The selfishness of the submissive? Active and Passive Receptivity

Both my hobby of video gaming and my serious work at school have relied on the same method of teaching: iterative direction. I'm given a task and a framework, and a relatively stress-free environment to experiment where failure doesn't have tremendous consequences. Within the confines of the system I'm free to figure out what works best for me, and successively adapt my skills and behavior to what's being asked of me. It's a system of read-and-react, where I rely on others to set the tone and the pace, but am free to adjust the parameters to my liking.

My relationships, up until this point, have not been very different. I found this post over at Sex Geek particularly enlightening in figuring all this out:

A friend brought this up with me a few weeks ago. She was playing with several different dominants and tops, and she noticed that some of them wanted her to be still while they did things to her, and others wanted her to be active. She wondered if there was a “right” way to receive sensation. The question about active versus passive physical receptivity is very similar to the question of how much a submissive is being asked to think for themselves (anticipatory service, observing the way things are done and fitting into that, etc.) versus how much they are going to be directed (i.e. do what I say, and only what I say, and exactly as I say it, and when you’re done, do nothing but wait for further instruction). They’re simply different takes on submission/bottoming/providing service and on dominance/topping/receiving service.

Of course, there are no right answers, but here we engage with questions of match. In play, if a dominant fully expects a submissive to react and the submissive’s past experience has been with dominants who want them to hold still, or if the submissive’s natural inclination is to hold still, then the two of them may need to clarify what’s going on. The dominant may feel like the submissive isn’t properly appreciating their efforts, while the submissive may feel that response would be rude or overstep the bounds of their role. In service, if a dominant expects that the submissive will catch on to what’s going on and make themselves useful with minimal direction, but the submissive spends a lot of time kneeling and waiting for orders with eyes downcast, the dominant may end up feeling frustrated and burdened while the submissive may end up feeling inadequate because they’re pissing off the dominant despite following protocol perfectly. The flip side of each situation is equally painful: a responsive bottom who gets told to be quiet and hold still might feel shut down and under-appreciated; a service submissive who takes pride in their intuitive ability to serve may feel rejected and useless if told to stay out of the way and wait for orders. Still, this doesn’t indicate that anyone’s doing things wrong. It just means they’re each sending out signals with the best of intentions but that aren’t quite lining up. As always, clear communication is essential—when we attribute meanings to each of these modes and their many related flavours that may not match up with the person’s intent, we risk hurt feelings and misunderstanding.

I have up until this point definitively fallen into the category of passively receptive. I'm not so much concerned with the method of receiving sensation (where I do nevertheless fall also into the passive category), as that seems like simply a matter of taste, and I don't have much interest in service dynamics. I'm speaking here of negotiating the dynamic of a relationship, of figuring out to what extent and in what manner power exchange will be executed between the two of us and how we'll be expected to behave both in the general public and amongst our kinky friends. As perhaps befit both my submissive orientation and inexperience, I was perfectly happy to allow my partners to set the pace and tone of these considerations, both wishing not to step on my dominant's prerogatives and eager to try out all of the permutations of power exchange the BDSM world has to offer. Ideally, even if it didn't quite work out in practice, I would have spoken up when something wasn't working or if there was something that I wanted or needed that I wasn't getting. I have to admit that this has met with some success: each of the dominants I've been with have had their own flavor and unique flair that they brought to the relationship, and I've cherished the diversity of experiences I've been allowed to have by letting my partner take a leading role.

Even so, I'm a few years and a few more relationships wiser now, and I'd hoped to have a bit more of an idea of what works and doesn't work for me than I've gotten at present. I've very recently been collared to a wonderful person, and I've been more flummoxed than I'd like in the process of talking with her about exactly what I want out of the relationship. Perhaps because of her history as a pro-domme, she's more used to the active style of receptivity than the passive one; I imagine most of her previous clients had pretty clear ideas of what they wanted and had no problems making their desires known. It seems like my passive role in prior relationships led to some complacency, and that I hadn't put quite as much thought into what was working and what wasn't as I should have, so I feel like I'm playing catch-up now.

All of which means, even if there isn't a single right way to do this sort of thing, I could use a bit of infusion of the active receptivity into my relationship style. It feels, and is, pretty selfish to expect my partner to supply all the thought and energy into shaping our dynamic if they're not inclined to do so. A dynamic only shaped by my partner is also unlikely to be quite as satisfying as one that I had helped to shape, as well.

