One thing I could do better on this blog (no really, there is something) is be more reactive. I have so much I want to write about and at any one time have about four half written posts, and it isn’t often I leave something I was going to post aside and react (in this case a post called What it is like to hit someone until it makes you have an orgasm – which, although it’s whiny, is the most one-handed thing I’ve ever written for this blog).
And I’ve talked about the prodom thing before, but, oh god, I may as well repeat myself, it’s not like anyone is listening to me. It’s not like anything is getting any better. So really, sit down, get cushions, we’re going to go over this whole damn thing again.
Look at this. This link, by the way, is via Maymay’s blog. Maymay writes that he could rant about this all day, but doesn’t, showing admirable restraint. Me, on the other hand, never going to be as restrained as Maymay ( – sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry – couldn’t help it, just sort of fell of the ends of my fingers – sorry, sorry). It’s an old article, but I think all the issues it raises about femdom being broken are still here today – and that’s sad. Nearly ten years and we haven’t got any better.
So here, right here, yet again is evidence so strong that femdom is controlled by men, for the expression of male desire, and where the only women who are allowed to represent and vocalise this stuff are ones that are being controlled – via financial transactions – by men. An interview with a prodom, being presented as if this is what femdom is and as if her views are the generalised views of dominant women. (She is also the main women from Nick Broomfield’s Fetishes, a film which I would cheerfully see every copy of rounded up and burnt on a big bonfire.)
And see how I made all that sober point without even one joke about the name Mistress Raven, yeah, not going to manage to keep that up any longer, because surely, surely , that name came from some internet What’s your cheesy Goth name? generator. Is that want prodoms do? Is there a Mistress Black Sunday and a Mistress Death Rattle? Perhaps that’s mean. Perhaps Mistress Raven is her real name. Perhaps she had to go into the prodom business because of that. She really wanted to be a doctor. (And just as an aside I would also like to say that this article contains a number of very incise views about the ‘English’ and the way they are so at one with the perversions. True to Mistress Raven’s analysis I was indeed raised on nannies and governesses and rulers (Rulers! Like they don’t have rulers in America?). I also grew up in a castle. And in the nineteenth fucking century.)
Have you clicked the link yet? Go on, click and look. See that scary lady. That’s the kind of lady that baby dom Bitchy used to worry about not looking like. That picture has done me no end of good. So not worrying about my lack of the ‘dom look’ right now. ‘Cause I never knew before how badly that look aged. But, rejoice! I’m never going to be that scary lady. I don’t have black hair, or even long hair and the only red lipstick I own I use for writing ‘HELP ME’ on men’s backs.
Anyway, in the article, Mistress Raven cheerily explains that most dom women are turned on to domming by men. I love that. Particularly the generalisation (Shut *up* – mine are valid). No woman is doing this because her cunt told her to, but because some man told her to. Who are these useful men, providing kink direction to hapless women? What other great ideas do they have?
Hey, babe, you ever considered hitting men with stuff? Hey, babe, you ever considered eating a chocolate bar? Hey, babe, you ever consider breathing oxygen? Hey, babe, you ever considered doing something that turns you the fuck on that you inexplicably need someone else to point out to you?
Let me explain something. If you have a kink, then one of the things about that, one of the big things: no one needs to tell you about it. You already know. You’ve known since before you knew what the fuck was going on.
If any man ever tried to introduce me to one of my kinks, all I can imagine happening would be the kink giving him a sly slow nod and saying, yeah, man, actually we’ve already met – and in fact I have a long standing arrangement with her and her vibrator every other Tuesday night.
But never mind that crap, my real favourite bit of the article is where Mistress Raven says she’s ‘intrigued’ by domination. That word again is ‘intrigued’. Ooh, intriguing. Like something you are watching. Outside looking in. Oh look, domination, how intriguing. (Face facts, she means, oh look, a man who likes being dominated, how intriguing.) That is *not* how you talk about something your goddamn soul is made of. If you’re wired like me you’re not intrigued by it, your trapped in a world, made of it. You love it and hate it and love it again. If you’re wired like me it’s the only damn thing you ever think of when you come.
And, see, the word intriguing – doesn’t quite cover that for me.
And that’s just the stuff I hate most. There’s loads more. About why the clients are 98% men: Men have to pay for it, women don’t need to, apparently. Yeah, ’cause there’s that state-funded free kinky sex for women programme, or maybe it’s because, of course, no woman in the world would enjoy the luxury of being able to pay for a tailored sexual service provided to meet her kinks – anyway what kinks? she can probably just pick up some bloke in a nightclub or something because no woman alive has distinct specific sexual needs.
Do I sound angry? I guess I should say I’m not so much angry with her despite the cheap shots at her name and her looks which I know I shouldn’t have done but couldn’t resist because I am a bitch. I’m not so much angry with her. I’m mostly angry that she represents me. That ‘intrigued’ women like her are the only representatives of women like me you will ever see.
It’s all the media’s fault really, and I try really hard not to be angry at prodoms themselves about this, but you know, deep down I do think that women selling or, more often, repackaging and selling their sexuality to men damages other women who chose not to, or don’t want to. Because of this prevailing notion that women who have sex for money (or sex workers in general) are somehow being more true to their sexualities than women who have sex for sex – and that is very damaging to women and yet another way of dismissing female sexual desire as irrelevant or, in some way, less *true* than female sexual desire that is molded to be a commodity for men to buy.
And I do think that sex workers themselves have to take some of the responsibility and think about whether – in the case of prodoms – what they’re doing is *really* only hurting the people who have consented to be hurt.
This is the hugest problem with sex workers – the way the media uses them to portray sexually active women in a controlled and non-threatening way. And that goes for all female sexualities – not just mine. A sex worker can be used as code for sexy-but-doesn’t-actually-like-sex-or-anything. She’s all sexy and great in bed but she isn’t doing it for the orgasms, she’s doing it ’cause her son needs an operation, or something.
