Penetrating insights
Ok, so check out this snippet from an essay on women's "natural submissiveness."
I have great difficulty understanding how so many discount gender as an essential factor in regards to a woman's submissive and feminine nature and how that affects their role in society. [One factor that] particulary come[s] to mind [is] the act of sex. There is no escaping the fact that it is the woman who is penetrated as she yields to a man. She has to open up to accept him which is an inherently submissive act. Even the meekest of men when engaging in sex must play a dominant role when it comes to sex.
There are places in women's bodies where a penis can go. When women have intercourse the penis goes there. It follows, therefore, that women are naturally submissive. Got that? Yup, no other interpretation is possible so it *must* be true.
We won't entertain recurring anxieties about vagina dentata in mulitple cultures and epochs. Except to note the recurrance among "naturally dominant" men that their cocks might be literally, carniverously devoured by their "naturally submissive" partner's vaginas. Which might suggest that penetration is not the only possible metaphor for dominance. (Actually the ability to think vaginas might have teeth suggests a *genuinely* incomprehensible inexperience with women's bodies. But there you go.)
Instead we'll question what constitutes dominance and submission.
Ok, look around the blogosphere. Look around literature. Tune your ear to gossip and girl talk. Is the language women use for sex, for intercourse, exclusively submissive? Has no woman ever called her partner "I want you in me now?" Has no women ever said "I fucked him till he couldn't take any more?"
More to the point, has no woman ever said "whadda you mean you came already?"
Our language just doesn't support the contention that penetration per se is intrinsically dominant without resorting to the circular "we know penetration is dominant because we know penetration is dominant" reasoning.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm *not* saying that some women are submissive, or that some men are dominant, or even that some men and women don't link intercourse exclusively power gradients. I'm just saying there's nothing intrinsically dominant about having a cock, nor intrinsically submissive about having a vagina.
Which I find fortunate in the extreme!
Yes, given time, motive, opportunity, and consent I can top someone till her wrists cross of their own accord, till her closed eyelids flutter, till her jaws loosen and she pants short breaths through parted lips, and till her hips rise unbidden to welcome my cock.
But when somone presses her breasts into my back, wetly slurps my earlobe between her teeth, slides her hand down my chest and belly and whispers "Surprise! I want *this*" as she cups my still soft but quickly wakening cock? I'll submit willingly.
1) She has to open up to accept him which is an inherently submissive act.
Funny, "open up" sounds rather active to me.
A vagina is like the Cave of Wonders (Ooh, I like that. I'll have to log that one away somewhere): forbidden, mysterious, and terribly alluring.
What is there to a penis? What you see is what you get, as far as I know.
2) ...so many discount gender as an essential factor...
Brush up on your terminology, bucko. I believe that the current line of thinking rules that "sex" refers to anatomy and "gender" is regarded as more of a social thing.
3) Even the meekest of men when engaging in sex must play a dominant role when it comes to sex.
I think the author may also be confusing dominant/submissive with active/passive. Even as I write this comment I am uncertain as to how I wish to define and distinguish the terms. (Language is a coy mistress.) I noted above that it is not entirely passive for a woman to "open up" for a man. Can one be actively submissive? I think so. Passively dominant? I'm not sure.
The dichotomy itself is problematic. No person's sexual "nature" is so binary.
[You're right that most people just aren't binary and it's not like the handful who really are have something to be proud of. Also I really like your first point. Like "scissors, paper, rock" it's all about circumstance. Thanks, Shakes. --fl]
Er, that was supposed to be a 1).
Also, where did you read this article?
[I fixed your typo. Also, the article was sent to me by someone in a closed taken-in-hand type newsgroup. I'm not trying be disrespectful people who are into that. I just question why some people think they have to fabricate universal truths to justify what really boils down to personal inclination. Thanks again, Shakes. --fl]
"Given time motive, opportunity and CONSENT"... (emphasis mine) ....
