There are plenty of submissive men who want to know how to get their wives/girlfriends to dominate them. One sadly common piece of advice sites like Real Women Don’t Do Housework and (ugh) Elise Sutton give is to talk about how she can make him do all the housework if she’ll dominate him (by wearing uncomfortable outfits for his pleasure and doing everything he wants in bed). This is stupid and offensive on so many levels.
First of all, if you aren’t already doing your fair share of the housework you are simply a bad partner. Fix that before you try talking your partner into fulfilling your kinks, you lazy little shit. When you talk about kink, your partner should not have to ask “What’s in it for me that I shouldn’t already be getting from my partner?” As an aside, that’s a fantastic question to ask yourself no matter how you plan to ‘sell’ male submission to your partner. Whether you’re offering to rub her feet, go to events she likes, cook dinner for her, or let her choose where you go on vacation, you should be able to explain what you’re offering that she shouldn’t already be getting.
Second, and I realize this may be shocking to hear, women actually do have interests that have nothing to do with how tidy their homes are. Using housework as the main selling point for male submission implies that housework is so extraordinarily important to women that they’ll cheerfully act out all of your most extreme fantasies if only you wash a few dishes for them. Not only is that insulting, but it sets up a dynamic in which the man purchases sex from his partner by doing chores. I can’t imagine why feeling obligated to perform a sex act she may have no interest in because her partner mopped the floor wouldn’t turn a woman on.
Third, it ignores everything that’s hot and sexy and amazing about male submission and reduces it to a fucking maid service. How can you look at images like these and decide that housecleaning is the way to sell male submission? Do you assholes not believe that women have any sexual desires, or do you just not care what they might be?
Or is that talking about what might turn any given woman on forces you to acknowledge the fact that not every woman is in fact turned on by male submission? The idea that women can be molded into whatever men want them to be might just be the most offensive part of this whole clusterfuck. While I firmly believe that many more women would identify as dominant if the scene wasn’t so unfriendly to them, it’s simply not true that every woman can become dominant. For starters, some of them are submissive. Deciding that a woman isn’t allowed to be submissive is just as offensive as deciding that she has to be submissive. Some women just aren’t interested in power exchange. Even women who are dominant aren’t magically compatible with all submissive men. There are as many styles of dominance and submission as there are people in the scene, and many of them do not mesh at all well.
If you’re a submissive man in a relationship with a vanilla woman, I sympathize. That’s a tough situation to be in, and it makes sense that you would want to find a way to convince partner to top or dominate you. However, talking about how much housework you’d do for her is not it. Just shut the fuck up about what a great maid you’d be, okay?
Will you marry me?
You can’t marry Tom. You’re going to marry me. That sound? No, I don’t hear anything. Tom? Oh he went home. Said he had something very important to do. No, don’t call him, he also lost his phone. I’m sure he’s fine.
(Really, I concur with this post 100%).
– Femi
Mmmmpphh! Mmmumm mmmemmimmpphh. Mmmpphh!
Hee! My commenters are the best 🙂
I don’t know, I would jump on the opportunity if a man offered to do all the housework. Yes, I have interests apart from having a beautiful home. But I also have interests apart from sex! I have sexual desires, but I don’t think they should be the only factor in deciding whom I get into relationships with, and I wouldn’t expect a man to want a relationship with me based solely on his sexual desires, either. Besides, I find pretty men doing housework to be very erotic. Not because I think domestic chores are humiliating, but because I think it’s so sweet if a man does more than his half because he thinks it will please me. Not wanting to do any more than his ‘fair’ share of housework is not a deal-breaker for me, but it’s definitely a plus if he’s willing. Guess that makes me a bad partner…
Men doing house work can be erotic, sure, but the larger point is that men often approach their partners with the “let’s make a deal” mindset of “You keep me locked in chastity, and I’ll do more dishes for you, hoping to earn a release.” He’s not pleasing you in an effort to please you, he’s doing it because it fits into his erotic mental script in which he has to “earn” an orgasm. Trading chores for sex might work on some level, but it’s certainly not for everyone.
The more I thought about this, the more I realized that it’s aimed at submissive men looking to get their women to dominate them (yeah, I realize it says that in the first sentence, ha). I read it as a woman with a preexisting interest in exploring D/s as a dominant. So a guy wouldn’t have to ‘sell’ male submission to me as such – though he WOULD have to ‘sell’ why I should like him more than Generic Sub 3248732. And ‘I’ll do all the dishes’ sure wouldn’t cut it.
I do appreciate the point about how the ‘advice for women’ sites cited above assume that the upside of male submission for women is the ‘perfect boyfriend/husband’ – a guy who loves them to desperation, inundates them in gifts and flowers, leaps to do the housework, and anticipates their every wish (while still being awesome) – and eternal easy relationship bliss. This is dumb. There are no relationship silver bullets, and I completely 100% agree that not all women are somehow better off if they dominate their guy(s), that some are submissive, some are submissive or dominant depending on the partner, some are vanilla, everything Stabbity said. Even if a man and woman are completely compatible when it comes to kink, that’s wonderful but STILL not a relationship silver bullet.
Tom, I found your Time and Punishment’ post from another entry on Stabbity’s (awesome) blog, and it helped clarify my thoughts on the general topic of ‘what’s in it for whom’. Thanks! I really appreciate the insights from you and from Stabbity – just trying to understand what it means that I know I’d be thrilled if I didn’t have to do household chores, IF I genuinely believed that my man WANTED to do them.
When I stumbled upon guys falling over themselves to be sissy maids, I thought “too good to be true?” Are you two saying that yes, it’s too good to be true, these men claiming to want to do the cooking and cleaning actually dislike the work and are only volunteering to get me to ‘play along’ with a sexual fetish? That is a serious question. I hate house chores so much I have trouble comprehending other people liking them … but I’ve been told by (vanilla) men and women that they enjoy keeping a spotless kitchen, etc.
