Your timing for this article could not have been better. Thank you.

Thank you SO much for this article! As a willful, independent woman it is difficult to find a man willing, confident, and strong enough to get my attention and respect. I WANT someone to reel me into submission. I want the strong man with a quiet dominance!

I watch that show too, and have often seen the correlation to taken in hand relationships. I have watched with a sort of sad fascination the stagnation in the "personals" section of Taken In Hand. One would have hoped there would have been tons of men standing in line to find us. The not so obvious women to a taken in hand relationship. The strong, independent, and to the outside world, dominant females. But we wait, our hand outstretched in friendship for the dance to begin.

LateToTheGate

What an excellent article! I could not agree more. I have stated previously that I have experienced life in other countries where the rules of courtship where the same as a hundred years ago. I believe whole-heartedly in the feminist movement and believe that it was a political necessity only because of the lack of philosophical guidance that we current manifest in our Western culture. It was necessary to create a straw man because our culture had been so dumbed down that it could no longer understand the struggle was between good and evil and not men and women.

Ayn Rand has been reviewed here and a recent re-reading of her philosophical non-fiction works underlines the idea that the arts and letters of Western culture have suffered such a demise in the past 150 plus years that we are reduced to a state where men and women no longer naturally communicate in a primal instinctual fashion and no longer consider it necessary. Wooing a woman is as obsolete as craftsmanship and clean water. It is a culture of instant breakfast and fast food and the process that is necessary in courship has been defined in terms of modern iconography that is so alien to the original metaphors it is extinct and unrecognizable, useable and therefore unknowable to the majority and there is in the best of us a longing that is a remnant.

This century has occupied itself with the professional shaming of men; they are shamed and thought of as idiots for the same qualities that made them heroes a short time ago. The intellectualization of the male has made him feel embarrassed for experiencing the emotions that where a part of the human heart/mind for centuries. The masculine process of mastering the inner and outer world surrounding him his now considered foolish and yet at one time this was a pleasure the radiated from the inner being to the outer pores; the essence of mastering the world created a harmony and the process was a pleasure, honorable behavior was a pleasure, courtesy, dignity and a courtship of elegant giving, all these things a great pleasure.

Just as excessive manners, elegant dress, and the other rules have been banned so has the masculine embracing of courtship largely been banned and the men who engage in it are shammed and often pay a great price for their ethics. The cliché of the Good Samaritan is now considered a fool, if you see a crime, run and don’t get involved, don’t fight for what you believe in because in an existential world there is no reason to believe. There is no need to get dressed up, it is dress down, and when your neighbor visits a chair is enough.

Not so under the umbrella of Philosophy which survived the worst of plagues only to be obliterated by the industrial revolution and the contemporary mediocrity of egalitarianism that has been the most powerful tool of destruction we have ever witnessed.

Whether you like it or not, the kind of men that you are looking for want a version of a "meekly obedient, submissive woman"

No, Taken In Hand women want the equivalent of a man like Cesar Millan, who can see that the dog he trains will make a wonderful pet once brought to submission, they don't want a man who is unable to see the reality of what is possible.

There are of course plenty of men (in the Ds community at any rate) who want only women who are meekly obedient and submissive from the outset, but this is the Taken In Hand site, not a Ds site, and the name Taken In Hand implies that the woman is not necessarily in hand from the outset. In general, my advice to other Taken In Hand women is to avoid like the plague men who expect meek obedience in the absence of the full commitment of marriage (let alone from the first meeting) because these men tend to have narcissistic personalities and in some cases antisocial tendencies too, and such individuals make very poor husbands. (And yes, I would advise men to avoid personality disordered women too, for the same reason.)

you need to show that you have this capacity first, before you start to resist.

That doesn't really make sense, does it? Why would you start to resist later? To suggest resisting later makes it sound as though you are talking about playing a fantasy sex game, but Taken In Hand is not a fantasy, it is about being controlled and taken in hand in reality. And in what sense would the man have taken you in hand if you are already in hand?

