Kiva, this is quite beautifully stated. I have never been in a D/s relationship, but from all I have read, I wouldn't want one. The Taken In Hand dynamic is much more graceful, much more mutual, and allows both parties to serve each other.

I think it was in the book The Surrendered Wife that I read the following simple statement: "A man wants to please his wife." So simple, but once I began to look for that impulse in the man I love, I was blown away by the potential power of that impulse.Men DO want us to be happy and will "swim the deepest sea" to do so, even at the expense of their own preferences and comfort. And I can make my man happy in return by letting him follow that manly impulse, and letting him lead our way. Everyone wins.

Cicely

Cicely,

How lovely what you just pointed out! ... I guess we have to learn to value who we are and what we offer in a relationship. Being feminine or "submissive" doesn't negate the fact that a woman needs to be loved, respected and cherished as well. And according to what you have read, a man has an innate need to please his woman. I once read it as him perceiving that he has "won" a "prize."
I think it casts a new perspective on how a "submissive" woman can view the gift she offers.

Kiva

I am one of those folks who is developing an urge to 'switch over' to the D/s label, not because I think there is a fundamental differnce between Taken In Hand/DD/D/s but because I think in many ways a D/s label allows more flexibility for us. Most of the criticism of *some* D/s (ie. the woman is 'not submissive enough') I have found more prevalent in the DD community in particular.

For one to claim that D/s is *about* the woman becoming more and more submissive against her wishes and best interests is just as much a narrow view of D/s as it would be of Taken In Hand. Douglas writes:

Within Internet-based BDSM there is a large number of 'dominant' individuals of both genders who are indeed just out for their selfish short-term interests. I suspect they are not that many but are very noticeable because if they get a partner at all, they won't hold them for long so will soon be back looking to mess up someone else's life.

I think a number of single women run into this quite a lot while looking for a partner 'into' some kind of power dynamic. These are the kinds of men and women who are going to let themselves be known, who are going to have 'just the right language,' people who will spin you around with their charm (at least initially) but in the end prove to be dishonest with not only themselves but with others as well. It all wastes a lot of time for those genuinely seeking a life time connection. It is not D/s.

As Douglas's post should well be an example, D/s is a way of relating that is very definitley about BOTH the man and woman. D/s need not be only a bedroom game even though many folks will label a part of their play a d/s element of their relationship. It is absolutely absurd to think perfectly reasonable and emotionally healthy people would form a bond in marriage or in a committed relationship based on the premise that the man should get what he wants out of it and the woman should 'submit' even against her will. Why would a reasonable person do that?

D/s is not about service oriented submission such as a lot of the posts suggests. I really don't know of any healthy marriage that is completely void of what in this community would be called 'service submission.' Both the man and woman 'serve' the other in some way that works for them. A small example is that I work grave shift and so I take a small nap right before work. Annie prepares a small snack for me before I go to work and so I get up early enough to share a few moments with her before I go to the salt mines! This is an important time for both of us, it keeps me connected to her throughout my work night as well as giving me a bite to eat. Is it a service for me? Yes, of course it is but it is a service that meets both our needs for connection.

Our own relationship is about our relationship and if something isn't working very well for us we change it to something that does. My own real opinion is that it seems fairly prevalent in the Internet community to talk about 'how to' develop a construct with a particular label whether that label be DD, Taken In Hand or D/s. It's fine to use language we prefer for whatever reason but I really don't understand why there seems to be a necessity to defend our own language by criticizing the language of others. We always want to look for differences and I will argue that looking for differences by generalizing some bad experiences is limiting one's self because it limits our exposure to a larger sensible community. If you are single and limit yourself to those who identify with Taken In Hand (a relatively new term) or DD or whatever, and think of all BDSM, D/s etc. as 'sick and wrong' or even 'okay for others' but fundamentally different from what you want, I think you distance yourself from a huge and potentially very rewarding population.

Instead of fussing so much about 'the right label,' all other labels being 'bad,' why not be more concerned about the relationship you want no matter the label? There is some scary stuff and scary people on the Internet, I know this to be a fact, but in spite of all the sham, intimate dynamics incorporating Power Exchange no matter the label is still about nourishing and enriching couple intimacy in a passionate man/woman dance of Connection.

Frank Nelson

Kiva, You have wtitten a simply outstanding article! This morning, my husband and I were discussing this very issue: the differences between D/s and Taken In Hand. And then I get online to see you wrote an article along those very lines! And an excellent one at that!

Douglas, I realize there are many shades of D/s, but for me and my husband, it was "close, but no cigar" if you know what I mean. I feel I have D/s to thank for discovering Taken In Hand, because I found this site by clicking on a link from a D/s site! And I truly do see the Hand of the Creator in this, because He knew what I needed and led me to it. How strange that He chose to use D/s to do it, but "whatever works" and I guess the Creator looks at it that way too!

My husband and I both were turned off by much of the fetishism in the BDSM scene, and also the "master-slave" scenarios in D/s. And quite frankly, I was turned off by the emphasis on feminism and "equality" so often discussed in BDSM circles. I realize you don't have to indulge in all of that to be practicing D/s, and yes, I agree that Taken In Hand contains elements of D/s. But what bothers me is, I feel that D/s has FETISHIZED what used to be practically a normal relationship prior to feminism (ok, maybe sans the spanking, but hey, even John Wayne spanked his wife in McLintock!) ;)

I find it sad that due to the last 30 years of turbulence between the sexes, a NORMAL traditional male-led relationship has to adopt titles like D/s and even Taken In Hand. This is NORMAL, and its WHY so many women LIKE it. Because we are finally getting in touch with the way we were made, and we see that D/s is a steppingstone to it, but in the end, D/s and all of BDSM is basically a SUBSTITUTE for the real thing. In some ways it ridicules a normal, male-led relationship by making it seem odd to outsiders, with milk-maid bars, ball gags, spreader bars and the like.

