This post is inspired by one of those questions I’ve seen online that I just cannot compute. The answer to the question, which frankly doesn’t need repeating, is that of course you can be submissive and confident at the same time. Submission is about handing control over to someone you trust, and confidence is about knowing you have value and are good at something. If you’re reading this and can’t understand how those two completely separate concepts contradict each other, then I feel better because I don’t get it either.

Submissive men who actually give a shit what their partners want are rare and precious, of fucking course they should feel confident that they have value and not settle for any old asshole. Seriously, read basically any post on this blog about how easy it is to impress dominant women. If you are willing to pay attention, listen to what a woman wants, and actually do those things (or honestly tell her that doesn’t work for you, you get points for that too), you can hold out for just the right dom.

To be fair, simply being submissive can be a real knock to a man’s confidence. It’s hard to believe in yourself when the whole world seems to be saying that you’re being a man wrong. On the other hand, it takes tremendous confidence and strength to look at everything society tells you about how to be a man and say “No, I’m going to do it my way.” I personally see submission as masculine, but I understand how it can take some work for submissive men to change their own definitions of what’s manly.

I don’t hate it if someone feels a little vulnerable, a little unsure exactly what’s going to happen when they’re tied to something and I’m standing behind them with a bag of toys, but a scene is not a relationship! A scene is not your whole life! And frankly, if you submit out of insecurity you are bad at it!

Not only can you be submissive and confident at the same time, but you need to be both to be any good at submitting. If you want to be my sub (or for that matter my friend) you have to make my life better, not worse. If you’re so crushingly insecure and self-loathing that you “submit” because you need someone to tell you what to do, you’re making yourself a chore. Running my own life is quite enough work, I have no interest in running yours too.

Also, putting up with seriously insecure people is boring as shit. Not only can I not fill the hole inside you, but trying is just tedious. Needing a little reassurance now and then is perfectly normal, but when every conversation is one long, painful attempt to convince you that you’re okay, I’m going to decide I’d rather watch paint dry than talk to you. While I’m at it, it’s pretty insulting to imply, if not outright say, that I’m wrong to find someone interesting/worth being friends with/attractive, so don’t do it.

Your sexual tastes/how you like to run your relationships have nothing to do with you believing that you have value and are good at things. For example, I’m a dom. That in no way makes me better than anyone else and it doesn’t automatically make me good at things. All being a dom means to me is that I really like getting my way. How does that connect in any with with whether or not I’m good at stuff? Being good at dominating people is something to be proud of, and so is being good at submitting to people, but simply having the desire to dominate or submit just doesn’t tell me anything about how good you are at running your life.

Speaking of running your life, I think being convinced that submissive people can’t be confident is a sign you don’t have nearly enough going on in your life. It’s a lot harder to convince yourself that you suck when you do something you’re good at on a regular basis. On the other hand, if you spend all your free time sitting around thinking about how much you suck, of course you’re going to feel terrible. You’ll feel a lot better if you can break the suck cycle, I promise.

Finally, it’s worth repeating that being submissive in no way means you can’t be confident. It’s just not even related and submissive people are great anyway!