Think about how often you’ve seen a sympathetic whore in a film compared to how often you’ve seen a sympathetic slut.
This isn’t just for my benefit. The way the media uses sex workers to represent sexually exciting women hurts everyone. Even men.
Save the whiny dom, save the world.
72 Comments
April 8, 2007 at 11:54 am
wow, i really have to say i admire the interviewer there i would have laughed out loud on more than one occasion if i had been the one in their position. And you have to admire that they really tried to portray her in a positive light… failed, but still…
i bet this thing just makes you want to (albeit realistically just to fantasise about) going over there and beating her up telling her all about how she’s a dumb bitch making you’re life that bit more frustating, hell thats how i’d feel anyway.
i mean.. can you imagine being that empty and unfulfilled? it doesn’t bare thinking about..
April 8, 2007 at 11:54 am
..or deluded*
April 8, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I don’t know. I’m probably more pissed off with the interviewer than her because he hasn’t really bothered to portray her in the wider context of women who dom because they like it.
I have this consistent huge problem with prodoms in that I try not to blame them for this thing that they are a part of, but even so, *they* are a part of it.
Really, I guess what I think is that sub men built this thing and only sub men have the power to change it.
Trouble is sub men don’t do co-operating and that’s what’s required.
April 8, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Bitchy,
I can agree and see where your coming from with a lot of what your complaint is. But now think about how the same media would portray a male-dom, or what image comes to mind for most, hell even you probably picture the bald, head, the goatee and yeah, that same up the nose look. The one that says “I’ll break you bitch”
I doubt many see some guy that looks like Woody Allen as a Dom.
I’m not sure what my point is, other than I think alot of potential sub women imagine a “real” Dom in about the same image as a man imagines a Dom Female.
And, I’ve lurked on enough “FemDom” blogs to see that most of the time, it is the man that brings it up. Hell, alot of them seem to be more of the man’s whining about how she won’t do this or make him do that.
With some, it almost seems to be a thing of she was about to leave him, (for being a typical male asshole) and he sees that in todays world of more indepenent women, he may just end up real lonely. So he “submits to her” to win her back.
If he was/is submissive, would he not have already been doing all these helpful things ? Why linger back while she waits at the door ? Seems he should already have the door open if you ask me. I think you’ve touched on that subject in an earlier post ?
And, with all the difficulty these men have in bringing it out of these women, and the fact that it’s obvious to me that a large majority of women prefer being controlled, one has to wonder how Dom they really are.
Let’s also not forget how many of them, end up wanting to sub to the guy that can give them a “proper” screwing, since sub hubby can’t do it.
April 8, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Hey Mark
Okay, I think your heart is in the right place, but a lot of what you have said *is* bollocks. Sub men really can give you a good screwing, you just have to tell them to.
And yeah, the vanilla dom thing I’ve talked about. But I don’t see quite how you can say that most women want to be controlled. Some do. It might be the majority – but how would we ever know? But, yeah, some women are submissive. I know some of them. Some read here too.
But your main point about how male doms are portrayed in the media would be to say, what male doms? Male doms in the media are mostly serial killers, aren’t they. If I were you, I’d be damn fucked off about that.
(Well that’s assuming you’re a male dom.)
April 8, 2007 at 2:20 pm
The “media” will always choose the easy, fantastic story over the truthfull, but less spectacular, truth. Which explains why we get to see hundreds of articles concerning Paris, Britney and Pamela on the front page of CNN’s website, while at the same time there was no mention of really breaking news, like, say, the killings Iraq or the lying of u.s. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
In short: “man bites dog” always makes for a better story than “dog bites man”.
And you can bet pro-dommes like Raven and Maxim know this, and know how to exploit it, as to maximize their revenue.
Which leads to articles like the one we’re discussing, which leads to sub men reading those articles and having their stereotypes re-affirmed, which leads to pro-dommes having to live up to those stereotypes, and the circle is complete.
Sometimes it’s just so utterly depressing, but then again, in a way, it’s funny too…
April 8, 2007 at 5:36 pm
What I found distressing about the article is that these men are said to love their wives etc… but they wont enact the kink.
I wonder is this the case have they actually asked or is this a whole repressed bit of their life – are they actually in the closet as it were?
Also I find that women with sex drives are protrayed badly fullstop as if the fact they might actually be enjoying sex rather than just laying back and thinking of England, they are dirty in some way.
Its the whole double standard of sleeping around etc… he’s a bit of a lad shes a slut etc…
Sorry waffling abit now!
April 8, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Mark – Well I’m not bald and I don’t have a goatee. And I certainly don’t look like Woody Allen. I’m just one of those regular clean shaven, only a Male-Dom in the bedroom, kinda guys. Is that allowed?
Oh and I’m hot too. But that doesn’t mean that every girl I *hangout with* wants to sub for me. I think there are a lot of subfems out there but that they’re not always as willing to let it be known as their submale counterparts.
Bitchy – I agree; ‘What Male-Doms?’ indeed. Unfortunately it seems to be more of a taboo to be a Male-Dom than a Fem-Dom. And it drives me frickin’ crazy. A lot of people would pencil a Male-Dom in as a psycho, which is simply not the truth in most cases.
April 8, 2007 at 5:49 pm
“Also I find that women with sex drives are protrayed badly fullstop as if the fact they might actually be enjoying sex rather than just laying back and thinking of England, they are dirty in some way.”
So true Vampyra. And if they enjoy the submissive side, well… there’s just no helping *those* type of women.
April 8, 2007 at 5:51 pm
This is one of those things that I have too many thoughts about and as a result can’t write anything coherent because every time I look at the situation my mind kind of explodes inside my skull and I feel like it’s oozing out of my ears. So, so frustrating.
