Monday, December 17, 2007

Incoherence + Femdom = This Post

Having taken more or less permanently until the end of the year to my bed, I have had an awful lot of time to think about things. My relationships, relationships in general, people and their expectations.

I count myself (mostly) a submissive. I respond to strong, decisive, capable men who know what they want and include me on that list. While I am no shrinking violet, it would take about 1000 years of being desired (because ugliness loneliness compounds at a rate that makes loansharking look like debt forgiveness) before I might feel up to being assertive or Domme-ish about my desires.

Since no such man has stepped forward, I have no choice but to be a strong, decisive, capable woman in my own right. I do many of my own buidling repairs, I move furniture (china cabinets and armoires, people, not carrying a clipboard and saying "put that there"), I run my own business. My work underlings are all men -- there has been no small amount of tension over taking orders from a woman, and one who is younger than them to boot. When I first took this job, I learned quickly that the mediation and inclusion that is most women's method of communicating ("*giggle* well what do *you* think?") would not get results. I have learned to speak confidently and authoritatively in order to get done what I need. I don't expect these men to love me, but I know for a fact they respect me. In the work world, that is all that is required.

Personal relationships, however, are something altogether different. Yes, there are men out there who claim to want a strong-minded woman, but the reality is these men go home with bimbos. Most men don't want a woman who is demonstrably more capable than they are. It is threatening. And frankly, I don't blame them. Being myself a woman, I don't want a man who is more feminine than I am. (Sorry, crossdressers; that's just the way I am.) Were I a man, I wouldn't want a woman more masculine than me. And yet, turning off the "mannish", opinionated, capable qualities work leadership requires is not so easy as flipping a switch.

When I was in high school, my female friends would drive me absolutely batty with the pickup ploy of parking next to the target boy, leaving their car headlights on at lunch so they had a dead battery by the end of the day, and then employing the "*giggle* *bat eyelashes* I'm so helpless!" routine in order to get target boy to jumpstart the car. Invariably said boy barely knew a dipstick from a shift stick and the operation would take an hour or more, all the while girl is plying him with encouragement ("oh I'm so glad someone knows about these complicated things") and posing against the car. *gag* *hack* *walk home* ... But then, maybe that's why I'm your Spinster and they're married (happily or otherwise).

Even so, and quite without intention, my online coterie has developed in the last few months a sizable segment of submissive-minded men. I don't quite understand this, and I don't know what to do with it. I have no problem with the Honey-do flavor of submission in relationships ("Honey, do the dishes" or "Honey, take out the garbage") but I don't want to Domme a relationship. I don't want the responsibility, even if I have the inclinations that (occasionally) may sate someone else's desires. "You want me to whip you? Really? Ok!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you make an excellent point about most men saying they want a strong woman, but then not really. And from what I can figure is because it's too hard to keep up with such a woman. I don't think it has as much to do with masculinity as it does with the energy it takes to keep up with such a woman. We're inherently lazy when it comes to that kind of stuff. Which is a shame, because those are the women worth fighting for.

The Invisible Spinster said...

That is very interesting! My bitterness has been targeting hypocrisy as the source of such contradictory behavior, but now that you bring it up Pure Laziness is a much better fit.

If it is, as you say, "too hard" to keep up with such a woman, what is such a woman to do? *sigh*