I think that my primary form of negotiation will still be the passive receptivity, where I react to the suggestions of my partner; it's simply where I feel most comfortable. Still, versatility on this score can't hurt; finding a compatible partner is difficult enough without adding this to this list. And trying out this other form of negotiation, if only in the short term, can only lead to better self-awareness and communication skills.

The Crisis

I'm going to grow old. And then I will die.

I've always known this fact, of course, and that it seems so much more pressing now than it seemed a year ago will seem odd to most people, as I'm in the height of my youth. I can only respond that, having to for the first time really take stock of my future, with graduation impending, all times after I leave school seem equidistant. Imagining myself at 40, 50, 70 is much easier than it once was, and all ages are equally easy.

I'm terrified, as, I suppose, we all are. First my looks will go, then my intelligence, then my strength of character, and eventually I will be left with none of the traits which I love myself for right now.

Actual death doesn't seem so bad, in comparison. Lucretius' argument makes some sense, at least. Non-existence was not so bad in the billions of years before I was born; I doubt it will be too bad in the billions of years hence. Fear of oblivion is irrational; there is no you anymore to fear any negative consequence.

Achilles' decision is looking more and more rational. A short glorious life may be kinder, if more cowardly, than having to face steady degeneration.

I know, of course, that such fears are uncharitable, and unloving. If I so desperately wish to remain young, I can't very well respect or love the old. If I fear that age will make me unlovable, I must already view the elderly people in my life with contempt. Humanae Vitae, nevermind its retrograde politics, begins to make a good deal more sense. If I am to love my 70-year old self, I must learn to appreciate the virtues of age.

More than anything else, this bit of wisdom I received from my mom has helped me: each age has its own joys. Certainly those of being 55 are different than those of being 21, but they are both worthwhile. I'll probably never bring as much enthusiasm to a television show as I did with Digimon when I was thirteen, and probably no sexual experience will ever match my first time when I was nineteen. Even so, I wouldn't trade the increased self-awareness and self-acceptance I've gained with age for the enthusiasm I had back then, nor would most middle aged people, from what I understand. It's difficult to accept that what is important to me right now won't always be so, and even more difficult to accept that I'm going to have to carve out new niches for myself to figure out how to do what is important to me at each new stage in my life. But there is hope that, as the joys I invest myself in so deeply right now become impossible, new ones will become possible.

There's only one wrinkle. I'm not exactly sure what the joys of being 30 will look like, but I have a difficult time imagining myself enjoying them. Us deviants can enjoy the shallow cares of youth, but we will soon find our hedonistic joys turn to ash in our mouth with the passing of time, as our more respectable peers enter the adult worlds of parenthood and career and we are left to compete with the new generation in a self-destructive cycle. So it seems to me in my darkest moments when I buy the culture's messaging about who I am.

I know that those things are irrational self-loathing, but even so I have to own that I feel adrift where it comes to my future. Even were those options available to me, I can't see myself following the respectable options of a white-collar career with a family, 2.5 kids, and a house in the suburbs.

What exactly life has to offer to me other than that, I don't know. It once seemed like a grand adventure, that I would have to forge my own path. Now on the cusp, it seems much more daunting a task.

Even so, I wouldn't trade the opportunity to try for the world.

BDSM themes once more appearing in my schoolwork

I love, I must confess, that generous pride,

Which has never bent beneath a yoke of sighs...

To make an unyielding courage bend,

To make that unfeeling heart of his feel pain,

To fetter a captive astonished by his chains,

Fighting the yoke, that delights him so, in vain:

That’s what I wish, that is what excites me.

To disarm Hippolytus counts for more than Hercules:

Often vanquished, and defeated more swiftly,

To the eyes that tamed him offering less glory.

From Racine's Phedre

I had fun translating this =)

The age-old queer flame war: gender conformers vs. nonconformers

It was inevitable: The Neogaf gay thread has finally erupted into conflict between the gender noncoformers and those who act more in line with social expectations. While, as with most online debates, they're generating more heat than light, the discussion over the past page or so has at least been enlightening, and it's interesting food for thought.


I think it should go without saying that all gender expressions ought to be acceptable, and that we ought to take them as legitimate expressions of identity rather than a disingenuous piece of rhetoric in the culture wars. Feminine guys act that way on the whole because they feel more comfortable acting that way, not because they want attention; masculine guys are acting the way they do on the whole because they feel more comfortable doing so, not because they're desperately seeking the approval of hetero society. At least, that's what the vast majority of each group tells me, and claiming that you have transcendent insight into another's condition better than they themselves have is just hubris, and fails to treat people with the respect they are entitled to as members of the human species.


