I once thought there were only two kinds of female led relationships, the 'bad' female domination of 'fear and tears' and the 'good' female led of 'love and respect'; and I believed only love symbol differentiation and clarification would help the former become the latter. I thought the 'fear and tears' was nearly always an ineffective and love symbol-obstructed, symbol-metastasized, version of the 'love and respect' goal (always beware of standards). However, I've changed my mind because there are an infinite variety of relationship love symbols, female led or not, and while there are always differing levels of accurate and adequate love symbols in any relationship, having different love symbols isn't wrong.
Now I still think many couples aren't really communicating with love symbols, aren't really attaining (enough) intimacy with the love symbols they have, perhaps only interpreting what they can, when they can, as a symbol of love so they can emotionally get by as well as they can. I think this often why many people desire their partner to give them the symbol love they want regardless whether that symbol is functional for their partner, whether that symbol means love for their partner. Of course, no one can silently suffer and sublimate their unhappiness for very long, and if we ask our partner to try, they are sometimes successful in learning a new love symbol, but how long can we ask our partner to try some specific love symbol before we decide love symbol effectiveness with our partner is more important than any particular symbolic expression?
Obviously, a person who instills fear in their partner (through whatever works for them) may have a functional symbol to express or feel whatever it is they seek to, but is it an accurate and adequate love symbol for both of them? A person might functionally feel and express love best when they feel humiliated, or spanked, or helpless, or overruled, or commanded, or other things in varying combinations, but are these accurate and adequate love symbols for both of them? The answers could be yes, and different isn't necessarily wrong. It doesn’t matter what they are doing, it matters what they are meaning by their actions and whether they effectively and adequately understand each other to attain the intimacy they desire.
Perhaps an erotic truth is only the discovery of love symbols so effective, so much a part of who we are, that they bypass much, if not most, perhaps all of a person's conscious awareness, yet a relationship needs functional love symbols for two people. And it may be that relationship compatibility is at some level actually about erotic truth compatibility, but it is certain all couples, must work out what love symbols work for them until they have enough symbols that work well enough for them.
Showing posts with label Femdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Femdom. Show all posts
December 31, 2009
December 11, 2009
The Desire Dynamic Difference
I seriously wonder, often, if my interior experience and erotic truth, what I am and what I want, really qualify me as an uxorious man or not. After all, for me it’s not her domination but her desire, not her control but her drive to control, not her power over me but her will to power, not her leading me but her desire to go where she will. And I don’t think I just have an attraction to confidence, although my wife does come by confidence naturally. I just like it when she desires something – when she loves me, wants me, or wants me to do something of course, but more basically I just want her to want things, anything, deeply.
I know everyone is different and that in any category there always remains a range of variation, but the label you accept is the label used. So if I feel ‘female led’ isn’t quite accurate enough, is there a more accurate label, symbol, or phrase? I am 'foolishly doting' and uxorious is accurate enough for what it describes, but it also continues to carry a context of submission, so it’s not good enough, not adequate enough, to indicate the difference between the power dynamic of female led and the desire dynamic of loving my wife.
Of course on some level I don’t care about labels; I have good reason to believe ‘that which we call a man by any other name would still be as sweet’ to his wife.
I know everyone is different and that in any category there always remains a range of variation, but the label you accept is the label used. So if I feel ‘female led’ isn’t quite accurate enough, is there a more accurate label, symbol, or phrase? I am 'foolishly doting' and uxorious is accurate enough for what it describes, but it also continues to carry a context of submission, so it’s not good enough, not adequate enough, to indicate the difference between the power dynamic of female led and the desire dynamic of loving my wife.
Of course on some level I don’t care about labels; I have good reason to believe ‘that which we call a man by any other name would still be as sweet’ to his wife.
December 10, 2009
The Push Back
I normally have no problem with wanting to do whatever will make my wife happy. It’s the way I want our lives and relationship to be; I want her to relax, do what she wants, and enjoy life. However, on the rare occasions of my octopus pride, I really have no idea what I really want, no idea why I’m saying what I’m saying, no idea why I’m doing what I’m doing.
After the fact I usually realize what I most wanted was for her to not put up with my nonsense, just push back at me with her expectations, push back at me and maintain an attitude of insistence. Just like any and every other time she wants something, I want her to just insist I do whatever it is she wants, do whatever it is her way. Even when at my worst, I still want to glory in the glow of her desire more than anything else.
