Quote Originally Posted by kellypet View Post
Mmmmk so to be honest, I haven't read all these posts because I'm tired >_>

But I really don't think it's easier to be a submissive in the eye of the public xD I took a class on Old Testament woman and it was very feminist based and I liked it a ton. However, it was like powerful women EVERYWHERE, and submissive women are a no-no. I think there's a lot of pressure from society on women to be the domineering-diva-bitch. In my opinion, saying your a submissive woman gets responses like "OMG You're setting the women's movement back!" Sooo many people don't understand that I can still be a strong woman and a feminist and be a submissive... Because we don't think -all- women should be submissive... we just choose that lifestyle for ourselves. I just think if I were to tell my friends that I was into dominating men they'd be like "woo hoo! You go girl, put men in their place" but if you tell them you like being dominated it's like -crickets- lol
I think you're very right, and I don't think it's any easier for you female subs. I can't help quoting for example one, anything but sex-positive feminist whom I came upon in my 'research' on the feminist stance on BDSM, who believed that "female masochism is collaboration"!

If only all our critics were as crude as that I don't think I'd be worrying about this though.

Quote Originally Posted by pervertedpages View Post
I feel the same way about my personal politics or leanings versus the life that I want to lead in private -- my personal ad would probably read something like: "lesbian-feminist queer militant activist seeks domineering misogynist to put her in her place," and for some reason, it was hard to reconcile these things for a while And, just imagine my chagrin when I realized that my shame about this was also adding to my arousal. What kind of meta-humiliation nonsense? We can't blame everything (or really most things) on porn, but I could see how it's probably upped the humiliation ante: the internet is riddled with pornstars who smile and moan in pleasure as they get bukkake'd. Humiliation is sexy because shame is so, so rare.

(...)


But, alas, this is not our problem. Our problem, or at least what I can see, is the fundamental disconnect between our desires and what people tell us it means to be a good person. 'How can I be turned on by inequality? In a utopian society we'd all be equal -- so do my fantasies make the world worse?' And the idea that we can say "it's just the way we want to have sex" is comforting, detaching it from the rest of our otherwise good-people lives -- but I don't know about the rest of you, but I was submissive before I knew what sex was. I only played with Barbies when my friend would be the queen and my Barbie could kneel in her dungeon; I played "slave" with my best friend when I was seven, having him "punish" me when I didn't follow orders. This seemed like a perfectly natural way to play. And it is. Because power is interesting and alluring before it is threatening or sexy. And christ, is it sexy.
Thanks for your post. After that bit of feminist crudeness I quoted it's definitely nice to re-read someone sensible like you. And it's nice to hear you "lesbian-feminist queer militant activist" subs are out there

And I think you're right: I think it is just about accepting that power is sexy, no matter whether you're under the boot or the one wearing it. And that it's ok to feel that way.

I've been reading part of the thread about whether one tells one's family about ones kink or not and it worries me a bit to see how most people are very much 'in the closet'. Of course I can understand that it's a hell of a lot easier not to 'come out'. And in a way it's true that our sex-lives aren't anyones business but our own. But I it takes us long away from becoming socially accepted.

In Denmark where I live a recent poll showed that 90 % of the population wouldn't mind a gay/lesbian neighbor (or prime minister!) and over 60 % of us know someone who's gay (I live in a liberal country, praise god!). The statistics I've seen show that between 5 and 25 % of the population has kinky fantasies of some kind, which means that we're pretty much as many as the gays and lesbians but how many people know someone who admits to being kinky?

As far as I see it as long as we don't come out of the closet we're not going to get accepted and people like myself and others are going to worry about whether they're really sick twisted bastards deep inside when we have kinky fantasies.

But as said: I perfectly understand why people prefer not to take the flack of coming out when being kinky is something as relatively easy to hide as it is...

Quote Originally Posted by Teufel View Post
We touched upon the subject of power exchange in a round about way during my "Marriage and Intimacy" class I took at my local state university at the beginning of the summer. Apparently, at least according to the research cited in the class, Peer and Near Peer marriages, in which both partners have an equal partnership of duties, responsibility and power, often have a common problem they called the "best friend" syndrome in which the partners become such good friends they lost sexual attraction for one another. Interestingly, the Peer and Near peer marriages that avoided this problem took active steps in the bed room to "spice" things up, and one of the "spices" cited was power exchange. Traditional marriages did not seem to have this as a common problem, and one theory was that an integral power exchange already exists in a Traditional marriage where the man has "veto" power as they put it. Society can be very hypocritical when they view us "deviants", but at least sociology is starting to come around.
That's very interesting. Could you give me the name of that study?

I must admit I've been a bit skeptical to that argument that now that we're all so equal we have to introduce some inequality into it. But the connection to 'best friend syndrome' seems quite persuasive...

Perhaps we do need a dose of inequality from time to time... and if that is the case one could argue that it's much better that we keep that inequality in the bedroom instead of trying to turn back time.

Anyway it's getting late and I'd better sleep instead of babbling on.

Thank you everyone for a wonderful discussion.