Trying to make your partner dominant is not submissive

To quote Male Submission Art:

Dear “Submissive” BDSM’ers: trying to “make your boy/girlfriend into a Dominant” is an intensely dominant act involving severe behavior modification, and you should at least own up to that.

I sympathize with people who wish their partners were dominant, but there is nothing submissive or ethical about trying to make someone into something they aren’t without any thought to what’s best for them.

It should be obvious to anyone who isn’t a sociopath that trying to rebuild your partner without their ongoing enthusiastic consent like some sort of cartoon mad scientist is evil. Being remade into something better, or getting to shape someone into your perfect partner are both common fantasies, and if you’re very careful and have your partner’s full support they can be done ethically, but there is simply nothing okay about deciding for them that you’re going to rebuild them to suit you better.

I can’t fucking believe I have to say this, but people who are not dominant are still people and deserve to make their own choices about who they want to be. Whether your partner is submissive, or not interested in power exchange, or not interested in your type of power exchange, they have the right to be that way. I don’t understand what’s so complicated about this.

Issues of being a decent human being aside, it’s just not submissive to try to make your partner dominant. Submission is about giving control/authority to your partner, not about deciding for them who they should be. How can you call yourself submissive when you won’t even let your partner decide whether or not they want to be dominant? Am I supposed to believe that after showing that level of contempt for who your partner is as a person, you’re going to turn around and do what they tell you to do if it’s inconvenient or you’re tired or you’re not turned on? Do you care at all what your partner wants?

If you somehow magically succeeded in making your partner dominant, they would most likely end up leaving you for someone who was actually halfways competent at submission. Why would a dominant want to stay with someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit what they want?

You’re allowed to want what you want, but stop pretending it’s remotely submissive to try to make a person into a dom.

3 thoughts on “Trying to make your partner dominant is not submissive

  1. Oh god, this. And not just about “making” someone a dom. Finished a book last nigh that ends wit the slave being all fee-fees about how he is really and truly submitting by putting his masters needs first, this that the other thing, but his idea of “real” submission was to lie to his master about how he felt and what he wanted in ordert o manipulate the master into doing what the he (the slave) thought would make his master happy.

    I just wanted to scream “That is not being submissive you idiot!”

    • Augh! That reminds me how much I hate it when people say they won’t tell their doms what they want because they don’t want to top from the bottom. So, assuming you know better than I do what I need to know is submissive now? That’s news to me.

  2. I really like that this post even exists. I think there is a huge difference between submissives asking for and expressing what they want (which is great) and people who force their fantasies onto their partner with disregard for their partner’s feelings about it (which is ethically shitty, as you’ve said). The latter is topping from the bottom and the former isn’t. And the latter is also totally controlling. So, no, not at all submissive.

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