According to Wikipedia " Feminism is a political discourse aimed at equal rights and legal protection for women. It involves various movements, political and sociological theories, and philosophies, all concerned with issues of gender differences; that advocate equality for women; and that campaign for women's rights and interests."
Also according to Wikipedia "Dominance and submission (also known as D&s, Ds or D/s) is a set of behaviours, customs and rituals involving the giving by one individual to another individual of dominance over them in an erotic episode or as a lifestyle arrangement." Please note their definition of D/s does not use he or she, it is implied I believe in the definition that this relationship could be male/female or reversed or male/male and of course female/female.
Further Wikipedia goes on to say this about D/s "It is a consensual power exchange between the two partners and need not involve any brutality (such as corporal punishment) or cruelty (verbal or emotional abuse) at all. It is primarily based upon trust and communication between the partners. It is also based on a deep ethos of mutual respect in which exploration of the emotions brought up by power exchange can occur in a safe, sane and consensual manner."
Which brings us back to the title of this post. I am a feminist (or if you believe men cannot be then I am a feminist supporter). To live a D/s lifestyle you have to begin from a believe that you are both equal and that you will both have needs and seek to fulfill them through the lifestyle. I am not a dominant because I am male I am a dominate simply because I am, it is the way I am wired and the way I think. I believe it is part of my biological make up and it may or may not be part of yours. I think roughly half the people are dominant and half are submissive but it is not divided up on gender lines.
The division of dominance and submission on gender lines is social conditioning and one reason we have feminism. There are differences between men and women but collectively we form a whole species with neither sex or that sex's strengths more important than the other, and I think that is a main message of Feminism. I cannot find any argument with that line of thought.
I see no contradiction in claiming to be both in fact I wonder how you could faithfully be a dominant male and not believe in the equality and power of women.
reprinted from A Dominant Character originally published September 11, 2009
A superb post, Sir! I particularly agree with the final sentence.
ReplyDeletethank you, it was a nice line, every now and then I get lucky
DeleteWonderful post. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a feminist as well, but am submissive. I had thought that those two clashed a bit but not so much after reading this.
Unfortunately, I have heard too often online where some dominant males are really out to take advantage of submissive women and end up abusing them in the process (which they can claim in consensual but is sort-of not).
I especially love the line where you say that men and women are different but neither one is more important that the other. Bother sides of the fence seem to forget that.
Thanks again.
I too have had heard of such tales and they always make me an equal mixture of sad and mad
DeleteBeautifully said. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteaisha
Great Post Sir J. I particularly like the line "you have to begin from a believe that you are both equal". Being in a new relationship this is something we are struggling with. My Sir worries that I want to be unequal. I am still trying to figure out a way to explain it.
ReplyDeleteit is something we all struggle with and I think in the end what we learn is that equal does not mean the same
DeleteI do not consider myself a feminist but nor does this mean that i think men are superior or better than women, we all have different qualites regardless of our sex.
ReplyDeleteHowever i do not consider myself equal to my Master, our dynamic is such that i dont have as much as say over matters as he does and i like it this way, so there is no equality, i choose and prefer to defer to him...but there is respect there on both sides.
What does irritate me is when i have feminists belittling me because of my choice of relationship, i have had it said to me that women like me (submissives) make it acceptable or ok for men to take advantage of women....one of these people being my own mother who is a staunch feminist.
Its not about either sex being superior its about seeing people as individuals and respecting their choices, i guess if im being honest i have little time for arrogant chauvanistic men and likewise their female counterparts..the staunch feminists but i suspect this is because of my own personal experiences with my mother.
An interesting post one which has made me think.
tori
tori,
DeleteI suspect your mother is acting from a place of what she thinks is best for you and I hope you know and appreciate that. Beyond that all of our mothers drive us crazy.
I think sometimes what the feminist movement forgets is that they were fighting for choice in general not a specific choice. You have made yours and as long as you are comfortable with it then none of us should have a say.
be well
SJ
I don't believe that's a contradiction either actually. Being equal doesn't mean that we're exactly the same, it simply means we're equal in value. ;)
ReplyDeleteI almost fell off my chair reading your post last night, as I so wholeheartedly agree with and understand what you present here. There is nothing more wonderful in the world than to hear a man call himself a feminist! :) Very coincidentally, the blog post I just made today references this post as I had a very similar theme in mind for today, so I ended up linking to this article. As always, thanks for your helpful words and compelling perspective!
ReplyDeleteWonderfully said Sir!! Omega says we're equal but different. We're both equally important, but our purposes or what we bring to our dynamic is different.
ReplyDeleteHugs,
mouse
Sir J: I've done quite a lot of thinking about all this in the past weeks and of course I agree with you completely.
ReplyDeleteI am a lurker and have never made a comment on a D/s site before, but I loved this post! I happen to be very good friends with a Master and slave couple. Both men. It wasn't until I knew them that I was able to fully grasp the concept of submission because the submissive man in this pair is a hulking mountain of a man who towers over his Master. I was equation submission with weak and these two guys showed me how very strong one has to be in order to submit. I am the first person to say that I am not a slave, but my husband is my Master, if that makes sense. Thank you for this post.
ReplyDeleteit makes sense and I hope you feel welcome anytime
DeleteGood post and I agree. A good Dom (I know a D/s relation can be also Mm Ff and Fm, but I am interested in Mf) must at least love his sub, but is helps if he is interested in women. Interest leads to understanding and understanding leads to respect.
ReplyDeleteI would like to give my 2 cents on the being Dominant and submissive: First of all it is a parameter and therefor like for instance competitiveness one can be dominant and find some one else who is more dominant. it becomes therefor a relative measurement. Look at wolf packs, There is only one the top dog. That does not mean some others that are submitting are not relatively dominant.
I am not sure if men and women have the same submissive-dominant Gauss curve. It would be too much of a coincidence. If we go by the amount of woman that have been oppressed through out the history I would think they tend to be more submissive than men.
note to readers: I believe in referencing a Gauss curve Elder was referring to a Gaussian function, it's proper name, which is often called a bell curve. If we go by the amount of women oppressed through out history I would think that would only indicate the tendency of men to be dominant and jerks.
DeleteCollective jerks in that case, but on second thought it might be too simple to attribute oppression to dominance only. I do agree you need dominance AND something else. How ever I still believe dominance remains an essential ingredient for gender oppression.
Delete