Awareness

We have goldfinches who visit our yard each summer to pick at the sunflowers I’ve planted or the thistle that VK puts in one of our bird feeders. A few weeks ago we were on our deck, watching them when I confessed to VK how until 5 or 6 years ago, I was completely unaware of them. The same for the cardinals who feast on sunflower seeds all year long (provided the pesky squirrels don’t gobble them up first). And ditto for a red headed wood pecker who occasionally makes an appearance.

In my defense I’ve gotta say that bird watching was not one of my priorities. I mean, I was too busy raising a house full of kids as a full time Mom. That was A LOT of work! But then one day when I was getting near the age of forty, I did become aware of something that was unexpected. No, it wasn't the birds. It was how my marriage had become a relationship I no longer wanted to be part of in the years ahead. Stick a fork in me—I realized I was done.

For a couple of years after that I don’t think I was aware of much of anything, except maybe the fog that seemed to fill my head. But today my life is very different. I have beautiful birds in my yard! One snowy day a few years ago, my youngest son was amazed to see 5 or 6 cardinals on our deck. I thought that was so cool when I realized that even though he was 16 years old, he’d never seen anything like that.

The birds were probably always in the neighborhood. It only took planting sunflowers or a hand full of birdseed from VK to bring them into our yard. VK says all the time, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Sounded like gibberish to me at first but now I think it says it all. Once you’re aware of something, it can change your life—in ways you might never have imagined before you knew what you now know. But I think you have to open yourself to being aware.

BTW, VK dug up a few interesting facts. The American Goldfinch in the picture above is a male. The female (right) is more olive green. The male is also green but is the only bird to molt twice in one year. He turns bright yellow in the Spring in order to be more attractive to the female. Goldfinches are thought to stay with the same mate for life, except that sometimes a female will leave her first mate to tend to the nest while she goes off to mate with another male, who she then stays with for life. Ya gotta love nature!

Empowerment

VeezKnight read a post in the Venus on Top Yahoo group and thought the new member to that group made some good points. I agree. We know that many submissive men try to get their wives to lead their marriages. And some (many?) are unsuccessful. I think one of the reasons for this is that submissive men often have more to their agenda than just being in a wife-led marriage. They don’t just want to be “led”, they want to be totally and completely dominated.

It's true that there is nothing that will drive a man happily into sub space like being dominated by a woman he loves. (The fact of the matter is there are few limits to how far a dominant wife can push and control her husband if she handles him properly.) I see nothing wrong with this—it’s as it should be. And when FemDom reaches full stride that’s how it WILL be.

BUT the transition from traditional vanilla doesn’t happen over night.

In the beginning, it’s a mistake for a man to expect his submission will be defined by the level of dominance the woman is initially willing to bring into the relationship. As Paul learned below, a man’s sense of submission needs to be realized from within, without depending on a dominant woman to define it for him. The thing is, and take it from me, dominating a man is a lot of responsibility and a lot of work too!

This is why when a man depends solely on a woman’s dominance to satisfy his need to submit, the FemDom dynamic probably isn’t gonna work effectively. As you’ll read below, Paul learned that becoming an empowered submissive—instead of a needy one—resulted in empowering his wife to more fully embrace her female authority. So you see, even though a male’s role is to follow, support and submit to the female, he can actually help “lead” the relationship into being a FemDom relationship that satisfies both.

This isn’t the same as "stealth submission," where the man knocks himself out while the woman knows nothing of what’s going on in his head. This is frustrating for a man and difficult for many to sustain. But in a situation where the woman is in the loop and is at least marginally agreeable, the outcome, as in Paul’s case, can be very different. One feeds the other. The more the male empowers himself through self-actualization of his submissive nature, the more it frees the woman to explore her authority and become an empowered dominant woman. The more empowered she becomes, the more it validates and drives the male’s sense of submission to new highs—or should I say ‘lows.’ ☺ Soon the relationship is .....



Thank you to Paul for giving us permission to reprint his experience here.

Paul wrote:

For years I asked my wife to be more dominant. I bought her books. I bought her toys. I asked in every way I could think of and even though she actually complied a lot of the time I was never satisfied. For me it was like an addiction. No matter what she did for me or to me I always wanted more. In truth I was very ashamed of being a submissive male and I forever wanted her to force me to be sub so I wouldn't have to take responsibility for choosing submission.

Meanwhile, my incessant requests helped my wife to feel that she wasn't good enough. Because I always asked for more, she felt I was rejecting what she did give me and thus rejected her. She also felt that I was being extremely controlling and although I said I wanted her to be in control I was constantly trying to manipulate her.

