Can you be dominated in relationships if you're not submissive?

A reader has asked: what is the difference between being submissive and being dominated? For some, they are one and the same thing. If a woman wants to be dominated, it follows that she is submissive.

But the poster has also asked: can you be dominated if you're not submissive? To which the answer from the “Domination is nothing to do with being submissive” camp might be: “If you're submissive, there would be no need for him to dominate over you, would there?” As one man wrote: “It's really sexy to have a wife who perceives it as a ritualistic battle in which the winner and loser is predesignated – kind of like bull-fighting. What's NO fun is having a super-submissive wife.” Or as another man put it, “Complete obedience means a man has either a mindless zombie, or a totally intimidated mouse for a partner. Unless one is into sadism, where is the pleasure in such a situation?”

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Domination is not about the woman being slavishly obedient or submissive by default, it more likely to be about the man correcting and controlling her to the delight of both. In some D/s relationships, the woman might aspire to be more submissive, whereas in many a relationship, the woman might have no such aspiration.

Such a woman is perhaps a bit like a beloved and spirited pony who thrives under her owner's control – she loves her owner and wants to please him – but she needs to be bridled and sometimes tethered or she might get a little out of hand. Sometimes she needs to be stroked; sometimes she needs to be cropped. Sometimes she needs to be kept on a tight reign, sometimes only a very loose one; sometimes she needs to run free in the paddock; sometimes she wants the excitement of a ride on the wild side, galloping wherever her owner takes her. And sometimes she needs to be shut in the stable and not allowed out.

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For some people, the aforementioned ‘pony’ is clearly submissive. For others, submission implies a lot more than that – such as bowing and scraping and service and all servile softness all the time – and that idea has little appeal. These people associate submissiveness with being slavishly obedient, docile and devoid of personality – and dominance, with conceited, arrogant, unpleasant men who need to feel the sharp end of Pat's whip (or indeed tongue).

Many women say that they prefer a man who appreciates the richness and complexity of their whole personality. They want a man who can handle them as they are, rather than one who wants them to be someone else (or indeed a mindless nonentity!) before he will have a relationship with them. (Little tip for men: making obedience a sine qua non of a relationship is likely to lead to disappointment, even if you both agree that obedience is important!)

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American men tend to be more relaxed and simply take corrective action when the woman gets out of hand. As one man said, “Whatever happens, I win: either she obeys and I enjoy her submission, or I get out my whip and force her to obey, and I enjoy my control and breaking her resistance.” In fact they both win, because she is just as thrilled by the whole thing as he is.

If that counts as being submissive then there is no difference between that and being taken in hand. If you think that a submissive woman should “lose her ego” (which in this context appears to mean her personality), obey without question, no matter what, and at every turn put herself down and beg her man's forgiveness for the most trivial mistakes (and not because they both find that exciting), then there is a world of difference between being submissive and being dominant.

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I definitely don't think being sexually/relationally submissive has anything at all to do with how one relates to the outside world, on a job or in other situations. The person who has a meek and people-pleasing nature is submissive by personality but he or she might not be interested in a relationship at all. Whereas it is often those who shoulder a lot of responsibility once they walk out that door who want the responsibility taken off their shoulders when they come home.

Dominant men who are not arrogant do not get the sharp end of my tongue (I don't have a whip but I do have many other implements). As a woman who is dominant part of the time I know it is possible to get one's point across and be dominant without having an arrogant attitude or thinking it is all about me. Btw, it's not just dominant men who get the sharp end of my tongue. I found myself once in a chatroom with a woman who thought that because she was able to type M-I-S-T-R-E-S-S in front of her screen name, everyone she met who did not identify in the same way was required to bow and scrape before her. I blew her off just as fast as I would blow off a man who assumed I was his natural inferior.

In somewhat more earthy terms, I once heard an experienced Dom say that you are what arouses you. Across the board I am seeing from american women that they are aroused by evidence of their man's dominance over them, whether it's a tone of voice, a spanking or simply a raised eyebrow. If that is what makes your heart go pit a pat and other organs ready themselves for action, then you are submissive: it doesn't matter how many high powered deals you pull off at work.

I fall into the realm of the true switch. I am sexually submissive AND sexually dominant in that both roles arouse me. I'm not submissive in the outside world but I am not dominant either. I changed careers because I knew I was never going to have the makings of a courtroom lawyer: I just don't have the killer instinct, as my professors used to say. In relationship terms I'm probably a bit dominant but that varies situationally and I do not get any kind of erotic thrill out of being the leader or the led in a marriage.

I do not think that being slavishly obedient or a robot is required to be a submissive, but in some relationships obedience is at the forefront and there is a protocol that demands kneeling and other physical expressions of submission. It's more a matter of style, I think.

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