The comments on my earlier post entitled ‘Femdom doesn’t exist‘ got me thinking a little more about definitions and categories. This isn’t new ground for me, as I’ve pondered BDSM labels in the past. This time I thought I’d come at it from a different angle, and rather than start with the existing labels, I’d try and define new categories based on what I’ve observed. I can then see how (or if) my groupings map back into the well known labels people regularly throw around. The two dimensions I’m thinking about are masochism and submission, and it seems a lot of the complexity arises out of the latter.
Non-masochistic / Non-submissive
We all know about these people, as they make up the majority of the population. Vanilla. Boring. Let us speak of them no more.
Masochistic / Non-submissive
These people enjoy pain purely for the sake of the sensation. They want to be hurt and enjoy the associated adrenalin rush without necessarily giving up power. A well known subset of this is the Smart Ass Masochist (SAM), someone who likes deliberately teasing and provoking a domme in order to create a reason for punishment.
Masochistic / Sexual submissive
This defines someone who enjoys both pain and power exchange, but only in the context of ‘sexual’ play. This play might be a session in a dungeon, an event at a party or simply a couple having fun in the bedroom. But it’s essentially a bounded experience in time, where control is only temporarily relinquished. The stereotypical example of this would be the high powered CEO or hot shot lawyer who skips out of the office for a couple of hours so he can be tied-up and beaten by a pro-domme.
Masochistic / Lifestyle submissive
I suspect for a lot of readers of this blog, both male and female, this represents the most desirable category. It integrates a kinky sexuality within a female led relationship. This doesn’t necessarily imply a specific division of responsibility or a predefined assignment of roles in daily life. It simply means the D/s dynamics and power exchange shades daily interactions as well as specifically sexual ones.
Non-Masochistic / Service submissive
These people find satisfaction in performing tasks and being useful for the dominant. This might be something as simple as cleaning or cooking, or as elaborate as being turned into a human-pony and used to pull a buggy. Pain, if it’s employed at all, is a mechanism for punishment not pleasure.
Now having defined these anecdotally observed groupings, how do the common labels of bottom, slave, masochist and submissive map to them? I think the answer to that is ‘with difficulty’. Three of the five feature some type of submission, and three of the five feature masochism. Slave certainly maps to the last group, but arguably also applies to the lifestyle category. And I think the term bottom could be equally applied to both non-submissive and sexually submissive masochists. It’s therefore not really surprising that confusion and misunderstandings frequently occur when writing about femdom. The basic vocabulary we’re using is woeful inadequate and imprecise. And to make it worse, people frequently use the terms as if they were well defined and universally agreed.
I guess at this point I should really propose a solution to the problem. Perhaps the paltego labeling system of Mas/NonSub, Mas/SexSub, Mas/LifeSub and NonMas/ServSub? Or maybe some kinky equivalent to the geek code (if that doesn’t already exist)? There’s already the hanky code of course, but that’s mainly concerned with specific activities rather than models of interaction. It’s also hard to take a code seriously where a few wash cycles can change your sexual preferences from anal sex, into uniforms, into oral sex, into aquaphilia (dark blue, medium blue, light blue and aqua respectively). Lets at least shoot for something that’s machine washable in future.
One additional point of interest is the categories I decided to omit from this list, namely the non-masochistic versions of sexually submissive and lifestyle submissive. This isn’t to say people in those groups don’t exist. It’s just that I wonder if they would actually define themselves as kinky. A non-masochistic sexual submissive would be someone who enjoys receiving pleasure and letting their partner take control during sex. In many ways that seems more a sexual preference or style, rather than a kinky activity.
Finally, after all that random musing from me, I think a little eye candy is in order. The picture has no real relationship to the text, I just found it (on Domenique von Sternenberg’s tumblr site) and enjoyed it.
Oh, and for anyone that has made it this far, and is still wondering about the title of the post, it’s a reference to one of my favorite parts in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master – – that’s all.’
“Non-masochistic / Non-submissive
We all know about these people, as they make up the majority of the population. Vanilla. Boring. Let us speak of them no more.”
LOL!!! Yes. Amen to that! 🙂
I usually refer to myself as a subbie maso. That seems to cover it. Also, I prefer the spanky code to the hanky code…
I also describe myself as a subbie maso, but the vagueness of that was brought home to me recently when I was chatting to the domme I see regularly (Lady Lydia). The conversation had turned to labels and terminology and she mentioned that I wasn’t all that submissive. That really surprised me, as its the power exchange that I enjoy the most. The pain is also interesting but mostly as a tool to create the D/s dynamic between us. But I think in her terminology she thinks more of service or psychological submission as being submissive. Where when we play together there’s no real role playing or verbal submission.
That kind of discrepancy in labels, in this case between two people who have played a lot together, really brought home to me how fuzzy this whole area is.
I think the world of kink is way to diverse to group everybody into neat little labels. Personally, I guess I’d be closest to “Masochistic / Sexual submissive” because I’m definitely not lifestyle, but if I don’t get tied up and hurt from time to time, I start to go a little insane.
On the other hand, my wife is naturally sexually submissive and likes to be “taken”, which I do because I know how much pleasure it gives her. Although as of late, she’s been getting more adventuresome as a sub, and that’s fed into me going way beyond tied-up sex for her.
I naturally assumed that the pleasure I’d derive from this would be knowing how much pleasure she got from it, but I’m not going to lie, domming her is actually a lot of fun for me in its own right.
So now I don’t know what the hell I am anymore. Guess I’m a switch now!
The problem is that people use labels to communicate all the time. They’re not only a useful shorthand, but they also shape how people think. So while I agree that it’s impossible to neatly divide everyone into perfect kinky groups, if you don’t have a good shared vocabulary it creates all sorts of issues. It doesn’t matter so much in daily personal interaction, or in blogs like this one where I simply tend to point to stuff I think is interesting, but it is a problem if you want to talk about kink culture, or its intersection with mainstream culture, or sexual politics, or explain it to interested newbies, etc.
And yes, if you enjoy domming your wife and getting tied/hurt, that sounds like a switch to me. Welcome to your new role! 🙂