Crying over you

I wanted to make a poll – but it involved wordpress plugins and widgets and shit like that, which really really baffle me, and I feel guilty bugging other people to do these things for me when they’ve tried to tell me how to do it myself a hundred times or more and I still don’t get it. (run on sentence anyone?)

So, forget the nifty little poll with the cute little buttons to click (*pout*). I’ll just ask a question.

Does crying signify the end of a scene, or is it just the beginning?

On Religion

I don’t remember if I’ve posted here about my views on religion with M/s. I talk so much that I forget where I’ve already babbled but it didn’t come up in a search so maybe I haven’t.

A(nother) thread on FL brought this up. The original question asked was, I think, wanting to know if a slave has religious practices that trump the Master’s wishes, then isn’t that person in fact a submissive and not a slave by sheer fact that she’s not surrending total authority to the Master. Or something like that.

For instance, if she cannot change worship times to suit the Master’s schedule or will not engage in some kinky practices due to her religious beliefs, is she then unable to be a fully committed slave?

Well. So. I have weird ideas about M/s and religion. And my reply was kind of off topic to the question on FL so Imma drag it over here.

For me, if religion were important to Master, and I had opposing religious beliefs – I don’t think I could belong to him.

Because if I believed something different than he did, then he would, necessarily, have to be wrong. And if I believed him to be wrong about something as important as the eternal damnation of my soul, I don’t think I could muster up the trust to believe in him about how he wants to be shaping my head and my thoughts.

As it stands, I’m a half-hearted agnostic leaning toward atheism and he’s a non-practicing baptist. Luckily for me, so far, he leans toward my side of the fence.

But if he chooses to become a devout practictioner of his religion, I’d have to believe that he knows what is true, and follow his faith accordingly. I would HAVE to find a way to believe what he believes. Not pretend to believe, not obediently go to church and mumble the words. I would have to accept what he accepts as truth.

And if HE truly believed in his religion, wouldn’t he also prefer that my soul rest with his for all of eternity and insist that I convert? If he believes in his faith and his choice of God, believes it to be the correct worship of God’s will, how would he justify sitting back quietly and allowing me to incorrectly worship – or not worship at all?

If he didn’t care about my soul, then I would logically conclude that he doesn’t care about my afterlife, therefore he also must not care about my current life.

I’m not seeing how people with two differing religions do M/s. Hell, I can’t see how they do vanilla for that matter. This isn’t just a difference of opinion. Religion is what you believe happens to your eternal soul, it’s not a debate on who’s the best man for president.

If I were the religious one and I truly believed that to NOT believe as I did meant that my loved ones were therefore condemned to an eternal life of hardship, I’d do everything in my power to convert them, to save them from that. Because I love them.

Doesn’t that necessarily mean that if someone doesn’t, they don’t care enough? And if they don’t care enough, how can you submit to them?

Or am I way out in left field?

Early Initiation

Posted with permission, snippets of a Fetlife member’s copied chat log.

Note: the “me” in the chat log is NOT me…lol. It’s her(JustTen on FL), but I am too lazy to go changing words and shit.

Personally, I thought this was a fascinating conversation.

Him: If you’re on my list there should be for two reasons:
Him: 1) you’re serious looking for a Dom
Him: 2) you have a history of abuse in your past
Him: Which one is it..?
Me: both in a way
Him: Good…
Me: why is that good?
Him: I like when a sub has a history of abuse..
Me: why is that?
Him: it turns her into a better servant..especially of she grew up to crave the sensations ( not the emotions) what was done to her before.
Me: interesting
Him: and truthful..
Me: i’d like you to elaborate. Prefering abused subs makes you seem a predator on broken women. Those who haven’t healed.
Him: a predator..or perhaps makes me a Dom who understands a woman who embraces the fact she has a need/urge to empower herself through something she now finds essential.

Him: replace the word abuse by “early initiation”and it changes the context completely.
Me: abuse is NOT early initiation.

