Peroxide put up an interesting post recently about the desire for a man who is both a submissive and an alpha male.
I’ve been seeing a familiar refrain when dommes describe their male partners, usually along the lines of: “you would never know he’s submissive outside the bedroom” or “in his professional life he’s a real alpha male, but to me he’s submissive.”
Peroxide
He makes some interesting points and the post had a number of thoughtful and positive comments, so it’s worth reading the whole thing. It caught my attention because I’ve also noticed similar themes in blogs and forums, but I decode them slightly differently. Of course I’m not a dominant woman, and have no special insight into this particular desire. But I’ve never let a silly thing like an absence of facts or a lack of domain knowledge get in the way of my opinions before, and don’t see why I should start now.
I should begin by saying I really hate the alpha/beta terminology. It’s a reduction past the point of absurdity. No person is one thing in all situations at all times. I recently saw a comment about Ted Conferences, where someone claimed that they used to be all about the alpha males, the CEOs, but now it was full of the beta VPs. That’s perhaps an accurate description from a purely biological perspective, but it’s ludicrous given the common usage of the word. The alpha to omega classification might make sense when you’re a pride of lions, but doesn’t map at all to the kind of fluid dynamic social structures humans inhabit.
Peroxide attributes part of this common desire for an ‘alpha’ as a reaction to very non-alpha associated kinks.
Part of it I think is pushing back against the over-prevalent, sissy/forced-femme/cuckold submale fantasy that that is being pushed as the way that Femdom works.
Peroxide
I agree with the reaction part, but I’m not sure I would assign it narrowly to that specific stimulus. For one thing I don’t think that particular set of kinks are ‘being pushed’ as widely as sometimes gets attributed. They also sound like perfectly reasonable ways to play for couples that enjoy it. The use of ‘submale fantasy’ suggests those are purely male driven desires, when that’s clearly not exclusively the case.
What I’ve observed from these kind of discussions is that the desire isn’t typically for an extroverted, aggressive, alpha group leader (although it can be). It’s more to avoid a passive, unimaginative, needy wet blanket who needs to be micro-managed. I think some men interpret submissive as ‘You need to tell me what to do, I no longer should need to think.” That’s isn’t an attractive quality for most women, dominant or not.
I remember one female blogger (although I don’t remember exactly who) relating how she’d gone for dinner with a prospective submissive and he’d insisted on having her order for him, and then when that didn’t go down well, ordering exactly what she’d ordered. That was his idea of being a submissive. In many ways that kind of behavior reminds me of guys who think emailing penis shots is an appropriate introduction on a dating site. It’s a way of treating the other person as simply a delivery mechanism for their personal sexual fantasy.
I’d suggest that confidence, competence and empathy are three of the most desired characteristics. That’s the ability to understand what the other person wants, and the ability to provide it in a drama free fashion, no alpha chest beating required. Of course, I haven’t exactly been tearing up the kinky dating scene recently (or ever), so caveat emptor.
For images I’ve gone with some shots of men making themselves useful. The first came via the GeekDomme tumblr. The second is another image from Domina M.
