My post ‘Worthless worms : Hot or not?‘ attracted a lot of thoughtful commentary. It’s clearly a topic that provokes strong opinions from both sides of D/s slash. This post is intended to address a few follow-up points that struck me after writing it and reading the responses.
In the original post I used degradation, humiliation and objectification interchangeably. That was careless as they’re related but different concepts. If I had a virtual whiteboard I’d be standing at it now drawing partially overlapping circles. The worthless worm trope is primarily about the sense of self and personal identity. It’s very directed degradation (you pathetic sniveling coward, you’re not fit to lick my boots, etc.). Humiliation is more situational. Anyone can be humiliated in the right circumstances, no matter how self-assured and confident they might generally be. Objectification is about removing humanity and personality. It’s not about being worthless, but identifying worth through function and utility. A lot of people get off on a mixture of these kinks, but when writing about a possible F/m mismatch, I was primarily thinking of the first. I rarely observe female dominants write or blog about degradation, but objectification and, to a lesser extent, humiliation, does crop up in positive contexts.
Ferns astutely observed that this is a style of play that often conflates the person with the kink. Presenting themselves primarily through their fetish is a common problem for guys who’ve spent too long surfing femdom porn. I think it’s particularly likely to happen with this kink, because it’s primarily about the perception of the person and their value. i.e. Exactly the things that are emphasized, normally in a positive fashion, when building a new relationship. I guess the (badly broken) thought process is ‘Why bother to put myself forward as a valuable person to know, when I ultimately want to be treated as if I’m not?’
It’s also true that cliches of commercial femdom don’t help anyone into this style of play. For men it gets them lumped into the same bucket as the jerk offs writing emails about how they’re not fit to lick the dirt from the boots of any female dominant blogger they encounter. For many dominant women it’s a stereotype they’re trying to push against, and writing about it is only likely to lead to more emails from the aforementioned jerks offs.
All that said, I do standby my entirely anecdotal observation that there’s a mismatch here in F/m that doesn’t exist in M/f. As someone who doesn’t have this kink, I’m selfishly kind of glad about that. Many of the F/m tumblrs that focus on degradation and humiliation tend to veer all to easily into misogyny. I’m happy that it’s incredibly rare to encounter misandry in femdom blogs or forums. If you are a submissive guy who occasionally enjoys a bit of pathetic sniveling, then the best advice would be to make sure you compartmentalize it and treat it strictly as a kink like any other. While there might be male dominants who’ll respond to a new submissive describing themselves as a worthless slut in need of training, your odds of success with that opening line and a female dominant will be very close to zero.
Trampling beneath a dominant woman’s feet often seems to be a theme of the ‘worthless submissive’ style of play. This is from the appropriately named Woman Worship site. I particularly liked her choice of reading matter.
