BDSM theory vs real life, F/m edition

A long time ago, when I was just starting out on this blog, I wrote a post called BDSM theory and feminism in which I showed how the theory of what we do is totally not inconsistent with feminism, and in some ways is helpful to it. That was a lovely post, and certainly true as far as it went (i.e. dealing with theory alone). I also promised, "I'll talk about what happens in real life in a later post." Then it was going to be several posts, and then it didn't turn into any! That changes today. In particular, I was going to talk about the differences in dynamics of heterosexual BDSM pairings in real-life, from male-top and female-top perspectives (as much as I would be able to do the latter, not having experienced it as a participant, only as listening to other people). Since it's specified as heterosexual, "male-top" implies "female-bottom", and "female-top" implies "male-bottom". I would write about gay/lesbian pairings but to be honest I still do not know enough to do so. This is the post about what sometimes happens with male bottoms (and therefore, female tops). This post needs a definite disclaimer to the effect of "if it's not about you, don't make it about you". I am going to be using the term "male bottom" as though the remarks apply universally. They do not! I am doing this simply because the post will become very clumsy if I have to specify each time "some (but not all, and some are very good at not doing this) male bottoms..." Please read that caveat every time "male bottom" appears below! If you're one of the ones who DOESN'T behave as described, then this post is NOT ABOUT YOU. (If it turns out that in your experience more don't than do, however, then that's a fair comment).

All of which means that this post has been in the back of my mind for about 4 years, and then for a couple of months (after SNS suggested "you should totally do a post about male subs!") , and then for a week or two, after a post by Maggie Mayhem (to which I shall refer later). It got another nudge today, with Maymay talking about BDSM play as self-medication and linking to some of the things that he, as a male submissive, finds painful (in a bad, emotional way, not a fun, physical way) about engaging with the community. Again, I shall refer to those posts later.

The basic observed facts of too many (although by no means all) interactions of male bottoms with female Dominants run something like this:

Male sub wants kinky sex. Male sub wants to convince a woman (any woman will do, but preferably a "Mistress") to give him it. He runs into a problem of competition: it works out that there are roughly 2 male bottoms for every female top. And if you go to the extremes ("slaves" per "Mistress") the ratio is even less in his favour.

A number of strategies to try to overcome this imbalance seem to have become prevalent. 1/. Male bottom will approach any kink-identified woman in the hopes that she can be "persuaded" to top for him, even if she clearly identifies as exclusively submissive herself (and therefore not interested in topping for anyone). 2/. Male bottom will try to offer "more" than his competitors.

Unfortunately, in these market-driven approaches something very important is lost, which is the idea of sex as a partnership. Sex becomes something to be bought or obtained from someone. That resolves back into more conventional sexuality and Patriarchy, with sex as a reward system for men and something women exchange for whatever it is they "really" want. Mix in the standard socialisation of "male entitlement" and - voila! Sexism is alive and well, even in the lovely consensual-negotiated land of BDSM.

Maggie Mayhem describes the effects of entitlement in her post, FemDom, Gamers and Rape Culture, reporting her experiences seeking a submissive male partner inside and outside of the BDSM community:

At this point in time I was beginning to explore BDSM. I was even a leader of our on campus leather group. I was also noticing that I wasn’t finding the kind of kinky sex I wanted from men at dungeon parties.

...

As soon as I identified formally as a female dominant in a BDSM context, the only men I seemed to be able to attract were the kinds of men who would dictate the entire script for their ideal sexual encounter with the expectation that my sexual pleasure would come strictly from serving that desire for them. On paper we would be on the same page for a scene negotiation but I would notice very quickly that the expectations were less of a close match than I thought. My actions were ostensibly those of a dominant, but my role was much more submissive in nature and it just wasn’t doing it for me. I began to even question whether or not I was a dominant because I wasn’t having fun doing all of these so-called “dominant” things.

After awhile I felt jaded about the whole formal Fem Dom thing and eventually scrapped it out of frustration. Without any understanding of identity politics and the way that systemic sexism was getting in the way of my bedroom fun I had been trying to shoe-horn myself into the role that was available to me without critically looking at either myself or the construction of those roles. I stopped going to BDSM parties “as a domme.” Given that I could also enjoy heavy bottoming without a submissive context (a type of play I had to learn how to articulate and negotiate well) I abandoned my formal quest to find submissive men to play with inside the BDSM scene.

Typically, what I have seen happen is that under the guise of "offering more", male bottoms will try to second-guess what a top (or female whom they hope will decide to be a top) wants, and try to exaggerate it more than his competitors and say "do this to me!" As Maggie writes, it is assumed (since a woman has identified as top) that performing "x" type of activity will automatically please her, and the more extreme that activity, the better for her, and therefore, the more likely it is she will choose that person to have sex with.

That, in turn, leads to complaints so ably expressed by Maymay:

I wanted to write about how if you’re a submissive guy you’re treated with near-fear if not written off if you don’t call youself worthless or think you’re only value comes from how much money you make. My god, he’s submissive but he likes himself. He’s gotta be like the unabomber or one of those kids from Columbine—he’s clearly fucked up in the head. No self-respecting male would actually be submissive. I mean, he’s submissive? Doesn’t he not want to be respected?

Because of the urge to compete, offering the most extreme "submission" for the best price, it becomes the norm for male submissives to sell themselves on those grounds, and to present an image of grovelling, spineless wimps. Someone identifying as a male submissive who doesn't abase himself in this way becomes extraordinary and (while I haven't seen the fear reaction described by Maymay) at the very least seriously confuses a lot of people, unless he's already in a relationship with someone (and therefore, not selling himself to buy sex).

