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LadyNTrainer -> Models for male submission: sexual objectification (2/3/2010 3:40:31 PM)
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Cloudboy linked an image of an unashamed male diva here that I thought was a positive inspiration for males who wanted to be beautiful. Someone complained, and it was moved. I don't think that was a well considered decision.
Images of beautiful, sexually objectified men are hard to come by in the stereotypical world of femdom, because for the most part, "straight" femdom porn is all about objectifying and sexualizing the woman. A submissive man who wants to be desirable, owned, controlled, objectified, used, pretty, hot, a fuckable piece of meat, property, etc, doesn't have a lot of healthy role models except feminization. And that's not a pigeonhole everybody needs to be shoved into.
Bitchy Jones should be required reading. I don't agree with everything she says, but a lot of it is spot-on. Femdom culture is, for the most part, pretty fucked up. Probably not beyond repair, as BJ thinks it is. I do just fine being my own badass self in the community, and for the most part I feel supported and respected in my choices. But yeah, fucked up. When the height of submission and humiliation is supposed to be making a man more like a woman, specifically like a sexually active woman who enjoys normal penetrative sex, and the apex of female dominance means that you have a (fake) cock, that mindset can be a problem. What does it really say about your sexuality when you believe those things? When you believe that PIV sex or sucking cock is bad, dirty, degrading, humiliating or lowering to the woman, or to the person getting fucked or doing the sucking? Why is sex bad, why is cum dirty, and why is a woman (or a man dressed as a woman) a whore or a slut if s/he wants some?
Most of all, why does a man have to dress like a woman before he can be seen as beautiful and desirable eye candy? Is the fundamental equation here woman = passive sex object, man = dominant consumer? Where's the difference between this social paradigm and male dominance?
This shit really doesn't smell any better if you turn it upside down in the toilet bowl. Sex-negative femdom is No Fun. The difference between this and Andrea Dworkin is what, exactly? The difference between frigid femdoms and "Nice girls don't like sex" is what, exactly? Yeah. I'm not seeing it.
If a man is dominant, his power comes from what he does, or is capable of doing. He is strong, active, competent, a responsible leader and caretaker. If a woman is dominant, her power comes from what she wears and what her body looks like. She's hot and she dresses in uncomfortable clothing that shows off her sexual desirability and makes her a sex object. So what's wrong with THIS picture? Well, there's nothing wrong with enjoying sexy clothes and being attractive, but if you're stuck in the mindset that the only dominance you're allowed is the passive sort, it's probably worth doing some thinking outside the box. If you look good in heels but are fucking worthless in a crisis, it doesn't matter much what you do in the bedroom. You shouldn't be the leader. And if you are a heterosexual female and dominant, then why isn't your male submissive supposed to be looking good enough to be YOUR pleasing eye candy, instead of the other way around? Isn't that, you know, the whole point of being dominant, that your submissive is the lovely sex object and you the consumer? Except that's not how it works in the images of femdom we most often see.
Stereotypical femdom falls apart when it hits the real world, because stereotypical femdom is actually about powerlessness and being a passive, sexualized object of other people's desires. Does that really sound like fun to you? Yeah, me neither. It's no wonder that male submissives far outnumber female dominants in the scene. How many strong, powerful, self-respecting women want to be a powerless sex object who isn't even allowed to have sex? I'll pass on that, thanks. And "male submissives" who try to force me into that Procrustean mold to fit their sexual fantasies are no different from male dominants or just plain bigoted assholes who try to do the same thing. I don't want any of that from either end.
The dominant cultural paradigm is a mess. So many things in our language and our culture demonstrate the sexual hostility and general fucked-up-edness between men and women that is the prevalent meme. And it goes both ways; where women are whores and bitches and objects of no worth except for their sexual attractiveness and utility to men, men are scumbags whom it's totally okay to lie to, manipulate with guilt or sex and take for all they're worth. Both sexes try to "score", to "hit that:, to "get some off of her" or "get something off of him". This is not a normal or healthy way to relate to any human being, let alone someone you want to be intimate with. This isn't love, it's war. It's definitely not a supportive partnership, nor would it even qualify as a friendship. I'm not sure what to call it, other than seriously fucked up. I sure as hell don't want any.
If I don't honestly like and respect someone enough to be committed to being a good friend to them, and trust them to be the same for me, why in the world would I want to be intimate with them? I wouldn't, but apparently the average dude and dude-ette in mainstream culture doesn't think this way. Their heads are stuck in this permanent gender separation meme that puts them on opposite sides of a war, a deep and impassable gulf between them.
The problem with this particular meme is that even though the average "enlightened" man is way past the worst crudities of this attitude, it still hangs around in the deepest corners of most people's psyches, and we get bombarded with the subtle and not so subtle messages reinforcing it literally daily. BDSM and femdom culture in particular is affected, when you'd think that of all places it shouldn't be. I'm not talking about the petty annoyance of mandoms on the scene who think their dick is God and that all femdoms are really subbies who just haven't met God yet. If I feel like it, I can usually send that type home with his much-vaunted organs between his legs crying for Mommy, or begging me to dom him, or both. But mostly they're not worth the effort. I'm talking about male subs who aren't sexy, and who don't know how to be sexy except in the ways that male-imagined femdom culture portrays. And those ways are, for the most part, deeply tainted by the fundamentally sex-negative ugliness that spawned this culture in the first place.