And yet I have to own that I've got a dog in this fight, and that my natural sympathies incline toward the nonconformers. I've been exploring my feminine side quite a bit, after all. Despite my bisexuality, I find myself in queer social spaces more often than not, largely because they are far more accepting of gender diversity than most places, especially where it comes to romance. If my desire is split between the sexes but I have been almost exclusively homosexual behaviorally, it's almost certainly because I feel like I have to put on an act and become someone I'm not to inhabit the heterosexual male gender role, while I can just be myself when I'm with a guy. All of which leads me to be defensive in such debates even where it is irrational or unfair; when a gay guy mentions a perfectly fine tendency to prefer masculine men or that they prefer not to associate with the feminine, I feel like the fragile safe spaces that I've created where I can be myself are in danger.


I'm certain that my opposition feels the same way, and that all the talk about how queerness affects perceptions of gender makes them feel profoundly uncomfortable in their own social groups. They're perfectly fine taking the normative gender expression, and I imagine, fear that such compulsory noncomformity may make them outcasts within their own community, suspended between a queer community that hates them for being normal and a normal community that hates them for being queer.


So, of course we've got to learn to get along, and I don't think it would be that difficult, provided that we don't see someone else's gender expression as a threat to our own. And hell, I'm generally attracted to masculine guys, so it would be pretty unwise to try to chase them out of the community!


But there's an elephant in the room here, and I don't intend to pull my punches: Western hegemonic masculinity is a toxin, and if there is to be any rapprochment between the two camps, I think it needs to be eviscerated from our cultural lexicon.


That needs some clarification, obviously, especially if it is to square with the above acceptance of all gender expressions. I don't here mean particular traits that have been associated with masculinity. I've got a Chase Daniel autograph on his Sports Illustrated cover hanging on my wall, after all. I was a debator, with all the competitiveness that entails, and part of my process of self-actualization has included adopting at least some masculine traits, jettisoning my social timidity for a more manly courage (admittedly, this is more likely than not to manifest in having the courage to express my feminity in social situations that may be hostile or asking a guy out, but still: manly courage). Courage is a legitimate virtue, no less so for having been associated with toxic machismo.




What I'm referring to here is much more closely tied into homophobia, effemephobia, and sexism. It's all well and good to claim that we ought to respect other gender expressions, but western hegemonic masculinity is constructed in such a way as to discourage this acceptance, and as such without modification presents a threat to the very diversity of gender expressions we're attempting to protect by offering it a safe space.


At first I was merely bewildered by and felt some pity for my peers who were so controlled by their masculine identity that they refused to play Paper Mario and thought "Celda" was for fags. If they were so obtuse that they'd deny themselves some of the most excellently crafted experiences in their favorite hobby for the sake of not appearing feminine or gay, their loss. Pity turned into a sort of condescending anger when they made it clear that my own enjoyment of such entertainment placed myself beneath contempt, as I knew that they were pathetic but had no way of turning the social tables on them.


In truth, I have to own that my own exploration of my feminine side dervies much of its motivation from the desire to avoid that sort of patheticness. Let me never, ever, be so insecure in my gender identity as they were! Anything at all to prevent myself from being anywhere near the target audience of this sad Super Bowl ad.


So my cards are on the table and my biases are known: I find such an identity aesthetically repulsive and unvirtuous. Quite apart from my subjective value judgments on the matter, however, I feel the argument that such an identity is injurious and destructive to the cohesion of the gay community stands.


The overriding feature of such an identity, it seems, is not any one particular trait but its reflexive defensiveness and hatred of anything that lies outside of itself. Intellectuals may hate the yokels and liberals conservatives, but nothing produces so much anger as a masculine man being accused of being feminine. This anger extends to association with anything feminine.

The problems for cohesion in the gay community and respect for all gender expressions ought to be obvious. It's unfortunate that it's come up in the NeoGaf debate so often.


So there's nothing wrong with liking football, talking like a straight guy, being completely ignorant of fashion, or not wanting to wear a skirt. But for the love of tolerance, keep the instinctive defensiveness and antipathy that so characterizes modern masculinity out of it.

Towards a Performance Model of Personal Appearance

The highlight of my last Tuesday was finding a few cute tee shirts at Target for far cheaper than they should have been. I actually spend at least a small amount of time every morning blow drying my hair and styling it with gel. I probably spend more than is consistent with my goal of practicing temperance on good hair stylists and optional treatments like highlights.