However, let me try to get a few points across:
Prodommes, for the most part, are about looks and not about skill. I am always utterly depressed when I see how awful their form and aim is, how ignorant they are of safety techniques, and how generally uneducated they are about BDSM 101-type things. So it makes sense that it’s their looks, not their skills, that are economically viable and that they are the ones supplying the demand. And who demands it? Why, lonely, usually socially awkward or emotionally unintelligent submissive men who can’t or don’t know how to get what they want except with the one currency they can actually bargain with: currency.
Prodommes are supposed to be first and foremost professionals. There’s not a single prodomme I’ve spoken with (and I’ve spoken with quite a few, mind you) that doesn’t try to draw a very distinct separation between their work and personal lives. That right there makes their professional interests a lot less interesting to me as a submissive male, because why would I want to be with someone who is proactively separating me out of their personal lives? Again, it comes down to the fact that there are just too many pathetic men out there. Makes me ashamed to call myself male sometimes, really.
Ultimately, the situation is the way it is because it’s “correct enough” in that it works. The only way to change the system is to beat it economically. And believe you me, this is something I’ve been trying to come up with a way to do for a long time. Create something truly better that proves itself as such by completely destroying profit expectations of these abysmal esetablishments, and you’ll change the system and remake it in your own image.
End mini-rant. I guess I’m tougher on the customers than the suppliers because I’m a sub male and I get a lot more upset about seeing the worst of my breed displayed than I do about seeing the worst of someone else’s breed. I’ve gone to dozens upon dozens of fetish parties and whatnot, and at each one, the prodommes there didn’t know what to make of me or how to react to me or even what the hell I was about because the first thing out of my mouth was never “may I rub your feet?” Blech! I’m pissed off that most dominant women expect that to be the first thing out of my mouth.
April 8, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Tony
I’m glad you are hot. You certainly are in those unsanctioned fantasies I have about finding your switchy side.
(I can’t believe I just typed that – I might actually have to delete it later)
April 8, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Maymay
There I was trying to help you out by taking the baton on this and you have now written an entire post here on my blog.
Mind you, those poor prodoms wouldn’t be so desperate for you to rub their feet if they could just choose some ergonomic footwear.
God, the image of all these shoe-crippled women hoping some man will massage some life back into their feet. It’s like something from Imperial China – and, you know, I don’t remember that as being a fem-supremacy wonderland.
April 8, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Also, I have neither looks nor skill and an almost pathological desire to keep pointing that out on this blog.
April 8, 2007 at 7:23 pm
If all those sub-men like that footwear so much, why don’t they wear it themselves?
Or better even, why don’t the doms make them wear it?
April 8, 2007 at 7:29 pm
They bloody well do. Men have spent a great deal of energy trying to get me to ‘force’ them to wear stupid shoes. More than they have spent trying to get me to wear stupid shoes.
I fucking hate stupid shoes. On anyone. Shoes are meant to make walking outside more comfortable.
Uncomfortable shoes are fucking chocolate teapots. Except without the advantage of the chocolate.
And wearing shoes for sex is a horrible concept. Like wearing them in the bath.
April 8, 2007 at 7:40 pm
*coughs* I love shoes but mostly as objects in themselves I must be the only person to own so many shoes and not be able to walk in high heels.
But that was my thought too about the foot rubs!
April 8, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Shoes as art is fine by me. I could only do that if I got the wrong size, though, otherwise I would be too scared I might get talked into wearing them.
Being something of a pushover of a dom.
April 8, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Sorry, Bitchy, I couldn’t help myself.
I clearly need more restraints.
Anyways, I thought the very same thing (re: posting a post as a comment) so I’ve appended my comments to my original post on the subject.
April 8, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Good, ’cause you know, you and me, we just got to keep saying it. This isn’t what it is. That whole rubber necking gawk fest for the ‘nillas, ooh look here’s femdom, ‘cept it isn’t – this is pros and dungeons and men who aren’t realy subs and women who – god knows – but I can’t believe they are wired up like me.
That isn’t it. That is something else. Something sad and grubby and built out of guilt and pain and loneliness. Men being exploited and women being cheated of their sexualities.
There’s something else. There is, there is. And we know.
And you know, *you* can always write as much as you want on my blog. The door is always open – on the way *in* anyways.
April 9, 2007 at 12:12 am
There are two Bitchy statements that I think cut to the core of this issue:
“If you have a kink, then one of the things about that, one of the big things: no one needs to tell you about it. You already know. You’ve known since before you knew what the fuck was going on.”
“I can’t believe they are wired up like me.”
I absolutely agree with the first. I had an emotional, pre-sexual response to certain images, things I saw on TV as a child, long before I had any clue about sexuality. All I knew about it at the time was that I felt different about these things I was seeing than, say, Gilligan’s Island or cartoons.
I think this is because the second statement describes the case. I’ve equated it to being gay in that sense. I don’t think those guys woke up one morning and thought, ‘you know, I’ve sure been girl-crazy up to now, but I think I’ll change and like boys now.’ You are the way you are, whether it’s caused by the physical architecture of the brain or whether this lobe or that is secreting too much or too little of a certain enzyme.
The people described in the article that’s tugged Bitchy’s curlies are not ‘wired’ in this way. Hypocrisy follows as a matter of course. To stick with the gay analogy, they’re straight men prancing around lisping and doing the whole limp-wristed stereotype for laughs in a stage show, and they’re doing it for the same reason: They get paid, and they’re staying as long as the money’s there.
Their stake in their activities is clearly different than that of the audience for this blog, and we (yeah, I guess we’re a ‘we’) feel a superiority, that our claim takes precedence because we’re authentic. I don’t think the ‘phonies’ would dispute that any more than they’d care about it.
