I've never used a strap on but I have had cyber sessions where I used one. I still say the submissive is the one truly in control, whether male or female.

A woman could be dominant and could be controlling how she wants the man to fuck her. She can get on top and then it is her thrusting that controls the act. It's not such a foregone conclusion.

The reason the male is seen as the "subject" and the woman as "object" is that grammatically, the subject acts and the object is acted upon. So if you have a M/F intercourse where the male is in fact the active party then you have him as subject and her as object.

"Pat"

I've never really thought of dominance or submission as either natural or unnatural, I just assumed that my own submissive desires were the result of my own nature, rather than being because of my gender particularly. I mean, I always thought that my dislike of being on top, for instance, was at least partly because of my desire to be sexually submissive, as well as being because of finding it uncomfortable. But evidently women who are not particularly submissive can feel uncomfortable about being on top. In 'Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady', Florence King writes of how differently she felt about having a lesbian affair compared with the affair she had with a man the previous summer:

Taking turns making love to each other satisfied our need to experience total aggression and total passivity with no fear of settling permanently into either condition. It's something heterosexual lovers would like to do but can't. I always felt silly whenever I got on top of Ralph, but when Bres's thighs were locked in the vise of my elbows, I really was in charge: yet when we changed places and she did the doing, I could let down my guard and wallow in submission without worrying that she would 'get the wrong idea.'

I always feel rather silly when my husband asks me to get on top, I find it awkward getting my balance and it doesn't feel comfortable. I don't think having me on top makes him feel submissive though, he just seems to enjoy watching me. I can't imagine having a dildo strapped on and sodomising him would make me feel dominant either, I think I would just feel idiotic. I had a couple of boyfriends who were keen on sodomy when I was young, but being buggered didn't make me feel submissive particularly, it just made me feel constipated. I think if I did put a dildo on I would just get a fit of the giggles and be quite unable to proceed.

Louise

It doesn't surprise me that someone could have had sex with men for years without thinking of it as submission. I think it's all about your mind-set. The sex act is so freighted with cultural expectations that it would be impossible to figure out if sex was inherently an act of submission and dominance. I enjoy thinking that it is, and have my boyfriend. That’ll have to be enough for us.

This “epiphany” brings to mind the story of Jeppetto’s boy in more ways than one. On the one hand, unexpected growth of hardwood in unlikely places, on the other, a certain poetic too good to be truth which sounds like a lie--perhaps in this case a kind of honest self-deception. (One imagines a fractured fairy tale in which that nosey parker does the softwood of his gal pal --oh, Pinocchio, what big lies you have, tell me a whopper)

This fable of sudden illumination strikes me as a kiplingesque Just So story (How the Camel Got His Hump?) with a fair measure of cock and bull to it. It fits so nicely the thought cliché of our time that personal perspective and cognition are totally conditioned by identity politics, be they based on sex, socio-economic class, race, ethnic heritage, planet of origin, or religious affliction affiliation.

We are to believe that the strap-on can be used as a sort of doodlebug or divining rod opening the eyes of women to the dynamics of coition. Well, as Hugh Grant’s character puts it in Four Weddings and A Funeral, as he takes the shaft at the sight of his beloved marrying another man: Fuck-a-doodle-do. The cock of the walk, eating crow, has changed his croon.

I delight in the bafflement of those women who’ve not learned their sexuality in Clit Lit nor heard it expressed in Eve Ensler’s Gynologues. Yet I know women who explicitly endorse this egalitarian stuff—in their head, V-Day is the rage—while behaving quite to the contrary in the sack.

Perhaps the piece should be viewed as a contribution to the growing corpus of alternate epistemologies; another dyke (if I may be permitted the term) fortifying Carol Gillian’s fantasy island of women’s ways of knowing. In this case, a new organ-on (so to speak) that would make the eyes of Aristotle, patriarch of what remains of our common sense and street smarts, pop. Perhaps even a contesting and subversive reading of the Posterior Anal-ytics, that, in a sense, up-ends Western Civ’s reign of male dominance and patriarchal hegemony, making it cry Uncle! Rhemus!

This is like grand guignol (to invoke puppetry again) of the theory that the tools of cognition constitute and condition the content of awareness, here a facsimile of the privileged male tool of coition conditioning the penetrated male object—giving dramatic content to that pithy expression used in frustration to the annoying male presence: How does Arnold put it in one of those Terminator flicks? F… you, a……. I see here another case of what Jacques Barzun would term preposterism, putting Descartes before de horse sense, coito ergo sum. A renaissance in jouissance. Bend Over Boyfriend.

Let’s set aside boyfriend’s request, which gives new meaning to the expression “strapping lad”. There is much a man can teach his woman about masculine control and this can be joyous fun. Many women love the mischief of it, the naughty, unnatural taboo dominance. However, nature seems to reassert itself pretty quickly and they love even more being ridden to the finish line. More than one woman of my acquaintance has wished to borrow for the day the physiology, or wear, not a strap-on, but rather a strap-in replica, joystick as dipstick. Golly, I sure find these girls demeaning, reducing me to mere object and instrument of their pleasure.

I see premature erection of objections to what the goofy boyfriend said about being engulfed and swallowed. If he says that’s how he experiences it, we may not find it appealing, but we must not ask him to deny his own way of experiencing. Male anxiety at being engulfed, swallowed is given nightmare expression in images of vagina dentata: the spider and the fly, Ian Fleming’s octopussy, and even in ravenous women biting a man’s head off: the praying mantis. Victor Hugo, a horn dog if there ever was one, was haunted by his obsessive fascination with the female and clearly feared being swallowed up by her: Josianne in L’Homme qui rit and the octopus in Travailleurs de la mer. Disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle, what a lovely way to go.

While no doubt women have what men need and sometimes fear, my own take is that these images do not give expression to healthy male desire and fascination. Female sexuality is indeed awesome but some of us men, at least, feel not intimidated and cowed by that fact, but rather, with increased appetite and arousal, say: bring it on darlin’. This stuff is the joy of life. To ask a Dowdy question in its male version: Are women necessary? My deeply philosophical, masculine answer is: Yup.

From the confines of limited acquaintanceship in these matters, my prejudice is that, at its best—in the sense of enlivening, fulfilling, nourishing--female heterosexuality is indeed submissive; male, dominant. Male control and female loss of control are just so deeply delicious to both. (The Madonna/Whore stuff deserves a thread of its own. Suffice to say here that I see not a shred of humiliation in healthy sexuality, or in healthy human relations, for that matter.)