Him: nonethless.. it change your mental/sexual roadmap completely.
Me: my roadmap was changed even before the abuse

Him: love and affection can only be shown nowadays through very distinct mechanisms

Him: love and affection then can only be shown through the dynamics of guidance, discipline and punishment. Wouldn’t that be true..?
Me: no, love and affection can be shown through many ways

Him: Which one of them is still inside your head when you lay at night and crave submission..?

JustTen posted and simply asked for our take on it. Agree, disagree, whatever.

The overwhelming majority of the replies to this were negative. This guy has been labelled a creep, a predator, dangerous, a perp, asshole, bastard, pathetic fuck – well, it’s an endless litany of insults really.

Naturally I don’t see it as they did. I rarely do. In the thread I said:

He’s not the one abusing these poor little girls. He’s not doing the “initiating”. He’s taking something that already happened and using it. I don’t see that as the horror it’s being portrayed as here.

Lots of people are abused. I was, too. It happens. Nobody can continue your (not you specifically, you generally) victim status except your own self.

At least this guy here is honest. He sees that there is a phenomena that happens with abuse “victims”, something within that appeals to him, or makes them “easier” to dom. (If anything, he just admitted he’s lazy.)

Big deal. I am sure that I exhibit behaviors leftover specifically from being abused that my Master uses to his advantage. Why shouldn’t he? He can’t change what happened, he can’t “fix” me, I am who and what I am and he loves me for it. He uses it. I’d be more pissed off if he treated me like a china doll (and, in my mind, perpetuated more abuse by doing so) because I was “damaged goods”. That he uses me, and my various leftover reactions, to his advantage proves to me that he doesn’t think I’m damaged.

If that guy were to have said he wanted to “fix” you, he’d be applauded. White Knight Syndrome. Whatever. But since his angle isn’t so altruistic, he’s suddenly dangerous? Come on. That seems a tad overreactive to me.

Not everybody is seeking the same thing from a bdsm relationship. Not everyone views it in such a romantic, “he always has my best interests in mind and he’s gonna fix me up all better!” sort of heart-shaped bubble way.

Personally, I rather like his take on it in some ways. I was abused right? Can’t go back in time and change a single second of it. Would I have been a kinky-fuck anyway? Probably. I think so.

So, if I believe I would have been kinky anyway, and this abuse happened, why not try to find the advantages of it rather than continuously lamenting over the shoulda /coulda/ woulda’s. Rather than remaining in poor-me territory.

This right here: “she grew up to crave the sensations ( not the emotions) what was done to her before.” and this: “makes me a Dom who understands a woman who embraces the fact she has a need/urge to empower herself through something she now finds essential.”

He isn’t saying that HE’S taking advantage of it – he’s saying that SHE is. That she SHOULD. It’s there, it happened, embrace it and make it healthy (as healthy as kink can be anyway). Use it instead of fighting it.

The sort of stuff I experienced when I was being abused are exactly the things I crave now, exactly what I find essential to my happiness and well-being. I am embracing, accepting, and seeking those things out. Not those same emotions though – which he identifies as being a no-no, I might add.

I may very well have been initiated early to accept and eroticize pain. To see love in discipline. If that has made Master’s life easier, then great. I’d rather my past make his life easier than harder.

~~*~~

There were a few people who shared my opinion, most did not.

Maybe I have an extremely detached view of having been abused, but I just don’t see the point in always looking back on it with anger and sadness and carrying that around and letting it affect my future. Yeah, it sucked but it happened. Nothing will ever change what happened so why not use it as much as one can to an advantage?

I just don’t *get* the idea that to do so is “repeating the trauma”.

So I asked the girl if I could copy and paste it here because I have brilliant readers. What do you think?

Is the term “early initiation” really as offensive as people said it was?

Do you think he’s “preying” on weak, broken women?

I really was shocked at the venom in the negative replies when I was sitting there thinking, hey! yeah! I get that.

LOL. I’m always out in left field somewhere I guess.

But discuss it with me, if you want. I’m interested!

Parenting

I’m going to weigh in on the parenting discussion because I’m as opionated as the next person.

