We had some discussion a while back about submission, but it wasn’t completed. Because of further private discussion I am raising it again, thought it will make some groan. Tant pis.
Friends (and some enemies) know that I have struggled to come to a place with this issue. A year ago I started some research/discovery, and was caught up in so many harrowing issues. I either fought it/denied it/tried to manipulate it/disown it…sometimes all at the same time. I just couldn’t get a handle on it.
Part of the problem I believe was I came to the ‘subject’ late in life. I’m no spring chicken. I also have had to be very dominant in my life before. Some know that because of some particular work I carried a gun. That will impact your ideas about yourself, even if you have no idea of submission. Coming upon this issue of submission, I really struggled…still do. My husband was of no help at all. He was hoping any D/s issue would fly by and I would come to my senses. Well, I didn’t…..and once that became obvious to him, he started to get interested…in part of being a dominant. But there was a lag of almost two years and I went through a lot. I admit I have resentment towards him today because instead of partnering with me in this investigation…he ignored it. He’s interested now because he knows that this issue is sticking around, and underneath it all, he’s a very traditional man, with some real dominancy in him. Before I thought he was just stubborn. Now I know its purpose.
He’s a man….and he’s not broken.
I have come to the conclusion that submission can take many forms…not just the stuff we see and read about. I have to be careful, because I am reading the Gor books from the first onwards. There are some very seductive parts of Norman’s philosophy that make me double up..and not with laughter. There is this issue of submission and submission that is slavery, and some of it hits my gut hard. Perhaps it’s the overpowering presence of a strong male with power and control at his command. I don’t know, but I do know that we live in a real world, and men just aren’t like Norman’s sexy characters.
(And..sex has so much to do with it. I was thinking last night how wonderful that our genitals basically never wear out. Maybe our desire for our particular partners does, but our apparatus keeps going like the energizer bunny. At all ages…in fact..as I grow older, the sexual interests and desires reveal themselves to have different levels and a zest for adventure. That’s the good news. I was told so by a Dom I respect this is true. He’s in his 60’s and doesn’t seem to have any flagging yet.)
However…..I have noticed a change in my behavior for a while now. Before, faced with a dominant man, I would get mouthy and challenge him. I seemed to ‘have’ to reestablish my own power in light of what was in front of me. Now? Well, perhaps it’s a more ‘natural’ thing….
but if a man is truly powerful…I am amazed and I find myself reacting in a much different way. I feel more feminine. I feel that I don’t have to challenge him. And if I get to know him a bit….I assume that he will ‘protect’ me. Don’t ask me from what….pitbulls, flying glass, but that he just will.
A lot of men rail against feminism and the women’s movement for changing women from more traditional behaviors and in the doing..changing men. Confusing them. I think this is too shallow an answer to what shifted, happened, changed, between men and women over the last few decades. Economics and social pressures happened…women worked and had to for survival…and that of their families. Divorce, etc. All sorts of social changes happened.
John Norman talks about something called Natural Order…I’m not going to open a discussion here about that today, but perhaps if there is interest later…ok. (I find that there are numerous Goreans reading this site, though they rarely show their faces, but my stats show they are coming from Gorean sites or whatever…)
A lot of people in D/s blame women for being bossy, but from where I sit…men are just too lazy. Many like the fact that they don’t have to put forth any effort to ‘head the household’. I see this in many cultures, not only my own. They are broken men.
So, what is submission to you? I am getting a better idea what it is to me….but damn if it still isn’t so sexual.
I guess I just can’t get my hands out of my crotch.
Lady Nyo
Tags: D/s, Feminism, Gorean, Natural Order, power and control, sex, submission
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
December 13, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Hey Jane,
Alot of self searching here. I think you hit on a few good points. Strong women in strong rolls are submissive too. They want to be submissive to their partner, give up the power they had to front all day. To their partners they become gentle, submissive. You said you thought you were dominant. I call it survival. We must all do what we have to do to survive and be strong. Even if you have a submissive nature that doesn’t make you weak. You offer up your submission to a dominant man.
Norman has some good philosophy and there are many who agree with it. There are also the nay sayers. They think why would a woman want to submit to a male. Heh! It is the natural order of things, even in the animal world. We have castarated males with all of our equality and wishing to be their eqauls. There are just some things we can’t be equal in. Maybe I am wrong. My nature is submissive also, so I can’t understand the other way of thinking. I don’t like weak men. Or submissive men, they turn me off.
My rant for now
shia
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December 13, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I agree with your comments, mostly. But I don’t think women have castrated men with our demands of equality.
They seem to do a fine job of it themselves….
I think that is an easy explanation for the present malaise. Some men hold onto this issue…feminism, because it covers what exists…but it’s a red herring I think.
Of course there are somethings we can’t be equal to them in: weight lifting, ah….heavy labor without the uterus falling out….can’t write our names in the snow, other things that escape me right now…but the issue is generally one of physical power.
I’ve HAD to be dominant faced with some situations…but generally, I feel deeply submissive…it’s just this: it takes a man with real power to make me want to fall to my knees. it just doesn’t apply to every man in the vicinity. It’s not even what they say….it’s a silent presence. Something transmits across the room, and something in me really takes notice.
I also don’t like weak men….or submissive men. I find that they really set me off…my nasty streak comes out and I don’t like that. Very obviously to me…it’s confusing and I don’t know how to respond to them.
Lady Nyo….
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