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RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 2:26:32 AM   
Plasticine


Posts: 260
Joined: 6/9/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nineveh
Nope, I wasn't thinking a manly princess.  I think you are projecting when you assume that she wants to surrender though.


I certainly have nothing to project.  My information comes from social science, archetypal mythology and talking to women about this stuff.

(in reply to Nineveh)
Profile   Post #: 41
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 2:27:08 AM   
LafayetteLady


Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline 		It's kind of interesting that so far it has been mostly men who have responded with their views on feminism.

What feminism boils down to is a woman having the right to choose her life. The best example I can think of is in the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" with Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Maggy Gyllenhal, and I forget the other girl's name. Anyway, at the end of the movie remember how Julia Stiles told Julia Roberts that she was choosing to become a housewife (I think this movie was set in the early 60s)? She wasn't simply accepting a role that others had told her she had to be, she was choosing to do that over going to law school.

So while you are a feminist, you are also a sexual being. You are choosing to be sexually submissive in your relaitonships because it brings YOU pleasure. You don't do it because it brings your dom pleasure (regardless of the fact that it does).

Being a feminist doesn't mean you are being weak or unequal by being submissive. Feminism is about having the right to decide for yourself what you want or don't want without a man (or society) dictating to you what you "should" be or how you "should" act. You aren't submissive to the world, you don't allow the world to humiliate, degrade or objectify you. You allow your partner, under the guideline that YOU set to partake in an activity that brings you pleasure.

Take your current situation with the whole "aftercare" issue. He is telling you how you should feel and act. If you were to allow this, that would go against being a feminist. You aren't doing that. You are saying "this is what I want/need/desire/choose" or however you want to put it and aren't accepting that his way is the way it has to be.

Feminism isn't about having power. It is about being allowed to be who you are without having to apologize for it.

(in reply to jujubeeMB)
Profile   Post #: 42
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 2:28:44 AM   
aldompdx


Posts: 538
Joined: 10/24/2004
Status: offline 		Surrender is by ongoing free choice from self will. It requires strength, not weakness. The greatest surrender can be accepting what truly resonates with your heart. With that acceptance, every act is in pursuit of inspiring fulfillment in the only place it ever arises -- your very own heart.

The question then becomes: how is fulfillment conflicting?

Self empowerment and sharing one's self are not mutually exclusive. You are only a "victim" of your preferences when they compel external dependency.

Consider the feminine archetypes in Eastern traditions. Manifesting and sharing energy (love) is a feminine aspect. That energy need not be agressive or assertive, but can be empathic. Service is not mere protocol or ritual, but an intimate and empathic "tuning in."

Everybody is an object. The potential problem arises when objectification is sought as a mechanism to evade or repress intimacy and self empowerment. If one has no power, how can they share their (absent) energy?

If you own your choice and feel fulfillment, how is "degredation" a negative thing? On the other hand, if the goal is to feel unfulfilled, then that is a question of true masochism.

As I explain in my profile:
emotional feeling, not physical ritual; self acceptance, not self sublimation; self respect, not invited abuse; self honesty, not bargaining or competing; inner caring beauty, not external vanity; innocence, not embarrassment; duty of choice, not victim of trap; generosity, not suffering; humility, not humiliation; released inhibition, not conceptual limitation; transcended consciousness, not pain endurance; conscientious awareness, not mindless obedience; inner love, not external identification.

< Message edited by aldompdx -- 7/4/2010 2:30:53 AM >

(in reply to jujubeeMB)
Profile   Post #: 43
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:12:03 AM   
zephyroftheNorth


Posts: 8159
Joined: 10/5/2009
From: The Great Frozen North
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

It's kind of interesting that so far it has been mostly men who have responded with their views on feminism.

What feminism boils down to is a woman having the right to choose her life. The best example I can think of is in the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" with Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Maggy Gyllenhal, and I forget the other girl's name. Anyway, at the end of the movie remember how Julia Stiles told Julia Roberts that she was choosing to become a housewife (I think this movie was set in the early 60s)? She wasn't simply accepting a role that others had told her she had to be, she was choosing to do that over going to law school.

So while you are a feminist, you are also a sexual being. You are choosing to be sexually submissive in your relaitonships because it brings YOU pleasure. You don't do it because it brings your dom pleasure (regardless of the fact that it does).