A strong, powerful woman, properly at a high plateau of arousal, seems very much to need the fully trusting sense that she is firmly held, safely secure, and under the control of her man. I think this is why (and I don’t really know where the spontaneous words come from, but I find myself saying them when I catch a hint of that other-worldly look of disorientation, eyebrows knit in concern) a woman surrenders to the male lead, telling her she is loved and safe, as an enabling factor to her total loss of control. Many women seem to peak and ride over the top on these expressions of loving concern and just come on like gangbusters. The best approximation here of intense female orgasm is a full body, slow motion epileptic fit, including, at times, loss of consciousness. I speak here of women who know how to surrender to their own sensuality. Sensual women are what I think of as the deer-in-the-headlights girls; when you get your hands on them, sometimes just a caress of their hair, they go wordless, helpless, surrendered to their own physiology and emotionality—as if endowed with total body clitorality. They can be teased mercilessly (and the whole point of teasing is, of course, to better give them exactly what they need). Very sweet playmates indeed. Olympic and world class. I avow to a dopey notion in this regard, one that I would not defend (it may be just that I don’t get around much and it in no way governs preference in women): Native American women have the right stuff. More likely, most women have this capacity but often remain untutored (actually, my theory is that it relates, more widely, to tight integration of their sexuality with their spirituality—for another day). Anyway…as I started to say and got distracted, sensual women, toned ones, with exquisite control and convulsive loss of control of their, shall we say, internal musculature, reach this so violently that they push you out—or would do so if you were not equally forceful in riding them out. To be clear here: if you think I am in any way mocking or making fun of, please think again. This is just the very best. This is where a man lives and where he finds joy in being male. Lean close, ladies, and let me whisper you a little secret (an open secret which you undoubtedly already know): the measure of male arousal and fulfillment is to be found in his female’s excitement, arousal, and, especially, responsiveness—the heat of your genes through your jeans. In a recent post on another thread Di expressed the home truth that the penis does not lie. Ditto to that. To put it more coarsely (I’d hate to disappoint) and crudely (for which I sort of apologize), and in revision of that time-honored, uh, dictum: the angle of the dangle is in inverse proportion as the square of the distance from the heat of her meat. You could look it up. The full formula can be found in Newton’s Principia, you know, that classic rape manual. Sorry to go tangential. Lost my center of gravity. Back to our moutons, lambkins.

The “priestess” notion alluded to by DeeMarie is so close to the personal dream that it makes me shy to speak of it (Snow White, am I Dopey or Bashful?)—even to that special one, perhaps (were I to find her), for we’re at the threshold here of something totally private and precious, something that two in intimacy work out, spoken or unspoken, in a kind of sanctuary. (I ask women to think of their own feelings of privacy and reserve in their desire to be “tamed” or “mastered”—something that, properly, only their man gets to know). The mention of Rand in this context is no accident: she took a most exalted view of human sexuality and rendered it through portraits of women who are the strongest females in world literature. They are man-worshipers both in the abstract sense of reverencing the highest human potential and, specifically and concretely, in their sexuality, priestesses submitting to and worshiping their man-god. Some find this goofy kids’ stuff fairy tale romance. Perhaps so. But I know this: if it is not part of your vision of the possibles, you’re unlikely to find it, and if you should happen upon it, you won’t take it to be real. Ultimately, we figure it all out, what is mature and real, what is juvenile and jejune, after our own heart.

Truth in Labeling. “Dominance”, “submission”. We land in such treacherous territory with the labeling. Always guaranteed to raise a ruckus. To the extent, for example, that “submissive” suggests weakness, meekness, or, say, passivity, I would myself lay off the term (“surrendered” resonates pretty well). Likewise, if “dominant” entails self-regarding, brutal, and uncaring. We are just at a loss for neutral terms here; just think of how rebarbative to some are terms that one would use for healthy, outgoing initiatives—yet this is what we must do to get what we want—“aggressive”, “aggression”. Yikes! Call the cops.

I think the stuff about positioning is a little silly: women are rather ergonomically malleable. Constraints of postural correctness are just as dopey as that other kind of pc, and a man can remain fully dominant, bringing his woman to helplessness, by, say, “slavishly” sucking on her Popsicle toes. Would you want to miss out on that fun because on the face of it it’s not macho? We have, perhaps, different priorities.

Setting aside and looking beyond any initial resistances to be overcome in romantic engagement, I perceive, on the active side of womanly surrender, at the core of femaleness, loving, trusting welcoming. Were I an essence-mongerer, I’d look for the stuff of femininity here. I would love to hear a woman elaborate on this before I do, eventually. To my utter surprise, the Epiphany writer, Virgina Vitzthum, uses precisely that term in describing her pre-enlightenment sexuality.

I suspect, with the initial poster, that given neutrality in polling, we would find sexually submissive females, er, widespread. I have not personally known any woman to be otherwise. I would indeed make the nature argument—not here—but I would invite a quick re-glance at the biology

Truth in “packaging”. Not to be indelicate here, but I think a brief note on aroused female physiology is in order. Looking beyond and beneath the gross anatomical dynamics that concern us here—the piston rods, oil rigs, ram chargers, and rocketry—excited, “submissive” womanhood is decidedly active in its own, feminine way. This is exquisitely obvious to a man when he literally takes her in hand at her melted, molten core. There is mouthing with full, open lips, quite capable of drawing within, moistly and heatedly sucking into itself the object of its desire (sorry for the D.H. Lawrence gerunds gone wild). To have a woman in the palm of your hand is not merely poetic metaphor. The best of women can put it all there and I’d defy anyone to drive a semantic wedge, give here, take there, in that intimate contact where give is take and take is give—who cares—just give me more and take me more. Taking in hand and taking in, hand.

And, not to belabor the obvious, you girls do have genital endowments fully homologous to those of guys which swell, reach out in tumescence, and welcome attentive jobbing just as much (usually much more so, insatiably so, lucky ducks) as any man. It doesn’t take much womanly imagination to go to a trance where that silky butter bean, lengthened, widened, and engorged lifts off (think of a little merecat sitting up alert and at the watch) and finds a welcoming home to pelvic thrusts into some warm, moist, snug portion of her beloved. Now we’re having fun. What’s hard to understand about male sexuality?

Again, to be stupidly obvious, a man reaches release in a channel of bands of musculature capable of birthing. This is where we all were bred and born. Brer Fox, don’t throw me into the briar patch. (Little surprise that being there is, for a man, grounding: “Honey, I’m home!”) Breasts are not the only items that yield to milking. Proud of your firm handshake, pal? Rippling muscles indeed. Let me get a grip (as Di puts it, carpe penis) and check this out.

Forget the gym and dillydallying with dildos. Sex at its best, a fest at epiphanies, sorry Audry –I leave it as an exercise for the reader to unscramble the imagery--is sweet mutuality in pumping iron.

VelvetHammer wrote: a scenic detour looping through Kipling, Aristotle, Descartes, camels, Ian Fleming's "Octopussy," doodlebugs, Snow White, D.H. Lawrence, Isaac Newton's Principia, and Brer Fox. Including:

More than one woman of my acquaintance has wished to borrow for the day the physiology, or wear, not a strap-on, but rather a strap-in replica, joystick as dipstick. Golly, I sure find these girls demeaning, reducing me to mere object and instrument of their pleasure.

I'm assuming by "strap-in" you mean a double-ended dildo? And what do they do with it? I cannot imagining any dominant male allowing his woman even to wear such a thing, let alone letting her use it on him in any way.

VelvetHammer wrote:

I see not a shred of humiliation in healthy sexuality, or in healthy human relations, for that matter.

Sorry, but this is ambiguous. Do you mean that nobody should feel humiliated by expressing their healthy sexual desires? If so, I'd agree.
Or do you mean to denigrate some people's sexual inclinations as "unhealthy" if they include a desire for erotic humiliation? That I would not entirely agree with, depending on just what we're talking about. Many submissive women are thrilled by certain aspects of erotic humiliation. (Or "humbling" would really be a better term, I think.)