And how arrogant am I to assume that the man would obviously want to submit/do the housework/be denied orgasm to please ME? 🙂 Reminds me of The Breakup when Jennifer Aniston says something like ‘no, I don’t want you to do the dishes – I want you to WANT to do the dishes!’ Of course I’d want a man to want to do the housework because he wants to please me because he loves me. Which reminds me of this picture.
PS Stabbity – HOT PICTURES. I used several in the Advent Calendar I made for the fellow I’m getting to know 🙂
Nope! Well, a lot of the men claiming to want to do all the cooking and cleaning have probably not thought that through. And there are plenty of guys who will try to trade service they don’t like doing for the kink they do want, and there also lots of guys who say they ‘just want to serve’ mean they just want you to order them to strip naked and scrub your floor on their hands and knees while you stand over them dressed in fetish wear from head to toe, riding crop in hand, berating them for missing imaginary spots and beating them with the crop until they ‘get it right’. In other words, they want a scene, but they’re not comfortable admitting it’s a scene.
But there are also men out there who want to do everything they can to make their partners’ lives easier and happier in the context of a committed, loving relationship. My ridiculously adorable boyfriend, for example, does pretty much all of the cooking, as well as the vast majority of the cleaning that the house keepers don’t do. Ferns also has some lovely stories on her blog about the dynamic she has had with former partners. I can’t remember off the top of my head if she ever specifically mentioned who did the housework, but she describes this incredibly sweet dynamic of her partner being so devoted to her that he wanted to let her control everything, just because it made her happy. And of course that made her happy and affectionate and wanting to do nice things for/to her partner, and so on and so on in this awesome feedback loop.
Also, if you’re on fetlife, the Submissive men and women who love them group is a) very well moderated, and b) full of men who either have or want the kind of dynamic you’re describing, where they’re so devoted to their partner that they want to do everything they can to make her happy. Not that you should necessarily go there to pick up guys, but I think it might help reassure you that what you want is out there.
What I was trying to get in my rant was partly that I can’t see purchasing chores from my partner with sex as dominant, and partly that male submission is infinitely more awesome than maid service (although I’m with you on it being awesome not to have to do housework. I think I hate cleaning because you’re never really done, you just have to do all that tedious crap again next week, and the week after that, and on and on and ugh). I can pay someone to come clean my house. What I can’t buy is someone being so devoted to me that they’ll clean my house just to make me happy.
PS Thanks 🙂 Aren’t submissive men the hottest thing ever?
I may have to join fetlife now, just for that group. I’ll definitely look through Ferns’s archives, too. Your own rants are very, very insightful, too – I love how people like you and Ferns and Tom think critically about sexuality and relationships and all that, and share your thoughts. I just bumble along trying to do less of the stuff I don’t like and more of the stuff I do; I can’t tell you how reassuring it is that smart men and women are into and can articulate their interest in dominant women/submissive men. Thank you!
Wait a minute… Are you saying there are submissives who fantasize about cooking, cleaning up after you,and running your errands? Do you mean they basicly live so you do not have to lift a finger, and they are willing to do all this for the low cost of a dominant having sex with them with their idea of fantasy sex in mind?!
Seriously this is degrading to all sexes of dominants. It makes them look like prostitutes who will put out for a clean house and a hot meal. I would have trouble taking a dominant seriously if they presented this to me.
Its bad for submissives who agree to this as well in my opinion. What happens when the house is clean and the sex is over? It invites a relationship to go stagnant if this is the most you can expect. Who wants a stale relationship with no depth?
This is why I appreciate the dominant who has more ideas then just sex and chores. I like when the dominant has an opinion on current events or a just read book. I love when someone mentions a movie they liked. This tells me there is so much more to them then wanting to be a sexual object or a supervisor for housekeeping inc.
Really I left fetlife for a lot of these negetive stereo typse on what dominance and submission is. I left for so many reasons but the biggest reason is that I was told a hundred times I wasn’t sub enough and my dominant wasn’t a real dominant.
In a healthy relationship you need two REAL people. Not one person and someone who is incapable of thinking or having any opinions at all. Seriously who would want a robot?!?!
(To clarify, there is a difference in having an opinion and speaking an opinion. I am not insinuating how any relationship should be run except for my own.)
Ok rant over and I loved this post! I am such a fan now!!!
Once writer (Raven Kaldera) conceptualizes service as being in three types: transactional (he washes dishes to get sex); devotional (does it for the love of Her); and positional (does it because he conceives of himself as a service oriented person). I agree with the ick factor surrounding purely transactional service, but I also think it is often mixed in with the other two, and over time those other two grow, and service becomes less transactional. Personally, devotional intent service is what I enjoy; it becomes a form of intimacy. I do believe that many men generally are happier when in service to their Woman. Incidentally, the author also observes that even a self-identified TPE consensual slave should periodically consider the transactional aspect, as a way of ensuring they are not serving someone unworthy.
Thank you for this article.
Funny to find your blog when I am fresh from the Women Don’t Do Housework site. What a bunch of drivel. You hit it on the head. Not only is that approach insulting to the woman but also to the man. I think trading sexual fulfillment for chores, financial control,and obedience is, at best, manipulation, at worst, abuse. The site made me very angry, actually.
Why can’t kink just be about two people bonding through power exchange? Sure, if being a maid/butler is your kink, and you can find a dominant woman who wants one, that could be a legitimate power exchange. Maybe both parties find that erotic. But when it’s done to exert control over an otherwise non-compliant partner it is manipulation.