 |
In this discussion, I will be talking
primarily about the female heterosexual submissive, because I don't know enough about
non-heterosexual female submissives and Dominants to know whether this analysis is
completely applicable. This focus is not to suggest that lesbian female submissives and
their challenges are less worthy of study, merely that I am not equipped at this time to
do such a study. So often, women who are newly
aware of their submissive needs endure a period of self doubt around the troubling
question: am I sick?
I've seen women read the psychiatric diagnostic manual (DSM-IV) and then ask, "do I
have borderline personality disorder?"
I am writing here not ONLY about the sexual aspects: "am I sick because I get turned
on by images of being taken, used, forced, swept away by masculine energy more powerful
than my own?"; I am also writing about the nonsexual aspects of being submissive:
"am I sick because I yearn to depend on, and follow the lead of, a man stronger than
myself?"
I will attempt to address both aspects in this essay.
What precisely fuels this kind of question, "am I sick?" Why would a woman
discovering the language of her nature think she has a mental disorder? Or at the very
least, have something very wrong with her?
A submissive discovers, or more properly, realizes and acknowledges that she functions AT
HER BEST in relation to another. And the more intimate, holding, containing that
relationship, the better she feels and the better she performs in cardinal areas of adult
life: work, friendships, and parenting. Realizing she is at her best in such relation
makes her wonder why she can't do it for herself? Why does she need such a
relationship to accomplish what she should be able to do for herself?
In thinking about this, I have come to question the cultural determinants
of what is considered the highest good. Here in Western society, we place
highest value on independence, on "pull yourself up by the bootstraps",
on the lone pioneer, the trailblazer, the less needy and more self sufficient.
We value competition over cooperation, tangible achievement over achievement
in relationship. We pay big bucks to men (and the few women) who run big
corporations, and less to the nursery school teachers, the nurses, the
secretaries, the social workers, the caregivers rather than the producers.
There is something wrong with believing that such independence is the only good. It is
especially wrong for the most relatedness-oriented among us, the submissive female.
Part of the newly aware submissive's task is to separate out the internalized voices of
her culture: those voices that tell her she is too needy, too dependent,
too focused on the others in her life. Once she can articulate what those voices
tell her, she can begin to question not HERSELF, but the validity of those internalized
values, using her own yardstick to measure her life, rather than our culture's standard.
We can see how perspective is critical in understanding a phenomenon. In a study of moral
development in children, for example, Dr. Robert Coles, in a study of moral development in
children, researched how children decide what is good and right. To do this, he presented
several scenarios describing a moral or ethical dilemma, presented the scenario to school
age children, and analyzed the results. The description of the study here is to illustrate
the nature of cultural bias and it's impact on individuals.
One of Dr. Cole's scenarios was as follows:
A man has a very, very sick wife, so sick she could die if she doesn't get a particular,
very expensive medicine. The man doesn't have the money for the medicine, so in
desperation he steals it from a pharmacy.
The children are asked questions about this scenario. Coles found that boys tended to
conclude that the man should be punished, because the law is the law, and nobody should
break the law. Coles saw this as a higher order of moral reasoning, reflecting the
statement, "a nation of laws, not of men." That is, that nobody is above the
law, and the rule of law is not situationally defined. The boys applied an abstract
universal principle to a singular instance. Coles understood this ability to transcend the
personal as a "more evolved" form of moral development.
The girls were deeply troubled by the scenario, and most of them sought ways to solve the
man's problem within the context of relatedness: they wondered if the man could ask the
pharmacist for the medicine, and offer to work for him to pay for it, or pay him back
later. They wondered if the man had friends who could help him pay for the medicine, and
they believed he shouldn't be punished for his act of desperation. Their sense of right
was situational, and defined within the context of relatedness. They did not come to
articulate an abstract universal principle, but sought to solve the problem within the
context presented. Coles saw this as a less logical, lower order of moral development
because the girls could not emotionally distance themselves from the central human drama
in the scenario.
After Coles' work was published a woman named Carol Gilligan reviewed the studies that
Cole had done and reanalyzed them, in a book called, "In a Different Voice."
Rather than seeing the boys' responses as evidence of "higher" development and
the girls' as "lower" she redefined them as different. And she pointed
out that the girls responses, so firmly rooted in human context and relatedness were
devalued by a society in which the typically masculine is of more cultural worth than the
typically feminine. She asked, "why is it considered a 'higher' order of moral
development to value universal principle over human context?" and in so doing
highlighted the sexism inherent in the analysis.
As we can see, this type of analysis is extremely useful in understanding typical
submissive conflicts. We tend to ask the wrong questions: "am I bad, sick,
weak?", when we should be asking, "is there something missing from the yardstick
I use to measure myself?"
