It's encouraging

It’s gratifying to read the encouraging and complimentary comments to my last post. Thank you. This blog is now just about 3 months old and I’m a little surprised at how readership has grown. I would sit here and write on my trusty PowerBook and wonder if anyone read my posts, and if so, what affect my words might have on them. There haven’t been all that many comments to my posts, so it was difficult to gauge. Out of curiosity, I installed a stat counter a few weeks ago. Low and behold, readership has apparently doubled in just two and half weeks. And it still amazes me that I can sit here in my living room, push a button to publish, and people in 16 different countries read what I write. The miracle of today’s communication technology aside, this is a satisfying experience for the writer in me. I also must admit it also has a tendency to boost my ego. Even submissives can have an ego… can’t they? But my ego and gratification isn’t what’s important here.

A stat counter can provide various statistics about page loads and Internet paths, but it cannot tell me who reads this blog or why, what their personal relationships are like, or what affect my words may have on them. Unfortunately, a stat counter excludes the human element. And isn’t that what’s most important? So far the comments posted here seem to be from people who have already embraced their dominant or submissive feelings. That’s certainly good. Though growing in number (I suspect faster than we realize), we’re still a relatively small community as compared to the vanilla folks. So we need to stick together. But hopefully there are those readers, both male and female, who want, or are considering trying, Loving Female Authority and a Wife-led Marriage. If this describes you, I encourage you to keep the faith and forge ahead. If that includes reading this blog, that's terrific. This why I’m excited that Goddess V will join me here. As I said in a previous post, I believe her words will go much further than my own. In the coming months, I think you find her to be a truly warm-hearted, caring and loving person who happens to believe that women should be in charge. I don't see how she could provide anything but positive motivation and encouragement to adopt this lifestyle.

Change Ahead: a Domme's Perspective

Until two weeks ago today, I had been maintaining this blog without my wife’s knowledge. It’s not that I was intentionally doing it on the sly: hell, I’m not even completely sure why I started this blog let alone why I didn’t tell her about it at the outset. Even though I was 99% sure she’d have no problem with it, as the weeks went by I began to feel, twinges of guilt you might say, simply because I was doing it without her knowledge. I think my guilt stemmed from the sort of relation we have built for ourselves. There is virtually nothing that we hide from one another. And no matter how you cut it, though my motive here is innocent, by my not telling my wife about this blog, in essence it was something that I was concealing.

I’m relieved to say that my conscience is once again clear. Goddess V knows about this blog, has read all of my posts to date and whole-heartedly approves. Make no mistake, her approval means the world to me, not just as part of this lifestyle but in everything I do in life. But that may not even be the best part. What I’ve said here, as well as comments my posts have received, has become yet another topic of conversation between us. Undoubtedly it also provides her not only with further insight into how I think as a submissive husband, but also how I view her as my dominant Goddess. Heart-felt, honest communication is always a great thing!

Aside from whatever personal motivations I had when beginning this blog, part of my intention has been to help promote Loving Female Authority, Wife-led Marriage and FemDom in general. I know that some who read this blog are already there. So I’m preaching to the choir. But there are others, perhaps skeptical wives, perhaps male sub wannabes (MSWs) who are trying to muster the courage to confess submissive desires. Toward this end, I talked to Goddess V about contributing to this blog because I suspect that what she can contribute to the cause may weigh more heavily when it comes to promoting LFA. Happily, she has agreed to express her views as a Domme and to answer questions that readers may wish to direct expressly to her. So hopefully this blog will become much more than my musings about being a submissive husband and will take a more beneficial step toward promoting Loving Female Authority.

My Goddess, the Physicist

I like having a marriage in which my wife is in authority. Why, I’m not completely sure, but I suspect it lends credibility to the argument that a subconscious need to submit to authority is buried deep within the male psyche. But not just any authority: Female Authority. I am not the sort of guy who enjoys being controlled and continually told what to do. I could not, for example, flourish in a military career because I would not enjoy following orders 24/7, especially orders that made no sense to me or with which I might not agree. Yet submitting to my wife is different. I love and trust Goddess V, and I know she loves and trusts me. So that makes her authority feel, well, comfortable and welcome.

