch of bells attached to a sub’s testicles. The bells were affixed to clothespins. Then I made him run around singing the Christmas tune “Jingle Bells,” only he had to replace the word “bells” with “balls,” so it was “Jingle Balls.” (this was right before Christmas).
lol lol that was so fun and he was so embarassed! He didn’t lose the stiffy, though. HAHAHA
major fun. thanks for blogging.
Thanks Miss Margo. Glad you enjoyed the post and the comments.
I’m always surprised how popular humiliation is. I always think of pro-dommes being primarily about physical scenes, probably because that’s how my interests skew. Yet humiliation based scenes crop up in every article I see written by pro-dommes about their clients and their work so, as you say, its clearly a very popular fetish.
-paltego
I think you and Ferns both said it all. One must be capable of maintaining a good relationship with their partner outside the bedroom too, to be romantic and flirt with each other, to be silly sometimes and enjoy things both have in common.
I think that if a man presents himself to a girl like that submissive “worm”, he is being disrespectful and probably sees her as an âobjectâ that will help him get off…he is really not interested in her as a person. That kind of thing just does not work for me, it is just weird.
My girl and I are into Femdom, what is great, but it isnât 100% of our lives. We are still friends, we still flirt like a normal couple, we get high with our common friends and etc. But in the bedroom, we are into humiliation, name calling and etc. She actually prefers humiliation and psychological punishment over physical punishment. I actually sometimes feel that we only do ballbusting because it is a thing I told her I find extremely hot.
It was her idea to make me wear a bra, and she likes the fact it humiliates me. She just sit there in bed and wait for me to come out using it and starts to taunt be, and sometimes acts as if she is feeling sorry for me, but in a ironic way. Perhaps this is because she is an intelligent girl and likes to use her creativity. The bra thing is clever because, you see, I have gynecomastia, and even as a skinny dude, I have some fat tissue in the cheast. Therefore, there is a ton of nicknames in my mother language that we use…I donât know how to translate some of them without losing the humor and the fun about them. Except for âcowâ. Thatâs one of the nicknames. Once called by a âcowâ name, I canât moan or beg, just moo.
It may seem hardcore punishment for most people, but we know each other since our equivalent to high school, we are friends, we like each other a lot and I am completely confidant about myself, despite that little gynecomastia, so there is no damage there.
All that would be unthinkable in my preview femdom relationship (just had 2 until now). So, I guess it works different for each couple what is hot and what is not and no femdom relationship is the same as other.
(Sorry for any grammar or orthographic errors, English is not my mother tongue)
Thanks for stopping by to comment. I appreciate it. Interesting to hear the background on your relationship and how you play with humiliation. I was going to say that’s unusual, but actually I don’t if that’s true. However, it does seem to get rarely written about by women who play dominant roles in lifestyle relationships. That might mean that even though people do play with that kind of dynamic, they are less keen to talk about it than say bondage or more physical styles of play.
If you hadn’t mentioned English was not your mother tongue I would never have known. Your comment was better written than most of my posts.
-paltego