What is Sexual Submission?

I've spent a bit of time in the last couple of days mulling over the rather amazing comment stream that poured forth here in response to some judgemental comments made by an anonymous commenter.  I don't want to get back into discussion with that person.  There seems very little point.  I do, however want to thank all those who stepped into the fray with words of affirmation and encouragement, and I want to speak to a part of that discussion that went largely unnoticed in all the dust and fuss -- the nature of submission/slavery itself.

That was the one bit of all the nonsense that "anonymous" spewed all over the place that really caught my attention:  "I am sexually submissive."  My immediate reaction when I read that; the reaction that has lodged in my brain and will not go away:  "Really?  What the heck does that mean?"

I don't think I have ever, once, thought or said that I am "sexually submissive."  Something about the phrase causes me to have a mental sort of jerky whiplash sensation.  I cannot find a place where that expression makes intellectual or emotional sense to me.  It bothers me on levels way deeper than the simple linguistic parsing.

Mistress Steel actually addresses the topic:  "A sexual submissive is a person who manifests submissive traits only in direct connection with sexual arousal and release. In all other aspects of their life this person will probably comport themselves in a manner that is neutral or indistinguishable from a nonscene related person, vanilla.
There is one line of thought that a sexual submissive may be more closely related to a scene fetisher than to a submissive who is submissive throughout the scope of their life."

There it is.  The definitive description of the picture I get in my head when someone says that they are "sexually submissive."  When I hear that self-labelling, I think of someone who does "this" for kicks.  It is a way to spice up an otherwise ordinary, and perhaps mundane, sex life.  It isn't grounded in honestly lived power-based roles.  It isn't part of an over-arching philosophical or spiritual view of ones' life.  It isn't the manifestation of an essential sexual / erotic orientation.  It is just a bit of play-acting; the sort of cowboys and Indians dress-up game that generations of children have engaged in from time immemorial. 

I don't get "sexual submission," because I don't DO "sexual submission."  Oh...  I surely submit and serve within the context of our sexual relatedness.  But it isn't something that is noticeably different than my submission when I am fixing His lunch, pouring His coffee, ironing His shirts, or finding His latest lost whatever...  It isn't different in quality or character than my submission to His will in the context of our SM play.  It is all part of the same thing.  For me, it all stems from the committment to obedience to His will.  I sometimes enjoy the things we do together, but there are times when I don't.  I sometimes take sexual pleasure out of our intimate relating, but not always -- and it doesn't matter one way or another.  It is still woven into the very fabric of our lives together. 

I see the sort of relatedness that can be defined as "sexually submissive" as inherently self-focused and self-serving.  That seems entirely reasonable and entirely appropriate for those for whom it works.  People enter into all sorts of relational dances, and I'll admit that I am a true clutz when it comes to knowing the steps for most of those gambits.  I don't mean to judge here.  There are as many ways of relating as there are people involved in the act of relating.  What I do -- what He and I do is perfect for us, and so very far from being good or right or workable for most of the rest of the world. 

Contrary to what has been implied here in the last couple of weeks, I do work to maintain myself -- I work to maintain what belongs to Him.  I fit that in within the context of my days; within the limits of what else is demanded and required so that He has what He wants and needs to ease His way.  To do that, I usually make use of stolen bits of time, and self-care routines sandwiched in between dozens of everyday and ordinary tasks that haven't got the patina of glamour and glitz that might appeal to the "sexual submissive."  Sometimes, when life has been particularly intense, when the demands have been steady and heavy, when there's been very little in the way of time to "steal," I look in the mirror and see the marks that show the years and the general wear and tear of life lived with few frills.  As has been noted repeatedly by my anonymous judge, taking care of oneself can be expensive and time consuming.  I am given all I need for my own well-being, but I steward our families resources with care.  That too, is about taking care of what is His. 

It is all about focus.  Him?  Or me?  Him?  Or me?  Him?  Or me?  Over and over and over, through the course of my days, that is the measure of the choices I make.  It is what keeps me from being a "sexual submissive."

swan

Vivian's Original Story

An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy.

~Benjamin Stolberg~

More on the question/issue of Vivian at "The Disciplined Feminist," and her new book on spanking and Domestic Discipline:

First, if you are interestid in this subject, I'd recommend that you visit Sara's blog. She and I seem to share similar concerns in this instance, and she addresses it from the perspective of someone who IS living inside of a working and thriving Domestic Discipline relationship.

I wanted to share some further information on this subject with those who are interested.