Being a feminist doesn't mean you are being weak or unequal by being submissive. Feminism is about having the right to decide for yourself what you want or don't want without a man (or society) dictating to you what you "should" be or how you "should" act. You aren't submissive to the world, you don't allow the world to humiliate, degrade or objectify you. You allow your partner, under the guideline that YOU set to partake in an activity that brings you pleasure.

Take your current situation with the whole "aftercare" issue. He is telling you how you should feel and act. If you were to allow this, that would go against being a feminist. You aren't doing that. You are saying "this is what I want/need/desire/choose" or however you want to put it and aren't accepting that his way is the way it has to be.

Feminism isn't about having power. It is about being allowed to be who you are without having to apologize for it.


QFT! This is exactly and precisely how I feel. I grew up in the 60s and when women asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I said housewife. I was immediately reminded that I could have it all. I didn't WANT it all I wanted to be a housewife dammit but it wasn't good enough for them. To me they were doing exactly what they were claiming the world was doing to me, not allowing me the choice I wanted to make.

This choice now translates into wanting to be with a man to whom I submit. I'm not comfortable taking the lead, it isn't who and what I am....and it's my CHOICE to do so. This is exactly why I don't broadcast my being a submissive woman to the world at large, the feminists would have a stroke, forgetting that they are all about women having choices INCLUDING the choice to submit.

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(in reply to LafayetteLady)
Profile   Post #: 44
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:27:28 AM   
kallisto


Posts: 1185
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady


Feminism isn't about having power. It is about being allowed to be who you are without having to apologize for it.



2 sentences that sums it up perfectly, imo.

(in reply to LafayetteLady)
Profile   Post #: 45
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:32:07 AM   
LafayetteLady


Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline 		Thank you.

(in reply to kallisto)
Profile   Post #: 46
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:32:35 AM   
lally2


Posts: 2621
Joined: 4/16/2009
Status: offline 		well, from everyones description of a feminist it appears that im one too - but ive never had a problem with submission as an expression of who i am.  ive been spared the anxt by not caring one damn what society wishes to thrust upon me, i am what i am, good enough

if you take away the highbrow man made hoopla that has decided to dictate to women that they must have an equal share in the trouser wearing department youre just left with youre instincts.  if people keep avoiding their instincts and just follow the herd youre left with a load of bovines munching the cud that society spews at you.  where is the power or individuality or strength in that.  if feminism has become a blunt instrument to bludgeon women to follow a creed then it has become self defeating and no better than before womens rights jumped infront of that horse race.

if pankhurst died for anything it was that women had the right to choose for themselves what they want from life - and you have.

_____________________________

So all I have to do in order to serve him, is to work out exactly how improbable he is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give him a fresh cup of really hot tea ... and turn him on!

(in reply to zephyroftheNorth)
Profile   Post #: 47
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:35:03 AM   
LafayetteLady


Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline 		Am I the only one who finds it strange that all the deep, intense, philosophical definitions are all given by MEN?

(in reply to lally2)
Profile   Post #: 48
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:42:03 AM   
lally2


Posts: 2621
Joined: 4/16/2009
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

Am I the only one who finds it strange that all the deep, intense, philosophical definitions are all given by MEN?


are you calling me shallow  lol

_____________________________

So all I have to do in order to serve him, is to work out exactly how improbable he is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give him a fresh cup of really hot tea ... and turn him on!

(in reply to LafayetteLady)
Profile   Post #: 49
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:43:32 AM   
Plasticine


Posts: 260
Joined: 6/9/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
Am I the only one who finds it strange that all the deep, intense, philosophical definitions are all given by MEN?


I might suggest that it is because many women have been specifically discouraged from thinking in these terms.  I also find it strange, but that's why I perceive there to be a problem.

(in reply to LafayetteLady)
Profile   Post #: 50
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:50:10 AM   
VaguelyCurious


Posts: 5264
Joined: 12/2/2009
From: United Kingdom
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Plasticine

quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
Am I the only one who finds it strange that all the deep, intense, philosophical definitions are all given by MEN?


I might suggest that it is because many women have been specifically discouraged from thinking in these terms.  I also find it strange, but that's why I perceive there to be a problem.

Your statement that the reason women do not talk in these terms is because they do not consider the issues (rather than that they have considered the issues and made peace with them without the need to post reams and reams of faintly insulting 'vulnerable princess' tosh) does not ring true.


_____________________________

Sthetic on FetLife.