What do you do? Personally, I’ve quit describing myself as a submissive male because the term conjures up images of these guys in leather hoods licking somebody’s outrageous footwear and that’s not me. I won’t inflict the details on you, but what I like, what I respond to, are private and deeply satisfying activities that should not be somebody else’s punch line.
Everyone who participates in commenting and reading about this understands the power of language. Maybe that’s the direction to go. Develop new terms to describe ‘authentics’, to deliberately and pointedly separate ourselves from the pros. Then when anyone asks why you call yourself something different you’re already on the way to creating a new understanding.
April 9, 2007 at 3:04 am
I enjoyed reading your post and always find your blog interesting. I agree with a lot of what you say about kinks but also think that not everyone is as quick to come to a true awareness and embracing of their kinks as you are.
We’re in a 15 femdom marriage. But it took my husband until about 40 to really accept and admit that this is what turned him on. He’d had a few experiences but somehow it just never clicked that “this” was the thing.
The ability to look into yourself and actually reflect about what turns you on or off doesn’t always come easily. My best friend “discovered” her homosexuality when she first explored with a woman at 27. She said it was like an epiphany, “Oh, this is what sex is supposed to be like.”
I, on the other hand, was only 22 when I met my husband and had only 3 sexual encounters before meeting him. I didn’t know much about anything let alone whether I was dom or not. We began playing with SM early on and it just became apparent that femdom was the thing that made us both hot. If he hadn’t been into SM when we meet, I might not have discovered it as soon but I certainly would have gotten there on my own.
April 9, 2007 at 7:46 am
Joe
I understand why you don’t call yourself a submissive man. The stigma surrounding it is phenomenal.
However, maybe if you did, and explained, that would be good.
(says the woman with the anonymous blog)
April 9, 2007 at 7:48 am
Emma
Women who are turned on to domination by men and genuinely get into it – rather than the ones who join in for the sake of it – are a problem for me. I am just not sure how that works.
See, I’ve always known, can’t imagine not knowing, can’t ever walk away. I can’t figure out how that sexuality works with mine.
April 9, 2007 at 8:17 am
Bitchy
Heh, I’m glad you didn’t delete it (or did you?). Hmm… a power struggle… that works for me…
April 9, 2007 at 8:37 am
Oh god, Tony, I’d forgotten about that. I think I’d eaten too much chocolate when I wrote it.
April 9, 2007 at 11:01 am
Bitchy,
I get what you’re saying; it’s in the genes, part of a person’s nature, and not something that requires a pre-requisite (a man to show a woman the ropes). For some, this is how it is, and for others it’s about conditioning or having an overbearing alpha personality direct sexual preference (what one sees when people, can’t tell the difference between autonomy and abuse, and are quick to call themselves submissives and never stop to question anything because they think that the removal of their choice is what they’re supposed to do).
I use the word intriguing from time to time, and I admit, it’s the one-stop word that doesn’t tread on too many toes. For me though, I use it whenever I see things that I find – to be honest – debasing. It’s ‘intriguing’ because half the time I’m trying to get a feel of a person’s mentality, ask myself why a person gets turned on by having their vulva beaten to a pulp, shit like that, basically. Use the words, ‘unhinged, unbalanced, and fucked up,’ and risk angering thousands of people who believe that physically scarring a person, painfully, is functional. So that’s how intriguing works for me, but only when I witness extremes that nauseate me as a human being, where people treat other people in a way they wouldn’t treat an insect.
I do believe that domination, taken as it is, as domination, is an ‘all or nothing’. One is, or one isn’t, and to pretend to be 24/7 is absurd. One thing I don’t believe is when a person, whether Dom, Sum, whatever, says they’re like that 24/7. Moods vary, hormone secretions vary from one week to the next, so when a person says/writes that they are a sadist or masochist every second of the day, it’s bullshit. Either that, or they’ve made Pavlov proud with the way they’ve conditioned themselves, because for myself I know there are days where I feel like relinquishing my control, to be done mercilessly and there are other days where I’d like nothing other than to slap a man around, just for a change of dynamic, or to maintain the dynamic.
April 9, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I can’t help thinking that intriguing really isn’t the right word in this context either.
And I do feel like hitting men quite a lot. I wouldn’t do it all the time – like 24 hours a day – but I can proably almost always get a little warm fuzzy from thinking about it. And I wouldn’t ever live in a relationship where I was the top all the time, but that toppish part of me is always there, I guess. Well, I go to sleep.
Women who are turned on to it by men trouble me. Perhaps because I am really not sure whether I wouldn’t prefer not to be wired this way, and if it were dormant somehow and I didn’t know about it, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have prefered Mr Helpful to – in that case – leave it sleeping.
April 9, 2007 at 1:07 pm
You make a point that few people dare to make. Now that you’ve mentioned it/posted about it, I don’t know how the scene unfolds (men turning women onto domination) and it’s something I haven’t thought about at length, men being ‘kink guides’.
I’ve never personally come across it, and it’s not like I’ve slept with one person my entire life. I wholeheartedly agree, if a person has a kink, they do have an idea of it…and if it’s not a conscious thought, it will eventually surface…like if you slap/squeeze/prod a person too hard. It’s happened to me, but at the time I didn’t isolate it as a kink…it makes me laugh as I type this comment, times where I’d cop ‘fuck that hurt!’ and I’d be, ‘don’t be a baby, for Christ’s sake!’
April 9, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I suppose what I think is still what I said – if you have a kink you know it.
However, if it is possible to not know about a kink – in what way is it good for a person to awaken their secret kinks. Having kinks just makes things complicated. What good does it do?