But there’s more to it than this. It’s almost as if it reaches inside of me to find an opposite persona, a reverse me if you will. It’s kind of like matter and antimatter. The “other” me looks the same and is an integral part of my makeup, just as antimatter looks identical to and is a fundamental part of regular matter. But the electrical charge is opposite and the resulting feelings I experience are wholly different. They are arousing, exhilarating, even liberating in an nearly indefinable way. The greater my wife’s dominance (okay… Loving Female Authority for those who find the term FemDom a tad too intimidating), the greater the intensity of these feelings—and I must say, the better I like it.

More importantly, as when antiparticles collide with regular matter particles, when my submissive side meets my more traditional persona, energy is released. One of the laws of physics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It follows then that this energy is present all along but lying dormant. Either that or typical macho energy is converted into a more useful form. It takes female authority addressing my submissive nature to release it. Happily, because I submit to Goddess V of my own free will, it gives her license to channel this energy into whatever pleases her.

In Search of D and S

I’ve read on several other blogs about difficulties in establishing and maintaining a meaningful relationship that is centered in Loving Female Authority. The operative word here is meaningful. There seems to be more than a few submissive males searching for a dominant woman who can, not only accept but also appreciate, the desire to worship and submit. Surprising as it to me, there apparently are also dominant women who cannot find a suitable submissive male to worship them. I wonder if perhaps we let D/s define and therefore completely overshadow a relationship, when in fact it should be just one facet of it.

Or maybe the opposite is true and D/s hasn’t much at all to do with it. There are scores of vanilla men and women out there complaining of similar inability to meet “decent” perspective significant others. Witness the rising popularity of matchdotcom and eharmony. And what about those who are presently in a relationship? The divorce rate doesn’t say much for the happiness of many of them. So maybe it’s more about people in general. Are we realistic about what comprises “the perfect partner?” Are we honest with ourselves and with one another about who we are? Are we honest and realistic about what will and won’t make us happy? Do we even know?

I don’t define myself first and foremost as a submissive male. If I did, I’d probably be left out in left field because apart from the fact that I prefer to submit to the authority of the woman I love, I probably don’t have the qualities that many Dommes would consider make great sub material. Does this make me less than a “true submissive?” Well, maybe, but I see my submissive nature as merely one of the facets of my makeup as a person. It defines only one of many roles in life.

Is LFA Really an Issue?

I read where iobey recently wrote on his submissive male blog: “Unfortunately, the majority of women out there have no interest in being served by a submissive man. They find the concept unappealing and rather ridiculous. Yet, I suspect that for many of these women - though they wish to have things in a relationship 'their way' - the tradeoff of dating a man who is submissive and service-oriented simply doesn't do much for them.”

I disagree.

I think most women DO want a man to submit to them, in so far as they want control in a relationship. They just don’t like to be seen as wanting control. But be that as it may, I also think we spend too much time and energy analyzing and debating this. Is Loving Female Authority truly a good thing? Is it what nature intended? Do women want to dominate? Should they dominate? Will they agree to dominate? Do men really want to submit to women? It goes on and on. But who is doing most of this debating? It seems to me it’s mostly men. Could it be that LFA is essentially a non-issue for women?

Ask any married, divorced or single woman this question: “Do you think a relationship runs more smoothly when the man acquiesces to your judgment?” Watch the smile, the raised eyebrows, the DUH look come over her face. Notice that all I did was to use the words ‘acquiesces’ and ‘judgment’ in place of ‘submits’ and ‘authority’. It is crystal clear to me that deep down, most women believe they are smarter than men, or at the very least, better equipped to lead a relationship and to determine how a household should run. Since this is the core philosophy of Loving Female Authority and FemDom, women are largely already onboard. They just haven’t openly said so. All it takes is to verbalize those two provocative words, submission and authority.

Now, I’m not saying that every women wants to dress her man in lingerie, tie an apron around his waist and have him scrub the toilet with a toothbrush. I’m thinking there probably aren’t many. But the time is not long in coming, when a man splatters or forgets to lower the toilet seat one too many times, a woman will realize she can say to him, “Ya know what, mister? From now on YOU are gonna wear panties, and YOU are gonna sit to pee like a girl so you can better appreciate what we women put up with!” There's gonna be a lot of clean toilet seats out there.

