ShaktiSama
Posts: 1674
Joined: 8/13/2007 Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: LaMistressa I get very tired of submissive men my age thinking I can somehow magically drag them out of the kink closet or that I'll play along with the traditional male/female dynamic when I'm not in the play space or bedroom. This does not seem to be an issue for many of the gen y people I have met (I won't presume to judge an entire generation.) A-fucking-MEN. Leaving aside the baiting and sneering tone in the OP to this thread, feminism is a huge issue in my own life. I have personally had the date with the late-40's "Mr. Wonderful" submissive--a lawyer with a six-figure income, two houses and a country estate, fully equipped dungeon and a stable full of race horses, who kept an antiquarian collection of historical coins and artifacts including a fragment of the True Cross and who had deep submissive and masochistic sexual needs. By all lights, on paper, we should have been perfectly compatible--we had shared interests in history and archaeology, we were within a decade of each other in age, etc.. Unfortunately, he was raised with the values of his generation. We didn't have the shared understanding of the world that is necessary for two people to get along--and Lord knows we didn't. Example: he wanted to argue that the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders were as empowering for women as the football team itself is for men--he refused to recognize the enormous disparity in income, the fact that the cheerleaders have no names on their jerseys, the fact that throughout their careers from junior high to the pros, cheerleaders are essentially an honorary group of symbolic prostitutes associated with the team. The fact that one woman from the group was able to run a successful dance studio in the city after being a cheerleader, in his opinion, was perfectly just and fair and completely balanced with the millions of dollars of wages and endorsements which the men on that football field pull down. That was enough "equality" for women, in his view. By contrast--my so-called "Gen-Y" submissive partner does not carry the burden of a sexist upbringing. (He also hates professional sports, which makes me love him even more. ) Politics, human rights and social justice are extremely important to me, both personally and professionally. My submissive at age 20 shares these values with me, and has been active in a number of causes over the years, including Food Not Bombs, women's rights and gay rights groups. Do older people belong to human rights groups as well? Yes, they do, but there is a reason that so many human rights efforts over the last 60 years have depended on people from 18-25, who are the most willing to embrace change and who often have to take the most risk--this was true of the Civil Rights movement, the Draft Resistance movement, and remains true of the environmentalist movements, peace movements and anti-corporate protests of today. My Gen-Y submissive follows in the footsteps of other idealists who were once young firebrands and will eventually be community leaders with real social and political power. I wish there were more like him of ALL ages. On the personal level: Is my Gen-Y submissive "demanding", difficult to discipline, or lacking in submissive qualities? Not at all. In his relationship with me, he's the most loving and accommodating, least "topping from the bottom", least manipulating, foot-dragging and bullying man I've ever met, of any orientation. He benefits from having an immense sense of ease and comfort with his own BDSM identity, which is rare in a person of any age--his masochistic and submissive desires are almost completely naturalized to him. In our personal life together, he seems to want nothing more than to be a good submissive--a good man, a good lover, a good slave, and My Good Boy in general. The catch, of course, is that he wants to be these things for ME--not necessarily for every woman, and certainly not for every person who claims authority over him in the rest of the world. He conducts himself with grace and restraint in public, but he does not "submit" to just anyone, or outside the proper context. He has to be at least flirting with a dominant woman before he shows a submissive side. In other words, I see exactly the same qualities in the Gen Y man that Texas Ma'am does--I just interpret them very differently. Yes, you're bloody damned right, my Gen Y submissive IS a rebel, he IS a strong personality, and he DOESN'T give his loyalty, his service or his obedience at the drop of a hat, "just because" other people feel entitled to it. He DOES question authority, especially institutional authority, he DOES feel empowered to declare just about anything to be bullshit, and he IS willing to disrupt or subvert the systems around him. Especially if he feels they are immoral or unjust. Whether he is more "self-centered" and "undisciplined" than my own generation and those previous is VERY much in doubt, however. Having lived through the 1970's and seen the excesses of the Free Love, Pop Pills and Fuck-Everything-that-Moves Disco Era, the Reagan Kill-'em-All, Rape-the-Corpses and Steal-Their-Wallets Era, the Lie-Through-Your-Damned-Teeth Pretend-You-Stand-For-Something and Betray-and-Rob-the-People excesses of both the Bushreichs and the Clinton Era, the rises and falls of Cocaine Addiction and Crack Addiction now followed by the new rise of Methamphetamine Addiction? Yeah. Sorry, but I'm not too impressed by the "discipline" and "selflessness" and "lack of demands" of these generations that now stand in judgment of Gen Y. Try smelling your own shorts once in a while, people--you'll find they stink plenty. If the younger generation is not too impressed with us, and judges us by the state of the world that we're handing down to them? Gotta say--I can't blame them. The older generations have run the ecology, the economy, the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions into the damned ground. Some of us seem to want young people to give us automatic reverence and respect for our age--but what the HELL have we done to deserve it? Are we handing them the keys to a bright future, a better world than the one we received from our parents and grandparents? Or have we made just about everything worse? What have we done to earn our status as sacred cows? Why should they take our word for ANYTHING, when the authorities of the older generation, from priests to Presidents, from cops to CEO's, prove over and over and OVER that they lie, they rape, they betray everything they are supposed to stand for? I'll agree that the modern generation is more cynical and more angry even than my own was, in many respects. I disagree that they have no cause. Politically, socially, even economically, I would fully expect them to be trouble--and quite frankly, I think their elders have it coming. The fact that there are people here who are willing to blame the state of the world or the economy on people in their early 20's, who are trying to hold down their first jobs and have only voted in one election so far? Is absolutely absurd, in my opinion. If you want any power and privilege to be associated with age, you have to take the responsibility that goes with it. I've been a full citizen with voting privileges and legal rights for 21 years--my submissive has had the same privileges for 2 years. Which of us has had more opportunity to shape the world according to their values? Which of us is more responsible for the state of affairs in the world today? *shrug* I could "Cougar" blog all day about how lovely it is to spend time with a man who doesn't need to be hit with a defibrillator to get an erection, sure. But since this thread started with a political, personal and social argument, I've decided to continue in that vein. There are many reasons that I love my Gen Y submissive, and the assumption that even the majority of these are superficial or physical is a mistaken one. The younger generation is different, perhaps, from my own, but how we choose to spin these differences is up to us.
_____________________________
"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." -- Robert A. Heinlein
|