Thoughts – Page 11 – Femdom Resource

Stress and Submission

This is my last post (for a while at least) on the topic of the alpha submissive (previous posts are available here, here and here). I’m afraid I’m finishing with a bit of a rant.

You can guarantee that whenever this topic comes up somebody will start talking about powerful people having stressful jobs. They’ll talk about difficult decisions, the responsibility of power and how BDSM and submission is a way to temporarily escape from that. For example, here’s an Alternet article and a Psychology Today article making exactly that argument. This is, in my not particularly humble opinion, complete bullshit. Not the part about submission as escape, just all the rest of it.

You know what’s stressful? Juggling two minimum wage jobs to try and cover your rent. What’s a difficult decision? Trying to decide if you should wipe out your savings on a hospital visit. Responsibility is bringing up your children in a not so great neighborhood while your deadbeat ex stiffs you on child support payments. Forget the guy investing $100M for Goldman Sachs. Give him $100 in his personal checking account and see how he feels about that.

I’m lucky enough to have a well paid job now, but I grew up in a family with very little money. I remember the stress that any unexpected expense could generate. There was always an underlying anxiety that something would go wrong and we wouldn’t be able to deal with it. Money might not buy happiness, but it sure as hell takes the edge off unhappiness. It turns problems into inconveniences. And nobody needs a good beating to take their mind off an inconvenience.

I think society prefers to think about executive and finance jobs as being particularly stressful and responsible in order to justify their incredible salaries. In some cases they may well be worth those salaries. Steve Jobs probably was. Jeffrey Skilling probably wasn’t. But whatever their worth, when the biggest downside to a decision is that you might have to settle for a new Ferrari rather than that yacht you had your eye on, that’s not a stressful decision. If anyone needs BDSM to take a ‘breather from the growing burden on selfhood’ (to quote the Psychology Today article), it’s the guy trying to cheaply fix the transmission on the 13 year old Ford that he needs to get to work tomorrow.

This is Miss Davenshaw, a London based pro-domme. She specializes in roleplaying corporate scenarios. So if you fancy being taken in hand by a strict female executive, I suggest dropping her a line.

The alpha female submissive?

More ruminations follow on the often espoused theory that submissives are frequently thrusting, successful alpha types in daily life. I hadn’t intended to write quite so much about this, but the more I ponder it, the more flaws I see in it.

In my original post I used the expression ‘submissive people’, but that’s not really accurate. I almost never hear of female submissives described in this way. The powerful controlling person who needs to let go in the bedroom is always a man in a ‘stressful’ job. He needs to take a timeout and not be himself for a while. When it comes to female submissives the more common descriptions center around secret yearnings, a desire to be controlled and tapping into fantasies. It’s about giving in to her deep desire, rather than stepping outside of the self.

In other words male submission is being positioned as taking a break from the normal state of affairs, where female submission is about a desire to return to a more natural order. To me that says much more about the way society perceives gender and power dynamics than it does about the nature of submission. It’s fundamentally an inconsistent view motivated by the need to fit it into conventional structures.

The cute slave in this image is doubtless getting in touch with her inner desire for submission. Of course if she was a man then this would have been shot in between power lunches and organizing leveraged buy-outs on Wall Street.

The original source for this is the Everyday Slave site. I found it via the Alternative Femdom tumblr.

A theory revisited

I had a lot of interesting comments to my post from a few days ago entitled ‘The Alpha Submissive‘. Sadly nobody had any hard data on the dubious theory that male submissives tends to be successful alpha types in daily life so, as usual, I’m going to be forced to make stuff up as I go along. With that proviso in mind, I thought I’d revisit the topic over the next few posts.

One point I should have made clear is that I’m not suggesting the contrary theory of submissives being particularly unsuccessful. I just suspect that the two factors are uncorrelated with career success, in much the same way that other sexual preferences appear to be.

Most comments agreed with me that the clients of pro-dommes are a skewed and unrepresentative sample set. However, I think it’s a mistake to assume that they’re an entirely uniform crowd of overpaid middle aged guys. When writing the original post I was put in mind of this article on two NYC pro-dommes. One of the dommes comes across as a scammer, and a great advertisement for doing your research before meeting anyone. The other is a real professional with a variety of clients.

Jesse, a 58-year-old transit worker, is probably her favorite; they often meet and chat about school and work before sessions. He even gets a discount from Georgia, who knows he’s strapped financially. “Every paycheck, I take a little bit of money out and put it in an envelope,” he says.

From the article Jesse sounds like a nice guy, but I doubt he’s the kind of person most people think of when they think of a pro-domme client.

I’m once again slightly stumped on what image I should feature for this post, so I’ll just go with something visually appealing from Men in Pain. I found this via the Classy Femdom tumblr.