Fifteen year old Alcibiades is rolling in his grave.

In high school, following fashion and practicing personal grooming beyond what was necessary for hygiene seemed like a pointless shell game. It was, as I conceived it, a transaction: if I were willing to put the time, effort, and money into looking good, you might give me the time of day in a social situation. Since even in the darkest days of my most strident utilitarianism I was leery of placing the sacred value of friendship into the crass hands of commerce, I considered that I was better off not playing the game. At least then I knew that my relations and friends were interested in something more important than superficialities.

There's at least a grain of truth in that narrative to my 180 degree turn. My migration from a social context where a 120-pound guy with a boyish face and a curvy body was apt to be treated like a scrawny weakling to one where such a one was more likely to be treated as a sterling example of queer submissive sexuality certainly helped start the transition. I've found a milieu where such care is far more likely to produce results in getting people to be friendly and in finding sexual partners.

Yet I have also found a milieu where such an appearance is more likely to be appreciated and validated by my peers. While this may superficially seem to resemble the transaction model I outlined above, and would have probably seemed so to my 15-year old self, it is not necessarily so. While the notion of the atomistic man, drawing a conception of self wholly from within, admitting of no social influence, may be attractive, it's simply not an accurate depiction of reality. The formation of an identity is necessarily a social endeavor, whether one defines oneself in contrast to or in accordance with dominant paradigms. Examples of others and esteem of peers point in fruitful directions for self-actualization, and there's nothing wrong with that. While one shouldn't allow the collective to run roughshod over any trace of personal expression, one shouldn't turn down the help a group of peers offers guidance towards how one wants to present oneself.

Which isn't to say that there is no authentic expression of the self involved, and that all is social influence. Part of my continued interest in fashion can be attributed finding models that can exemplify and peers that appreciate, not simply the looks that I can pull off, but the looks that personally appeal to me. Once I got around the latent homophobia preventing me from exploring the girl's section of clothing stores, with their tighter jeans that showed off more and their tee shirts that had a color palette broader than gray and white, I found a lot more worth spending money on.

When I walked into a gay bar for the first time, soon after my 21st birthday, I was blown away. Here was a group, finally, that appreciated the gender expression I'd been struggling towards for years, with a huge selection of attractive looks that I wanted to emulate, not out of a desire for social return, but as a means to be comfortable in my own skin and become the person I want to be. And even though I had some highly unorthodox selections of accessories, my collar and cuffs (laid over the most colorful tee shirt and the tightest jeans I had), everyone there was friendly and sociable. I never felt compelled to dress like them for acceptance.

That isn't a transaction model, where I expend the time and money on looking good for an expected social return. It's a performance model, where I take the examples given to me as an opportunity to express myself and create something I personally find valuable. It's a model that I think is far healthier and, frankly, allows me to have a lot more fun.

On Male Submissive Role Models, Part Two: Hayate the Combat Butler

That's our protagonist on the left, the eponymous Hayate. Leading a comically crappy life played with almost insensitive levity, he has to work to support his spendthrift and worthless mother, who has accrued more debt than he could possibly pay off. By the first episode of the show, his luck in evading his debtors has run out: he is cornered by yakuza, intent on taking what's owed to them either in yen or pounds of flesh. Owing to an improbable set of circumstances, a fabulously wealthy heiress, at the center of the above picture, comes to his rescue and thwarts the thugs. Now in her debt, the only way Hayate can repay her is to enter her service as a butler in her antiquatedly aristocratic manor.

Of course, they fall in love.

Much of the show's action, invariably played comedically, revolves around Hayate's and Nagi's budding romance while Hayate attempts to discharge the duties incumbent upon him as a butler to such a prestigious family and Nagi navigates the social terrain at her posh academy. As one would expect with a butler falling in love with his employer, the show hits subtly on d/s themes, though appropriate for its younger audience (if you have any doubt about its intended audience, scope the PSA that occurs before every show, urging kids not to sit too close to the television). While concerned with bailing his family out of financial distress, Hayate's number one priority seems to be reflecting well on the Sanzen'in family, taking his service-oriented role as a point of honor. His wooing of Nagi's heart generally revolves around showing his care through service, for example, in a madcap dash to evade yakuza, samurai, and giant robots to deliver a forgotten lunchbox to her at school.