VelvetHammer wrote:

The “priestess” notion alluded to by DeeMarie is so close to the personal dream... The mention of Rand in this context is no accident: she took a most exalted view of human sexuality and rendered it through portraits of women who are the strongest females in world literature. They are man-worshipers both in the abstract sense of reverencing the highest human potential and, specifically and concretely, in their sexuality, priestesses submitting to and worshiping their man-god.

Yes, indeed. And I find it is that passionate and Romantic (capital "R") aspect of Rand's writing that still calls to me after all these years, despite my profound disagreements with her on the topics of Nature and mysticism. More than any other writer, she gave voice to the strong, passionate, brilliant heroine for whom hero-worship (and being romantically conquered by her hero) was the ultimate quest and fulfillment. She also clearly articulated why only a hero -- a strong, proud man of integrity -- would have have what it takes to conquer such a woman. (Francisco's speech on the nature of sexuality in "Atlas Shrugged" was brilliant.)

VelvetHammer wrote:

Truth in Labeling. “Dominance”, “submission”... guaranteed to raise a ruckus. To the extent, for example, that “submissive” suggests weakness, meekness, or, say, passivity, I would myself lay off the term (“surrendered” resonates pretty well). Likewise, if “dominant” entails self-regarding, brutal, and uncaring.

Well, my off-the-cuff definitions: A sexually dominant man is one gets an intense erotic thrill out of romantically conquering the woman he loves. (And he is actually able to do that.) And he cherishes and adores the woman he conquers; so much so that sex without such conquest is unappealing or meaningless to him. A sexually submissive woman is one who admires sexually dominant masculinity, and who gets an erotic thrill out of being romantically conquered and dominated by the man she loves. So much so that sex with a non-dominant man is unappealing or meaningless to her.

VelvetHammer wrote:

I think the stuff about positioning is a little silly: women are rather ergonomically malleable. Constraints of postural correctness are just as dopey as that other kind of pc, and a man can remain fully dominant, bringing his woman to helplessness, by, say, “slavishly” sucking on her Popsicle toes. Would you want to miss out on that fun because on the face of it it’s not macho? We have, perhaps, different priorities.

That's probably the case. There is much about "body language" that is innate and instinctual. For humans, as for most animals, if someone else is bigger and looming over us, that tends to give us a feeling of being dominated. It's not arbitrary or voluntary, it's built into our psychology. If a woman is on top of her man, it's hard to feel that he's really the one in control; but being pinned beneath a man's body during sex innately feels more like being conquered.

As for sucking on toes: this is yet another thing that seems to me to have clear overtones of domination and submission. Personally, there is no way in Hades that I would be attracted to a man who would want to suck on my toes, or any woman's toes. That just seems submissive to me. On the other hand, I could be very happy kissing his boots or sucking on *his* toes. (Provided, of course, that he has cute sexy toes and not gnarly misshapen ones. And I've never actually sucked on any toes yet, because so far I have not found my soul mate.)

That is just one of many aspects of male "body worship" that are quite appealing to me as a submissive woman. There's also muscle worship and...well, I'll stop before I start to blush. It all comes back to that sublime feeling of being a priestess paying homage and worship to her man-god. (Too bad that man-gods are so rare these days.)

- DeeMarie

[p.s. to the boss - This is a repeat of a post I tried to make earlier; because I got a message on that one that it was being rejected as "spam" for some reason. If that one goes through, please delete this one; or vice-versa.]

"As for sucking on toes: this is yet another thing that seems to me to have clear overtones of domination and submission. Personally, there is no way in Hades that I would be attracted to a man who would want to suck on my toes, or any woman's toes. That just seems submissive to me."

I thought that idea was kind of weird, too, until it happened to me...it was definitely erotic...the guy sure knew his way around a woman's body!!!

Likewise, if a woman has very deep submissive inclinations, and if she has a mental association of cunnilingus as a submissive action on the part of the male, then she may have a real aversion to it, even if it is a physically pleasurable sensation.

That's interesting, DeeMarie, I guess that concept is foreign to me because if a man weren't "clitorit" then I couldn't be with him. I never turn down a good "licking."

Louise wrote:

I think there has to be a certain give and take in a relationship, and if there are things you don't particularly care for (rather than having a strong aversion) and your partner wants you to do them, then I think you should try and oblige when possible.

So, Louise: if your husband really wanted you to put him on a dog collar and leash, and chain his arms behind his back, and push him down to the floor and make him eat out of a dog bowl, while stepping on his neck with your high heels and spanking his bare bottom -- surely such a thing is *possible* to do, therefore you should try and oblige him in that desire, right??

I don't think so; you yourself have said that you would find it very disturbing if your husband wanted you even to spank him. You don't like switching at all. So it's important to you that your husband retain the dominant role in your marriage. And that's all I'm saying, too; it's just that I have a lower threshold than some people, with regard to what actions I consider too "switchy" for me, and therefore unacceptable in a male-dominated romance. It's not just about things I "don't particularly care for" -- it's about things that I have a deep aversion to, because it seems like *switching* to me.

I think this comes down to two different models, or sets of priorities in the bedroom:

(1) The main thing is mutual physical pleasure, so any pleasurable act should be acceptable during sex. Even if you don't especially enjoy something, you should consider doing it if it brings your partner pleasure.

~ versus ~

(2) The main thing is that the man's dominance must be maintained at all times, so any act which seems to undermine male dominance (i.e., switching) is unacceptable.

But I don't think it's either/or; I think it's some kind of spectrum, with most of us somewhere in between those two extremes. For example, I would probably be happiest with a man who never wanted to engage in cunnilingus, because it seems kind of switchy to me. But I'm willing to go along with it, provided he can physically restrain me while he does it, and therefore maintains his dominant role. (I'm not so much into ropes and chains, but that might be the only way to do it in that particular case. But first he would have to wrestle me down and tie me up, because I'm not just going to go along with that without a struggle, either.)

A woman for whom her husband's dominance is absolutely essential is going to find it disturbing to engage in role-reversal activities in which she takes a dominant role and he takes a submissive role. Most submissive women don't want a husband who switches; a wife who would want a switch husband would probably be a switch herself.

But the pertinent thing here is this: we all draw that line at a different place. Most people probably don't see things like cunnilingus as "switching" their dominant and submissive roles; but some do. Likewise for my example of french kissing, if the woman puts her tongue in the man's mouth. To me that is "switching" and I would hate it. But to others it might not carry that connotation at all. So we all have our own ideas about where we draw the line at "switching" behaviors, and that's just how it should be. (Well, hopefully both partners in a marriage have similar lines.)

And maybe the fact that we draw lines in different places means that we enjoy different degrees of male domination in romance; or that we have differing ideas about just what male domination implies. But if you start advocating that someone else should be willing to go along with whatever her mate wants, no matter how "switchy" it seems to her, then you are in effect advocating that we should all be switches to some degree. And that, to me, would be missing the whole point about being in a committed, male-dominant relationship.

Louise wrote:

As far as the clitoris goes, I have never had an orgasm except through manual stimulation of the clitoris, and I do not believe this makes me like a man!