On some level this ‘push back’ is reminiscent of the ‘female domination’ many men desire, and I also think men in any relationship want their partners to push back at them a little bit. In any relationship pecking order fight, the push back shows strength of character, and that’s good to have in a partner – except the female led man often fights to lose. He wants his partner to give some recognition of their relationship power dynamic because it’s a love symbol he understands, even though this is like throwing a temper tantrum to get the authority and attention of parental punishment. Something my wife recently said made me think I might merely have unreal expectations, and then just being unaware of my internal emotions leads me to act a little like an idiot and a little short of social expectations. I’m not sure if being an idiot is better than being a child, but I don’t think it matters.
Whether domination or something less than domination, riding roughshod over me is not her style, not something she actively enjoys, and I’d rather have her do more things she actively enjoys than have the push back. And I don’t want to act like a child or an idiot; if there’s a problem, I want to figure it out and communicate, you know, like an adult.
Relationships need adequate and accurate communication and symbolization, for everything from an effective ‘I love you’ to an ‘I want you to do this.’ What I want and what she is willing to give both have to be communicated and negotiated, probably constantly evaluated and ever adjusted, in order to consistently best meet both our needs. If I want an adjustment, I want two to tango on a two way street, not temper tantrums or idiocy until accountability or ’punishment’ is achieved.
So the sooner I learn to stop my octopus and listen to my interior compass, the better.
After the fact I usually realize what I most wanted was for her to not put up with my nonsense, just push back at me with her expectations, push back at me and maintain an attitude of insistence. Just like any and every other time she wants something, I want her to just insist I do whatever it is she wants, do whatever it is her way. Even when at my worst, I still want to glory in the glow of her desire more than anything else.
On some level this ‘push back’ is reminiscent of the ‘female domination’ many men desire, and I also think men in any relationship want their partners to push back at them a little bit. In any relationship pecking order fight, the push back shows strength of character, and that’s good to have in a partner – except the female led man often fights to lose. He wants his partner to give some recognition of their relationship power dynamic because it’s a love symbol he understands, even though this is like throwing a temper tantrum to get the authority and attention of parental punishment. Something my wife recently said made me think I might merely have unreal expectations, and then just being unaware of my internal emotions leads me to act a little like an idiot and a little short of social expectations. I’m not sure if being an idiot is better than being a child, but I don’t think it matters.
Whether domination or something less than domination, riding roughshod over me is not her style, not something she actively enjoys, and I’d rather have her do more things she actively enjoys than have the push back. And I don’t want to act like a child or an idiot; if there’s a problem, I want to figure it out and communicate, you know, like an adult.
Relationships need adequate and accurate communication and symbolization, for everything from an effective ‘I love you’ to an ‘I want you to do this.’ What I want and what she is willing to give both have to be communicated and negotiated, probably constantly evaluated and ever adjusted, in order to consistently best meet both our needs. If I want an adjustment, I want two to tango on a two way street, not temper tantrums or idiocy until accountability or ’punishment’ is achieved.
So the sooner I learn to stop my octopus and listen to my interior compass, the better.
December 7, 2009
Active and Passive Pleasure
While my wife never does anything she doesn’t want to do, the soul of our relationship is not female domination. Yes, she has a dominant personality, but she is not dominating in any way reminiscent of 'femdom' and she certainly is not a ‘dominant’ or a ‘domme’.
She occasionally does things for me, or does something my way, simply because she loves me and she’s a great woman who wants me to be happy, who is happy to make me happy, who is happy even just to see that I’m happy. I rather think of her enjoyment in these instances as a ‘passive pleasure’. Of course most times she does what she wants, does things her way, her way born of her own interior desire, and her ‘active pleasure’.
Once upon a time my enjoyment of my active pleasure wasn’t particularly fazed by the status of my partner’s pleasure; not only was I was young and oblivious, but I probably never had a relationship long enough to notice my partner’s pleasure and enjoyment. Now I have a devil of a time enjoying my own active pleasure unless she is also enjoying her own active pleasure – if she is doing something for me that is only passively pleasing to her, it is difficult for me to actively enjoy it very much. Often I don’t ask her for things because I don’t want to impinge on her active pleasure, and usually if I do ask for something I ask only once in the most nonchalant manner I can muster.
On one hand I know some beauty in life comes from the making of choices and compromises, and to live everyone needs to make them. So if she chooses a passive pleasure well then, I try to let her do what she wants to and not try to make do something different and active simply to increase my passive pleasure. Yet on the other hand, with her dominant personality I often think she would be happier if she felt more free to choose active pleasures more often. Perhaps the real problem is that out of our desire to be individually happy we are both trying too hard to make the other one happy.