As the above plot would indicate, this show doesn't take itself too seriously. It's light-hearted fare, and its absurdity can begin to grate if you're not part of the young teenager target audience. This is a show that both relishes and lampoons traditional anime tropes, and as such may seem utterly inscrutable to those unfamiliar with the medium. While I would encourage first-time anime watchers who are only interested in the d/s themes to give it a shot, it wouldn't surprise me if you tune out after a few episodes. You have been warned.

One of the wonderful things the show has done for me is rescue the business-suit-as-submissive-attire from the toxic tendrils of stereotypical femdom. Hayate is invariably dressed immaculately (except in the episodes where his ruining of a suit, expensive to both his pocketbook and his honor as a representative of the Sanzen'in family, becomes a plot point), but it's intended to highlight his pride in service to his aristocratic family. The suit functions as a reinforcement of his service-oriented attitude, rather than, as in most femdom, a contrast with it, proof that the powerful seductress can get even the powerful businessman on his knees.

This has been particularly useful for me, as, owing to the internship I accepted this summer, I find myself in possession of quite a few suits. At first I dreaded the entering of hegemonic masculinity that would be expected at my new workplace, tempered only by my refusal to trim my long hair. Male fashions have always seemed excessively drab to me, focusing on the most uninteresting part of the color palette. Yet I was pleasantly surprised by the array of colors available in dress shirts and intricacy of patterns available for ties. Especially for a college-aged intern, it wasn't difficult to put together a wardrobe unmistakably masculine and playfully flamboyant and vibrant, a rarity given our visual lexicon for male fashion.
Musings on suits aside, I've heard through the grapevine that Hayate, as befits his feminine body type, eventually ditches his traditionally masculine attire for a maid outfit. Having not arrived at that point in the series, I'm inordinately curious to see how the show handles it; given its respectful treatment of male submissives so far, I doubt it will be festooned with the self-loathing that too much of crossdressing in a femdom context is laden with.

A quick note: If you're looking for the show online, it's much more likely to be known by its Japanese name, Hayate no Gotoku, rather than by the English translation of its title. It's not available in English dubs, to the best of my knowledge, though as with seemingly all anime these days pirated versions with English subtitles are readily found with a simple google search.

On Penetration and Power

I've noticed in several gay communities online (nearly all of them also have a furry bent, for whatever reason) that sub/dom is becoming a synonym for top/bottom (in the queer sense of the penetrating or penetrated partner, not in the kinky sense). For example, this picture was posted in the "subs coming handsfree from being fucked" thread on fchan:


(click the picture for the gorgeous full resolution version)

The one getting penetrated sure doesn't look submissive to me!

In any case, it's true that being the penetrated partner has always had submissive implications for me. I recall once Socrates suggested that we try it, and I nixed it, arguing that it wasn't submissive enough (yeah, sexism, homophobia, and topping from the bottom all combining into one moment of ignorance. Not my finest hour.). Of course, at least part of my reluctance was because of ambient cultural memes about penetration: surely any guy that wanted that had to be submissive.

Yet it was also because of the simple mechanics of the acts as they had been presented to me by the culture: as far as I could tell, the penetrating partner controlled the action. He or she was generally in an upright, dominant position, with the penetrated partner in a vulnerable, inviting position, ass high in the air or on his or her back. While this is what the culture tells us what penetration should look like, it doesn't have to be so. When I gave Socrates that flippant answer, I'm not sure I could have even conceived of a picture like the one above. As Maymay said,

I like fucking. I like it when I’m getting fucked on my penis. Yes, that’s perfectly possible. When I’m talking about getting fucked, I’m not necessarily talking about getting penetrated. A man with an erect penis can actually get fucked—fucking or getting fucked does not have a one-to-one relationship with one’s anatomical genitalia. That said, I don’t see why men who top shouldn’t be able to get it up the ass if they want to. Again, topping or bottoming does not have a one-to-one correlation with whether you are the “active” or “receptive” partner in a sexual encounter. So, it follows, that I also like getting fucked in my asshole.

While I've still got a bit of weird and totally irrational pride about never having penetrated anyone else, I'm interested in starting to experiment with this.

All of this leads back to the fact that I have no idea what to make of the trend I've seen in the furry gay communities. If the change in terminology makes pictures and acts like the one above easier to imagine, I'm all for it. At the same time, I'm more than a smidge leery of dubbing all penetrators as doms and all penetrated people as subs. I suppose it depends on whether it retains more of its meaning from the kinky context or the vanilla context.

Now I've just got to figure out how to last more than two seconds while on an orgasm denial regimine.