April 9, 2007 at 1:40 pm
It’s hard to determine which way is workable, or good. The best way is to be with a person that’s open minded (I hate that word, but can’t think of any other word) but colliding into them can be chancy. I do think that social groups enable a person to mix in like minded circles. Where I live (Sydney) for example, UBER hosts parties, they have a fully decked out play area as well.
About the paid sex notion that you’ve mentioned, I strongly agree with the way the media (and to some extent how some, not all, ‘pro’ sex workers portray and/or market themselves, they can be like sexual customer service officers or on the other extreme that chick in Devil Wears Prada, ‘I love my job, I love my job,’ when they’re thinking dollar signs) portrays glamour pros, and don’t think it’s an ideal way for someone to become acquainted with straight sex, let alone kink…and bdsm tends to be pricier than the usual brothel experience, so it places limitations on people who are earning a lower income.
April 9, 2007 at 1:57 pm
If no one minds I’d like to pick up on an earlier comment, about how most vanilla women appear more submissive. I think this is because the normal feeling within society is that men are supposed to have to manage everything in the relationship (where they go out on a date, he pays, he calls to arrange a meet up etc), this attitude migrates into the bedroom. Also there is the assumption that the guy is more experienced and up for it than the woman, so has to direct matters. These things coupled with the fact that Bitchy noted, that it is in some ways quite a lot easier to be sub than dom, in my opinion are the reason that most vanilla women tend to act submissive in the bedroom.
April 9, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Bitchy, Bitchy, Bitchy… you make me feel like such a wassok. I have to ask the most stupid questions.
Your point seems to be: This isn’t about male gratification.
Have I missed something? This isn’t a hobby like train spotting? This *is* about sexuality isn’t it? I understand it is an unusual sexuality but that’s the root of it. They come round. They get bullied a bit. Do a spot of hoovering. Then they get really hurt. They sweat and fret. They bleed and plead. Then they get fucked.
Right?
I mean unless you are feeling mean.
But basically this is sexual activity. Now sadly because of the way men are made that does seem to go with sexual desire and gratification.
Not just that but your stated aim is to “Find men to hit with stuff….AND HAVE THEM LIKE IT”
You’re Domming Subs. Your not scourging and caging some poor vanilla boy who only popped round to borrow a cup of sugar and didn’t even realize there *was* a dungeon next door. (Sorry that was a cliché and I know you hate clichés…but in my head it made me laugh)
What I’m saying is, if your finding men who like this then there is obviously going to be an element of their desires. You seem to be saying more than ‘this isn’t *just* about men’s desire’ you seem to be saying this isn’t about men’s desires at all….
Maybe I don’t understand. I’m just a pillock.
A great big vanilla pillock.
April 9, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Did I say that? I didn’t mean that male submissive desire wasn’t important. I love male submissive desire.
But female dominant desire is important too and it often feels like that desire (my desire) has been erased, replaced with a kind of (professional) dominant femininity that just reflects male submissive desire back. And the magic is gone because there is no dynamic there.
Your calling me up on the have them like it line is a tricky one for me. Them liking it is nice. But really there is a slight lie in there, because my favourite thing of all is for them to hate it but let me do it anyway because they are brave and powerful and gorgeous and would do *anything* for me. But that probably wouldn’t fit in the box.
However, do not fear, I have never kidnapped a vanilla boy in my life.
Talking of vanilla, stop calling yourself a vanilla pillock – this is a brilliant summation of my entire sex life:
Well ‘cept they fuck me – but you know that.
April 9, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Oh yeah, and they don’t do hoovering they do DIY – ’cause my subs are all macho and that
April 9, 2007 at 6:51 pm
So you like big beefy submissive men who do DIY
*Looks around house*
Nope no DIY here. That’ll be because I couldn’t hang a picture if my life depended on it.
That’s one of the things I love about living in a diocesean house. Other people fix it when it goes wrong. Mostly because I can’t.
I like chatting to you Bitchy. It’s like making friends with a lesbian.
Very safe
April 9, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Surely doing the DIY *and* the hoovering….
April 9, 2007 at 10:43 pm
“them to hate it but let me do it anyway because they are brave and powerful and gorgeous and would do *anything* for me”
that line has just made my mind explode with self realisation.. sorry, this is a bit off topic but hey…
yay me, one step closer to figuring out the madness of my mind
April 10, 2007 at 12:05 am
Hmmm.
As a dyed in the wool capitalist (you were so right about me, Bitchy, that wing thing, I just didn’t want to admit it)….I don’t have a problem with the commerce transactions, product filling need, marketing/promotion to advertise product. (Product would be Pro Dommery, in case I’m being to obscure.)
I don’t really even have a problem with the media glomming onto the easiest and most accessible interview, the Pro Domme product who will gladly self promote.
I think a good bit of the problem is the rest of us, the normal real people who are wired this way. I mean, where the hell are we?
I haven’t exactly been clammoring for press interviews the last XX years. I doubt I’d answer one, even “anonomously”, even now. I blog a little now, that’s all.
So, my only point is that there’s plenty of blame to go around, and the only way to get across that normal, friendly, tax paying neighbors happen to be wired this way is for people like that (us) to start talking. Is “we’ve seen the enemy and he is us” too precious a quote to throw in?
E
April 10, 2007 at 7:15 am
Yeah well, I see your points. And really this whole system isn’t the problem so much as the underlying inequity which it represents.
I would love to be able to pay an attractive man to fulfill my exact kinks with no safety issue, negotiation or strings. Imagine it!
In a fair world I’m better sure I wouldn;t have a problem with sex workers. (I’d be too busy!) But really, the world is full of nasty unfairness and double standards. And this just represents that.
I still hate people who know what I am thinking I am part of this, or that I am lacking because I am not.