Nobody suggested that would make you "like a man" so I'm not sure what you're objecting to here. I mentioned that many dominant men do not like cunnilingus because to them it seems like a submissive act. But I don't think that manual stimulation carries that connotation for anyone. Rather, a man's ability to bring his wife to erotic surrender via a "hands-on" approach seems to reinforce his dominance rather than undermining it.

Louise wrote:

And while I don't particularly care for being on top when we are having sex, it would never occur to me to slap my husband's face when he asked me to do this, any more (I hope) than he would slap my face if I asked him to do something to me that he didn't care for. There are less brutal ways of explaining that you don't like something!

It's not an explanation; it's a demonstration and perhaps a challenge. It vividly and emphatically demonstrates the fact that he cannot dominate me from that position; and that if he does not dominate me, then I have no respect for him as a man, and sex is just not going to happen. It can also be a challenge to him: either start being more dominant, or get out. If it makes him mad enough to show me who's boss, then we might actually get somewhere in a romantic relationship. Otherwise the relationship (or date) is clearly over.

I suppose it's possible, if he's strong enough, that he might prove me wrong, and show me that he actually *can* physically control me and dominate me, even when he's on the bottom and I'm on the top. In that case, then I would have no choice but to submit; but that would be ok because he would be actually dominating me, which is the whole point. I still would not enjoy it nearly as much as the man-on-top position; but as long as he was able to physically overpower me and force me into it, then I would feel sufficiently dominated. That aspect of real physical coercion and conquest is essential in order for me to feel any substantial degree of sexual excitement.

Louise wrote:

Personally, I tend to feel happier when I am in a passive rather than active position during sex...I don't much care for performing oral sex on him, because I find it rather unappealing when he is lying there passively while I do it to him.

This question of active versus passive raises a fascinating issue with regard to those of us who really enjoy body worship. Because I will generally agree that the dominant role should be the more active one, and I have no use for a "dominant" who would just sit there and order me to "serve" him in various ways. But when I perform fellatio, I'm not doing it to "serve" the man and his pleasure; I'm doing it because it's something that I myself enjoy, immensely, as a form of body worship.

I find the male body and all of its (external) parts irresistably attractive. (Provided, of course, that it's a man that I'm actually attracted to; and those are few and far between.) I've never yet met a part of the male anatomy that I don't absolutely adore, and I am inevitably drawn to fondle, kiss, sniff, lick, rub and etc. pretty much all of it. Like I said, I have a very hands-on (and face-on!) approach to the male body. That does tend to make me the more active partner, during some of the foreplay at least; but it's a very submissive role for me as well, because it's my way of worshipping a dominant man. But my enjoyment of body worship has the side effect that I don't much enjoy a man lavishing attention on my body in that way; because to me that would put him in a submissive role. So I've had some unfortunate encounters with men who wanted to kiss and fondle me all over, etc., when I don't really respond very well to that at all.

That is generally how body worship is understood: the person doing the worship is the submissive partner, and the person receiving it is the dominant one. But it seems to me that many people in male-dominant relationships are either unfamiliar with that idea, or don't find it terribly appealing. If they did, then websites on male dominance would be filled with photos and artwork glorifying the male body in all its magnificence. Instead, most maledom websites have artwork of submissive females. Why, as a straight submissive woman myself, would I want to look at *that*?? If artwork is going to draw my interest, it will be because it depicts the strong, sexy bodies of dominant men.

Compare that to femdom sites, where the focus is not generally on the male submissive, but rather on the dominatrix. In both cases, it's the female body being put on display, because western culture has adopted this attitude that it's the female body that is sexy, and women who should be the sex objects. (And that is a cultural artifact and not anything natural and universal; compare ancient Greece, where it was the male body on display and the female body that was all covered up.)

So, because of this arbitrary cultural attitude that regards women and not men as the proper sex objects, body worship does not seem as widespread in male dominant communities as in femdom ones. That started to change a few decades ago, with male centerfolds and more men taking an interest in their bodies; but unfortunately it's changing rather slowly. In the meantime, those of us for whom body worship is an essential part of romance have a hard time finding compatible partners.

Because people might be unfamiliar with body worship and the role it plays in dominant/submissive relationships, here's a short intro at Wikipedia. (I notice that they include it under "BDSM" but I don't think of it that way; maybe it's D/s, but not really BDSM.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_worship

The other thing I really enjoy is erotic combat - wrestling, sparring, etc. And wouldn't you just know, that's another thing that's apparently more popular among the femdom crowd than among folks with a maledom orientation. (Bah. I just don't understand why.) But it's the combination of the two that I like the best, and that's another reason why taking an "active" role during body worship still seems intensely submissive to me. If a man has just wrestled you down and is forcing you to kiss some part of his anatomy, then he's not really being very "passive" about it, is he? Well, that's really my dream encounter, what brings out my most intense submission -- that perfect combination of being physically overpowered, then being made to lavish worship all over the male body. So, there are ways that body worship can involve the active participation of the dominant partner.

With regard to not liking fellatio because it makes the man passive and the woman active, there is another way to do that where the man is active and the woman passive. It's basically like coitus, only oral. That is more properly called "irrumation" and not "fellatio," but the two terms are often conflated, and one does not hear the word "irrumation" much any more. But it's an important word, because it preserves the idea of the male as the active partner, and in that way can be seen as a more dominant way for him to get oral sex. (Although I think he can be dominant either way.) "Irrumation" is really overdue for a revival in our lexicon, especially for the maledom folks who would enjoy it better that way.

Louise wrote:

No, I wouldn't want to do that to him,

You wouldn't want to do what to him?? Irrumation? As I explained, it's not something that you do to him, it's something that he does to you. So it sounds like your real objection to fellatio is not so much that the male is passive, but just that you are "not much into the male body," as you say.

I find that rather mind-boggling, myself, since I absolutely adore the male body; but your attitude appears to be not uncommon among women. I think it must be due to cultural conditioning, because I feel pretty sure that Nature gave most of us a strong innate attraction to the opposite sex; and clothing is a rather recent development in the history of evolution. I've always felt very strongly that it is the male, and not the female, who is the natural sex object. Not that males are not attracted to females, of course, because that's universal among animals. But in most species it is the male whose body is more, ahem, *decorative* -- and he flaunts his plumage to draw the females. (Peacocks being a prime example, but certainly not the only one. Even among some primates the male is more ornamented than the female.)

We can also see this in some indigenous tribes, where the women dress rather plainly, and the males are the ones with the colorful clothing, bright feathers, and face and body painting. I'm not saying that's how I'd prefer men to dress, but I do like it when they dress with more style and flair than modern fashion has dictated. Is there anything more boring -- and more obscuring of a muscular male physique -- than a standard business suit?) So this idea that the female and not the male should be the sex object has always struck me as unappealing and perverse; it seems to me an artifice of culture, and almost the opposite of the way that Nature intended. (And yes, to me Nature is divine, so that's sort of like a Christian arguing about what their god says. It's not an argument that should be binding on anyone else, but it can still be worth discussing.)