If one looks at capacity for relatedness as a strength, as a good, then it becomes clear
that the submissive has a talent for this, for relatedness. And that seeking a partner who
can meet her need for this relatedness is a good thing, a healthy thing.
If we begin our analysis without the cultural assumptions about what is of
"higher" value, we can begin to understand that it is possible for a woman to be
submissive, and to be healthy. And we can try to imagine what a healthy submissive
functions like, and how she developed her adult personality. Let's start backwards, and
ask ourselves, what might a healthy adult submissive woman "look" like,
psychologically speaking:
| 1. |
The healthy submissive is capable
of, and thrives on, intense, intimate, emotionally open relationships. This is often
evident in the number of nourishing, sustaining, and life affirming friendships she makes
over the years. |
| 2. |
The healthy submissive is a giver.
She often needs help to ration herself because her impulses nearly always lead her to want
to do good for others. |
| 3. |
The healthy submissive is capable
of intense joy, especially in the context of a sustaining relationship. |
| 4. |
The healthy submissive finds
significant relaxation when properly related. She is at ease in that place. |
| 5. |
The healthy submissive has finely
tuned interpersonal sensitivity. She is reactive to subtle shifts in the emotional tone of
others. |
| 6. |
The healthy submissive has a
fluidity of self, a flexibility that enables her to adapt to changing circumstances. |
| 7. |
The healthy submissive is playful. |
| 8. |
The healthy submissive has no more
than the usual cultural conflicts about her body, and its goodness and beauty. |
| 9. |
The healthy submissive takes pride
in her accomplishments. |
| 10. |
The healthy submissive accepts
herself as she is, knowing that while her culture values independence and self
sufficiency, she has strong dependency needs and that there is no inherent
"wrongness" about those needs. |
| 11. |
The healthy submissive seeks
nourishing relationships. |
| 12. |
The healthy submissive, in
accepting herself "as is" is tolerant of others. But neither will she allow
anyone to tell her what her truth should be. |
| 13. |
The healthy submissive has a
reasonable self concept, aware of her difficulties as well as her strengths. |
| 14. |
The healthy submissive hunger is
to be the object of an intense and penetrating understanding. When her nature is
understood and she is held in a loving and firm frame, her devotion is almost limitless.
The healthy submissive has an enormous capacity for devotion, from which springs her
service. |
What makes a woman a submissive?
As with all conjectures about human development, the answer is likely two-fold: a
combination of nature and nurture, biology and environment.
There is a whole body of literature that makes observations about temperment.
This literature talks about the variations in behavior in infancy as a
manifestation of temperment: the expression of regularity, responsiveness,
and reactivity. In the area of regularity, some infants are regular and
predictable from the get-go: they sleep regularly, wake at predictable
intervals to nurse, and have predictable periods of alertness in which
they begin the earliest socialization. Some infants are irregular: they
will one day sleep for an 8 hour stretch, then be awake all night, the
next day they will sleep for one hour intervals through a 24 hour period.
In the area of responsiveness, some infants will find novelty and intense
stimulation aversive, and will withdraw or become irritable when presented
with those; some infants are stimulated to engage and explore novelty
and intense stimulation. Some infants have high thresholds for sensation,
requiring a relatively intense stimulus to become aversive, some have
low thresholds, and respond to mild stimulation. Some infants will for
example, be intensely distressed by a wet diaper; some will not register
discomfort until diaper rash sets in.
The sum total of these innate, biologically founded responses make up
temperment. It is easy to see what people mean by an "easy"
baby: one who sleeps, eats, and eliminates regularly and predictably;
one who has a moderate response to stimulation, neither withdrawing nor
reacting intensely; one who is drawn easily into social exchanges, and
provides pleasurable reinforcement of socialization with their caregivers,
one who is easily "read" and easily comforted, one who accepts
change without undue distress.
I think one of the traits in this biologically grounded array that makes up temperment is
common to all submissives. And that is social responsiveness. I would suggest that the
baby who is tempermentally "set" to register and respond selectively and
sensitively to social cues has the seeds of submissiveness in her nature. This is the baby
that will search the environment for a human face; who will be attuned to, and very
responsive to the human voice; who will preferentially and selectively attend to, and
process, human interaction.
This baby, as she grows into childhood, will be easy to control, to shape, especially if
she is tempermentally on the "easy" side. This little girl will be exquisitely
sensitive to criticism and correction, to disapproval, to praise. Rather than requiring a
raised voice to correct, a raised eyebrow will often do.
Even further, this little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to nuance: she will know when
others are angry, hurt, sad, bewildered even when they are not spoken about. She has a
"sixth sense" about people.
As children do, she requires the adults in her life to validate her perceptions when
appropriate. Let's say her parents are troubled by a financial stress, and like good,
responsible parents seek to shield her from their stress. The child will pick up on the
unspoken tension, sensitive as she is to subtleties of body language, voice pitch, facial
expression. She might inquire of her parents what is wrong, and be told "nothing is
wrong, honey... go and play." This leaves the child confused: she knows in
that way that she knows, that something is wrong. But her perceptions are not validated.