April 10, 2007 at 10:41 am
In a reasonably uncharacteristic moment during singlehood, I once stalked a male stripper around a club floor for an hour, wanting to pay him $200 to spank him. : ) This is a true story but a single incident, so I wouldn’t read too much into it to understand me. I was quite drunk.
On society: we are how many years out, is it 5 only, from Sex & The City being a revelation because, get this, *women have physical lust*, for men with parts. How many more years would we be out from the revelation that some women have *physical lust* for dominating and hurting men, the same way that some men have *physical lust* for being dominated and hurt.
Going back to a point that you made in one of your earlier posts (probably the post that hooked me on you), I pretty much believe there are enough naturally dom women to go around for every naturally sub man, most of us just aren’t talking about it. (”Why” could be a bunch of nasty cultural reasons imposed, or maybe just lack of ovaries to start talking?)
No answers, just questions….
April 10, 2007 at 10:46 am
Yeah, alright, you’re right. But, damnit, I am sick of waiting around.
I have never even been to a male strip club. I’ve lived such a sheltered life, really. But I do need to post about the hottness of the fantasy of buying submission. Just to be inconsistent.
April 10, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Hi Came over on The girls advice love the blog it has made me laugh out loud a few times.
Im sure i heard a few years ago that u can buy a man to beat up in japan as a new form of stress relief. Maybe u should head over there with your hard earnered cash for your next holiday
Also there must be a masochistic (spelling?) side to your personality as u were awake and writing this blog at 8.30 AM on a sunday. Which personally i find more disturbing than your enjoyment of inflicting pain lol
Finally it stuck me than watching mel gibsons the passion of christ must be a very different experiance for you than than it was for me. Do u own it on dvd? And come think of it what is your favourite film?
still cant think of a good name
April 10, 2007 at 1:50 pm
8.30am isn’t early
The Passion of the Christ does, um, *work* for me, but he’s really too beardy. I do have it on DVD. Crucifixion is, uh, oh let’s not go there now. But it’s something about the nails
My favourite film? You are expecting me to say Mutiny on the Bounty or something. Or Fight Club. 300 is meant to be interesting.
But, you know, there is mor to me than kinking about. I like Lost in Translation, The Royal Tenenbaums and Far from Heaven.
April 10, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Hello again
Thanks for your answer i like lost in translation to.
I just found this articule that might interest both feminists and Doms. Im not sure how to link it properly so im just going to copy and paste it below…
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2280783.
html?menu=news.quirkies
I hope that works.
This place could be the new mecca for FemDoms and MaleSubs the world over.
Is this the beginging of a new world order that would leave england in a state similar situtation to the 2 ronnies in ‘The worm that turned’ sketches?
My first introduction to kink as a child lol
April 10, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Damn it hasnt worked and now i have to flutter up your comments with another attempt.
Humble apologies
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2280783.html?menu=news.quirkies
April 10, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Someone else mentioned that Two Ronnies sketch a while back. I do honestly remember finding it strangely erotic.
And thanks for the link. They could do with a bit more imagination on those punishments.
April 10, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Mew just read some of that articial ‘cant think of a good name’ posted – Women don’t make mistakes to be carved into the gates and women to rule? This sort of thing makes me personally really angry.
Women most certianly do make mistakes as do men and the problem is people thinking they are right and not listerning to others. Women will probably be worse than the men in this case if they are having a back lash from oppression – they will be viscous (and not in the kink scense).
Sorry this probably doesn’t make alot of scense.
Why can’t the best person for the job get it reguardless of gender?
April 10, 2007 at 6:49 pm
WOW…I can’t quite get my head around someone getting off on ‘the passion of the Christ.’
Unlike Bitchy I don’t own it on DVD…and didn’t really enjoy it. Actually I found it quite disturbing how much some Christians seem to enjoy it. I have even heard of part of it being shown at a service for Children. YIKES!
Now lost in translation *is* a really good movie and says, I think a little more.
Don’t get me wrong the whole Jesus dying on the cross thing is the centre of my faith….but just don’t like ‘the passion’.
Bitchy….question for you…why do you like it? It is a man being beaten up by other men… I thought you like woman to do that sort of thing?
April 10, 2007 at 7:03 pm
I eroticise male pain and suffering. I have no idea why. I think you want answers I can’t give. It’s nothing to do with who he is. It’s the blood, the nails, the facial expressions, the sounds.
It’s not a concious thing. I don’t decide to eroticise something. It happens by itself and I can’t stop it. Not proud of it. Don’t think it makes me special. If I could take a pill that made it go away I’m not sure if I would or not.
April 10, 2007 at 9:53 pm
If it is the pain and the blood etc… do you need to be specificially inflicting the pain? What would your view on self harm be in this case. (sorry if this is too personal)
April 10, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Is the question would my own pain or my own blood turn me on?
No.
But then my particular kink is tied in hard to masculinity. So that could be why. Freud thought masochism was just a kind of sadism.
April 10, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Don’t worry about my questions Bitchy….
Don’t feel a need to defend yourself either.
The fact that *I* can’t get my head around someone getting off on ‘The Passion’ isn’t your problem.
I just don’t like the film.
April 10, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I ment the man’s – as in your partner self harming etc..
Sorry that wasn’t clear
April 10, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Oh. Yes.
Fuck.
Actually I get off on all sorts of male autoerotic behaviour. But that? Yes.
A lot, actually.
April 10, 2007 at 11:37 pm
why is it Freud is so respected by modern culture?
it seems like the only time people talk about him is mentioning some little crackpot idea he had because he was too much of an arrogant prick to admit he didnt know everything..
sorry to cut in i just hate freud
April 10, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Thanks for the reply
Now to sound thick – what exactly does autoerotic mean?
April 10, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Diremane
I only mentioned Freud to show off. Then again, this whole blog is one long show off by me really.
