According to the stereotypes, my job as a dominant woman is to make men want me. I’m supposed to be so beautiful, so perfectly styled and made up, or at the very least so thoroughly encased in whatever material men have a fetish for that those men can’t help but fall on their knees before me.
Apparently, I’m just supposed to ignore the fact that worrying about whether I’m appealing to men doesn’t make me feel dominant at all. Not only do I not feel powerful when my so-called power is based on other people’s approval of my appearance, but it’s a very fragile and limited form of power. There’s a reason sexual desirability is the only power society is even the slightest bit comfortable with women wielding – it makes them replaceable and it has an expiry date. If physical beauty is all that’s important, any beautiful woman will do.
I know there are some dominant women out there who love knowing that their beauty captivates men, but I’m not one of them. In fact, I hate the idea that the only power I have is the power to make people want me. Yes, it is a form of power, but it’s not one I want to use. Worrying about whether I’m attractive enough, whether my outfit is hot enough feels fundamentally submissive to me. Being a dominant woman, that just feels wrong. It puts submissive men in control, lets them judge whether I’m doing a good enough job of catering to their fetishes.
The power of sexual desirability is a power I want submissive men to have over me. I want to do the wanting. I want them to make me double-take, and forget what I was saying, and trip over my own two feet because of how ridiculously, overpoweringly hot they are.
I want my desires to matter. I want submissive men to cater to them the way submissive women cater to dominant men’s desires. The idea of a submissive man working out in hopes of catching my eye, or hunting for the perfect pair of pants that show off his ass just so is incredibly hot to me.
It’s not that it’s terrible to have anyone consider me attractive, but I want a submissive man to want me for how I can make him feel, for how I can fulfill his need to feel owned, and desired, and useful, rather than for how hard I can make his dick. If that’s the only power I have, then I have no power at all for about half an hour after every orgasm he has.
Is there anyone else out there who is just turned off by the idea that she’s supposed to submit to submissive men’s libidos?
In my mind, being wanted (for whatever reason/s) and wanting (for whatever reason/s) don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
I hope that my sub appreciates my appearance, and my brain, and the way I make him feel… all of those things. I appreciate his appearance, his mind, and the way he makes me feel… all of those things!
Besides that, a woman who is invested in or proud of her appearance doesn’t necessarily worry about it (she might, she might not), nor does she necessarily care about her appearance in order to captivate men (she might, she might not), nor is her beauty necessarily the only power she has (might be, might not be). So, yes, I’m turned off by the idea of submitting to a man’s libido. However, I reject the idea that wanting to be attractive (necessarily) means submitting to a man’s libido. It might. It might not. It depends on the woman.
Sure, beauty is fragile, fleeting, and open to interpretation, but I enjoy it. I like being wanted for my appearance just as much as I like being wanted for my words and my actions. I want to be wanted for my whole package just as much as I want his whole package (ha!).
“I want to do the wanting. I want them to make me double-take, and forget what I was saying, and trip over my own two feet because of how ridiculously, overpoweringly hot they are.”
Ha! I wrote a post last year about how my sub and I first met. I literally tripped over my own feet because he was sofuckinghot. 🙂 I’m glad he’s hot enough to make me fall off my feet… and damn, do I enjoy the wanting and the hotness! But, I also enjoy being hot enough to make him take a tumble too.
I want, and I want him to want. I want both. (and that’s a lot of wanting…)
I’d love to read your post about how you met your sub. It sounds like it’d be a fun read.
It’s all one and the same for me. I want him to want me for how I make him feel, but I also want to make his dick hard. I DO want to feel wanted for how I look, along with all the other reasons (being owned, being useful, and so on).
I damn sure drool over his body (I made him stand still so I could photograph his butt tonight, because it was looking *that* good in his dress slacks), so why shouldn’t he feel and express the same towards me?
I don’t view it as submitting to his libido, so much as being the reason FOR his libido, and then getting to control how and when he gets to make use of that libido.
“The power of sexual desirability is a power I want submissive men to have over me. I want to do the wanting. I want them to make me double-take, and forget what I was saying, and trip over my own two feet because of how ridiculously, overpoweringly hot they are.”
I love the way you put that! Yes!! A hundred times yes!!
I love and adore beauty in my man (well, any man really!), and I absolutely appreciate it for what it is, divorced from him as a person. I can totally sexually objectify him, and I LOVE doing that. I’ve also pondered the ‘why aren’t submissive men the most beautiful men on the planet if they are all about pleasing their women?’ question (More advice for submissive men). Baffling.
“I hate the idea that the only power I have is the power to make people want me.”
As to this, the ‘only’ in that statement makes it easy to agree with, but I think it’s more complex than either/or.
I want him to want me because I am the most fucking awesome woman he has ever met, because I really am all that and a bag of chips to him. And that encompasses *everything I am*. Hell yes, I want to be sexually desirable to my submissive, to me that’s a no-brainer AND it’s a source of power. My sexual desirability is about *more* than my looks, just as his is, but it’s not completely divorced from it.
I think where you and I would agree is that it’s not my function to be some pretty arm candy for him to get off on, and I’m also not interested in the ‘I’m beautiful, worship me’ stereotype as the mainstay of a D/s relationship, which is hugely common and annoying as fuck. I am not there to be sexually objectified by him, and getting his dick hard is not what my dominance is about.
But do I want him to get hard and go weak in the knees because he is knocked out by how gorgeous I am? Sure I do. Is it the *source* of my power over him? Oh hell no. Do I play with that as part of our D/s interactions? Absolutely yes. Does it form part of the whole package? Sure it does.
Ferns
Is there anyone else out there who is just turned off by the idea that she’s supposed to submit to submissive men’s libidos?
ME.
I actually refuse to wear lingerie or anything stereotypically domly for a guy – at least until he’s shown himself willing to cater to my fantasies first. Even then it can be difficult. I have a certain amount of baggage around the whole lingerie thing…it feels like I’m begging for approval. “I didn’t think my naked body would be appealing enough for you so I encased it in fancy fabric. Will you deign to fuck me now? Am I good enough?” BAH.
I do want a partner who’s turned on by my appearance, but it’s more important to me that he’s turned on by my personality. Conversely, I want to be stupefied by my partner’s physical hotness. Lust is what brings out the dominance in me – a hot guy with a submissive demeanour makes me want to slam him down and rip him apart with my teeth. I am not exaggerating.
As a submissive guy, I agree to that. I’ve never understood why a sub should expect his domme to cater to his fetishes and desires as this counter works the power balance in favour of the sub when the opposite balance should be true. To me, a true D/s relationship consists of a woman being true to her desires by setting the standard for her guy, while he can enjoy being the object of that desire trough constant work to catch her eye and living up to her standards. He should work hard to get and keep her attention, not the other way around, and the discretion of whether he’s successful in that should be hers only.
Ideally, this arrangement is also a one way street. By that I mean that she can also choose to make herself desirable at her own discretion, but this should never be expected from her sub explicitly or implicitly, nor should she feel inclined to do so because of the general image of the “domme in latex”. Keeping desirability optional for her and compulsory to him helps putting the power where it belongs and helps him feeling lusted after, which is something that extends well beyond the bedroom and into life in general.
I guess this may take some time to getting used to, but in my relationship the thought of female ownership of the gaze has worked out quite well. I do enjoy to work out to keep getting fitter and diet to become eye candy or finding clothes that suit me well, while she sets the standards and calls the shots.
Hell to the yes. *applauds* Great article.