A couple of days ago, I attempted to bring up the question of qualification/credibility in the comments of a blog called, A Kind Dom. This is a companion site to the Uncle Agony blog, and was one of the first places to actively "advertise" Vivian's book on spanking. I wrote (in part):

"...Reconciling strength and pride with submission/masochism or respect with dominance/sadism is at the very core of what we do when we create our intentionally unequal and deliberately imbalanced power exchanges. It is that which is difficult for someone who has never done it or felt it to understand, especially when they try to match it up to commonly accepted social norms. That is precisely why I wonder why it is that you are so enamored of this book of Vivian's. As far as I can tell from everything she's written at her blog, she has never actually managed to create the dynamic of which she speaks. She is precisely that mostly vanilla "expert" trying to make intellectual sense of what it is that she sees of this dynamic, but writing without any (or much) actual personal knowledge."



To which, Vivian responded as follows:

"...I wanted to take a moment to respond to swan's comment, if I may do so. Since The Disciplined Feminist is framed in the context of my current (and particularly challenging) relationship, I tend to focus on that relationship exclusively as a "hothouse" for discussing some of the more abstract and thorny issues surrounding DD(plus, it makes for good drama...!). As a result, it seems that swan has made the erroneous assumption that my experience with DD and spanking is limited to my current (and definitely challenging!) relationship. I have over 23 years of experience in spanking and domestic discipline, starting when I was 19 and got up the nerve to (successfully, if rather awkwardly) ask my first real boyfriend to spank me. Every relationship I've had since then has included spanking and/or domestic discipline, at all ages and life stages and with partners also at all ages and life stages. In each case, I've learned a great deal about how to approach a partner about bringing spanking and/or DD into a relationship (which is the focus of “How to Get the Spanking You Want”) and in each case, have done so successfully. In addition, I've spent the past decade in my "real life" doing professional-level academic and psychological research into male/female gender roles and archetypes, focusing specifically on issues of power and submission, This research has resulted in my serving, both my “real life” self and as Vivian, as a consultant on numerous projects over the past decade, including doctoral theses, journal articles, popular publications, documentaries and narrative films for mainstream Hollywood studios. And of course, exploring these issues on the blog for the past three years (in the context of a particularly intense and challenging relationship due to factors largely external to the DD itself) has helped to focus my explorations enormously. I do hope this clarifies any issues with regard to the background against which this advice is offered.And thank you, Pygar, for supporting what I believe is a much-needed and worthwhile resource for our community. Warmest,Viv"