I agree that a man in uniform can be sexy (soldiers and also policemen), but I have to wonder if it's partly because uniforms are about the only form of ornamented dress that most men are allowed these days. I also think the way some rock stars dress is very sexy, and guys who dress up in renaissance garb, and even bikers in black leather with long hair, tattoos and plenty of jewelry. And for dressing sexy, it's hard to beat Johnny Depp in many of his acting roles, especially as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. But while the men in my fantasies may start out fully dressed and ornamented, they inevitably end up mostly naked; because worshipping the muscular male body is probably my main thing.

And I don't mind a bit of narcissism in a male at all; in fact, I really enjoy it and I think most men could use more of it. One way a large muscular man can definitely turn me on is by standing in front of a mirror, flexing and admiring and caressing his own body, and completely ignoring me as I admire him. (But not ignoring me for long, of course.) Any man I'm attracted to has to be proud of his own body, and its beauty and strength, and aware of its power to bring women to their knees. When a man ignores his own body, and instead is enslaved by female beauty and enthralled in worshipping female bodies -- such a man seems submissive to me, and I tend to find that attitude actually repulsive, personally.

Louise wrote:

I'm not sure about the erotic combat thing. Would a really manly man enjoy wrestling with a woman? I mean, it's not much of a challenge for him, is it, to overcome a mere woman? Wouldn't a really macho man prefer wrestling with men?

I'm sure he would enjoy wrestling with other men for the challenge, but if he wrestles a woman it's not for the challenge, obviously. It's because he enjoys physically *dominating* her -- overpowering her and conquering her with his brute strength -- precisely because he's a dominant man. Any "wrestling contest" between a strong man and a woman is not a serious thing, obviously. His attitude is more likely to be one of amusement, maybe even teasing and taunting his woman about how weak she is, and how easily he can do whatever he wants to do to her, and how powerless she is to stop him. It can be a very playful thing, and a very sexy way for him to dominate and overwhelm his woman with his strong masculine body.

Just as I need a man with a bit of narcissism, I also need a man who enjoys being a bit of a bully sometimes, at least with me. (I would not want him to be a bully in general, because that indicates a weakness of character in my view.) He needs to enjoy manhandling me and pushing me around, just because he can, and because we both enjoy the power that his strong body allows him to have over me. Also, both erotic combat and body worship can be ways for the dominant man to humble his woman, and bring out her utter submission. (I prefer the word "humble" to "humiliate" because I don't find it humiliating at all; I find it thrilling and ecstatic.)

Louise wrote:

As for the ancient Greeks and their predilection for naked male bodies, men who go in for admiring other men naked are seldom very interested in women.

You seem to have a common misconception of ancient Greece, that most of the men were gay or something. Obviously that's not true, or their population would have died out in short order. The men of ancient Greece were sexually attracted to both women and to boys -- but not generally to adult men. It was not homosexuality as we know it, but it was paedophilia as an established cultural and social institution. There were some Greek men who were attracted to other adult men, but there was a strong taboo against that, and they were actively discriminated against, worse than gay men today are treated. Only women and boys (from prepubescent through early teens) were considered acceptable sexual conquests in ancient Greece; as soon as a boy started to develop such manly features as a beard, a deeper voice and heavy muscles, then he was no longer considered an acceptable sex partner for an adult man. There were cultural reasons for paedophilia as a social institution in ancient Greece, and for the widespread attraction of adult men to boys; but that's way beyond the scope of this thread.

Suffice it to say that ancient Greece was an extremely male-dominated culture ("the reign of the phallus" as one writer put it), where women had about the same rights as children. (No, I don't endorse that at all.) That was why the male body -- the *adult* male body in all its magnificent strength and athletic beauty was glorified as the highest form of art, while the female body was generally covered from neck to toe by loose gowns. (But not quite a burka.) It was only fitting for a man to proudly display and flaunt his sculpted body, while humble feminine modesty was the rule for women. And it was women -- not men -- who were thought to be slaves to their sexual desires and passions, while men were supposed to be perfect masters of theirs. Women were forbidden from attending athletic games, for example, because it was thought that they would be so overcome with passion at the sight of those strong male bodies on display that they would simply not be able to control themselves. But a man was not really a man if he could not control his passions.

Louise wrote:

I would try (I hope) to explain my distaste for doing that to him in a less harsh way than slapping his face, which I think is somewhat unkind...My husband has feelings that can be hurt, so do most men.

But you seem to be missing the point that if my man lay on his back and invited me to get on top of him, then my feelings would be absolutely *crushed*, because to me it would mean the end of his dominance, and therefore the end of our romantic relationship. I would not slap a man for doing that if it was our first date, and he didn't yet realize that I'm a submissive woman. (But I would walk out the door, because I have no interest in making love to a submissive wuss.) But if it's an established relationship where he knows my own sexual inclinations, but he figures he'll try that out anyway, then I would feel deeply insulted; and I would also lose all respect for him as a dominant man. In that case, I don't really mind hurting his feelings. However, if he decides to get mad instead of getting hurt, and if he can reassert his dominance in a very physical and undeniable way, then there might still be something to salvage from that.

I am not the sort of person to be unkind to others without good reason. But I take masculine domination and feminine surrender very seriously, and if a man I'm intimate with does not take it seriously enough to dominate me thoroughly and with overwhelming force, then he is going to find a little hellcat on his hands.

To add a couple of clarifications to my post as I struggle to catch up with you folks:

