The events of the past six weeks (damn, six weeks already) have put me off the Internet. I have commented scarcely, posted rarely, abandoned my Scrabble games in lonely binary heaps. Curiously, in this age there is actually such a thing as an electronic hermit.
But, all things pass.
I’ve recently started reading Axe’s blog, ever since I got a few chances to chat with him in person. Axe is a sweet, smart submissive guy here in New York, who writes primarily about his search for a relationship with a dominant woman. I get the impression that his search has morphed into something of an epic quest at this point, spanning several years and causing him to move from the midwest to New York City.
As is often the case for those of us with experientially based learning styles, for me recognizing a thing is not the same as knowing a thing. As such, I often come to long foregone conclusions in my own way, and in my own time. Getting to know Axe has really driven some issues home for me, issues that Maymay and others have been writing about for ages.
Where the hell are all the dominant women? Where are the women like me?
The supposed scarcity of dominant women is bemoaned, condemned, dismissed and mistrusted. And yet, my experiential evidence within the New York scene confirms this scarcity.
And, a less-recognized issue but one that I find personally just as relevant: Where are the other couples in relationships like mine?
I think I’ve remained so persistently blind to this imbalance because addressing this issue demands that I acknowledge exactly how rare I am. I have no real sense of personal rarity in my life; it consistently surprises me that other people are not like me.
Obviously there are multiple issues at work here, which play against one another. The scarcity of dominant women in the scene says many (predominantly negative) things about how scene space welcomes women, and how the dominant sexual orientation is portrayed and understood. The scarcity of femdom/malesub couples speaks to the scarcity of desirable, sane, smart male submissives, which in turn illuminates how the scene marginalizes that brand of sexuality.
Honestly, folks, there’s too much at work here for a single entry, or even a single blog. Here’s my suggestion: for more insight on how scene space “welcomes” dominant women, I refer you to the brilliant, bitter Bitchy Jones. For more insight on how submissive men are marginalized, see Maymay’s entire blog.
Just right now, just here, I want to talk about what the scarcity of dominant women means to me, as a dominant woman in the public scene.
Axe writes not once but twice that Maymay and I are the only femdom/malesub couple he knows. This confirms my experience; we are the only femdom/malesub couple I know as well. The rare dominant women I do know in passing are usually dating dominant men.
I intend to keep my data on a meatspace level during this entry. Yes, I know other dominant women online who are like me. We make similar choices about our identities and maintain similar relationships. And I have online friendships. But, for me, they’re not the same.
The part of my brain that thinks the world should make sense finds it strange that Axe has not met an appropriate dominant woman. He’s a polite, sane, well spoken submissive man: an attractive rarity. He’s good looking, has great kinks, and a charismatic ‘nilla personality.
But it is ranging on impossible for him to find a partner.
I’ve had three long-term relationships with submissive men, at the age of 24. I’m picky as hell, but I can find partners. On the other side of the coin, I’m the first dominant woman Maymay has dated. Before me, he dated three submissive women.
Believe me, I understand how much the imbalance created by the scarcity of dominant women works in my favor. I see how unfair it is to him when Maymay and I compare our numbers of potential play partners.
I understand how desirable my age, gender and orientation are.
There’s a part of me that deeply distrusts this desirability. After all, it’s not particularly reassuring to know that one is the best choice because one is the only choice.
I suspect we all feel, at times, as though we are unseen. Being a young, sexy, dominant woman gives me privileges in the scene that I don’t earn. I show up, and people give them to me. At the same time, being desired (or respected, in a culture that consistently confuses sexual attraction with respect) because of a particular flux of timing, genetics, and orientation makes me feel like a cardboard cut out.
Of course, from many perspectives I have nothing to complain about. Inherited privilege trumps any kind of card I might play about feeling insecure, or unseen, or unwanted. In a world where rights are gained through suffering, yet again, I have no right.
I wrote after I came back from Floating World that I was wrestling with the difficulties of supporting a fluid culture from a standpoint of relative stasis. This was true then of gender, and it’s true now of power.
I firmly believe that power balances shift, that people are capable of embracing multiple roles and defining themselves as they choose, in as many ways as they choose. In short, I believe in the existence of switches.
Right now, however, I am not a switch. And perhaps because I love fluid people, the overwhelming majority of my friends are switches. Most of remainder of my friends are men who top and women who bottom. Within my circle of friends here in New York, there is not a single dominant woman besides me who does not switch. I know dominant woman as acquaintances, and almost never in couples.
The simple truth of the matter is, I have no friends like me.
Where are the other dominant women? Women my age? Yes, in friendship and the exchange of ideas on related experiences, age does matter.
Women who don’t switch, and are doing their best to incorporate that choice into their lives? In an avidly fluid, changeable culture, and possessing a chameleon-like personality, that choice is sometimes very hard for me to manage.
Women who’re smart, and wise, and local? Where are you? Could we have coffee sometime?