Now, I think that is a rather remarkable personal "resume," especially in contrast to this very first piece that Vivial wrote and posted at The Disciplined Feminist, in December of 2006:
"Domestic Discipline (DD) is not the same as domestic violence. DD -- true DD -- is not abusive. I know. Because I have lived both. I married my first boyfriend when I was 19. Early in our dating life, clumsily and full of shame, I confessed to him my need for domestic discipline, a need I'd been aware of since I was a small child. Back then, before the internet, I wasn't aware of the actual concept of DD, so the best I could do was to articulate a need to be spanked and generally be sexually dominated. Later that night, while we were having sex, he hit me -- square in the face, hard enough to cause a momentary loss of consciousness. I can still remember what that moment felt like, and the conflicting emotions it brought up for me. The shock, the anger, the pain. And then the confusion -- after all, hadn't I asked for this? Wasn't he giving me just what I had confessed to him that I wanted? No, of course not. Anyone who has practiced genuine DD for even a short time knows that there is no simliarity at all between the consentual, loving and respectful application of discipline and the brutal randomness and cruelty of domestic violence. I know because I have lived both. I should have cut off my relationship with my husband-to-be right immediately after he hit me. At the very least, I should have pointed out -- assertively -- that being hit in the face was NOT what I was asking for. But I said nothing. The reason I said nothing, looking back, was because although I knew that kind of abuse wasn't what I wanted, I was so ashamed of what I DID want that I lacked the courage to clarify or stand up for myself. I was only 19 after all, and back then, I figured I must be such a terrible person for wanting a relationship in which I was physically disciplined that I deserved whatever I got in exchange. So I told myself that I was grateful and fortunate to have man who would so eagerly give me "what I wanted." I also believed, in my ignorance and naivete, that submitting to domestic discipline meant submitting to whatever the man in the relationship wanted to do to me, whether I agreed with it or not. In a DD relationship, a woman consents to being disciplined and the limits to that discipline are safe, sane and mutually-agreed upon. In true LDD, a woman would never be afraid of articulating her needs and experiences to her partner. But I didn't know any of that. And so I married this man who hit me so hard I blacked out. I'll never know for sure whether the violent, abusive behavior that followed was something that would have happened anyway, or something that he allowed himself to inflict on me without restrain because he believed I'd "asked" for it. Regardless...I know what it's like to be beaten with a wire coat hanger until blood runs down my back. I know what it's like to be thrown down a flight of stairs. I know what it's like to locked out of the house, naked, on a freezing winter night, crouching in the bushes, crying and pleading to be let back in before the neighbors saw me. I know what it's like to wear long-sleeved shirts and high collars to cover cuts and bruises. I know what it's like to have the police arrive at the door and telling them that "everything's fine. I know what it's like to have my friends and family tell me I'm so lucky to have "such a great husband," because he puts on his most charming, gallant face when he's around others. I know what it's like to lock him out of the house and watch him take two hours to take the door off the hinges with his car keys, knowing the pain and terror that await when he finally gets back inside. I know what it's like to want to leave, and to be told that I am worthless and that "no one else will ever love you." I know what it's like to try to leave and to arrive at the motel only to find my credit cards have all been reported as "stolen." I know what it's like to have my beautiful, innocent cats murdered in a fit of revenge for my trying to leave him. And I know what it's like to finally leave, to finally say, this is enough and I deserve better. I know because I lived through it Not once, but twice, because the man who "rescued" me from my abusive husband turned out to be abusive as well. So when I say that DD is not domestic violence, I am not theorizing, quoting from a book or engaging in denial and wishful thinking. I say DD is not domestic violence because I have lived both and know from experience that they are not the same thing in any way. When I am beaten by an abusive man, and collapse weeping, terrified, in a corner, afraid for my life, that's abuse. When I submit, willingly, to a firm, but fair spanking by a man I love and trust, because we have mutually agreed that this is the consequence for a behavior we both agree is hurtful to me, him or others, this is Loving Domestic Discipline. When an abusive man stands over me, bleeding and terrified in a corner, and tells me that I'm worthless, that's abuse. When I rise from my discipline feeling more empowered, safe, free and whole than I was before I received it, and step into the loving, forgiving arms of a man whom I know would never betray my trust, that's Loving Domestic Discipline. But the sad truth is that, like any relationship, a DD relationship can turn abusive. I say "turn" rather than "be" because once a relationship becomes abusive, it is definitionally not DD. One of the reasons for this blog is that I see a disturbing trend on the more popular DD blogs and forums toward encouraging abusive behavior towards women in the name of DD. This is frightening to me, and also sad, because it's not at all what DD is meant to be, and I'm concerned that the misuse and misunderstanding of DD will scare away women who would otherwise find fulfillment in this type of relationship.The man I am with now has taken heroic actions protect women whom he knew were being abused. None of the things I list about would be in any way acceptable to him. The man I'm with now actively works to help strengthen organizations that protect abused women and children from violent men. The man I'm with now is a big part of why I now understand that no woman deserves to be beaten or humiliated. And the man I'm with now practices DD with me only after many, many (many!) hours of discussion in which he gently, patiently, respectfully helped me to articulate my needs and wishes in this area. Any woman can find herself in an abusive relationship. But making a DD relationship work requires both parties to possess a great deal of self-confidence and self-respect. The first time my current partner and I tried it, I wasn't strong enough, healed enough, or empowered enough to handle it -- and it failed miserably. Early in my current relationship, I was still too fearful and traumatized from my past abusive relationships to separate the two things in my head. My partner would try to do what I asked for -- he'd try to discipline me -- and I'd freak out. My emotions were all over the map -- fear, anger, "righteous" indignation. He'd spank me and I'd terrified and sobbing, pleading for him to stop, that I didn't really want it after all and it was a mistake. Or more often than not, I'd talk my way out of the spanking because I was too afraid to take it. Fortunately, my partner was perceptive enough to recognize the difference between the sobs and cries of remorse that come with a true disciplinary experience from the terror of a woman not ready for that type of experience. Being a healthy, non-abusive man, he stopped what he was doing immediately - another thing that an abuser would never do.We both realized our relationship wasn't mature enough yet for DD, and so we put it on hold while we worked on the basics of love, trust and respect. This is probably the biggest difference between DD and abuse: LDD is a choice made out of love, trust and mutual respect, whereas abuse flourishes ONLY in the absence of love, trust and respect. I wasn't yet healthy enough to enter into that kind of emotionally mature, intimate relationship with another human being. It took years -- five of them, to be exact -- of personal growth work, of learning to validate myself as a worthwhile human being, of healing past traumas and of getting the abusive ghosts of my abusers out of my head before we could try again. And I've learned along the way that the stronger I get, the more "whole" I become. the more rewarding our DD relationship becomes. This is another crucial difference between abuse and DD -- abuse only "works" on a woman who is so beaten down and lacking in self-respect that she doesn't believe she deserves better. If a woman is in what she believes to be an DD relationship, and feels during her discipline that she is being punished for being worthless, inferior or inadequate, this is not DD. This is abuse. And the longer an abusive relationship continues, the fewer options a woman has for empowering herself enough to escape. DD, on the other hand, isn't possible unless both parties come to the relationship reasonably healthy and emotionally sound. A woman in a true LDD relationship experiences her discipline as just, healthy and healing. And, at least for me, the more my partner and I practice DD, the more empowered I feel, both in and out of the relationship, and the stronger and more capable I become, thus giving me many more options in life than I had before. "