First, as the parent of teenagers I want to debunk the theory that it gets easier to “do” bdsm as they get older. Not true. It’s neither easier nor harder, they merely present a whole new circumstance to work around the older they get.  Suddenly they know exactly what those noises are, they are not satisfied with the b.s. answers you can give a small child, they’re nosier, more perceptive, more knowledgable and ask harder questions.  They watch and listen and they can no longer be distracted by The Wiggles or a Disney dvd. They *might* be gone more as they develop social lives of their own but they’re never all gone at the same time and you are no longer in control of when they come home. Unexpected and unannounced is the name of the game with teenagers. It’s harder to plan when they start taking control of their own lives, not easier as parents of toddlers expect.

So keep on waitin’ and wishin’ for the magical ease of older kids. By then mine will be grown and gone and *then* it *might* be easier and then I’ll be laughing while y’all bemoan the difficulties of doing bdsm with teenagers in the house and wishing they were easy-peasy toddlers again.

Second, discussing bdsm with your teen. I’m on the fence with this one. I understand what’s being said about answering their questions with age-appropriate information and I certainly don’t disagree with that at all. I do that myself with my kids about all matters, be it sex or religion or politics, whatever. But I do not, as a rule, reveal personal information about *my* relationship or my sexual practices. If one of my kids were to come to me asking about bdsm, I think I would assist them in finding the answers without letting it be known that I practice it. I think you can be the honest, supportive parent that you should be and you can guide them to the correct answers and steer them away from the incorrect information without having to divulge information about your sex life that they really don’t need to know. Hell, I’m 37 and I still don’t want to know about my parents sex life. I know they have one, I don’t care to know the specifics.

However, I do not agree that it qualifies as child abuse to share that information about yourself. I don’t think the child will be scarred or traumatized or set on a pre-determined path toward submission. I think people who think that don’t give children enough credit for having brains of their own. And that’s sad.

Third, there’s lots-o-talk about “abandoning” your child for bdsm, because Master said so, because Master became abusive to the child or because the parent decided the kid was ‘in the way’ of mom’s kinkified future. Here’s my take on it.

People, both mothers and fathers, leave their kids for a LOT of reasons. I fail to see why some reasons are glorified while others are raked over the coals. A young mom with no money who gives her baby up for adoption because she recognizes that she cannot provide as the child deserves is glorified. She’s selfless, it’s done for the ‘right’ reasons, blah blah blah. Another woman involved in bdsm who sees herself and her new found interests as being harmful to her child and gives her child up for the exact same reasons (she recognizes that she cannot provide as the child deserves ) is raked over the coals. She’s selfish, stupid.

It’s not only not fair to rake someone over the coals in that manner, it’s just not *right*. The person who selfishly chooses to keep that child in a situation that is not healthy is the one to be condemned. Not the one who makes what is probably the very hardest and most selfless decision in their life, to place the kid out of harms way when that means placing them with someone other than you.

I had a bff throughout high school. It was her lifelong dream to be a wife and a mother. She took child care classes, she had a babysitting business. She lived and breathed and planned and fantasized about motherhood. She got married after graduation, she had a baby. The most loved and doted-upon, chubby, blonde baby boy you’ve ever seen. 4 years later, her life changed. Her husband had an affair, she filed for divorce, her world fell apart. She started hanging out in bars, sleeping around, discovering a side of life she had never seen. There was a custody battle. More than likely, she’d have won. Back then the courts still tended to side with the mothers and it was the father who’d been unfaithful. She knew she’d win. She chose to back out of the custody battle and sign the kid over to his father. Why? Because she knew she was involved in a lifestyle that was not stable enough for her son.  She knew she wasn’t ready to quit it. She loved him enough to make the choice that was in his best interest, not in hers.

She put up with the same sort of insults and judgement from ignorant, narrow-minded, holier-than-thou mothers who think the sun rises and sets on their precious children.

