Submissive != Robot

Over and over I see submissive men say things like “a sub’s only purpose is to obey his dom”, and “my feelings don’t matter as long as my dom is happy”, “if I had a dom I’d do exactly as she said, no matter what”, “she’s the dom, it’s her right to do whatever she wants”.

No! Stop that! If I wanted a robot, I’d fucking build one. I want submission that’s about me, not about your own self-loathing. Nobody with any sense of self-worth truly believes their feelings don’t matter as long as someone else if happy. I understand making sacrifices for people you care about, but choosing to put someone else’s happiness first sometimes is very different from going through life believing your feelings don’t matter at all.

Not only is that unhealthy, it’s also useless. There’s a reason the safety announcements they do on airplanes always say to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping anyone else put theirs on – you can’t help anyone else if you don’t have anything to give. I’d much prefer a man who takes care of himself so he can give me his best to someone who ignores his own needs until he collapses. Or more likely, until his simmering resentment finally boils over. You can only kid yourself that you don’t have needs for so long. I’d really rather have a sub who will tell me when problems come up and give me a chance to fix them than one who will stuff it down and stuff it down until one day he explodes, we have a screaming fight, and he never speaks to me again.

I want the opportunity to do something nice for my sub. Romantic relationship or not, either way I still want it to be an exchange, not a one-sided drain on the sub. I want to feel needed, not spend my time wondering why this guy puts up with me and when he’s going to wise up and ditch me. Until I finally develop psychic powers, I can only do that if my sub opens up to me and lets me know what would make him happy.

Even if I found someone deluded enough to believe that I have the right to take from him without giving anything back, actually doing that would still make me a complete and utter douchebag. If I did that I wouldn’t be able to respect myself, and why on earth would you want to submit to someone who knows she’s doing the wrong thing and does it anyway?

For that matter, why on earth would I want to dominate a complete doormat? Giving orders to someone who will obey them as mindlessly as a robot isn’t any more exciting than ordering a pizza. Well, maybe it’s a little bit more exciting if your local pizza place is terrible and they always screw up your order.

Finally, acting like there’s a submission olympics you can win by being the subbliest of them all is just sad and stupid. There’s no magical kink council that’s going to award you a dom of your very own for getting into enough internet pissing matches about who’s more submissive. People who say they have no needs are either lying or deluded, and neither one of those things is attractive. Not to mention, you’re helping scare off nice, thoughtful submissive guys by making it look like this ridiculous performance of self-loathing is just the way you do male submission. For fuck’s sake, cut that shit out.

Guys, anyone who tells you that your only purpose is to please her, that your feelings don’t matter, and that she has the right to behave however she likes no matter how much that hurts you, is a complete asshole. Run! There will be other doms.

6 thoughts on “Submissive != Robot

  1. Ok the submissives who swear that their Lady is all that matters make me want to go native and hail from tribe slap-a-hoe! Seriously! How will a dominant partner enjoy humiliation play when you present yourself as already worthless?!

    Real submission is in showmanship in my not even sorta humble oppinion! If you present yourself as worthwhile and have a good sense of mental stability then you are already standing out and ahead of the pack of mindless drones. I don’t know of someone who is interested in a submissive who is either too stupid or too timid to be able to voice whether s/he likes rain or a clear day!

    When your scene is over and the fetish gear turns into lounging clothes, that’s when the real test in submission starts! Anyone can mind their manners and behave at a kinky event for an hour! But you will know how submissive you really are when you trust your partner with a deep fear or a embaressing mistake and then you trust them not to exploit that.

    Sometimes the kinkiest thing I do is the dishes! And sometimes I get told no when I request a flogging good time. I don’t throw a fit. (Even when I want to) I am a live in submissive (living the dream of vacumming and loading the dishwasher with kinky play sometimes not happening for over a week or more when my partner may be traveling or we are both busy)

    Real submission really starts when you can handle your dominant partner when s/he says “kinky time is over and now I just want to talk about our day”

    Just my not so humble oppinion.

    Now I am done being chief slap-a-hoe

    -hands over the speaking stick-

  2. Absolutely. Blindingly obvious, but it’s depressing reading some of the crap on, for example, Fetlife where one gets the impression that there’s a lot of narcissism disguised as D/s.

    Me and my Mistress? We’re a work in progress. A two-way street. I often drop hints or make suggestions. She loves them because they help her to discover and develop new aspects of her power. She’s a very busy person in RL and she appreciates the fact that I’m there to do some of the heavy lifting in our relationship.

    Zealots would say that I’m ‘topping from the bottom’ but that’s just a bafflegab buzz phrase coined by D/s puritans who are up themselves.

  3. One of the many things I love about my partner is that she is very attentive to my needs. I’m really new to all of this, and she has been OK taking things slowly at first so I have time to adjust and become comfortable with things. After play, especially after heavy play when I’m feeling wobbly, she makes sure I have something to drink and gives me plenty of cuddles while I recover. That kind of concern makes me feel much more secure handing power over to her.

    But my submission isn’t automatic, even to her. There are some things I’ll do for her without a second thought, because they are things I really like doing for her. There are other things, though, that are uncomfortable and make me feel really self-conscious. She has told me that those are the times when my submission means the most to her: when she can see and feel that I’m conflicted and I do what she wants, anyway. And she feels secure exploring those places, because she knows I’ll use my safeword if I need to and that I’ll tell her if something is too much for me.

  4. Loved this. There was another blog just today (Mina – At longing’s end) discussion how she fell out of D/s relationship love because people were being generic, judging others by their roles in a relationship.
    You are so right, why is someone trying to compete in a submission olympics? These roles are complicated, and they certainly need to suit the individuals – not a generic “I’ll give her everything, and expect nothing” doormat.

  5. This is another one of the 56,924 things that piss me off. I’ve seen this attitude both from dominant women as well as submissive men. We hear a lot about “do-me subs” but there are also “do-me doms” with this attitude.

  6. These are people who have never been in an F/m relationship. They are immature kink-wise, they’ve watched Femdom porn their whole life and their desires have artificially grown outside of the scope of reality.

    You can’t really blame them.

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