A lifetime of experience establishing successful spanking relationships? Really? Judge for yourselves, but I'd suggest that when someone proposes to write a "How To" book, they ought to KNOW something about "how to."



swan

Calling "Fraud"

OK.

I have a history for this particular move.


Once, a very long time ago, when I was still a very new blogger, I called out the "queen bee" of the blogging universe because there was simply no earthly way that my rational mind could accept that what she wrote on her blog day after day, and presented as reality, could be possibly happening in any kind of real world relationship. It was a ball-sy sort of stand for someone who had barely dipped toes into the universe of writing in this forum, but it was what I believed at the time, and I was driven to say what seemed true.

It didn't earn me any points, and she came after me with a vengeance, but my call turned out to be accurate in the end. For me it was an important lesson. It was critical for me, as I began to reach out into this cyber community, to understand that not everyone tells the whole truth all the time, and not everyone is what they claim to be. If a blogger develops a devoted following, it is pretty easy for the ego to expand beyond what is actually reasonable. The distance and relative anonymity that gives many of us license to write here can encourage some to fabricate and exaggerate. Arrogance can masquerade as expertise and there is not a darn thing we can do about it. I've seen it happen and written about it on other occasions, too: here and here. But we do not have to endorse it when people mislead others by intention or otherwise, and we do not have to stand silent while it happens.

Fraud. That is (in my view) what is being perpetrated by a writer in our circle. Because, in the last couple of weeks, Vivian, who writes at The Disciplined Feminist has published an e-book entitled "How to Get the Spanking You Want." She has been touting this new endeavor, of course, as have some others around the circle, and that is fine. People can surely support her in this effort as seems appropriate to them.

However, I've been following Vivian since she first appeared on the scene (brand new to the very limited practice of Domestic Discipline) in December of 2006. She is, undoubtedly, a bright and talented writer. The pieces that she puts up every so often are well written and thought provoking, but they have been few and far between. In fact, in the just about 30 months that Vivian has been sharing her thoughts on her blog, she's written 37 posts. Much of what she writes concerns the paradox that she perceives between her feminist philosophies and her orientation to spanking. Woven in between is the painful accounting of the largely unsuccessful attempts of she and her partner to establish what she calls a "traditional DD relationship." Comments to "The Disciplined Feminist" are strictly moderated, so Vivian has little need to engage in dialog with most of the rest of our community.

Now, she is pushing a book which is almost certainly based solely on her imaginings of how things must be. There is, if one can believe what she's written on her blog, little or no solid experience to back the words. Master attempted to engage her in discussion of this through her comments, but there is that matter of "comment moderation..."

I imagine she'll draw from a certain following, and some without much knowledge will be taken in by the sham of this new publication. There is a real hunger for information about our lifestyle and orientation from those who are new and seeking, and that is an easy market for a book titled as hers is. How is someone newly exploring their own spanking orientation supposed to know who can be trusted to provide credible information and guidance? Vivian is not the first, and she surely won't be the last to seek to cash in on those who are desperate for guidance and information about our kind of erotic orientation. It still isn't right. If you don't know beyond a few fancy sounding theories: if you don't have the expertise and actual experience; then playing yourself off as some sort of guru is a cheat and a fraud.

I doubt that my opinion will make any difference at all to Vivian or to those who are backing her book venture, but I won't endorse this endeavor by my silence.

swan

Evil, Nasty, Predatory Monster

Late last week, a post showed up on one of the listserves that I still participate in. I don't really know anything about the person who wrote it. I believe the woman is not a frequent poster, but then, neither am I. What she wrote, however shocked me.

