Is D/s pathololgical?
The APA used to think so. Many people still do. Culture tells us that equality is "right." Either sex wanting to be too dominate or too submissive is wrong. Pathological, even. There must be something wrong with them.
Tomio wrote about this in Submission is not Pathological. Is there a high rate of self-identified abuse victims in BDSM? Yes, but Richers et. al suggest not a statistically significant one.
My Dom sometimes is hesitant to embrace true slavery with me. Does slavery mean he doesn't care about me or love me? Does 24/7 mean my needs never get met? Does CNC (consensual nonconsent) mean he could end up raping me? What if he enjoys it? What if I am psychologically damaged by it? What if he breaks my trust and I hate him forever?
These are fears we've both had to work through, and still are. For me, it's more a fear of, "Who am I? Am I bad for liking this? What about the times I hate it? Or when I love it? What do they mean about me?" And the kicker: "Does that make me a bad feminist?" If there's one club in this culture all women are supposedly initiated into at birth and should remain loyal to until death, it's feminism. And that is often interpreted as being equal in everything. To that school of thought, liking slavery or rough sex or a strong man is a bad, bad thing. It can shake your feeling of who are you are a woman.
For male subs, I'd imagine it's just as difficult; culture tells us to be "a man" you have to be assertive and strong.
Sometimes I love submission. Sometimes I act very submissive and wake up the next morning with a feeling of self-loathing. I feel like the things I've enjoyed are bad, wrong, or disgusting. My culture's views on sex, and my fears and worries about my own desires, keep me from embracing what is probably a normal and healthy sexual expression for my husband and me.
Last week, I woke up with that self-loathing feeling. It's the one I imagine the Hollywood version of a sorority girl feels when she wakes up, hung over and naked, in the bed with a nameless and jerky frat boy from the party before. She feels cheap and admonishes herself as she takes the Walk of Shame. That's how I felt.
I crept into the bathroom, berating myself. Why did I let myself do those things? Why did I ask for them? Why did I enjoy them? Who am I?
The words I used to my husband to describe myself were not very pretty. Whorish. Slutty.
"How can it be those things?" he asked. "You don't do them with other men. You don't do them for money. It's intimacy with your husband. You're monogamous."
Logical, but I didn't feel better. I pictured a line of feminists scowling at me from the pagebooks of history, like my sexual preferences might destroy their years of hard work to get women recognized as equals in the workplace and society.
Silly, I know. But I worried.
Now I think I worried to much. Feminism is about choice. Marriage is about spousal intimacy, and no one but God and the spouses can decide what is right or wrong for them in private.
And you don't have to be a "feminist" to be a good woman. You don't have to fit into a box of what womanhood is.
You can just be yourself.
9 comments:
Hi!! I enjoyed this post. Your next to the last paragraph is EXACTLY right. So you need to memorize that and use it for your own good the VERY next time that you start worrying!
Best wishes, Bob.
Wow! You just said everything I think about since we started down this D/s journey. It is good to know I'm not alone. Thank you.
Thank you both. I think this message can be a hard one to remember, no many how many times I go through the process.
I started a D/s relationship with my bf just about 2 months ago. Sometimes I feel a little confused too. But the only thing that matters is our pleasure ;)
I honestly think it is the word "feminist" that messes us up. There are the extremes on that as well as middle ground. Best way to put it is it's like politics. There is a scale.
I used to consider being a feminist a bad thing cause I saw it as the extremists. Now it depends on what you think it incorporates. The dictionary.com simple puts it as follows:
"advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men."
By this you can be a feminist and submissive slave. You believe in men and woman should have equal rights. We can of course chose to let go of them with our spouse and significant other. Your husband respects you and gives you a choice. This is what makes it equal even when we chose the path of submission or domination. It is only a problem when one pushes the something upon the other when unwanted to the point of forcing. As long as things are consensual, there should be no regrets. Though I admit the transition from vanilla relationship to one not can still be hard even with knowing this.
As a side note, my Dom has always said submissives have more power: they set the limits and control what is too far or fast; dominance is an illusion of power and control.
May be what also plays a role here is a lack of appreciation by outsiders (feminists as well as others) of the liberating potential of D/s relationbships.
Very interesting post..thanks for sharing your inner struggles.
Krystal said what I was going to say. The extremists have distorted the idea of feminism. It's about having the choice, but the extremists have made women feel like if they submitted to a man or even let him open the door for her, she was betraying other women.
You choose to submit, you choose.
William
Your post is right on and i think its Great !! Kudos :)
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