I think we need to remember that McLintock is a comedy, and what happens in it is not meant to be a representation of normal everyday life. I can't remember ever seeing a man chase his wife through the town centre in her underclothes, drag her through mud and then spank her. Perhaps this is an everyday occurence in the USA, but it would definitely create a stir in my local town centre.

Male-led relationships may have been more common thirty years ago, but I seriously doubt that a lot of the stuff that you read about on this website would have been considered 'normal' even then.

No, this was not normal in the US either. It's a comedy. So is Taming of the Shrew from which it was derived. What it tells us about society outside the movie theater is highly debatable.

A generation ago I heard men of my parents' age saying things like "my wife doesn't HAVE to work." I know of women who are just slightly older than me who were discouraged from attending college because their only job was going to be to keep house and pop out babies.

But, I never had the impression that men ruled the roost and had the final say, all the time, in every marriage. Maybe that was the unwritten expectation but in real life it just wasn't the case and I doubt every man, let alone every woman, really wanted it to be the case. You had to look at the individual dynamics in people's marriages: human beings tend to make their own rules.

"Pat"

Hi Blush....My computer was on the blink for quite some time and so I could only use the library computer for an hour a day. Hardly enough time to read my e-mail and answere a letter or two. I have a great new system....it's all about wireless, I'm convinced of it! sometimes I love technology! If ever I can figure out to use it for more than my hunt and peck thing I do!

You were indeed one of the fortunate ones who found a man who was willing and emotionally able to commit to a long term relationship and marriage. People seem to get so damaged emotionally in life, through relationships, through their growing up life, just through the hustle-bustle of life's happenings. A lot of women rightly complain that so few men seem able to gain any kind of deep emotional bond with them no matter how hard the woman tries for this. I understand this difficulty, I see it all the time in 'real life' and can only imagine trying to gain a real connection over the Internet must be quite a bit harder. My major point, of course, is this dynamic between men and women is not solved by simply re-naming a power dynamic Taken In Hand.

I know after my marriage failed that I was absolutely demoralized, crushed not only emotionally but financially and for years could not even begin to think I could establish much less a sustain a meaningful intimate relationship. It simply was not possible for me. I had to change many things about myself first. It took me a lot of soul searching, a lot of practice simply being of service to others, a lot of admission there were things about me I didn't want or were not useful. I think a person has to decide what they really, truly want and then to find a way to get there. I know for me trying to define what I wanted in others was absolutely the worst thing i could do. "If only" she would treat me this way or 'that way.' things would be better somehow just didn't work for me. "If only's" are very lonely.

On the other side of the coin, women go through the same things men do in life, in relationships, in their growing up families. Men and women will respond differently because of the differences in the sexes (whether this difference is nature or nurture is irrelevant here). Women will build up walls blocking their own potential for love, closing off their hearts to any real and meaningful emotional connection with men. A fine book talking directly to women about this is "Opening Our Hearts to Men" by Dr. Susan Jeffers. I think one of the advantages of looking at ourselves is that we don't have to worry so much about how the 'other sex' is relating to us. As a man, I only have to worry about how I relate to women and in the same way women only have to worry about how they relate to men. We are not creating definitions or stereotypes for the other and I think this lack of stereotyping is a good first step to discovering the love both men and women surely seek.

I do think the 'all for me' self absorption is common enough in some men but it is also just as common among women. I don't think it has much at all to do with any inherent difference between Taken In Hand and D/s, for example.
I do think both men and women would do best looking at their own lives and live through their own passions without relying on labels as defined by others. There are not too many 'nevers' in life in general, most things are possible for us, but relying too much on the experience of others is always a never.

Frank Nelson

Someone on another site recently posted a message that said that clinical studies had shown that about 7% of women were submissive by nature and required some form of discipline to be happy. It didn't say anything about women who like to be in male-led relationships without any form of discipline being involved. There are probably quite a lot of those, but I don't know what percentage of women fall into that category.

It doesn't bother me at all whether it is the norm or not, I don't feel the need to justify my desire to be in a male-led relationship by insisting that it is 'the norm'. I j don't really care, but I very much doubt that what suits me is what suits everybody. I cannot assume that what I want is what all women must want. Besides, while trawling round the Internet I have come across too many instances of men who seem to have submissive desires, and who want to be in female-led relationships, for me to feel that it is quite as simple as that. There's a lot of interesting mixtures in human nature.

Whether they are unusual or not I don't know, but the thing is, what is a 'taken in hand type relationship' because it seems to mean so many different things to different people.

Some people, for instance, seem to be keen on rough sex and rape and stuff, which would terrify me, to me that sort of brutal stuff is the very antithesis of a Taken In Hand relationship, but a lot of women seem to love it.

And then there are women who apparently are turned on by the idea of being kept perpetually pregnant, or of breastfeeding their husbands, which again for me would be a total turn-off, I've no desire at all to play a maternal role to my husband, and again that doesn't to me seem at all Taken In Hand. But it is to some.

And I'm really into spanking but there are a lot of women for whom spanking is a turn-off, and they don't want that in their relationship at all.

So what is a 'Taken In Hand type relationship'? and how do you figure out how many people actually want one, of any kind? They may not be all that unusual, but I suspect that they are still a minority taste, whatever kind they are.