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MadameMarque -> RE: fake female doms (5/21/2010 9:42:48 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: reckless64
Well sorry about calling dommes doms.
It's alright. As LadyN has aptly stated, calling a dominant a 'dom,' for short, whether male or female, is perfectly acceptable.
At some point, some how, someone started adding '-me,' in the hopes of feminizing it, probably thinking that if 'femme' was French for woman, then a female dom would be, 'domme.' But in fact, it's not a French word for a dominant female. The only French meaning of the word, is that it's a place - Domme, France.
To call a female dominant a domme is a scene convention based upon a made-up word, which, in itself, is fine. And in fact, it's a convention of writing only, because in speech, 'dom' and 'domme' are both pronounced the same way, so you couldn't communicate gender by speaking the words.
I believe Focus50 argues that 'everybody knows it means female dominant, so you should opt for the term that communicates most effectively, without picking on its etymology.' I, too, am in favour of efficacy of communication over form, but I don't think Focus50 is taking in what's really being discussed about use of these terms.
I don't think anyone has complained that you *shouldn't* use domme; I use it. But when you get to the point of correcting someone's spelling, as happened above, telling them that they should use the made-up word instead of 'dom,' which is slang, but at least it is short for the real term, that's when some of us have a problem.
First, it is not true that 'everyone knows what you mean,' when you use 'dom' and 'domme.' From a practical viewpoint, this convention is actually rather impractical, as it makes all uses of the term "dom," masculine, whereas 'dom' can also be correctly used without implying any gender, which often causes confusion. where one person believes 'dom' is gender neutral, and another believes it implies a male.
And I agree with LadyN, that whereas it's fine to have some shorthand for which gender you mean, it's not necessary to 'fem it up' (love that, by the way) - a dominant is the dominant. Make no mistake that the politics of language are very real, including gender in language. You can observe discussions all the time, questioning the power of a female dominant, as if there is being "dominant," and then there is being a "female dominant."
So when a female is called dominant, dom, owner, even master, you might ask, is this to imply that in order to indicate power, you must use a masculine term? Or instead, does it mean that those terms of power are not automatically masculine, and do not require description of the gender. The dominant is the dominant, period.
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