He also said all women are naturally masochists. Or something. So he doesn’t do a lot for me.
April 10, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Vampyra
Basically wanking, but with a sort of shade of really doing anything to pleasure yourself sexually.
It gets most used in ‘autoerotic asphixiation’
April 11, 2007 at 12:02 am
ah ok thanks – I’ve obviously heared of autoerotic asphixiation but never thought about what the words actually ment and didn’t even twig it was the same word!
April 11, 2007 at 7:39 am
Wow. Comments’ve increased since I first started lurking around here. There’s just not enough snarky, rageful wit going on in the blogosphere. Thanks for helping to solve that.
The one thing I’m taking issue with in this post is the statement that we all know our kinks already and that this phenomenon of being “turned onto” them by others is illusory, or at least rare.
I know a lot of people who have great stories to tell about how their childhoods were a bit more kinky than might seem normal. I actually, I have no restraint: One friend’s Barbie was compelled to marry Ken, which I suppose is the preschool equivalent of sexual slavery. I am not one of these people. Actually, I cringed when I first saw bondage.
Things changed. Over the course of about three years, after being turned onto it by a friend of mine, I became increasingly consumed by these strange emerging fetishes of mine. Now I usually look at some sort of bondage each day, for various reasons, and have one sorta-most-of-the-time sub and three occasional ones. Long story short, my sex life got expensive, and kinda complicated, but only because of the initial influence of someone else.
April 11, 2007 at 8:10 am
This still confuses me.
Was there nothing there before? No interest in sexual control? No bossiness?
Without this useful friend would you have stayed vanilla?
Would you have been better or worse off?
April 11, 2007 at 8:46 am
There might’ve been something, but nothing on par with the sorts of childhood fantasies other kinky people I know report. Again, when I initially saw bondage I was kinda perplexed and confused; often even a bit disgusted. In fairness, the bondage I ended up seeing was stuff that came out of the Japanese school of porn-aesthetics (i.e. terrified cartoon women, fear, rape, and the all-important commandment that it’s not sex unless someone cries), but if you’d ask me whether I’d like to tie some pretty thing up and maybe do stuff to her, I would’ve probably gone mute.
As far as other personality traits, I believe in astrology like I believe in Santa Claus, but I fit the personality of my sign pretty well. I’m a Leo. Bossy, entitled, and even managerial come easily to me. So does lounging on sun-dappled rocks and munching on gazelle haunches, but that’s another story….
Anyway, what happened with this friend, though, is that I learned she IDed as submissive while we were chatting in a convenience store. And, then, there was this *clicking* experience. I ended up leading her back from the convenience store on a makeshift leash (In retrospect, suddenly doing that to someone without negotiation in public violates so many safety precautions…). At that moment, watching her reaction, I think I may have changed. Or at least come into some part of myself I hadn’t really used before. And what happened from there I’ve already summarized.
Would I have stayed vanilla without her? Maybe. I’m really iffy about those sorts of theoretical questions. I suspect that I could have been triggered by things other than that experience. Also, given that apparently 90-some% of couples eventually experiment with something kinky, I probably would’ve run across it eventually.
Am I better or worse off now because of my kink? Wow. That’s a really hard question to answer. Actually, partially by way of reading your blog I’ve been thinking about my kink in terms of whether it’s good for me.
I’m a dom, and a boy, and at least one of my subs consistently has fantasies about somewhat violently forced submission and sex. She literally asks me to rape her. That, right there, is a politically, socially, and ethically questionable request. (Some other time, I’ll spend some thought on the weirdness of being *asked* to *rape* someone.) In fact, the legacy of actual historical female sexual slavery occasionally makes me cringe when I think about the stuff I’m doing. There are also issues like limiting my serious partners to people who are willing to get tied up, possibly tortured, and definitely fucked. And there are little things about social propriety that I fail at. I make the wrong jokes in public, I leave large coils of rope sitting around my room, my father once ended up reading a contract between a partner and I. This… can be awkward.
After it all, though, am I having a good time with this? Yes. I recently learned basic suspension bondage, and the time I spent studying that is the most fun I’ve had this year.
P.S. Sorry for leaving cumbersome, novel-length comments.
April 11, 2007 at 8:58 am
I’m a scorpio. If you’re a woman and a scorpio your profile basicially says: whiny, sado, dom, anon-blogger.
That pisses me off a lot. At least I don’t wear black anymore.
How to be socially responsible and a mandom (assuming you’re a man) is a huge question. Female submissive seem to talk a lot about how they jusitify what they do – but not male doms. Or, at least, not when I’m listening.
Really interesting. Also makes me feel a lot better about myself – at least I’m only hurting big strong boys.
April 11, 2007 at 9:39 am
Yeah, you’ll probably never have to fend off allegations that you’re recapitulation centuries of gendered repression and stereotyping.
Also, in defense of male doms, I think you’re running into a lot of the bad ones. There are human, non-Brick-like ones out there, I promise. I have the number of subs I do, honestly, not because I’m skillful, particularly imposing, or tremendously amazing. Hell I don’t even know what to wear (although I know what I refuse to). What’s been brought up, time and again, by people who were interested in playing with me, is that I seemed sane (often with the added “unlike the other dom boys I’ve found on this campus” caveat) and like someone they could be comfortable giving up their usual agency to for a while.
It’s this weird paradox-type-thing: outside of the magical faerie-land where all mandoms are sadistic, imperial chauvinists with heavy boots are ever-present whips, that land where all the femdoms are towering ice-queens in six-inch death-heels and a penchant for intoning “snivel before your Goddess, worm;” the subs I know want to be dommed by someone who might hurt them but not, you know, really *hurt* them.
Maybe it’s a generational thing,. I feel like there’s a growing niche for a new archetypal dominant and submissive. It may not supplant the Mistress Ravens of the world, but it could give ‘em a run for their money. We can be damn terrifying, and even do it while wearing comfortable shoes.