Loving Female Authority—reality check

This past Sunday afternoon Goddess V lounged on the sofa, reading a magazine while wearing a favorite comfortable nightshirt. I knelt at her feet, naked except for my collar. I clipped and shaped her toenails then massaged her feet with a peppermint foot massage crème. As I worked with one foot she let the other fall to my crotch where she teased me with wiggling toes. To arouse me further, each time I looked up from my work she made sure I saw she was not wearing panties. Finally I gave her toenails two coats of hot pink polish that matched the tips of her French manicure. When I was finished she surveyed my work and said, “God boy, honey.” Then she pulled on my leash and said, “Now kneel between my legs and worship at your altar.” As she spread her legs to give me access she added, “I’ll try not to curl my toes too tight and mess up the polish.”

That’s how it could have happened. In my mind that’s how it SHOULD have happened. But did it? Oh, I gave Goddess V a foot massage and pedicure. This is one of my responsibilities. But the rest is fantasy. Why? One word: kids. Two of them, while grown, still live at home, and they never leave the house at the same time for any dependable length of time. We suspect they have a tag-team going so that when one leaves the house, the other comes home. We think they do it just to get back at us for being parents. We’re okay with them seeing me doing Mom’s toenails. I’m the artistic type, always involved in a home improvement project or something creative, so they probably see it more or less as just another creative thing I do because I’m the one who’s better at it. Besides, they know it’s one of those things that make Mom happy, and therefore is always, always a good thing. But bringing out the collar and leash? That’s better relegated to the family dog. Yes, we can sequester ourselves in our bedroom for privacy, and of course we do. But even that doesn’t completely shut out reality.

When I was growing up there was a kid on our block whose parents were always wailing his ass for misbehaving. During the summer when everyone’s windows were open (this was pre-central AC) I could often hear little Stevie taking his whipping. WHACK... SMACK... WHAP... and Stevie lived halfway down the block! Many of you know how much noise a leather paddle can make when it meets naked flesh. And the thing is, there is something about the nature of that sound that you immediately know what it is. You hear it and right away you think to yourself, “Uh-oh, someone is getting their ass spanked.” Though our bedrooms are on different floors in our house, we don’t especially want the kids to awake in the middle of the night and think, “Uh-oh, Mom’s got the poor guy over her knee again.”

This is reality. My reality anyway. The FemDom aspect of our relationship is clearly deepening, but intervention and challenges of the real world are something that I think often frustrate me more than Goddess V. Even though she is more the optimist and I the realist, she has a way of accepting the reality of life more easily than I. When I think about that, it’s probably a sign of her superior female wisdom, and just one more reason why it’s best that she lead our relationship both in public and behind closed doors.

Promoting loving female authority

Those of us who have created websites or blogs that deal with loving female authority know through personal experience how well this lifestyle works. There is little doubt in my mind that most interpersonal relationships, as well as our society in general will eventually become female-led. Sometimes I wonder however, if perhaps those of us who actively promote loving female authority and FemDom may unwittingly create obstacles that hinder the transition to female leadership. It seems to me that we need to be careful to draw a clear distinction between reality-based and fantasy-based LFA/FemDom. Too often we are preoccupied with certain aspects of the lifestyle that, because they are more intense, for many people fall into the fantasy column instead of the reality column.

One particular blog written by a dominant wife, for many months has been preoccupied with cuckolding her husband. Relax, all you Katherine fans. I’m not judging or condemning this. Based on reader comments, a number of people find her writing captivating. But aren’t there also readers who find it disturbing? Elise Sutton warns that cuckolding is primarily a male fantasy, one with modest appeal to a majority of females. If this is true, and if our mission is to encourage more females to adopt this lifestyle (let's face it, there are currently far more closet sub males than subhubs kneeling at their wives' feet), doesn’t it follow that dwelling on cuckolding is likely to turn off female readers, even to the point where they may close their minds to it altogether? Sutton seems to think so, which is why she says she seriously considered excluding the subject from both her website and her book.

This is why Around Her Finger paints a far more conservation picture that essentially relegates all but the basics of loving female authority to shadows in the background. It’s a vanilla approach the Addisons figure will create a less threatening point of entry for a wider audience, with minimal opportunity for offending anyone, especially women. Just associating female authority with the already socially acceptable phrase, around-her-finger (which in my opinion was brilliant) casts LFA in a familiar, non-threatening light. It sounds so much less ominous than FemDom, don’t ya think? But make no mistake, it’s a euphemism for male submission to female domination. And that is D/s, plain and simple.