Scream therapy

I’m safely back in Seattle after flying back late on Sunday night. I finished the trip with a bang, or possibly that should be a thwack, by playing with the beautiful Domina Ai-Li on Sunday afternoon. It was another really fun session. Playing fairly heavy on consecutive days creates some interesting dilemmas, as dommes do love to poke, prod and generally work over any bruises they spot from the previous day!

In my previous post I commented on the role the eyes can play in a scene. Today I’m going to go a couple of inches lower and talk about the throat. It’s not a body part that gets mentioned often, but I think it definitely played a role in my session with Ai-Li. I had a slightly sore throat when we started (probably as a result of too much drinking and talking in busy bars) and yelling and screaming in pain didn’t help matters. I have a tendency to do that when someone beats the inside of my thighs particularly hard. As a result I tried to bite back my yells to be kinder to my throat, and that in turn seemed to lower my pain tolerance. I think vocalizing is a way to release tension and push through tough situations. It lets me be free and simply express what I feel. Trying to hold it back makes it harder for me to take pain and therefore increases its apparent intensity. So I guess it you want to make it tougher for a submissive, tell him or her to shut the hell up.

Of course if you want to let someone scream but not scare the neighbors into calling the cops, a gag is always a good alternative. It doesn’t give you silence, but does muffle yells while still allowing a healthy moan.

I’m afraid I don’t know who the above domme is. If you do then feel free to enlighten me via the comments.

A visual connection

I was lucky enough to get to play with Domina Yuki today. She’s a very talented domme and as usual it was a great session with lots of groans, screams and whimpers. I can only hope the soundproofing in our playspace was good.

One thing I found particularly interesting was my emotional reaction to a whipping. I was lying face down on padded bench to receive it, looking to one side as she hit me with a heavy leather whip. To start with I was looking directly at her and the whipping felt incredibly intimate. Our only contact was the strands of the whip, and yet it felt like a caress. As others might feel about an intimate hug or a kiss, I felt about watching her swing this whip against me. It was almost a sexual experience.

After a number of strokes she moved around to my other side, where I couldn’t see her, and that changed the dynamic dramatically. Suddenly it was a challenge. I had to focus inside of myself and push through. The endorphins continued to flow but rather than being in an intimate situation I felt objectified. I could no longer project my feelings towards her and had to turn inward instead. I’m sure the strength of the blows were no different, yet they felt harder.

In hindsight the experience was a fascinating insight into the role of the brain in modifying pain and the way we can contextualize powerful sensations. It was almost a childlike reaction – sadistic peak-a-boo. Intellectually I always knew I was being hit by Mistress Yuki, but only when I could see her did it take on a different meaning.

We apologize for the interruption

Normally I try to keep this blog fairly isolated from the endless cycle of mainstream news stories. Today I’m going to make an exception. Normal service will be resumed shortly. In the meantime my thoughts are with the people who have lost loved ones in France.

This cartoon was originally attributed to Banksy but is actually the work of French artist Lucille Clerc.

Ninja Submission

There’s an interesting post over at the Dumb Domme blog on the subject of ninja submission. Sadly this doesn’t involve dressing up in slinky black outfits and using shuriken to perform CBT. Instead it’s about trying to stealthily sneak submission into a relationship without going through all that pointless and tricky business of actually negotiating it.

I’ll leave the ethics of that approach for D to handle, as she has already done a fine job of it in her original post. Let me instead chime in on the practicalities of it. I’ve seen this approach to D/s mentioned many times before on various blogs and forums. I suspect it probably occurs to a lot of men harboring D/s fantasies in a vanilla relationship. In all those posts and forum conversations, I’ve never yet seen anyone report that it worked. Whatever mad ninja skills they deployed, it always seems to end in frustration. The supposed ‘dominant’ doesn’t notice and the stealthy submissive becomes upset at the lack of feedback. It turns out that a D/s interaction is a dynamic between two (or more) people, not something that can simply be projected by one person.

In her post D goes on to suggest a couple of very advanced relationship techniques that can be used instead – talking and listening. I’ll be the first to admit that they do not guarantee success. They might achieve nothing or even create new problems. However, there are plenty of positive examples out there where they did lead to a more satisfying relationship. Possibly not kinky nirvana, but perhaps a happy middle ground. I’d rather take an approach with a real chance of success over one with very little.

Of course I’ve no experience of trying the ninja approach myself, so feel free to tell me I’m wrong in the comments. Or maybe, if you’re contemplating this approach, start doing all the household chores in the nude and see how it works out. Just watch out for grease splatters when you’re cooking.

I found this image on the Domination on My terms tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original source.