Sounds like, unless rape is involved, which isn't about sex but control, that the WOMAN might be considered the dominant partner in penetration! LMAO!!!!
I really like the last paragraph of your post, fl. AND the photo series, as well!!! Keep it comin'!
[Yeah, I *think* the idea behind the gender-determined D/s thing is that consent is automatic and natural if he's a "real" manly man and she's a "genuine" womanly woman. The good news is they're conscious that it doesn't always work that way. I think they just think it *ought* to work that way. Thanks, Rhia. --fl]
I've been reading the book that this excerpt comes from. It's called "LDD" and it's a good book that would be great if only it regarded sex and gender in a more enlightened manner. I found myself so irritated that I put the book aside while reading the chapter entitled "Sex." If only this author had overcome the binary before writing this book! Maybe I should email a copy of Fausto-Sterling's article on this subject.
[Sounds like an odd book. The blurb at Lulu.com says "The use of discipline spanking in a loving, consenting, heterosexual relationship, to help the woman overcome negative behaviors that harm herself, her relationship or others. It is about creating loving limits to her behavior and firm consequences for her misbehavior. Loving Domestic Discipline occurs with the woman's full consent." Again, if author and fans are talking about sex play that's fine. The notion that partners of one gender misbehave in ways that demand corporal punishment *outside* of sex play, in a way that wouldn't apply equally to the other gender is just odd. Role playing really inflates a lot of people's balloons and that's great. Imagining it's anything but play is highly problematic. Thanks, Anonymous. --fl]
There is no escaping the fact that it is the woman who is penetrated as she yields to a man. She has to open up to accept him which is an inherently submissive act. Even the meekest of men when engaging in sex must play a dominant role when it comes to sex.
Um, hello...strap-on. Butt plug. Dildo. Vibe. Etc.
Is this writer just incredibly ill-informed about sexuality, or was this book written in the days before batteries and moldable plastics were invented?
[I don't think it's so much *ill* informed as *incompletely* informed. If you're unable to imagine anything but male dominance then anything and everything seems like evidence of, well, male dominance. Therefore to that mindset penetration is *obviously* dominant. As I said earlier, though, if we knew nothing but female dominance we'd see that women's ability engulf men was equally irrefutable proof that *they* were dominant. Silly either way, yes, but that's how we reason from incomplete information. I guess. Thanks, Syl. --fl]
I thought it is she, who is allowing him to penetrate. So, how is this submissive, unless it is her personality or perogative.
There is a tomato tomahto in there somewhere. Can't we all just get along? :)
[That's the thing, Goose. We certainly *can* all get along. What's so interesting is trying to figure out why we *don't* get along more often. (Not you and me, Goose, I think we get along fine.) Thanks! --fl]
It's funny that you should mention vaginas with teeth. That reminds me of the mythologies that I've read about, where women did indeed start out with teeth in their vagina. Clearly these cultures don't/didn't view a women as inherently submissive if her vagina could bite off an uninvited penis.
(Miss ya figs, I've been too busy to stop by as often as I'd like)
[Not to get all Freudian or something (especially since I haven't studied enough Freud to pull it off) but I'd guess the fear that vaginas could bite off an univited penis is precisely why men projected the idea that women are supposed to be submissive. It still seems bizarre to me that anybody could be so out of touch with women's anatomy as to make something like that up. Unless you were processing an awful lot of denial and, well, guilt about the way you were treating them. Hmm.... Thanks, Shay. --fl]
OH!
Also, I forgot to mention that I love love love the picture you included in the post. It's so very sweet looking and mysteriously apropos. ^_^
[Thanks, Shay. You're welcome to use any of these in your CBW posts. --fl]
Great entry; I was grooving along, nodding my head in total agreement, feeling all intellectual and such, and then you had to write "I can top someone until her wrists cross of their own accord" and all intellectualism went flying out the window. Yum... yes, please.
[Thanks, Alice! That's wonderful. --fl]