(in reply to Plasticine)
Profile   Post #: 51
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:52:45 AM   
MadameMarque


Posts: 1128
Joined: 3/19/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Plasticine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nineveh
Some femininity does, some masculinity wants to surrender to femininity.  There are innate differences between the sexes, but it's not about who is in control, it's more about how they are in control.


I think I understand what you are getting at but you are mincing words in my opinion.  What I think you mean is that some men are feminine and desire to surrender to masculine women, and conversely some masculine women wish to dominate submissive men.  Which is great and fine by me.  Those people should absolutely seek each other and their own mutual satisfaction.  I do not speak of these things in terms of actual gender, I was speaking archetypally.



If you continue to confuse the terms "masculine" and "dominant," by making them synonymous, or likewise, if you continue making submissive, by definition, feminine, then you've already bypassed any examination of the premise upon which you base any further opinions about gender.

Also, if you 'do not speak of these things in terms of actual gender,' then you are not speaking of feminism vs sexism.

It's like discussing racism, but not in terms of actual racial heritage - it does not address the issue of racial equality.


(in reply to Plasticine)
Profile   Post #: 52
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 4:57:43 AM   
Plasticine


Posts: 260
Joined: 6/9/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious

quote:

ORIGINAL: Plasticine

quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
Am I the only one who finds it strange that all the deep, intense, philosophical definitions are all given by MEN?


I might suggest that it is because many women have been specifically discouraged from thinking in these terms.  I also find it strange, but that's why I perceive there to be a problem.

Your statement that the reason women do not talk in these terms is because they do not consider the issues (rather than that they have considered the issues and made peace with them without the need to post reams and reams of faintly insulting 'vulnerable princess' tosh) does not ring true.



I did not say that women do not consider these issues.  I would never say that.  I think women are forced to consider these issues an a daily basis until the do make peace with them.  I am in no way being deprecating, and I'm sincerely sorry if it reads that way.  But I can assure you that these are not opinions pulled out of my ass, they are confirmed by quality social scientists and marriage counselors everywhere.  The opinions expressed on here by women on feminism are the exact sort of opinions that a woman should have.  Thats wonderful... but it in no way addresses the many women who aren't quite comfortable arriving at those same conclusions even if it would be best for them.  FWIW the princess metaphor was not mine, nor would I have selected it as I am talking about doctors, attorneys and business women as well.

(in reply to VaguelyCurious)
Profile   Post #: 53
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:00:33 AM   
VaguelyCurious


Posts: 5264
Joined: 12/2/2009
From: United Kingdom
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MadameMarque

If you continue to confuse the terms "masculine" and "dominant," by making them synonymous, or likewise, if you continue making submissive, by definition, feminine, then you've already bypassed any examination of the premise upon which you base any further opinions about gender.

The last time the 'is submission inherently feminine and vice versa?' row came up it ran for a ridiculous number of pages and a poster was banned. Can we pleeeeeease not have it again? That's not what this thread is about.



_____________________________

Sthetic on FetLife.




(in reply to MadameMarque)
Profile   Post #: 54
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:03:23 AM   
Elisabella


Posts: 3939
Status: offline
quote:

my version of the ideal couple: completely equal, no gender roles, both talented at different things but sharing in most responsibilities.


I think this is the crux of your problem - you are idealizing a relationship that is vastly different from the one that you find fulfilling. A lesbian egalitarian relationship and a hetero D/s relationship are so inherently different that you can't reconcile them.

Instead of focusing on the details of your moms' relationship and the way they interacted with each other, focus on how they were both being true to who they are, being fulfilled in their desire to find love on their own terms rather than what society dictated for them. Then focus on how liberating that must have been for them. Regardless of all the "feminist" trappings of a relationship, what made them happy was being who they are. The specifics of their relationship isn't an ideal for everyone, rather, the path they took to get to those specifics is.

(in reply to jujubeeMB)
Profile   Post #: 55
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:07:23 AM   
Plasticine


Posts: 260
Joined: 6/9/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MadameMarque
If you continue to confuse the terms "masculine" and "dominant," by making them synonymous, or likewise, if you continue making submissive, by definition, feminine, then you've already bypassed any examination of the premise upon which you base any further opinions about gender.

Also, if you 'do not speak of these things in terms of actual gender,' then you are not speaking of feminism vs sexism.

It's like discussing racism, but not in terms of actual racial heritage - it does not address the issue of racial equality.