Here’s what else I think. I suspect that some of the disagreements surrounding this have a lot to do with the age of the parent, as well as the age(s) of the child(ren). Those of us who are a little older, and who are in the homestretch of parenting, can far easier visualize life after kids. I don’t think parents of toddlers can do that with as much clarity, or with the same brutal honesty that we can. Toddlers consume you. Teenagers leave you time to contemplate.

What we know, what we understand, is that active parenting is a short-time affair. It doesn’t seem like it when your kids are 3 or 4 or even 9 or 10. You see endless years of always taking care of them. Your kids get up to 15, 16, 17 years old and adulthood is in the blink of an eye. You weigh 18 years of parenting against 60 years of marriage – or 40 or 50 years of lonliness should you have sacrificed your relationship for the sake of being the more self-righteous parent. I think parents of older kids have a different perspective when talk turns to “abandoning” your child for your mate. Having to choose one or the other.  Walk a mile in their shoes before spouting off about their motives or intelligence.

Ideally, a parent chooses a mate that is healthy and loving and provides well for their child. Preferably in a relationship where having to issue threats and ultimatums like “be good to my kids or else!” don’t ever have to be uttered. Those kinds of threats seem counterproductive in my mind.

I understand momma-bears, I’m one too. I love my kids more than I can put into words. But I’m also a good wife, and I do not put my kids before my husband. Someday the kids WILL grow up and move out and I’ll have lots more years of marriage left. If it’s considered selfish or stupid to place my relationship with my husband as a priority, then I’m selfish and stupid.

I’m okay with that.

~cunt

A Gem

“There is only one reason anyone gets involved in BDSM in the first place — it is a great way to have kinky sex. Anyone who says otherwise is either talking a good game (in order to get kinky sex) or should consider getting help.” -Fetlife

I guess that puts me in the “consider getting help” category.

“Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values.”

I’m not a grammar-nazi, I’m not even a spelling nazi. I don’t have a spellcheck feature (or if I do, I haven’t found it) and I do very little proof-reading so I know I fuddle things up and misspell or misuse words. When I’m reading someone and I see the occasional missed word or improperly used word, I overlook it. Usually.

But. It seems to me that when you’re trying to convey an air of domliness, it’s REALLY hard to take you seriously when you type like this: “id like 2 dom u. call me b4 its 2 l8. any ???s”

I dunno. It just looks so…. childish. It doesn’t, for me, invite an air of power or control. It makes me wonder when your mommy is coming home and if I’ll have to sneak out the back door.

So how important is maturity and evidence of maturity to you when Dom-seeking? Financial stability? Career? Is age important at all? Is ‘having their life together’ a requirement or do you rely on attraction and lust and let the rest fall into place?

Is it more important that the Dom be stable than the submissive? I’m thinking it is. That’s most unfair, I know, and I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but I see the Dom as the one who should be in control.

There’s this one guy, a self-proclaimed dom, who I run into now and then on a board or in a comment, and I’ll read a little bit – he’s single, and looking, and makes several snarky comments about not being able to find anyone.

He’s also unemployed, asks his readers for money, has never had a relationship beyond a few-week flings, admits to being a thief and being ostracized from his family for stealing from them, doesn’t have a driver’s license and has hopped from one friend’s house to another, often admitting to being asked to leave because he cannot/does not help out financially. And he has a tendency to blame everyone else for his problems – utilities were disconnected because the bank closed early, can’t get his license because the system is corrupt, can’t keep a job because he doesn’t have a car… blah blah blah.

And I’m thinking to myself – and you wonder WHY you can’t “get” a submissive? Are you for serious??

That’s an extreme example and sometimes I read him merely so I can go run and give Master a big ol hug for being who He is but that’s not my point.

What is important to you when it comes to finding a potential mate and do you think that some people’s standards are too high and that’s why they’re still single? CAN standards be too high?

To Punish or Not To Punish. That is the Question.