A relationship does not spring into life fully formed, it grows and develops. A man who expects a woman to act as though there is full commitment when there isn't, is erring on the side of self-serving narcissism. A woman who throws herself into being meekly submissive with each man she meets is either failing to take care of herself and her feminine feelings, or she doesn't have feminine vulnerability in the first place, in which case she is hardly the feminine woman allegedly sought. Women with Taken In Hand inclinations take the whole thing a lot more seriously and a lot less casually. They don't willy nilly submit to men they meet, they wait until they have found the right man. And the rightness of a man does not become obvious immediately, necessarily. It can take time for a man's rightness to become clear, just as it can take time for a man to become convinced that a given woman is the right woman for him. Each can see the potential in the other, but there still needs to be a process of checking and learning more. Caution is advisable on both sides, and that means not throwing oneself into perfect submission. A man who doesn't approve of this very sensible period of slowly getting to know the other person without getting caught up and bonded in submission, is one who is insufficiently concerned about the wellbeing of the woman he is getting to know.

This is not to say that during this time there is no sign that the woman is one who will respond well to control on the part of the man. But there is a big difference between that and being meekly submissive from the outset with every man she meets. (And some men actually like the fact that their wife is submissive only to them!)

Once you show that you have feminine qualities and the potential to be a helpmate and a life partner, that you have the qualities that these men find valuable, they will be willing to make the necessary personal investment, and will enjoy subjugating you.

Whoa! You are assuming that the resistant Taken In Hand woman has not shown that she has these qualities. That assumption is unfounded. If the woman appears to have no potential as a life partner to the man then obviously the man should reject her. But you are assuming that only if she is meekly obedient and submissive will she appear to the man to have qualities that would make a wonderful helpmate. That may be true for some men, but in that case they need to find a woman on a Ds site, not the Taken In Hand site. It is not true for all men. Many men on this site are perfectly capable of seeing what Taken In Hand women can become with the right man. Actually that is not quite the right way for me to put it. It is not that she can become that way. She is already that way, but only with the right man and only in a fully committed relationship.

Many of you also seem to be under the delusion that a real man, who spends his days subjugating his environment, desires to be in frequent conflict with a woman who is much less formidable than she imagines, and maybe more annoying than she realizes.

If she is so much less formidable than she imagines, how is it that taking her in hand and submitting her seems such an onerous task? Why wouldn't a man enjoy doing so, like Cesar Millan does with dogs? (See also the wonderfully insightful articles by Noone.) Moreover, to suggest that not being meekly obedient and submissive means being in frequent conflict with the man is a mistake. Being a high-dominance woman does not imply unpleasant conflict, it just means that she is not meekly submissive by default.

Yes, showing you who is in control, from time to time, is necessary and fun. But very few of us are looking for a lifestyle defined by "resistance."

In my article I tried to make that very point: Taken In Hand women do not want a life filled with conflict, they want to be conquered, taken in hand, controlled and submitted by the right man, and once thus conquered and in the safety of marriage, they are so peaceful, reverent, and serenely submissive and obedient, that you might well assume that they were meekly submissive from the outset. The man Taken In Hand women want is one who knows that that is possible, and who has the confidence and the ability to attain that. For it is that kind of man who makes a Taken In Hand woman feel safe to let go and submit.

And while women often proclaim that they are more "emotionally intelligent,"

I did not say that. Nor have I ever thought it, I assure you.

Many men who present themselves as dominant are actually only taking a free ride on the last vestiges of patriarchy, in that they are not inherently dominant but rely on the privileges that were accorded to them purely because of their gender. Such men are often only able to deal with the abased or subjugated woman as they are not capable of leading any capable woman into a commanding relationship.

I have always told my children that if they want an exciting partner they should get out and go to the places where exciting people go...

Capable dominant men don't have to go around looking for submissive women because quite simply men and women will recognise the social hierarchy that surrounds such a person and respond appropriately. However when people enter into a relationship the commanding man will be able to negotiate the way to the Taken In Hand as part of the evolving trajectory of the relationship...

"Taken In Hand women need a man who does not resent (or indeed reject altogether!) the idea of on-going action to control her."