The short version of the story is that she and her "Master" are in a primarily long distance relationship that entails occasional face-to-face contact. When the relationship began, some years ago, the Master required her to be tested for STDs, and she learned as a result that she has genital herpes. The relationship went forward with the stipulation that she would take ant-viral medications, and they would practice safe sex. The "Master" volunteered to pay for all the medications and required medical appointments. She reported that she became frustrated at the infrequency of sexual contact and so stopped taking the medications and didn't tell Him. She had sexual relations with Him without advising Him of the discontinued medication regimen. When He confronted her about the situation, and she admitted to what she had done, He banished her from His home and His bed... What, she wondered, could she do to re-establish trust and stop "testing" Him?

The list kind of just sat there for a very long day after that little piece appeared. Silence was thunderous. I watched to see what response there would be, until I just couldn't stand it anymore. Then I unloaded. It is my opinion that such deliberate deceit, such a lack of integrity, such willingness to risk the well-being of a partner has no place at all in any relationship, and certainly is inappropriate within the context of a power-based relationship. As far as I'm concerned, this ding-a-ling ought to be facing legal charges. There's no reason at all to go easy on this kind of sleazy and irresponsible behavior. We ought to, as a community, be straightforward in calling this sort of predatory nonsense exactly what it is.

I wonder if the silence, the failure to step up and say that this was not "OK," was about the fact that it was the Dominant partner who was victimized? We have a culture in the lifestyle that causes us to lean toward the belief that it is the submissive who is vulnerable to abuse by scene predators. We are much slower to see, understand, and react to the ways in which the top part of the power equation can be victimized and harmed by unethical and unscrupulous bottoms.

It is entirely reasonable to withhold judgement of our various and divergent kinks. It is not at all reasonable to withhold our sanction when someone behaves in a deliberately destructive fashion within a lifestyle relationship.

swan

Integrity

There's come to be a bit of a conflict at my friend, morningstar's place. She entered into and won a "challenge" put up on another blog by a person who, for a short time last year, served as her houseboy. The person in question "switches" -- moving from Dominant to submissive in his BDSM practice. He posted the challenge from the Dominant side of the equation, and offered to become submissive for a defined period of time (and within certain limits) to the person who won the challenge. That was the prize offered for the winning of the challenge.

When the challenge was ended and morningstar won, she began to make plans to collect her prize. That's when things got "dicey." It seems that the terms of the challenge "pay off" were to be the subject of negotiation and manipulation, until she finally put the whole question about what to do to the readers of her blog. I stated that I'd observed the dynamic with this "houseboy" last year and so was not surprised when he, in his dominant persona, refused to play the submissive part "as it was written." I called it a circumstance where the integrity that was being (and had been) displayed was marginal. That's the way I feel about it. It could be attributed to a difference in the way Dominant and submissive personalities approach the world -- perhaps Dominants become accustomed to changing the rules whenever it suits them, but any submissive worth the name understands that keeping your word is essential in a power dynamic.

It seems that there is real angst over words I wrote about "integrity" in response to the whole business. The individual in question took exception to my view of things in this comment, writing:

stay away from my integrity you have no knowledge of it.

Well, fair enough I suppose. I don't have any knowledge except what I have acquired by reading the ups and downs of this volatile relationship for many months now.

It reminds me of an interraction that T had, years ago, with my then husband. He initiated a bit of SM play that was predicated on an "exchange." The terms were that if she would eat a dill pickle, he would be her "plaything" for a session. T HATES and DESPISES pickles, and he knew it. They bantered back and forth for a time, but finally the deal was struck. She kept her end of the bargain... and not without some real struggle. He, on the other hand, called a halt to the promised session almost as soon as it started -- declaring that he just couldn't do it. Sorry!

Maybe that sort of on again off again decision making works for a "Dominant" who can simply choose to be arbitrary if they want to, but it is deadly when a submissive engages in that nonsense. You can't give up power and then yank it back. It isn't appropriate, honest, fair -- it lacks integrity. AND it is my belief that a submissive who does not act with integrity undermines the entire basis for the relationship.

The submissive has very little to offer, when it comes down to it. We give our word. We accept the dynamic. Then it is about keeping the promise, no matter what vagaries or unexpected circumstances ensue. To do less is to refuse to actually give over the power. It is tantamount to a statement that one will submit just exactly as and how we decide to. It is the essence of "topping from the bottom." It is not submission and it is not part of a legitimate power exchange.

That's how I see it.

swan