I’ve read each response to the punishment post with avid interest. I’m endlessly fascinated with the differences in how people live this life. I’m even more fascinated by how quickly some are to criticize that which they don’t understand or incorporate into their own relationship. Myself included, though I don’t always see it as I do it. Not that any of the comments were critical, I don’t mean that. Other places, things that I read, are. Anyway, it only seemed fair that I answer my own questions.

What place does it have in your bdsm relationship? A big one, though I often suspect that Master and I aren’t on the same page with it. I think it’s much more vital to me than it is to Him. He’s prone to excuse, or forget, or neglect a punishment with little thought to it being anything of any significance, whereas that tends to send me into a tailspin. I wish He was stricter and would incorporate more immediate consequences and I think He sees that as work and so He doesn’t. And He’s probably right, it IS work, but that doesn’t change my desire for it one bit.

What is your opinion of those who “play punish”? This can be taken two ways. There are those who do the whole “Ouuu, you’ve been a nasty, nasty girl. Now I must spank you. C’mere you baaaad girl!” and that seems like harmless fun. But the real question I was asking was about those who NEED to have punishment as a reason to have a scene. If it’s a trumped up mistake or something taken out of proportion, and used as the catalyst for a harsh scene. Maybe the Top cannot accept that He’s simply a pervert, that “punishing” her for her transgressions makes His kink okay, or the bottom needs that reason to explain away her desire to be hurt. I can see that it could be damaging, if one party does it that way but the other doesn’t. If a Top uses punishing as the excuse for every scene, I can see a sub becoming frustrated, thinking she’s never doing anything right.. or something like that. Or if a sub who needs the punishment excuse is beaten just for sadism’s sake, I can imagine she’d feel unfairly punished, like she hadn’t “deserved” it. I can definitely see where it would have to be a mutually agreed upon method or the potential for damage is high.

I can also see some of Master and I in that scenario too. But I need to think on that before I expand on it.

What do you think of couples who disguise their kink behind domestic discipline? Actually I think falls into the previous question. Spanking, either giving or receiving is a kink. The need for it, the need to administer it. And in DD relationships, it’s used, apparently, in a punishment sense. Behave or Be Punished. There HAS to be, from both parties, a kink for punishment, because if there isn’t, you’ve either got a wife who is being non-consensually punished (abused?), or an unwilling Top catering to his wife’s kink. (and rearrange the gender pronouns as you need. I’m not doing the slashy-slash stuff.) So my opinion of people who engage in a strictly DD relationship is that they have a punishment kink. Or maybe not. I freely admit that I am not well-read on DD dynamics.

Do you think the word ‘punishment’ is incorrectly used, when a more appropriate word like discipline or training is more fitting? Yes. I really do. I could say that my “punishment” for the whining, screaming, ass fucking of the other day is a return to the butt plug schedule (that I hate), but that would be incorrect. I think. It’s NOT a punishment, it’s a training technique or a disciplinary measure. I wouldn’t even say that writing lines is punishment (though I hate that too!), because the content of the lines that I’m made to write are designed to “train” something into my head. A word definition or a rule written out 500 times can really slam it into my memory. That’s discipline. But I also think it can be punishment, too, sometimes. So is the deciding factor on whether it’s discipline or punishment based on whether it follows a transgression or not? I’m not sure, but I think it might be. Having to write those lines as a standard or to reinforce something would be discipline, but to have it assigned because I’d already broken the rule pushes it over into punishment? Bah. I contradict myself, I know.

Are you of the mindset that a submissive should just behave and that punishment of any sort is ridiculous? No..lol. Then I’d be sunk. I know there are people who operate that way, but I’m SO glad Master is not one of them. I need room to be imperfect and stubborn and stupid and willful. I need to know that He’ll come along and conquer me all over again. The idea of having to be “perfect” with no room for mistakes would be more than I could take. If that makes me immature or incompetent, I’m fine with that.

Is there a point where repeated punishments for the same offense seem to point to a deeper problem? I think so. Though that deeper problem could just be forgetfulness (like me!). But it could also signify something that warrants a closer look than just repeated applications of the same consequence.