But perhaps that’s the real point too. Perhaps the motions of our relationship solar system are powered by the gravities of our desire, and in our love for each other our individual enjoyment can no longer be full without (or separated from) the other’s enjoyment, no matter whose pleasure is active and whose pleasure is passive. The center and soul of our relationship cannot be summed by any one word or phrase; it is a nexus between us, a matrix of our combined gravities, a complexity of love we can know only by its direction on our individual interior compass rose.
She occasionally does things for me, or does something my way, simply because she loves me and she’s a great woman who wants me to be happy, who is happy to make me happy, who is happy even just to see that I’m happy. I rather think of her enjoyment in these instances as a ‘passive pleasure’. Of course most times she does what she wants, does things her way, her way born of her own interior desire, and her ‘active pleasure’.
Once upon a time my enjoyment of my active pleasure wasn’t particularly fazed by the status of my partner’s pleasure; not only was I was young and oblivious, but I probably never had a relationship long enough to notice my partner’s pleasure and enjoyment. Now I have a devil of a time enjoying my own active pleasure unless she is also enjoying her own active pleasure – if she is doing something for me that is only passively pleasing to her, it is difficult for me to actively enjoy it very much. Often I don’t ask her for things because I don’t want to impinge on her active pleasure, and usually if I do ask for something I ask only once in the most nonchalant manner I can muster.
On one hand I know some beauty in life comes from the making of choices and compromises, and to live everyone needs to make them. So if she chooses a passive pleasure well then, I try to let her do what she wants to and not try to make do something different and active simply to increase my passive pleasure. Yet on the other hand, with her dominant personality I often think she would be happier if she felt more free to choose active pleasures more often. Perhaps the real problem is that out of our desire to be individually happy we are both trying too hard to make the other one happy.
But perhaps that’s the real point too. Perhaps the motions of our relationship solar system are powered by the gravities of our desire, and in our love for each other our individual enjoyment can no longer be full without (or separated from) the other’s enjoyment, no matter whose pleasure is active and whose pleasure is passive. The center and soul of our relationship cannot be summed by any one word or phrase; it is a nexus between us, a matrix of our combined gravities, a complexity of love we can know only by its direction on our individual interior compass rose.
December 4, 2009
To Kink or Not to Kink
Speaking of watching my wants, kink is surprisingly not a question. On my list of wants to watch out for, it surprisingly doesn’t even rate. It’s surprising because ‘female domination’ and kink seem to go together so well with ‘female led,’ it’s like potatoes and gravy or peanut butter and jelly (and for some people it’s the same thing). Yet here it is: I am not particularly interested in bondage, anal play, water sports, forced male chastity or any of the rest of the mounting tactics of the wild human. My lack of interest in kink is half the reason I felt I had to start writing down my ideas - so I could have space to read and think without being constantly confronted with other people’s kink (or worse other people’s porn).
My favorite explicitly female led source is She Makes the Rules because they are tireless in pointing out female led relationships are a kind of category and so come in all kinds of varieties and there is no one right way to do it. While I defend the right of those who are kinky to be kinky, I think it says something that as a site about female led life and culture SMTR had to have a section dedicated to kink and that they have to moderate so well all the time. I admit I might be missing something by not being kinky, but I can’t help feeling sincerely thankful since I’m not sure I handle what I have well enough to handle more.
Anyway my point is, sometimes I wonder what the essential difference is between myself and the vanilla guy, or the kinky female led guy, other than that I apparently prefer potatoes and jelly. (Or is it gravy and peanut butter?) I just want my wife to be happy, actively happy, and so I want her to call whatever shots she wants to call for us and our lives together such that she is happy and actively so. And finding other adequate, non-kinky, female led expressions to help me do my best in this, well, that would be nice too.
My favorite explicitly female led source is She Makes the Rules because they are tireless in pointing out female led relationships are a kind of category and so come in all kinds of varieties and there is no one right way to do it. While I defend the right of those who are kinky to be kinky, I think it says something that as a site about female led life and culture SMTR had to have a section dedicated to kink and that they have to moderate so well all the time. I admit I might be missing something by not being kinky, but I can’t help feeling sincerely thankful since I’m not sure I handle what I have well enough to handle more.
Anyway my point is, sometimes I wonder what the essential difference is between myself and the vanilla guy, or the kinky female led guy, other than that I apparently prefer potatoes and jelly. (Or is it gravy and peanut butter?) I just want my wife to be happy, actively happy, and so I want her to call whatever shots she wants to call for us and our lives together such that she is happy and actively so. And finding other adequate, non-kinky, female led expressions to help me do my best in this, well, that would be nice too.
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