She is told nothing is wrong. But her parents, who are not at their best, may be a little
short with her, and picking THAT up too, she goes off to play concluding that she must
have done something wrong, to be sent away. Part of this is the megalomania of childhood,
part of this is a reasonable and logical synthesis of resolving the child's felt sense of
things with what she is told.
This kind of interaction, repeated over the years, in the BEST and most loving of
families, leads to an adult personality in which there is some anxiety associated with
relatedness. The submissive female learns to scan the social environment for signs of
trouble, seeks to "fix" the trouble, and all too often, believes herself to be
the cause of the trouble. If someone important is tired, the submissive has exhausted
them. If someone important is angry, the submissive must have angered them. If someone
important is disappointed, the submissive must have failed them.
This trait, this interpersonal sensitivity in its highest expression is
when the submissive accurately registers interpersonal nuance,
and responds to it with a minimum of self-referral, recognizing that other's
emotional states may have nothing to do with the submissive herself. This
is how it works for the healthy submissive, who as an adult, often finds
great fulfillment working in fields such as social work, nursing, medicine,
counseling, teaching.
There are certain vulnerabilities a child constituted with a submissive nature faces.
Because of her intense awareness of interpersonal nuance, she is highly sensitive to both
criticism and praise. When criticized, she is likely to feel intense shame; when praised,
intense pleasure. Since the shame feels so bad, and the praise so pleasurable, she becomes
a people-pleaser. This tends to lead to the development of what psychologists call
"an external locus of control." Meaning that child bases her self assessment (am
I good or bad?) on factors outside herself. The female submissive defines herself based on
what others tell her she is.
Parents have enormous responsibility with such an influenceable child.
Nascent talents can either be nurtured or aborted with just a word. This
child will likely live up, or down to, whatever is expected of her. Expect
more than she can constitutionally do (like academic, athletic, or social
success) and she will develop an intense sense of inferiority. Praise
her out of proportion to her talents (this is the BEST drawing any child
EVER did) and she will develop an inflated sense of self. Accurately and
sensitively validate her real abilities and talents, and she will seek
goals appropriate to her ability, and take pleasure in achieving them.
When the environment is reality based, sensitive, and balanced, the child grows up
embracing her special ability to be "related" to others, to be sensitive, and
has a sense of self in reasonable tune with her true abilities and vulnerabilities,
neither excessively self effacing or self aggrandizing.
But if development should go awry, as it too often does for this child, the personality
traits she has develop in a distorted manner, and cause her difficulties.
In dysfunctional families, this child suffers more than others with tougher hides, less
reactive temperments. She is often the one singled out for physical, sexual or emotional
abuse. Her very nature makes her available for use: for the parent's angers, frustrations,
sexual impulses, or narcissistic gratification.
When a submissive child is misused in this fashion, she is unable to utilize her
interpersonal talents in a constructive way. She must either develop rigid defenses that
constrain her ability to be flexible as an adult, or be blown about by the winds of
other's emotions all her life, or become stuck in what are popularly called,
"co-dependent relationships."
Women who emerge from childhood with these traits will be more or less consciously
submissive in that they are STILL moldable, controllable by others. Those who don't
consciously seek a Dominant partner will naturally gravitate to a man who influences,
controls her in a benevolent manner. Who accepts her, loves her, nurtures her, and values
her sensitivity.
Those who consciously seek a Dominant partner are those who are perhaps,
so sensitive that they require not only benevolence, but someone
who understands PRECISELY how moldable and influence able they are, and
is capable of using the power to mold her and influence her deliberately
and consciously, for her good and the good of the relationship.
In that kind of relationship, the submissive is freed to be all of herself. She is safe
enough to feel her exquisitely sensitive reactions to others, to play like a child, to
give care and to take care, to be angry, to lose shame.
There is a strength beyond measure in self knowledge and acceptance. There
is freedom in jettisoning shame, in letting go of "should's."
To know oneself as a submissive woman, to accept that it is neither the terrible thing
that society tells us it is, nor the only right and true way to be for OTHERS, is to be
free. What is, is.
There are two kinds of strengths: the strength to lead, and the strength to follow; the
strength to control, and the strength to yield. There are two kinds of power: the power to
strip another's soul bare, and the power to stand naked.
Do not mistake following for weakness, for it is not. Do not mistake yielding for
weakness, for in yielding there is resilience. Do not mistake the submissive's need for
relatedness for inability to be alone.
Submissive women are not weaklings. They are sensitive people who have a great deal of
resilience in the face of their particular challenges.
Submissiveness is a strength seeking a proper context.
|
|
Absolute Power Exchange