I have to confess that on Sutton’s site, I’ll sometimes read a letter or real life experience that scares the bejesus out of me. I’ll read and think to myself, “Are these people serious? No way!” On the other hand I sometimes feel short-changed and a little frustrated when reading on AHF at the Addisons’ persistent sidestepping around many FemDom issues simply because they might offend someone. Which approach is best and likely to be more effective in spreading the word? And where does this blog fit in? In which direction should I take it? I’m thinking about keeping it reality-based and positioned somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum. Any comments or suggestions?

The way they look at each other

Last Saturday evening was ”date night” for us, just the two of us. This doesn’t happen as often as it should because we have an active circle of friends with whom we get together on the weekend. None of them much like one particular bar and restaurant that we happen to enjoy, so we decided some time ago that we would not let that stop us from doing what we enjoy. Goddess V and I shared a sampling of our favorite appetizers, had several drinks, talked, and later danced nearly every other song as a vocalist duo sang mostly slow to medium tempo songs. We had a wonderful time together.

The vocalists have seen us maybe a half dozen times over the last three months, and during a break the female half of the duo approached us to tell say much she admired the way we interacted together. She said she had told her partner that we must be either having an affair or had only recently met and fallen in love. She told us that everything about the way we interacted together showed how much we admire and love each other. She was shocked to learn we have been together for over eight years. This is not the first time we have heard this from people we don’t know or have only recently met. We hear it frequently, usually from women, and while we take it as a compliment that makes us feel good, it in another way it makes us feel a little sad.

There’s an underlying acknowledgement that passion and romance must inevitably wane as a relationship matures. Show someone a couple who exhibit passion and romance and immediately the assumption is: “Oh, they must be new together… give ‘em time and they’ll end up just like the rest of us.” Are they wrong in that assumption? Well, in many cases, probably not. We meet, we court, we fall in love, we reach a pinnacle of passion and then we begin a long, insidious slide downward. Half of us slide into divorce while many of the rest of us slide into reasonably comfortable if not frustrating relationships that often leave us wondering if this is all there is.

Those of us practicing a FemDom lifestyle know it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m not saying FemDom is the end-all-be-all. Any meaningful relationship takes work, whether it be vanilla or otherwise. Certainly there are those relationships that will fail no matter what. Goddess V and I are by no means experts, but as we learn and explore this lifestyle, I am coming to believe with increasing conviction that if you take a relationship in which mutual love and respect exist, and you introduce FemDom, you arrive at a formula for success that is virtually foolproof. It can save troubled marriages that are destined for divorce and catapult those that are stagnant into levels of joy and happiness unimagined in common hours.

She holds the cookie

This is a polite way of saying the woman has what the man wants, because as anyone who’s tasted a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie knows, it’s darn near irresistible. That gives a woman enormous power over her male counterpart. It’s a mystery to me why women haven’t more fully exploited that power. After all, they could dangle the cookie in front of our noses so much more than they do. Okay, I can appreciate 3000 years of patriarchal socialization hell bent on convincing each and every woman that her cookie was best kept in the cookie jar, or that the taste of her cookie was overrated, or perhaps, in fact, she had no cookie at all. Still, I can’t imagine it would take more than one experience with the male gender for a female to spot the falsehood in every crumb of that propaganda!

In light of this, I think the feminists had (and still have) it all wrong. In fact in my opinion, the feminist movement set women back more than it ushered them forward. Certainly motivating woman to compete head-to-head with men was and is a commendable cause. But it attempts this by encouraging women to adopt and play by men’s rules, even to the extreme where many have donned “professional” business suits and neckties. The emphasis is shifted away from being feminine, supposedly because exhibiting female sexuality is seen as maintaining an “eye candy” image that panders to the male gender. In many ways, feminists want to be just like men, when in reality they can never be. They are different on just about every level. And this is precisely as nature intended. I say, viva la difference!

I’m simply suggesting that Mother Nature bestowed upon woman her female sexuality for a reason: to give her the ultimate power over the male gender. Why? So that she can exercise control. I suspect all men know this on some level, which is why they have suppressed women through the ages. Basically, men are afraid of women because we know deep down they indeed hold the cookie, that we are powerless to resist female sexuality. As women openly embrace their sexuality and unabashedly use the power it provides, they will rule in ways the feminists never dared to imagine. No, let me rephrase that. Women will reshape marriages, relationships and society into whatever forms they think they should be.

Perhaps a female reader (assuming I have any) might care to share her thoughts on this.