Dec 31 2008
Female Subordination Fantasies
Female fantasies are diverse, yet a recurring theme is the idea being subordinate–the flip side of being protected and cherished is, it seems, being mastered. It is never a fantasy that has done much for me but over the years I have seen that it continues to top the charts of most common female fantasies. As a reader and writer of romance it is hard to ignore how popular the ’swept off her feet’ fantasy remains, even in the form of “forced seduction” (and beyond).
In sexual terms this subordination may range from a simple preference for the so-called “missionary” position to bondage and extensive roleplay–up to and including voluntary lifestyle slavery. But having fought very hard to give women independence, feminism forums often have difficulty tolerating, let alone accepting, sexually subordinate fantasies. For example, a few days ago Stacey May Fowles wrote: “inability to accept BDSM into the feminist dialogue is really just a form of kinkophobia, a widely accepted prejudice against the practice of power-exchange sex.”
And I would agree with this. I think we fall prey to a common logical fallacy that I have discussed before–in confusing that girls can do anything with the idea that they must. Ultimately it is not the role of feminism to change what being a woman is, so much as open up the possibilities of what she may choose to be. Because if we simply change a constricting subordinate role with a constriction autonomous or dominant one, what have we really achieved?
Freedom includes the ability to choose service, servility and even subordination–be it to a career, an ideal, a God, a country, a woman or a man. It maybe service that is lifelong, for part of life, part of the day, or one aspect such as sexuality. After all, each of us choose to be obedient to some degree, in some ways, some of the time for some reasons. We have, variously, employers, family, clergy, policemen and judges, teachers and mentors… and some have a master or mistress (or some other form or degree thereof) in sexual activities.
It is naive to conflate the fantasy, even the reality, of surrender with the status of victim. The difference, the real power, is in choice. A person who is financially, legally and psychologically emancipated can walk away from a relationship that does not suit her. She may give up her power but equally she may take it back. The choice of sexual subordinate is in no way equivalent to the violence of sexual abuse because the not only consent, but active choice, drives the voluntary submissive–and the conscientious modern master. And, as Fowles notes on relation to bondage (but it is true of many other forms of subordination) “regardless of appearance, by its very nature BDSM is constantly about consent.”
And I say this as a female who, on a visceral level, simply does get why anyone would want to be subordinate. But then I don’t get why some people like to eat anchovies, watch basketball or run marathons–and I am not going to make moral judgments about those who do. (Okay, maybe the marathon runners but that’s a whole other issue). And that applies equally to women and to men, gay and straight etc etc. There are subordination, and even humiliation, fantasies of many kinds and within a culture of consent they are simply part of the diversity of human desire.
There are endless debates about whether female subordination fantasies are so common because of basic biological reasons, or due to roles taught to woman as part of a patriarchal culture. But ultimately I don’t think nature versus nurture is a the point. Each one of us is a complex product of genes, environment and experiences–creating desires that, so long as they can be satisfied within a context of the constant availability of autonomy and constant presence of consent, should not be a source of shame. Feminism should never become a missionary position of the mind, replacing the universal edict of female subordinate with a universal edict that bans the surrendering of power in any context.
Women and men alike are free to surrender their freedoms to others, as individuals and collectives. We respect and honor this choice in the contexts of religious service, the rule of law, and volunteers such as in charities and the armed forces. And as in any case where a person enters a vulnerable state, scrutiny is appropriate, but honestly–choosing to be spanked or bound should really not be such a big deal. No single way of enjoying sex is the ‘normal’ or the ‘ideal’.