In essence, this is another iteration of women as the dual "sex-class/no-sex class" - it is their role to provide sex, but not desire it for themselves. A man must therefore prove he is worthy by figuring out what a woman wants him to provide, and then giving her as much of it as possible. Then it is her duty to reward him with sex (as seen by the number of clueless threads started at BDSM community websites to the tune of "I'm so submissive, how come no Domme has agreed to have sex with me yet!?") In vanilla society, this is often portrayed in terms of material wealth (which often comes into the male-bottom situation as well - see Maymay's piece again) and/or "affection"/"a relationship". The guy who does the best job of earning lots of money and/or convincing a woman that he loves her for her mind, is rewarded with her agreeing to have sex with him. Where male bottoms are concerned, so much of the time his set-up looks like, "She wants to treat a man like dirt, I will show her just how much like dirt she can treat me, and then she will choose me over everyone else because I am the best at being treated like dirt!" But the pay-off, as Maggie Mayhem reports, is that she then has the job of treating him like dirt in the way that he expects/desires.

Maymay's piece is particularly telling, because it highlights how this situation poisons the well for every other male bottom who turns up. As I said above, it makes someone who actually wants to take a healthier, non-sexist, non-barter approach to finding a sexual partner appear like someone who is not "genuine", because he is different from the "norm". Even though that norm is based entirely upon the artifice of the men who constitute it, that is, on non-genuineness. Maymay's words express how painful this can be for someone who won't play that game. When I wanted to explore my submissive side, looking at the other male bottoms' profiles made me seriously question my submission, even though I was setting down exactly the same sorts of boundaries as I would have expected from any sub partner of mine (and I seek a VERY submissive partner).

The situation outlined by Maymay ties into the crossover of vanilla Patriarchal society into BDSM's space. The perception of "manliness" and "masculinity" is indoctrinated as "powerful" and "dominant". For a man to submit challenges this perception and understanding, and people find it hard to process masculinity as an intersection with submission (to a woman, supposedly weaker and lesser than a man). The logic processing that seems to happen is that the only way for a man to do this is if he himself feels himself to be lesser, lower, worth less (and therefore on some level "worthless"). If he thought highly of himself, or was "self-respecting", then he would not be able to submit. A lot of work seems to have been done in the BDSM community on dealing with these perceptions of women who submit, and perhaps it is easier to counter those assumptions of low self-worth in a society where a woman is still not quite seen as being the equal of a man (regardless of protestations to the contrary). But that work seems not to have been done in shaping perception of submissive men's self-perception. This may also be down to the idea that outside of BDSM, a man is still more powerful socially, so the need for psychological protection against BDSM roles bleeding out into society (as opposed to vice versa) isn't felt as much?

There's another point to add on the subject of entitlement and "sex as reward". I have from time to time gone looking for porn videos online of male submission because I have that string to my bow as well as my "orientational" Dominance. What I have generally found is male bottoming, but not male submission. The purpose of the activity shown is always his pleasure, and not the (female) top's. As a Dominant, I have perhaps grown used to the idea of having some say over whether or not my partner receives pleasure, and if she does, I am the one to provide it (in male-top, female-bottom porn it is often the case that the top will use a vibrator to control when and how the bottom reaches orgasm). In male-bottom porn, it is more likely to be that he is stroking himself throughout. Even if the activities don't allow that, there is still the effect of "gaze", which is typically focussed on the female figure with the assumption of a male viewer interested in "looking" rather than "being". I also felt that it very rarely shows a woman actually in control of a man. It tends to show a man abasing himself. While I reject the "monkey see, monkey do" objections to pornography, I do think that this tends to depict and replicate the problems of the situation elsewhere, making it seem even more normal and offering very little in the way of archetypes for those men (such as Maymay) who do not fit into the toxic "market-based" paradigm. Maymay's "Male Submissive Art" tumblr is an attempt to counteract this bias by showing the male submissive as the focus of the camera's gaze.

The final piece of the puzzle is the gendered basis of "pursuit" in seeking a mate. It's true in vanilla society, and BDSM is infected just as much, that it is always assumed that the male will be the seeking partner. In BDSM, in both heterosexual types, it tends to be the case that there are more men than women (more male bottoms than female tops, and more male tops than female bottoms) so that there is not the same urgency to seek: a woman can afford, to a certain extent, to wait for others to approach, and then make a selection from the candidates. That puts the onus on the male to do the approaching.

Maymay and I both do not like having to do the approaching, for various reasons. In terms of the topic of this post (female top, male bottom), it results in a strange pressure on male submissives or bottoms to be proactive in seeking a partner, when one might expect a submissive role to appear more passive (or receptive, at least). It puts the onus to declare "I want" on the male submissive, who is then supposed to surrender "I want" to someone else once it is answered. There's a curious need to reverse everything once there is acceptance of an offer.

As I said above, these remarks do not apply to all male submissives. There are those like Maymay who feel the pressures and feel hurt by them, from these paradigms. There are those who do find happy partnerships and who manage to make the mental shift from "seeking" to "accepting". But at the same time, everyone - whatever their relationship to kinkiness or to BDSM - is subjected to these pressures from social conditioning. BDSM theory is wonderful, and the more we can use it in our love lives the better, is my belief. but we do need to be aware that the practice often falls well short of what we might hope for.