There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Delving Into Deviance, triggered by a post entitled ‘The devaluation of male submission‘. I came at it via Tom Allen on his vanilla edge blog, along with his interview at Dishevelled Domina.
I think it’s worth reading and raises some good points. I certainly agree with Tom when he talks about a lack of cultural models for male submission and female dominance. Outside of the stereotypical dominatrix dynamic, there is really no good understanding of these roles in conventional society. I also have a lot of sympathy with Dev in her original post when she expresses frustration at the ice queen archetype and the preconceptions of what femdom should and should not be. I frequently feel the need to fight against the tired cliche of the snarling domme dressed in leather. However, a number of the arguments in her post had me scratching my head.
One contention seemed to be that the ratio of submissive men to dominant women is 1:1, and she links to a post by Bitchy Jones arguing exactly the same thing. Now while there are a lot of good things you can say about Bitchy’s writing, such as entertaining, thought provoking and heartfelt, I never found logical coherent arguments to be her strong suit. In this case the argument seems to run: The ratio of dominant women to submissive men is 1:20 (made-up number), the actual ratio is 1:1 (made-up number), therefore 19:20 (made-up number) women are being excluded from their true identity as dominants. This is because of the current screwed up culture of femdom (supposition without evidence).
All the anecdotal evidence points to the existence of considerably more submissive men than dominant women. As Dev herself says, any woman signing up to a BDSM site is going to get an instant influx of men messaging her to be her slave. I think it’s fine to say that more women would enjoy exploring a more dominant role given better cultural models. But if you’re going to go completely against the existing evidence, and claim that the ratio is actually 1:1, it’d be nice to have some real data points to base that on. Or even some anecdotal evidence to throw onto the other side of the scales.
There’s also this statement:
As I’ve come to realize the fucked up state of femdom, I’ve concurrently become aware of the fucked up state of male submission – namely, it’s devaluation. While female dominants are made out to be some scarce resource, male submissives are depicted as a dime a dozen – common, and, even more disturbingly, weak and worthless.
Who is depicting male submissives as weak and worthless? When does this happen? The role doesn’t exist in the mainstream world, so it’s hard to see how it can be denigrated in that context. Good pro-dommes certainly don’t treat their submissives as weak and worthless. Maybe the reference is to local kink community activities, but that seems like it’d depend very much on the specific local community in question. Male submissives obviously can’t rely on their submission alone to make them valuable, the numbers just don’t work out. But that’s true for most things in life, both kinky and vanilla. Any relationship is about the total package each individual brings into it, and components of that package that are both rare and useful will always be more valued.
Finally, there’s this:
Pro-Dommes meet a need. They are the supply to a demand. However, they contribute to the perpetuation of a picture of female domination that just doesn’t reflect real life.
Whose real life are we talking about? Are not pro-dommes part of real life? They’re certainly part of my life, which seems pretty real to me. There often seems to be a tendency to draw very black and white distinctions between pro and lifestyle play. But in reality pro-dommes are normally lifestyle players themselves. And many lifestyle people enjoying playing with a lot of the accoutrements found in a professional dungeon. Pro-dommes aren’t dressing up in leather because they all own shares in cattle farms. They’re doing it because lots of people find it attractive.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Dev’s writing and I’ll be adding her blog to my blogroll. I’d certainly like there to be a lot more dominant women out there, and treasuring male submission is a fabulous thing to do. I’m just not sure I follow all the arguments in this particular post.
This image has been floating around a number of tumblr sites. I found it on lunar black. I liked it for showing an atypical activity for a femdom situation and still making it work. I’m certainly no fan of strictly demarcated lines for what is and isn’t appropriate dominant behaviour.