Indeed he needs to need as part of his erotic mind set and hard wiring to exercise some active control (for me).

I only feel submissive when I am dominated but some dominant men don't feel they can dominate until they see some submission - difficult chicken and egg situation sometimes for me.

I have posted for over a year using first a different name and then anonymously before registering as Alba (and during this time John has also written some extremely useful advice to me about a situation with which I'm still struggling), but throughout I have always understood that there are some readers who didn't see themselves as actively putting up resistance to a man. (I consider myself submissive, and that's all I mean by the word 'submissive' - getting an erotic thrill from complying with a man's wishes without his necessarily having to submit a woman to achieve that compliance. It's being 'actively controlled to do as he wishes' alongside what may be a greater or lesser element of 'actively controlled not to do what he wishes me not to do'.) I have posted comments about women who are pretty well 'in hand' already (as John has now said) - not in any way to imply that these women make a better 'catch' - simply to give another viewpoint.

I really don't like the D/s sites (or at least none I have ever seen so far appeal in the slightest) and the withered relationship that I'm now in began purely as spanking, and my view on that has changed ... so the LAST place I want to go is back to a D/s site, believe me. I don't want to be referred to as 'a sub' and I feel at home here for the first time in my life.

Thank you for the site, and I'll definitely keep reading.

TAKEN In Hand

It isn't, 'Place Self In Hand' :)

I am an extremely confident Alpha woman.
I want a MAN who can out Alpha me just with his presence alone. I want/need to know that he CAN Take me In Hand.

And, since we are on the subject of 'dogs' - in the wild the Alpha of the pack usually mates with the Alpha female in the pack, not the meekest/mildest female.

I think this indicates that a ‘naturally’ Alpha male will be drawn to an Alpha female.

In my opinion, a man who is not naturally Alpha wants the benefits without having the prerequisites necessary for the position.

Good point that it is "taken in hand". The man needs to be active, to take, to act, to dominate.

I certainly agree if you're very submissive, as I am, they you need to be very careful to assess someone first, hold back from them, be cautious.

On this:
"To submit imples submitting to something. Submission to what? How is it possible in the absense of the man taking charge or dominating/controlling her?
Only in the human race would such a male ever be called dominant. In the animal kingdom being dominant means dominating, not being unable to do so until the other animal expresses submission. In the animal world the dominant animal makes the others submit.
A man that can't be dominant unless the woman is meekly submissive is simply not very dominant, he's not a man that will take charge or take control of her."

I agree. I've had a discussion about this before now. I feel submissive when someone is dominant or taking me in hand. If there is no sign of that at all because he's waiting for me to appear submissive then we just get completely stymied which is such a shame. On the other hand we can't have dominant men dragging women into their caves by the hair before they've even been introduced so they have to wait for some kind of sign or indication I suppose that she's at least interested. Or perhaps they just have been self confident enough to be able to cope with female rejection.

My wife wasn't obedient when we started but she's good as gold now. A woman will change depending on how you treat her. Be calm and assertive with your woman and you can mold her as you want her.

and this very demand of the OP, that men may not expect meek and mildness in a potential Taken In Hand mate is, quite ironically a prime example of precisely what to stand up to and subdue when one meets such a 'strong and independent' woman...

I'm a take-charge person, but only in my world and on my terms. I believe there is too much risk in trying to conquer a resistant woman and remake her into my Taken In Hand partner. I want to see that she will defer to my leadership before any commitment is made. That's because if I let the wrong person into my life, it's a hassle to have to get rid of her when I eventually figure out she was not the right fit.

I agree with Mimi. There are so many guys out there that are not and would never be capable of leading a woman in a Taken In Hand relationship, it pays to make sure the guy's capable of TAKING you in hand and keeping you there once he's done so. Guys that say they WON'T take a girl in hand need to move along to different site not claim to be interested in what this site's about. Conquest is, I believe, an essential element of Taken In Hand.

I derive no joy from being resistant to a wonderful man who captures my heart. Why would I? What is the purpose in being so disagreeable? I don't get it.