1.Once engaged in a romantic encounter I see no priority higher than giving and taking pleasure in each other. The background concern to do no harm remains but each comes to know over encounters the physical risks, boundaries, and limitations. I have, for example, little patience with a woman who is not careful with her teeth or clueless about the importance of well-oiled machinery. For my part, I need to know, say, she can handle deep, vigorous thrusting—bashing her cervix or punching an ovary is not fun for either.
2.The ritualistic and symbolic is more freight than the locomotive of sex can pull. Afterwards, it can be further bonding to explore each others inner awareness of physical intimacy, but optimal sex is mostly about being present and fully in contact with each other, the analytic, implicative engine needs to go quiet. I am not one to pre-script my encounters. If I know anything about love it entails overwhelming desire to know and delight in the other. The forms that this takes are creations that arise in process, calling on the resources and needs that each person brings to the encounter. Permissions and correctness are not considerations that have any relevance to the dynamic of a man and woman spontaneously absorbed in each other. There is nothing else but that presence. I don’t see it as a time for monitoring, analysis, and the reading of implications. There is meaning in some of the expressions we use in this context and many of them bring into focus the point here: let go and get out of your head. Fuck ourselves silly. Fuck my brains out. Fuck me senseless.
3.The appliances I spoke of, clones of the physiology, were for her internal use exclusively, not for doodlebuggery. Some folks are into pet rocks, others into….
4.While I enjoy whacking girls off I am not into whacking them (spanking I take to be a kind of whacking off). This is no doubt a cultural thing but it is not something I fret or fuss over. Boys don’t hit girls. Men don’t hit women. Although I barge the line more than some it is of deep personal importance to me to remain a gentleman, a gentle man. For a man of my sort, being called a wuss pains less than being called a bully. I have lived a life where my sheer presence, energy, and intensity are intimidating to many; I do not wish to add fisticuffs to the mix.
5.I am not schooled in the martial arts. I have never hit a woman and would not know how to do so safely. Is there not risk of detaching a retina or addling her brain by smacking about the face?
6.Sex is about nakedness and vulnerability, safety and trust. I would not remain long with a woman inclined to slap, or give a knee to the groin, or make Lorena Bobbitt snip snip jokes.
7.I am deeply familiar with the walk-away. Leaving the man in bafflement is yet another ritualistic sort of posture. My notion is that honorable people give reasons for what they do. One does not need to go on at length about this but some statement about breaking the engagement seems appropriate. The walk-away is a form of cutting cold or shunning, or snubbing. Another way of going off to the cave; and how women rail against this on this site. This is a big item for me. I will admit that I feel this acutely because recently a woman I loved and who loved me did this: the relationship just went poof. It is awful, emotionally, the very worst. I don’t like quitters.
8.We all have our take it or leave it stuff. This site is good because it helps us clarify our own terms. Some issues bring things sharply into focus. It is funny that dildos and clits have done so in this case, but there it is. I agree that we should not ignore our intuitions. They deserve exploration and probing. If your tongue in his cheek is a turn off, so be it. If your kiss to his boot is a turn off to me, so be it.
9.The crustiness that comes with self-knowledge is rather frightening at times. Many of us who’ve not had the luxury of going through life with our boyhood or girlhood sweetheart, that is, growing together over time where differences and incompatibilities are gradually confronted and resolved, come to my-way-or-the-highway places—where we know that nothing less than this will do. I hear it, for example, in posts by DeeMarie, Hera, the boss. Some of us have rotten luck, it’s a fact of life. When push comes to shove our attitude really has to be one of sureness about oneself and a kind of arrogant confidence: you don’t know what you’re missing.
10.“Conquest”, if that be the appropriate term, works both ways. I am not much vested in the notion of conquest, perhaps because it has for me connotations of a zero-sum transaction in which one wins and the other loses, so that may simply be my free-minds-free-markets laisser faire background mindset at work. Any “conquering” to be done happens mostly in the psychology of admiration/desire. My woman gets the ride of her life, again and again. This is a very deep ambition within a man. It is what I’m is built for. She’s got to be up to it.
11.Humbling is much better than humiliating. And even there, only if it is ennobling in some sense, like the admiration we feel for nobility of character or scope of intellect and achievement. Perhaps the best delights of this site are the contributions of the boss and DeeMarie—very sharp cookies indeed.
12.The desire to be humbled, I suspect, is in large part a wish to be used and enjoyed. There is a certain fullness that some women enjoy in, shall we say, dealing with a little too much. Some of it may be an element of pride in taking it like a big girl (I can’t believe I ate the whole thing) but maybe more a kind of adorably sweet masochism that wants to offer even that to her man (Sort of the equivalent of the athleticism of some people’s faith—Tertullian’s credo quia absurdum est). The open secret of many women’s lives, I fear, is a sense of being under used, of having so much that could be tapped, lurking powers and capacities just dying to be set free. The correlative to this in the male is the desire to be a bit much for her, to take his woman in every possible way, to use her thoroughly, vigorously, strenuously. Maybe in part because he can, but probably even more so because he wants to give her everything he’s got. Full filled. There is a point in deep intimate bonds where it is very hard to tell whether one takes greater pleasure in one’s own or in one’s partner’s. The epiphany here is a oneness where there were two, a bursting of the boundaries of the self into a foreground figure of two selves in contact in every possible way. My woman gets spoiled rotten.
13.Body worship is delicious stuff: I love gazing and being gazed upon. My ex-wife was fond of soccer thighs and a fondly remembered girlfriend could get wet watching my forearm muscles slicing bread. More than one woman has sketched my hands and one did a painting of my back years before we met. This works both ways. I have a powerful capacity for erotic trance. It is not an issue of being in thrall of the female form. I adore women. This is my heaven on earth, there is no other, so I have a mind to enjoy.
14.I too have many don’t-gets with both Paglia and Rand. In Paglia, that whole business of fear of woman’s awesome power, the struggle of the male to free himself of maternal dependence, seems a misunderstanding of male strength, control, and dominance. Rand I think was quite alienated from both her own physicality and the natural world. All that Baconian Nature to be commanded…. A kind of nose-wrinkling disgust at the explicit, anatomical depiction of sexuality. Homosexuality as not part of the natural order. Militantly cerebral, disparaging of emotionality, distrustful of “gut” widom--organic, biological intelligence, the subtleties of quieter modes of intelligence—meditation, intuitive sensing. Utterly humorless and without fun.
15.I have known a few Wiccans of the style, DeeMarie, that you in one post teasingly characterized as Bambi. In New England beliefs of this sort are usually complemented with bumper stickers saying: Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues. This is a flat out fraud of truth in advertising. These women spend their life largely in tears. My notion, no doubt unfair and biased, is that it is a belief system for depressed, lonely-hearted women. I am not making fun. I have vested emotionally in women like this, quite protectively for they had histories of physical and emotional abuse and no doubt with certain heroic rescuer fantasies of my own. Magnificent women, awful spoilage: something has turned off their happiness button. I’ll vest no further in that direction. My notion is that past hurts largely fade in the joy of a new found happiness; it is immensely healing. These women did not have baggage, they had freight. Anyway, fairness in teasing suggests that if that style is Bambi, then we’d have to call your style Thump Her.
16.I am very big on on-going genital gratification (Reich, despite his goofy orgone boxes, was on to something). Life’s natural sweetner. I am not especially an admirer of Jesus (we non-believers have given up all the same gods as you monotheists—Thor, Zeus, those guys—we just go one step further), but if there is any truth and reality to his sweet love—let me be really offensive and call a spade a spade—my guess is that he had a hard loving woman was getting laid on a regular basis.
17. I love the scenic detours and don’t follow the yellow brick road, Dorothy. I’d rather romp in those poppies. And you, more so than others, should know (and this in gratitude to Lady Di’s welcome): there’s no place like home.

Louise wrote:

I don't believe that my lack of interest in naked males has anything to do with 'cultural conditioning' I just think that looking at naked bodies is more of a male thing than a female thing.

If the cultural conditioning is effective, obviously, then people don't even realize that they've been conditioned. So I think you're confusing the cart with the horse here. We've all grown up in a culture in which the female body is put on display as a sex object, and so teenage boys learn from an early age that it's expected that they will lust after it; whereas teenage girls are not generally inundated with images of strong and sexy male bodies to admire. This may be changing, but it seems to be changing very slowly. Girls and women are still quite self-conscious about ogling the male body, probably because they've been brainwashed into thinking that's not a very feminine thing to do.

For me, however, that is the very *definition* of femininity -- that a woman is irresistably drawn to worship and adore and submit to the raw strength and power of masculinity. And that power and masculinity derives, ultimately, from the luscious muscularity of the male body. But as long as young girls are conditioned into thinking that they should be the sex objects -- and that that is where their femininity derives -- then they'll mostly continue to miss out on one of the more fulfilling aspects of feminine surrender, which is the worship of the male body. (And men, too, are missing out. Whether they realize it or not, I believe it would make a huge difference to many or most men to know that their women admire their bodies, and find them sexy, and love to lavish affection on them.)