Gamergate and Wonder Woman

The Colbert Report finishes its run later this year. That makes me sad. Not just because it’s one of the funniest and cleverest shows on television, but also because Stephen has featured a lot of smart, assertive female guests who can happily trade shots with him. I’ve long harbored a crush on Emily Bazelon, who has covered a lot of legal issues with him. On Wednesday’s show he gave us a duo of brilliant guests.

First there was Anita Sarkeesian who educated him on the toxic clusterfuck that is Gamergate (other good coverage of that here and here). She has done a whole series of thought provoking articles on Tropes vs Women in Video Games, which is well worth checking out for anyone interested in gaming. Then he talked to Jill Lepore, a history professor from Harvard University who has just written a book on ‘The Secret History of Wonder Woman‘. I can’t say I’ve ever been a big Wonder Woman fan (apart from enjoy the TV show as a kid), but apparently her creation had links to the woman’s suffragette movement, early supporters of birth control and the political activism of the 1920’s. Despite being the first and most famous female superhero, I’ve never really thought of her as a feminist icon, but that’s what the book apparently claims. I’m looking forward to getting a copy to review.

Of course all this talk of Wonder Woman and feminism is really just an excuse to feature some fun femdom artwork. This is entitled ‘WHAP!’ and is by the artist godstaff.

Lacking all reason

My previous post featured what I thought was a good article on the positive side of mixing discussion, consent and sex. Today’s post brings you the flipside – a really stupid post on sex and consent. Other bloggers may aim to bring you only good things; I like to go with more of a harmonious yin and yang approach.

The article is (ironically) from Reason magazine and is entitled ‘California’s Sexual Consent Law Will Ruin Good Sex for Women‘. It was prompted by the recent ‘Yes means Yes‘ law passed in California, which aims to shift the emphasis in colleges from an assumption of consent to a need to actively gain consent. There’s an interesting discussion to be had about that law, but the Reason article by Shikha Dalmia certainly isn’t it. The bit that really irked me was this…

…there is usually a difference in tempo between men and women, with women generally requiring more “convincing.” And someone who requires convincing is not yet in a position to offer “affirmative” much less “enthusiastic” consent. That doesn’t mean that the final experience is unsatisfying — but it does mean that initially one has to be coaxed out of one’s comfort zone. Affirmative consent would criminalize that.
The reality is that much of sex is not consensual — but it is also not non-consensual. It resides in a gray area in between, where sexual experimentation and discovery happen.

I’m going to resist the temptation to draw conclusions about Shikha Dalmia’s sex life based on this. I can say it’s pretty piss poor logic with no apparent understanding of what consent means.

One of the great things that exploring kink has done for me is helped me to discuss and negotiate sexual activity. If you grow up watching sex in movies (both mainstream and porn) you get the impression that great sex just happens automatically. One minute the cynical private eye is trading witty barbs and smouldering looks with his femme fatale client, the next minute, just after she’s tried to slap him, they’re having amazing sex without so much as a yes, no or maybe. In reality experimentation, and the discussion that must go along with it, makes everything better. I’ve never yet had a mutual fantasy ruined by talking about it. I’ve had plenty of experiences where misunderstanding and a lack of communication definitely made things worse.

Hopefully the gentleman in this image got all his discussion out of the way up front, as his current options look decidedly limited. The image is of course from Divine Bitches.

Double standards

I cast a pretty wide net when it comes to articles I feature here. I’m not averse to featuring something that’s interesting but with only a loose connection to femdom. This one, entitled ‘The insane double standard for women working in tech‘ is a good case in point.

It highlights a study that found that in performance reviews men get assessed on their actions, where women get assessed on their personality. In 83 reviews of men, just 2 highlighted personality issues, where out of 94 for women, an amazing 71 did. As you might expect, the personality issues highlighted for women were all the usual ones about tone: You’re too pushy, too aggressive, too abrasive. The kind of characteristics that countless men in the workplace display every day of their lives without issue.

I’m not going to try and equate being an effective and forceful worker with dominance. That would be foolish. Sexual preferences are very different to work attitudes, and the goal here is equality of treatment, not the right D/s label. But I think it’s an interesting example of the broader cultural perceptions at work. Society is comfortable with the classic dominatrix trope, as it’s typically perceived as a sexual roleplay targeted for the benefit of men. Yet put a forceful opinionated women in a software company, along with a 100 forceful opinionated guys, and then suddenly people have a problem.

I realize with this image I’m not really helping and I’m continuing to play into the dominatrix trope. Unfortunately, on the tumblrs I frequent, it’s tricky to find a shot of a sensibly dressed female software developer making a solid argument for the design of her database schema. So sexy dominatrix boss it has to be.