How can I contact you? You can leave a comment below. If you wish your comment not to be displayed, please write at the top of your comment: “PLEASE DO NOT DISPLAY THIS COMMENT. IT IS A MESSAGE FOR THE SITE OWNER.”

Do you write everything on this site? No. Very little of it, in fact. Check the attribution at the end of each article. Look at the long list of contributors.

Do you agree with everything on this site? No. There are many different opinions presented here. With only a few exceptions I post articles on the front page because there is something about them that appeals to me, but I certainly don't agree with everything said in front page articles, let alone those that aren't on the front page. I don't even agree with things I myself have said in the past on this site, so it would be a bit difficult to agree with everything everyone else has said too!

What was your aim in starting this site? I wanted to create a new kind of site – not a standard relationship site on which it is completely taken for granted that to have a good relationship, husband and wife must be equal and seen to be equal (whether they like it or not) – and on the other hand, not a standard traditional site on which it is taken for granted that the wife should submit to her husband – but also not a BDSM / D/s / SM sex site (which all leave me personally completely cold, if not queasy). I particularly wanted my site to be free of the cliquey language, embarrassing rituals and modes of address and the surprisingly narrow thinking one finds on D/s and other BDSM sites. I wanted this to be one site on which no one would be accused of ‘topping from the bottom’ or of being insufficiently submissive. I wanted the site to foster non-stereotypical, evolving, exciting unlabelled relationships in which the spouses do not feel trapped in ill-fitting role boxes. I wanted to provide a forum on which women would feel free to be themselves rather than trying to squeeze themselves into the ‘submissive’ box, and where men would not feel pressure to put on a ridiculous swaggering so-called ‘dominant’ act (at least, I hope it is an act!), and where the ‘more submissive than thou’ types and the self-serving narcissists would be given short shrift. In fact, I rather hoped that the words ‘submissive’ and ‘dominant’ would never appear on the site.

I imagined a site on which lovers of books like Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged would have deep philosophical discussions with lovers of Jane Austen's novels, and where men who appreciate Doesn't Anyone Blush Anymore?, by Manis Friedman would happily rub shoulders with women who love books like Helen Andelin's Fascinating Womanhood and Laura Doyle's The Surrendered Wife.

I hoped to create a positive, warm site that would be neither anti-men nor anti-women.

I wanted to create a site that, while being firmly focused on relationships in which the husband wears the trousers in the relationship (because that is my personal preference), was not hostile to other paths.

I wanted the site to be supportive of lifelong, fully committed, sexually exclusive, faithful marriage, by showing that monogamy need not mean monotony but in fact can be much more exciting and sexually fulfilling than less focused (e.g., open or poly) relationships, staying single or having adulterous affairs.

I wanted to create a site that would focus on the joy and psychology of the Taken In Hand relationship, not one that would focus on sex or particular practices. Unlike BDSM sites, I wanted my site to be one in which private information (such as intimate details about what posters do in the bedroom, or wherever) would remain private rather than appearing on the site. I wanted my site to appeal as much to Orthodox rabbis, conservative Christians and readers' parents or grandparents, as to individuals who might also read obviously racy, graphic sites.

I wanted a site that would assume that different men, and indeed couples, have wildly different preferences in regard to how the control can be manifested in a Taken In Hand relationship, a site that would not be dominated by one preference in this regard.

I hoped that readers would be able to see the beautiful substance beneath the overt form of the Taken In Hand relationship in general, and of individual couples' relationships in particular.

I hoped that people would see this site not as a throwback to darker times when women had no choice and life was hard, but as an expression of the real choice women now have. I hoped that this site would give women who have, in psychological terms, had no choice but to choose so-called equality, the psychological freedom to choose a Taken In Hand relationship instead of that miserable (for them) so-called equality. And I hoped that this site would, similarly, make men, too, feel more free to embrace their preference for a Taken In Hand relationship. In no way do I want to make anyone feel compelled to change any other preference they might have.

Have I achieved my aim? Erm... not yet, not perfectly at least, but nevertheless the site does have its own unique identity, and people seem to be discussing Taken In Hand relationships – and using my chosen phrase, ‘Taken In Hand’ to do so – all over the internet.

Why did you choose the phrase ‘taken in hand’? The phrase ‘taken in hand’ is not perfect, in that it is often taken to imply that the women in Taken In Hand relationships are spanked or disciplined or punished, whereas, in fact, many are not. DeeMarie, for example, is thoroughly Taken In Hand inclined, but takes a very dim view of the whole spanking/discipline idea. Many Taken In Hand folk, myself included, are much more interested in the idea of the man actively controlling the woman, not necessarily including spanking. Indeed, I chose the phrase ‘taken in hand’ precisely because it seems to me to suggest active, strong, manly control as opposed to weak, passive control in which the man sits there lording it over the grovelling simpering submissive woman, expecting the woman to obey without any force ever being needed, and sulking or whining when she doesn't.

I specifically wanted to avoid giving the impression that the kind of relationship I am talking about requires a submissive, never-resistant woman. There are many sites you can go to if you want to lecture women about the importance of becoming more submissive, or if you are a woman who enjoys the idea of being submissive and aspiring to become more submissive. There are many sites where narcissistic men call themselves ‘dominant’ but don't appear to think that being dominant implies doing anything active. To me, the phrase ‘taken in hand’ suggests active control of someone who is not necessarily submissive (otherwise why would she need to be taken in hand?)

I also like the fact that the phrase suggests interaction, connection, and movement (towards an ever-better relationship).

Are you in this kind of relationship yourself? Yes. As are most of the many other writers on this site.

The Editor

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