And as long as women, not men, are regarded as the sex objects, then that will continue to undermine male dominance, because women will be able to use their sex as a weapon. See, the feminists have long had it completely backwards: in reality, it is the sex object that holds the power, and the person who is irresistably drawn to adore the sex object who gives up their power. That is one thing that Camille Paglia is totally right about, in going on and on about the power that women have over men, because of the male fascination with the female body. But she fails to even consider that that is a reversal of our natural sex roles, and that in the absence of cultural conditioning it would be the women who would be fascinated and enthralled by the male body, not vice versa.

With regard to human evolution, twenty thousand years ago is just yesterday. Humans go back a million years, and our close primate progenitors go back a lot further. And all throughout Nature, females are fascinated by diplays of the male body. Only humans -- and only humans in some cultures -- seem to have undermined and reversed that. (And your generalization about tribes where men are highly decorated is just plain wrong; in most such tribes the men are actively engaged in hunting and warfare. Indeed, makup probably originated from war paint, or from ritualized body painting for hunting parties.)

With regard to ancient Greek culture and paederasty, you wrote: "Nevertheless, an undue interest in the naked male form is not generally regarded as a sign of men who are interested in women." You are still missing the point here: Greek men who regarded boys as sex objects did so because the boys were NOT men, but rather substitutes for WOMEN. There is a lot of physical similarity between a teenage boy and a woman, in both face and body; it's not difficult at all for a young woman to disguise herself as a teenage boy, and vice versa. Both women and boys have softer, rounder faces than men, and bodies that are smaller, weaker, and softer than a man's body. Young men in ancient Greece did not have the option of dating young women, because girls were cloistered away in their own homes until they were given away in marriage, as soon as they reached puberty. And only men who had served time in the military and had established a career were considered proper husband material; which meant that a man did not usually marry before the age of thirty.

What was a man supposed to use for a sexual outlet, during the "raging hormone" years between 18 and 30? Well, that's where teenage boys came in, to satisfy that need. And it was an established social institution, with the parents consenting to their sons being taken as lovers by a young man several years older; in addition to being a lover, he was also a mentor and guide and protector. But as soon as the young boy began to show signs of impending manhood, then he was no longer a suitable lover for a man. At that point the older man would start looking towards marrying a young wife, and the younger man would now be old enough to take on a younger teenage male as his lover. These cultural practices obviously seem very alien to us today, which is probably why there are so many misconceptions about it; we try to squeeze things into our own conceptual categories, even when they just don't fit into those boxes at all.

As regards the public display of the athletic (adult) male physique in ancient Greece, that was not because that's what men were sexually attracted to; rather, it's what they admired and aspired to. Just as women today who read fashion magazines and admire female models or actresses are not generally doing that because they're lesbians; but rather because they want to be beautiful themselves, and the actresses or fashion models are seen as role models for female beauty. Similarly, men in ancient Greece admired paragons of male strength and beauty; not in a sexual way but rather as role models for how to be real men. That's something that today's culture is sadly missing.

Louise wrote:

As for Johnny Depp - no, he's not my cup of tea at all. I think he looks like a girl.

Well, I was specifically talking about the way Johnny Depp was dressed in "Pirates" and not his face. But in fact I do think he's the most gorgeous actor out there; and just about the only really sexy one, too. Partly it's his adorably pretty face, but Johnny Depp is also a powerhouse of natural charisma, something that few actors out there could even begin to match. (But a few rock stars can and do.) But he did not really look like himself as Willy Wonka, because he was wearing oversized false teeth. (He explained this in a BBC interview that it helped him get into the role.) And he wore gold-capped teeth for the Jack Sparrow role, but those I actually liked. So he uses various disguises in his acting roles that tend to obscure his physical beauty; and he's also getting older now, too.

But for Johnny Depp at the height of his beauty, check out some of his younger roles, such as "Dead Man" or "Gilbert Grape" or "Benny and Joon." Anyway, I'd say that his face is boyish rather than feminine; but he is (or was) definitely pretty, with a damn near perfect face. But he's rather average size and build, not nearly big and burly enough for my tastes. My perfect dream combination is a pretty-boy face like Johnny Depp's and a big, strapping, muscley body to go with it. (And yes, there are a few men around like that.) I prefer longer hair on men, and I also don't mind a man wearing a bit of makeup; in many cases it can make an attractive man even more gorgeous. But most men who are not actors or musicians are reluctant to wear makeup.

I really do love a man with a bit of the peacock in him -- a man who knows he's beautiful, and who enjoys flaunting it, and who knows how to use the power that gives him over women. But my tastes have shifted away from bodybuilder types in the last several years, and more towards a football player (American football, not soccer) type of body as ideal: big, beefy and muscular, but also with a bit of baby fat, for a soft and huggable body. I don't care much for six-pack abs, nor the zero-body-fat look of today's bodybuilders.

Louise wrote:

I certainly don't take masculine domination and feminine submission as seriously as you do, but then I don't think I take ANYTHING as seriously as you take that.

Hey, this is my favorite quote of the day. (insert smiley face) Yep, I think you're probably quite right about that.

I'm not convinced that it is more natural for women to ogle naked men than for men to ogle naked women. After all, why else do so many societies make a big deal about keeping women covered up, if it's not that the female body is considered dangerously attractive?

And the ancient greeks would, I feel, have had other outlets for their sexual energies than young boys, even if they didn't get to mix much with women of their own class. There were slave women for instance, and prostitutes, both available for the attentions of upper-class men as they have been throughout history. The famous well-educated and witty courtesans of Athens were at the top of the range, but there would probably have been
cheaper and more down-market whores available to those who couldn't afford the pricier article. In 'Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves; Women in Classical Antiquity' Susan B. Pomeroy writes:

>Men were unlikely to marry before the age of thirty, and unmarried men had no opportunity for heterosexual activity except with prostitutes and slaves. Since there seem to have been fewer women than men in the general population at this time, shared women, or prostitutes, were a solution. Some men lived with concubines in a more or less permanent union. When a man lived with a concubine, she was considered his sexual property in much the same way as a legitimate wife. The rape or seduction of a concubine drew the same penalties as offenses committed against a legitimate wife.<

So it is evident that unmarried men who wanted women rather than boys could get them.

Your preference in men is pretty much the opposite of mine. I hate bulging muscles, long hair, and pretty-boy faces. I find my husband's interest in my body not evidence of submissiveness, but a reassuring sign that he still finds me attractive. The fact that he still can't keep his hands off me whenever he is near me shows that he still finds me desirable, I don't see it as him worshipping me, just as him having a healthy sexual interest in me.

I know women read magazines and want to look like the models and actresses they see in them, but I see that as evidence of female silliness, and I have no wish for men to become as idiotically obsessed with their looks as women are. I remember as a child how my sister used to yearn to look like a model called Jean Shrimpton, she used to gaze longingly at pictures of her, and I thought how daft it was. My sister was short and plumpish with rather fat legs, so she had no chance of emulating the Shrimp, but what of it? She was wildly popular with boys, the phone never stopped ringing. And yet she wanted to look like a dumb model. I thought it was silly then, and I still think it's silly now. God forbid that men should go down that road.

I find my husband at his most desirable when he is dressed in old clothes, sailing his boat, handling it with an airy confidence that makes me go weak at the knees with admiration. Or when he comes in from the workshop smelling of hot metal and oil, with bits of iron filings glittering in his hair. "You like a bit of rough" as he puts it. Muscle-bound narcissists leave me cold, I like a man who can do something with his hands besides comb his hair.

