Thursday, December 10, 2009

Yum!

In Master's absence I've been tentatively exploring my dominant side a bit more. I still have a hard time feeling truly comfortable expressing dominance - especially towards men (damn our patriarchal society!) - but I've been getting a feel for what kind of dominance turns me on.

Enter Male Submission Art. So many pretty men! :D The blog-keeper's commentary on each post is nice, too. From what I gather he's a submissive man himself, and I don't think I've read/followed many blogs that feature male subs. While theoretically that shouldn't make a difference - a sub is a sub - the fact is that our gendered society makes the experience of submission different for men and women, I think. Or at least it's different from my perspective.

Because men are expected to dominate and women are expected to submit, the most obvious difference is that male submission has an element of transgression beyond what female submission has. Of course, this doesn't mean that female submission is bad for reifying the gender binary or whatever; however, it does mean we have to approach it and process it differently.

2 comments:

maymay said...

Hi there. I'm glad you like the photos I've been curating on Male Submission Art, and even more so to hear that you enjoy my commentary. :)

Your guesses about me are correct: I do identify as a submissive man. And I also agree with your estimation that the experience of submission is remarkably different for women than it is for men.

Over the course of the several years I have been writing about my experiences as a submissive man on my (separate) personal blog, the archives go through quite a telling story arc: first I am somewhat private, and not very outspoken, then I go out to public spaces with my dominant girlfriend more often, then I get extremely bitter and angry at these spaces for being incredibly sexist when it comes to gendered stereotypes of acceptable submissive behaviors, and then I start seeing all the sociopolitical connections in all of the deeply-ingrained sexism in such public BDSM spaces.

In any event, thanks for writing about and sharing the link to Male Submission Art. I couldn't keep the site going without the suggestions from readers like you, so please don't hesitate to suggest something for the site if you think you've found something appropriate.

maymay said...

Oops, that last link to "I start seeing the sociopolitical connections" was supposed to point to here. The other link, the post in which I talk about youth sexuality, is also worth a look, though. (At least, I think so….)