I did some counseling with a kink-friendly therapist who had worked for many years as a professional dominatrix. She told me very clearly, " lead with love, lead with joy, but never ever lead with need! It's unattractive! " What I learned was to approach my wife with the joy of who I am and the deep love I have for her and not approach her with neediness. She also taught me what an " empowered submissive" is. I learned that this kind of sub didn't need anyone else to make them a sub. In other words, I chose to accept who I am and I didn't need my wife to do or say anything so I could feel OK about being me.

After my work with this counselor, I decided I could not create a FLR. I wonder if any man can. What I did decide is that I could be in a male-following relationship. Having let go of my shame I no longer needed my wife to force me to be the person I knew I truly am. To meet my own need for submission, I settled in to serving my wife and doing my best to obey her will whether she asserted it dominantly or not.

I had been entirely focused on myself and I truly had no expectation that she would change her behavior. The funny thing was, my wife, almost immediately after I made this change, changed as well. She became extremely dominant. She said that I had taken the pressure off of her and she wasn't feeling manipulated anymore. She said she had breathing room and was enjoying her new domain.

Basically what I think happened for me is; having made my needs known to my wife, way too strenuously, I was helped to let go of being needy and focus instead on meeting my own needs by serving her, whether she responded or not. She then did respond, big time! She felt safe to be dominant because I had finally stopped dominating the relationship with my need for submission. Does that make sense?

Yes, Paul, it makes A LOT of sense.

--Goddess V

Femquility

Imagine a small cohousing community out of the mainstream, perhaps located on the outskirts of a small rural town. It’s more akin to a village, in which neighbors know one another’s names, smile when they say hello and gather often in a central Common House. Flowers abound and gardens are abundant with vegetables grown organically as residents honor nature and strive to live sustainably.

Imagine a peaceful community in which humans cohabit, where their footprint on Mother Earth is deliberately shallow, and where respect and appreciation for the resources she provides is the order of the day. Residents live separately in modest, but comfortable houses which, while scattered randomly throughout the landscape, are strategically positioned to take advantage of the sun’s solar energy.

But these are not the only features making this community a unique place in which to live. Here woman is revered and worshipped as goddess. Here a Wise Women Council governs and men hold little sway in either private or public affairs. In this community residents reject traditional patriarchy in favor of loving, female-led relationships. FemDom is practiced openly. Women rule absolutely, with males relegated to supportive roles in submission to female authority.

Sound too good to be true? Perhaps, but not in the imagination of one visionary dominant woman. Her vision is to secure a parcel of land in the southeastern sector of the United States, from North Carolina to Florida, on which to develop a FemDom ecovillage that encompasses all of this and more. She calls this community Femquility.

Ms. Lisa Kelly of Naples, Florida is promoting Femquility via a website that presents a somewhat detailed overview of her proposed community, accompanied by welcoming visuals of how the community might look once fully established. Incidentally, all of the graphics in this post were taken from her site. Based solely on the concept, the vision, the dream, I’m enthralled with the notion of calling such a place home. I might add that Goddess V is already itching to have me back our bags.

Unfortunately, Femquility has yet to break ground, nor has there even been a flag planted to mark it’s future location. Enthusiastic as I am, the pragmatist in me warns that translating Ms. Lisa’s dream into reality will require an effort that is nothing short of Herculean. The financial challenges alone are daunting. Short of finding a wealthy dominant woman or submissive man with the financial wherewithal to bankroll such a project, how does one raise enough capital to purchase a reasonably desirable tract of land let alone begin developing it.

Then too, how does one connect with enough people willing to invest in individual properties in Femquility. How many of those people are actually able to relocate due to children, family ties, jobs and other obligations? One European recently wrote in an FLR forum: great idea but too bad its in the United States. Hmmm.


I’m 120 miles from Goddess V as I write this, yet I can hear her say, “If you think negative crap, that’s just what you’ll get.” So let’s end on a positive note. According to experts, the ideal number of people to populate an ecovillage is between 50 and 150. Since the plan for Femquility calls for just 33 individual housing units, not that many people are needed to buy in. And it could very well be that somewhere in the southeastern US, there lives a dominant woman and/or submissive man who owns enough suitable land on which Femquility could be built. It’s a matter of connecting with enough of the right people who believe strongly enough in FemDom and loving female-led relationships.

Femquility is a concept whose time is overdue. Hopefully we’ll soon be reading that construction is under way. I added a permanent link to the Femquility website in the sidebar at right. You can also join the Femquility Yahoo Group to keep tabs on progress.