Louise

I'm a bit baffled by the tongue business. Whenever I've French-kissed someone, I've never really thought about whose tongue was in whose mouth, aren't they sort of mixed up? How do you tell who is in whose mouth?

And as for boot-kissing, I'm not into that at all. Any man who wanted me to kiss his boots would wait in vain for me to do it. I'm just not a boot person.

Louise

VH wrote:

>With regard to muscle mass and tone, my notion and seemingly the notion of women who are attracted to me, is a functional one: male muscularity that comes from working the soil, harvesting the wood, building decks and timber frames—structurally useful features for getting real work done. Obviously our service economy and brain work doesn’t lend itself well to that sort of “natural” result—something I struggle to work out in trade-offs between my intellectuality and my physicality. I confess to being faintly amused at and a tad condescending of gym workouts. When I see this I say: help me split some oak.<

Gee.....now you wrote something I can relate to. With all your pointy headed verbiage, I wondered to myself, has this guy ever placed hammer to nail? There is a certain wisdom that comes from doing that no amount of intellectualism can replace. I am fond of DH Lawrence for this reason, not only for his concerns regarding the dehumanizing effects of modernity (a story for another day), but for his evocation of spontaneity and instinctive behavior, especially in regards to sex.

Curiously, the deep satisfaction a man recieves from the scent of fresh tilled earth, well oiled leather, or red oak shavings, is not unlike the smell of good sex with a giving and sweaty woman. The fragrance lingers and oh, how it quiets the mind....... But I wonder, with a nod toward Dee's question...is not the thrusting and penetrating an act of male domination?

Stephen (with sledge hammer and mall in hand)

> Well, I find it curious that anyone would equate being
> sexually submissive with being an “object” rather than
> a “subject.” Indeed, I would argue that the male fits
> the role of sex object much more naturally, because
> throughout most of nature it's generally the male of the
> species who flaunts his flashy colors to lure the females.

One who is doing things is the subject. One who suffers things done to him/her is the object. It's that simple. When the female chooses the male who "flaunts his flashy colors" she is the subject and he is the object, because she does something to him: chooses him or rejects him. The result is not indifferent to him but she does the choosing, not him. When the male mounts the female he is the subject who mounts, and she is the object that's being mounted. It's just the way we perceive situations and express ourselves: as far as I know in all languages the subject is doing things to the object, not vice versa.

> it's quite common for women to project onto their male
> lovers (and most other men) the typical feminine
> experience of sex as a form of surrender. But I agree
> with the Salon author that the male role in sex is
> innately a more dominant one, and I believe most men
> experience it that way.

Yes. It is so, on the surface. But the more we look into details the more nuanced and even elusive this distinction becomes.

From my own experience (I'm male), the more I let loose myself, the more I let go, the less I insist on retaining control over myself the hotter sex I have. Unfortunately, I have not been able to go very far in this direction. Probably that's because I'm a control freak, sort of. Or maybe because I have not found the woman I could really trust yet, or maybe I don't really trust myself. Or maybe because the antonym to retaining control over myself is, yes, surrender. What a regrettable surprise :)

Of course, you may say that woman surrenders to her lover while he surrenders to his own desire, to his own lust. This is true, but only up to a point.

First, woman surrenders to her own lust too, and if not she does not surrender at all. In the latter case she just lends her body to her lover for some calculated reason. Second, while the asymmetry of their physical experience is unavoidable, it is not directly translated into the asymmetry of their psychological experience. It depends. If she is passive and receptive while he is active and assertive they will experience it as conquest and surrender to that conquest whether he retains total control of himself or lets himself loose. If she is open about what she wants at the moment and he is not preoccupied with what can be construed to be unmasculine, he will want to do what she wants, just because it is sexy when your woman is hot with desire. In this case the more he surrenders to his own lust the more in fact he surrenders to her, so it's rather symmetrical, and their experience will be that of reciprocity rather than that of complementarity, their obvious physical differences notwithstanding.

I don't think that "dildo-wielding experiment" can give the woman an accurate impression of the male sexual experience. She did it out of curiosity, she's found that it gives her the opportunity to sexually dominate her partner, so she thinks now that she knows how her partner perceives sex. But she is missing the vital piece of puzzle: his lust. He penetrates her out of desire for her, not out of curiosity; his choice about what attitudes to have towards the woman and the act is not entirely free: he wants her, and this desire to a substantial extent dictates his attitudes, thoughts and actions.

> Because to a man being penetrated and on the bottom
> during sex could be a humiliating experience, and a loss
> of manhood to be so vulnerable. And because it would be
> humiliating to him, he also imagines that it must be
> humiliating to a woman.

No, it's not that simple. The loss of manhood in all probability is a humiliating experience for a man due to many reasons. We are expected to be manly and if we are not it means in certain sense that we are not worthy as persons. We've internalized to a certain extent some vague ideas that masculinity is associated with certain virtues, so loss of manhood may be perceived as if we didn't have this virtues anymore, in fact as an indication that we did not ever have them. Loss of manhood can make us far less attractive to women, and passionately wanting her while she finds me unattractive is a humiliation. But why would a man imagine that being unmasculine is humiliating to a woman? She is not expected to be masculine; she will not become less attractive if she is not; her personal qualities are not affected too much by the sexual act she engages in.

I don't think it is about a loss of manhood, after all being penetrated does not of itself bring those consequences. It's impossible to tell whether that particular man was penetrated or not. I don't think it is about vulnerability per se either. After all a man is physically vulnerable during and after the heterosexual intercourse and throughout the history some women made use of this, but we usually don't perceive this vulnerability as humiliation.

The reason why so many men, myself included, find the idea of being penetrated utterly abhorrent is very simple. It implies that you are simply used for the pleasure of another person. My body is valuable because it is my body; my fear is important; my pain (anal penetration probably hurts) matters. It all is certainly more important than the fleeting pleasure of somebody else, and if not it means I'm worthless. If somebody else deemed me to be worthless compared to him and was able to force this view on me, it would be a very humiliating experience.

> And therefore, any woman who actually enjoys that sort
> of thing?? Well, there must be something wrong with her,
> she must have no self-respect.

Probably if I had vagina I would be much more relaxed about being penetrated if the partner was sexually attractive from my point of view and responsive to my wants. I don't think that being penetrated in such situation is humiliating. So your explanation is not entirely correct.

However, being conquered and dominated definitely is humiliating from my point of view. And women subscribe to this point of view as well most of the time. Most of them don't want to be dominated by strangers. Usually they abhor being conquered. Yet many women accept being conquered and dominated by their men, the men they have sex with.

It looks strange. It looks like they perceive the masculinity of their men as something special, almost superhuman. But from my point of view it is rather trivial. Well, it is a substantial part of my personality, but it is only part of it. It is not some beast that I need to employ some special technology to control, like for example a horseman to control the horse. I'm stronger than my sexuality. I can overpower it one-on-one. In fact I can conquer my sexual urges far more easily than, say, intense fear or towering anger. So if a woman worshipped, so to speak, my masculinity, she would in fact worship me. But I'm just human, as human as she is. So it would be hard for me not to think that there must be something wrong with her.