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