Another aspect of the female submission thing for some, is the ownership principle. It’s completely anti-feminist in it’s way that any woman would want to be owned or “feel” owned by a male considering the long and twisted history between the sexes, but nevertheless there it is. Besides just the uncontrolled lust principle, there is also that sense of “belonging” to a person and for a lot of women there is an extreme sense of safety in that, with the right person.

It’s no longer PC to talk about what men want and what women want, we have to drag out the big bag of what “people” want, for fear that we’ll emasculate men, or dehumanize women. But at the end of the day when we’re talking about generalities and large numbers, the numbers are overwhelmingly on the side of male dom, fem sub.

I’m not sure I agree with an earlier commenter’s post that gender has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with it for some people, but I think it has a lot to do with it for me and I really don’t believe I’m alone here. If I were male I highly highly doubt I would have the same flavor kink. I used to deny this up and down, it was more to be PC than how I really felt about the issue. I’m a female sub. I’m not a sub who “happens to be” female. I cannot separate my gender from this because how it plays out for me depends very much on certain common male/female dynamics that do nothing for me if the genders are switched. If it was JUST about the kink for me and not about the genders involved, I would be equally aroused seeing a woman dominate or a male submit. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those things, but those scenarios do nothing for me. I don’t find them the slightest bit hot. That’s personal preference, not judging it wrong.

I can acknowledge that different people like different things, while still knowing my kinks lie in the majority for this particular issue. Just like homosexuality is in no way degraded or downplayed by the simple acceptance that heterosexuality is more common.

A friend of mine calls BDSM “when we get to play in those dark places inside of us and still be loved afterwards.” In other words, I can do awful, mean, nasty, horrible things to someone, pulling out not the appearance of sadism but actual real joy in hurting someone, in taking them into really truly scary places, and afterwards, she still likes me. Conversely, she can ask to be humiliated, degraded, made to do and say the most subservient and fucked-up things imaginable, and like it - and yet, afterwards, I don’t treat her like that, I treat her with respect, love, and admiration, not just for her journey with me but also for everything else that she is. We are drawn to each other because we find that we love each others’ shadows, in other words.

The guy’s intent is pretty clear, the woman’s is somewhat harder to read, but that wouldn’t surprise too many people I reckon.

I think people sometimes look for something in the bedroom they’re not getting in the rest of their lives, be it submission, dominance, the ability to throw stuff around and be messy, to break the rules, to make stuff up as you go along and not have to follow any rules, to make lots of noise, all in the company (hopefully) of someone you trust to go along for the ride and quest for intent of the evening, whatever that may be. The fact that some really hawt orgasms are usually involved just makes it that much more fun to do.

Or you could go back to hunter/gather stereotypes and say that men are looking for a woman who is strong (can fight them) but who is also willing to submit/realises when she’s beaten and should give in. That’s not as much fun though.

I’m a switch, though generally more submissive than not, and I have to say I don’t really agree with your reasoning on this, but I concede that there perhaps are women who do think this way, but not a great number.

I would also suggest that since sex and lust itself still carries a certain societal taboo these days that having sex *at all* can be seen as overcoming his ‘better impulses’, let alone domming. I’d also add that a man having sex with you at all is a show that you’re wanted, kink really doesn’t come into it in that way.

I’d also be interested in how you view the attraction of women to be dominate if this is your view of submitting? How does that fit with the idea that being wanted is being taken ‘by force’ (I was trying to think of a way to say that without implying rape, but I think I fail, although the last line of your penultimate paragraph does imply worrying consequences for rape)?