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