Wanting to be sexually desirable - wanting to be pretty - is a good first step. Except that in popular BDSM culture, the only way for a man to be seen as a sex object, a fuckable piece of meat, a hot little property, is to dress like a woman. That's one of the more subtle and damaging relics of maledom culture, and it keeps showing up in femdom where it doesn't belong. I'm not dissing the transgendered or cross dressers for whom it is a legitimate gender expression or a sexual fetish, though I will question the roots of that fetish and suspect that once again, dominant culture has probably had its way by raping the brain of another male submissive. There really are other ways for a man to be pretty and desirable as a sexualized object without cross dressing; if you're not trans and you are a male submissive, go explore them and see if they ring your bells.
The only men who seem to escape from this paradigm of sex object = female and horny + female = slut are gay or bisexual. This is the fundamental reason for my deep seated preference for bisexual men. It's not just that I like to watch men sucking dick, though I must confess I do. It's that I like being related to as another human being, completely absent the socially constructed gender bullcrap. Don't relate to me in a gender category; relate to me as your partner, your best buddy, your friend, your lover, your dominant, who could be either or both genders. It's bisexual men who can be most successful at this, in my experience.
For the most part, straight men don't know how to be desirable, or to be desired. Here's another excellent narrative on the subject. Being desired, being sexually objectified and used, is not exclusively female property. A man can be entirely masculine and still express his desire to be wanted this way. In fact it's very, very hot when he does. Gay men are more likely to get it right, which is why I much prefer gay porn to the absolute garbage that passes for hetporn. Hets can learn to get it too, it usually just takes longer. On the het male spectrum, it's the nerds and geeks who are not any good at the stupid social gender games who do it best. Geeky = sexy, and a lot less bullshit to deal with..
I love this blog, Male Submission Art. This is everything that is sexy about male submission to me. No, it's not the rock hard abs, though I certainly wouldn't kick those out of bed for eating crackers. It's unashamedly beautiful men who are bound and suffering because they consent to. That's beautiful to me. Grace and dignity in submission, willing surrender, sexual objectification that is all male. I like that. It gives me a happy.
Bitchy Jones has a lot more negative things to say about strapons and genderbending than I do, mostly because my perspective on it is that of a genderbender. When I fuck with my strapon, I am not equating having a cock to being the dominant. I'm genderbending because that's the energy that is really inside of me. I'm not trans, but for me gender is a fluid thing that I like to play with, not a pigeonhole that I want to be stuck in. There is no gender bullshit when you both have dicks and you're fucking, just cock and ass and tightness and heat and wet and a lot of primal growling, and it's seriously fucking hot. That kind of energy kicks in automatically with bisexual men when we're being queers together; it takes a lot more work when my bottom's a het. Genderbending on his end can be pretty fucking hot as well. Being genderbent myself, I certainly do appreciate bottoms who are similarly bent. Androgyny can be lovely, and men can definitely rock the lingerie and look sexy as well as wonderfully gender transgressive. I just can't get off on it as humiliation, because of what that implies of what they really think of being female, looking sexy, and getting fucked. It's not good.
I do think strap-ons are fun. Really I do. But BJ has a few spot-on things to say about what's wrong with them, or about what CAN potentially be wrong with them, and it's worth a read. Fuck Me and Fuck Me Again. Excellent assessment there; I have definitely run into those dynamics, and there's nothing that can make my hard-on go limp faster than this kind of mindset on the part of the guy who wants to get fucked. Fortunately there is such a thing as the rare male submissive who doesn't think this way, and they are quite delightful to bend over and have my wicked way with.
I like getting fucked too. I mean, hello, I was born with this set of plumbing, and that's how it was designed to work and feel good when you have a normal healthy sex drive. No, this is not a submissive act, and I'd like to grab the people who automatically assume that by the throat and rape them with a ten foot long strapon. Penetration does not equal submission and penetrating does not equal dominance. In some cultures, the verbal metaphors for sex involve the vagina "eating" the penis or "taking" the man's essence, and it is considered a potentially dangerous submissive act for him to offer up his most vulnerable part that way. Like a submissive wolf baring his throat to a dominant wolf, it is an act of trust and vulnerability. I like this metaphor a lot better than the ones we have in our culture. BJ has some nice things to say about it as well, even though I really don't like the word "slut" to describe someone who has a normal, healthy appreciation for sex. Putting a negative spin on the idea of liking sex is really pretty fucking sick, if you think about it.
Sex feels good. It is a celebration and a joy. It can be dominant or submissive or vanilla depending on the emotional associations you and your partner have with what you are doing. Giving a blowjob can be an incredibly powerful act of domination and control. The D/s roles just aren't cemented onto any particular sex acts. Basically if it's fun for me and it makes me hot, then I am going to do it or make you do it to me, when I want it and how I want it. That's dominant. Conforming to somebody else's fucked up Puritanical ideas of what good little dominants do and don't do is not my idea of a good time, nor is it very dominant.
In general I agree with BJ; I've encountered the mindset she's talking about in the BDSM community, especially in het male subs, and I don't like it one bit. In fact it pretty much takes an act of God to get me to even consider playing with a heterosexual man. They are mostly No Fun because they honestly don't know how to be sexy in submission, and their minds are usually stuck in this horrible and very unsexy rut about what is submissive and what is femdom and how the genders are supposed to relate. There are exceptions, but they're rare. I'm deeply grateful for the partners I have because they're not that way, and I consider myself very, very lucky to have them.
More inspirational role models of men who are not ashamed or afraid to be objects of our desiring, please. Not less. If an image of male beauty does not resonate with your personal idea of femdom, or with the popular stereotypes of what femdom "should" be, please think twice before trying to enforce your preferences on the rest of us. Thank you.
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