I'm not really looking to take it from all sides here but you seem to be purveying the myth.  I am not claiming that straight men are purely masculine, dominant or sadistic, nor that straight women are purely feminine, submissive or masochistic.  But the actual psychology is that:

Masculinity = Dominance = Sadism

and

Femininity = Submission = Masochism

I hold that ALL people are sadomasochists, and thus all are a blend of both of these spheres to varying degrees.   More intelligent people tend to have more androgynous gender identities and thus be in touch with both, and are thus generally more conflicted about which role to assume.

I realize that this is an unpopular view within BDSM... but ask a sociologist or a psychiatrist and you may find that there is a compelling argument there.

(Sorry VC)


< Message edited by Plasticine -- 7/4/2010 5:11:38 AM >

(in reply to MadameMarque)
Profile   Post #: 56
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:10:22 AM   
LafayetteLady


Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

It depends upon what you believe to be the crux of Feminism.....where you believe it to be an equal share in authority....as some do...then you can't really reconcile the two.....but where you believe it is the act of choosing your own path...free from the constraints imposed upon you by society...largely ran by men....then you could make a case for a reconciliation between the two.


Ok, I admit that I made my post without reading any of the posts before and am just doing so now.

Feminism is not about the equal share OF authority, but rather the equal opportunity FOR authority. There is a huge difference, and as such makes it quite easy to reconcile the two.

quote:


quote:

ORIGINAL: myotherself

I would give him the right to control aspects of our/my life, but only because I don't WANT to control them for myself. So in reality, I'm controlling the situation anyway, albeit in a more passive manner



Wise to keep this one close to your chest in future.......Myotherself........otherwise you may find yourself doing a few things that you really don't want to do. Just a spot of friendly advice :-)


A dominant's control (whether they be male or female) is, like it or not, ultimately controlled by the submissive. As myotherself says, it is done is a very passive manner. But the decision of who to be submissive to, the limits and the continuation of allowing control are within the power of the bottom, not the top. And yes, both are free to end the relationship, but that is a different thing.



< Message edited by LafayetteLady -- 7/4/2010 5:14:50 AM >

(in reply to NorthernGent)
Profile   Post #: 57
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:12:53 AM   
Firebirdseeking


Posts: 477
Joined: 9/3/2006
Status: offline 		Nice, Plasticine.

(in reply to Plasticine)
Profile   Post #: 58
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:25:14 AM   
LafayetteLady


Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Plasticine

I've affirmed that in every post.  You just can't accept that femininity WANTS to surrender to masculinity.  Submissives are choosing to submit to dominance.  Just because cultural pressures have done a switch on you doesn't mean the mainstream is crazy.  Marriages are failing at a record rate because people can't decide which one is in control.  The henpecked husband will never be an animal in bed, he's been beaten into submission. Feminism proper makes women think that if they are being submissive they aren't being equal and that is just completely fucking wrong.



Exactly where do you get the concept that feminity WANTS to surrender to masculinity? Yes submissives choose to submit, but that isn't about feminity surrendering to masculinity. If it were, then all femdoms would be suffering the penis envy Freud loved to spout off about, and the men would all be closet homosexuals. It's nonsense.

As for your take on why marriages are failing, you aren't simply off base, you have left the field completely. As someone who spent nearly two decades working in Family Law, I can assure you that divorce is rarely about who is in control.

You can't call yourself a feminist and then make the comment that women naturally want to submit to men. It's contradictory.

(in reply to Plasticine)
Profile   Post #: 59
RE: Feminism and submission - 7/4/2010 5:26:32 AM   
Firebirdseeking


Posts: 477
Joined: 9/3/2006
Status: offline 		I think this issue is not that complex, although in the very beginning, I struggled with it too.  It is completely possible to support the goals of the feminist movement, but needing something different in our personal lives.  Moreover, feminism is not about "equality", as men and women are not "equal", may as well compare an apple with an orange - we are different and need to have the  same social, educational, economic and political options as men - that is what the women's movement was and is about. Choices.  Access. This discussion veers off track when it tries to define "a man is this and a woman is that".  I have know more than my share of men who were far from dominant, including men I have known through this site.  Feminism is about choices.  If I as a woman need a  pair of shoulders stronger than mine - and mine are pretty strong - and if I as a woman need a man to take charge in bed - how is that anti-feminism?    

< Message edited by Firebirdseeking -- 7/4/2010 5:33:45 AM >

(in reply to Plasticine)
Profile   Post #: 60
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