April 11, 2007 at 10:20 am
Yeah, except something about your use of the word ‘campus’ makes me think that we might not *quite* be the same generation.
April 11, 2007 at 10:54 am
Ooh, ooh, twopence worth.
I’m a (UK based) sexworker who gets paid for both vanilla and femdom activities. I’ve also been interviewed by the media about my work.
I have two primary comments on this discussion (love the community your blog’s creating Bitchy!).
First is that probably Mistress Raven was considerably distorted in the article about her – I’ve barely recognised myself in one article, and in another, they just made stuff up that fitted with the idea they had of me.
But more interesting, to me, is the thought sparked by Bitchy’s comment:
. . . it often feels like [female dominant desire] desire . . . has been erased, replaced with a kind of (professional) dominant femininity that just reflects male submissive desire back.
I don’t think the representation of the prodomme community necessarily corresponds to what male submissives want. IMO, male sexuality (including male submissive sexuality) is policed in a whole host of ways usually more subtle than the repression of female sexuality. Men are given (limited) permission to submit to a woman so long as she’s pretty and thin and wearing uncomfortable clothes and doesn’t smear her makeup and (often in the prodomme community) doesn’t have sex as part of a scene, i.e., promulgates the model that whoever gets penetrated is less powerful than the person doing the penetrating (yeah, right, just the way a socket loses power when a plug goes in). And because many women are aware of that, or have incorporated that model of sexuality, they market themselves that way.
Male submissives don’t all want the “doll” model of femdom (if they did, I’d have to work for a living), they want a real woman who’ll tie them up and hit them and fuck them and like it, and celebrate and respect their power and fantasies as submissive men.
Hope that makes sense.
One other thing, on the “I always knew/I got turned onto it by a man/magazine/TV programme debate” – aren’t they both true for different people? For instance, I knew I was bi before I had a word for it, but it took a whole lot longer for me to discover kink and to realise that this was something real, that I shared with others, not just some sticky miniature weirdness in my head.
April 11, 2007 at 11:07 am
Hang on, hang on, I’ve got it.
You have to admit that in all paid-for domming the money replaces the female desire to dominate. That only becomes a big problem when paid-for becomes the default.
That’s why femdom is fucked up.
April 11, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Not sure. Money may accompany, or replace, or be the only motivation, or other things, in femdom or a range of other situations. But anything that reduces diversity (by being seen as the default) tends to fuck things up.
April 15, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Pertaining to my comment above. What was really trying to get across is that (IMHO) most vanilla women would picture/imagine a male dom in that image.
And, I’m still inclined to believe that a lot of women like being controlled and are more masochistic. Once again this is coming from someone observing behaviors from a vanilla perspective. It isn’t that hard to see that women typically have put up and still put up with a lot of crap so to speak from boyfriends husbands etc.
Lo0k at the prevalence of rape fantasy, the amount of male sexual aggression in female written erotica, my last girlfriend (who many assumed was dominant) stating “I love it when a man takes control and tells me what to do”. Hearing some nice “christian” woman say “If he was a man he’d take what was his” Even down to the simple pulling of hair and smacks to the ass, seem to point to one conclusion.
Myself, I’ve always had a problem with the rape fantasy, even at a young age I was appalled at the idea of it, but I was exposed to plenty of males who tossed the idea around casually (some believe its just the male nature to be that way)
While I’d like to think my behavior was in the norm, I’ve came to realize that my point of view about rape is more in the minority.
Which leads me to wonder where a typical male sub thoughts are about things like that.
January 19, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Thank you. I did actually think about becoming a sex worker at some point. And I think it wasn’t until I read your blog that I really got how much media portrayals of kinky women had fucked up my own sense of myself. Deep down, I really did think that being a dominant woman (with some switchiness — sorry I know you don’t approve) meant that I had to wear lots of leather and PVC and charge $200 an hour.
I’m incredibly grateful that universal forces converged to prevent me from going down that path. I’d never want to take a job in my favorite restaurant.
Like you say, our society still can’t wrap its head around the idea that some women like sex just for sex’s sake. Not for money, not for security, not for fucking Dolce & Gabbanna (don’t get me started on Fergie going on and on about her miniscule humps). But just because we fucking like sex. Of all the freaky things about me, I think this is the one that I’ve spent the most time feeling ashamed about: I like sex! And I want to have a lot of it! With different people! Clearly, there must be something wrong with me.
January 19, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Oh god, I really do love it when people say stuff like:
What to say about sex work? I just think that more women need to have sex just for the sake of sex, rather than using the fact that men want to have sex with them to get other stuff. Because whatever he’s buying you, whatever he’s paying you – it’s not as good as good sex with someone you really want to have sex with (i.e. enough that you would for free.)
And I like switches. God.
February 11, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Hee! Me…. too. I’ve been a writer since I was an ickle thing and the prospect of bypassing all that tedious print-publisher-slush-pile nonsense was my biggest motivation for learning how to build websites. Turns out it’s good money, too.
I just think that more women need to have sex just for the sake of sex, rather than using the fact that men want to have sex with them to get other stuff.
OMG, yes! It’s like the last obstacle we need to cross before we can finally get back to equality of the sexes. Female sexuality has been so circumscribed and contained and controlled for so long (and here I consciously prevent myself from summing up all of human history from a radical/feminist/communist/pagan perspective) that it’s like people forget that we LIKE sex! We might not like it in exactly the same way that people with penises and XY chromosomes do, but we like it! I’ve always felt like some kind of alien because I’ve been interested in sex from a very early age. Oh, and the Catholic thing didn’t help.
And I like switches. God.
Squee! And I like you. Group hug! BFF!