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Thursday, March 15, 2007

Theory: Why subs write more than dom(me)s



Over a very, very late lunch (or early supper), Eileen made the rather endearing comment that she was somewhat intimidated by the profuse amounts of blogging and writing that I do. My response surprised me. I told her, "Well, all subs write more than doms," and just as I said that I asked myself if it were really true.

Now, I certainly can't speak for everyone and I typically dislike over-arching generalizations except when they are understood to be such a thing, but I really do think that submissives typically write more than dominants. In fact, to be even more specific of my own observations, most experiencial writings are publisehd by female submissives, most fantasy was published by male submissives, and most "how to" articles and technically-minded material was published by male dominants. This is an interesting observation in itself, but on the whole my observation is that subs write more stuff.

My theory on this is very straightforward (by which I mean completely unfounded, untested, and underdeveloped): submission is ultimately a very internal process, whereas domination is far more externalized. In other words, submission is largely passive and receptive and domination is active. (This sounds a lot like sex psychology 101, right?)

My hypothesis is thus, perhaps as a result of these properties, submissives (by which I mean myself) tend to take the opportunity to write--and especially blog, due to it's easy push-button publishing nature--to externalize their own submission. Certainly domination also requires high degree of self-analysis, but dommes who play with their subs regularly are already externalizing a lot of things, and perhaps don't have the desire to do so as much as subs seem to.

So there's my completely underdeveloped theory as to why subs write more than dommes do.

On an off-topic but tangentially related topic, finding the wealth of femdom material online that I have is rather new for me. I've never been that interested in it because the last time I really looked for this sort of material was ages ago, and it was really hard to find anything at all, much less anything good. Furthermore, all the femdom stuff I found was so focused on D/s and light play such as light spankings, sissyfication, verbal humiliation, and orgasm control (not that there's anything wrong with any of these; please, bring them on!) that there was very little material about the really fun stuff like hour-long singletail whippings that left men's backs bloodied, threaded piercings used for bondage, torture and interrogation scenes, and brutal cuttings and intense knifeplay. It's just not that easy to find female dominants talking about playing much physically at all. (Of course, I'm really thrilled to have begun finding exceptions to that remark!)

These intense things are, of course, not everyone's cup of tea and that's okay, but they are at the heart of most of my deeper fantasies and so I sought them out where they were available: fictional erotic literature. Granted, these things may not be written about nearly as often because they are really hard to do well, or even at all. Do you have any idea how much preparation an interrogation scene takes? A really involved one that lasts more than a night? A lot!

Ironically, this is the second time I'm writing this entry because my Web browser ate it the first time. How utterly frustrating! Grr on it! Of course, I think the first entry was far more interesting and insightful. Oh, and it was longer too.

4 comments:

Giles English said...

"Granted, these things may not be written about nearly as often because they are really hard to do well, or even at all. "

I think it is hard to do femdom well and not make it cheesy. However, it can be done if you know how.

What scenes would you like to read?

Anonymous said...

There's quite a bit of blogging by submissive persons that seems to stem in part from the need to be found pleasing: performance analysis, aspirations for behavior change, improvement.

There is a real possibility that dominants as a "class" are less introspective about what they do in BDSM. I'm not suggesting less thoughtful in a serious sense. Just the nature of being a "doer."

Dominants are certainly capable of feeling that talking about their motivations and doubts undermines their image.

Anonymous said...

Giles English:

Yes, most Femdom "advertisements" are appalingly unattractive to me as a submissive male. And what scenes would I like to read? Dear lord, I'm almost afraid to say...sometimes my fantasies are too extreme even for me. :) Perhaps I will write an answer to that question one day, but not tonight, my friend.

Richard:

Exactly! Dominants, I feel, are not necessarily less introspective as a class, but they certainly seem to be less extroverted about their introspected thought processes. Perhaps this stems from the very nature of D/s, wherein a submissive often reveals their desires and innermost secrets to the dominant of their choice in order to provide the dominant partner with ammunition to fuel their submission. Interesting circle, I think.

Either way, it's an awesome sort of psychological synergy.

Giles English said...

For most fantasists, I think it feels safer to adhere to cheesy fantasies.

However, I suspect that "true subs" want to submit to a real person rather than a sort of parody dom.

I've been trying to take this to its logical conclusion by finding ways of writing about vanilla doms. My best attempt yet is my whips and stockingtops world: http://chasteerotica.blogspot.com/2006/10/chaste-erotica-whips-and-stockingtops.html