If punishment is a factor in your life, is there/has there been any struggle to find one that works? Oy. Yes. That’s why He has several that He uses.

Have you, as a masochist-submissive, willfully been disobedient purely for the sake of being punished? Ayup.

If the whole punishment “scene” is an actual admitted kink of yours, can you also have genuine punishments that don’t trip the trigger? Well there are certainly some things that are worse than others, but when one of my kinks is actually the method of having consequences for my actions, I don’t think there is anything that doesn’t flip that switch in some way.

Is it possible to maintain the punishment dynamic if you don’t both have some element of punishment kink? I mean, if there isn’t some area of eroticism about it for one of you, do you see it working in any capacity? I don’t. And I think this might be where Master and I run into some troubles now and then.

And lastly, does anyone who does incorporate punishment in their lifestyle acknowledge the extreme difference between a punishment spanking and a non-punishment spanking and how one cannot replace the other? That simply “asking to be spanked” does not scratch the right itch or feed the right hunger or soothe the right burn.. that there is something; something heavy and sinfully exciting and deeply satisfying that is only ever touched by being harshly, forcefully, and thoroughly punished… that no matter how good you want to be, no matter how much you dislike His disappointment, no matter how ashamed you may be… it’s there and it’s strong… Nobody really touched on this in the comments, but for me, this sums up my feelings about it perfectly. It is something entirely different than a regular spanking or a regular scene and it does give me something that no other amount or application of pain can even come close to, which is why simply asking for a spanking or asking to be hurt doesn’t take the place of having messed up and having been punished for it. And is also why, no matter how much I know He doesn’t like it when I misbehave, I occasionally do it on purpose because I feel like I’m STARVING and DYING for not getting that need met… and is also why, when I have genuinely and unintentionally messed up and He blows it off for whatever reason, it completely and totally fucks up my world for a long while. In a bad way. And I don’t necessarily like this about myself, at all.

and maybe, just maybe… it’s conquering that need that is the real path to submission? Or is it? I don’t know. Maybe. I work on trying to conquer this every day. Sometimes I’m real good at it, other times Im not. I know I’m way way better than I used to be. And to be honest, that kind of makes me sad because I feel like I’m killing something inside of me. It makes me feel defeated.. and dead.

Is it just another harmless but misunderstood fetish, just another point for people to judge or claim superiority on because they’ve never felt it in that way? Yeah. I think so. It’s another way of saying “my kink is okay, but yours is fucked up” coming from people who really should know better.

I don’t know that there is any way to explain a punishment kink, just as there is no way to explain a fisting kink or a bondage kink. You can discuss how it feels physically, what you think in the moment and out of the moment, try and detail the need it fills in you – but to explain the why, it’s just not possible.

But I’m so tired of being ashamed of it, you know? Weary of feeling less-than, and being told that it’s wrong, fed up with thinking there is something wrong with me, or that I just don’t get it.

So I’m going to try to not feel those things anymore. That’s one thing that I’m certain has no place in my life. Everything else is a work in progress. It probably always will be.

~cunt

“Protest long enough that you are right, and you will be wrong”

So there is a punishment awaiting me over the missed phone call the other night. 30 lashes from that hateful blue stick.

30 – one for every minute He waited.

Except… it wasn’t 30 minutes. It was 20.

I bit my tongue at the initial handing down of the verdict, squashing the urge to scream “Nuh-uh! It wasn’t 30 minutes Master! Master! Master! It was only 20 minutes! Nuh-uh! I remember!” I didn’t say that. I *thought* it, the self-righteous argumentative bitch that lives my head really really wanted to say it.

But prudence won out.

However.

That blue stick is wicked. I don’t mean wicked in that ‘oh-that-hurts-do-it-again-you-beast’ way. I mean.. like, really, I cry before it even starts kind of wicked. And there is a big damn difference between 20 and 30 when each lash feels like it’s penetrating your bone.

So that protest has been rolling around in my noggin. I talk myself into it, telling myself that Master is a reasonable man, and surely he’ll listen with rapt attentiveness to my very correct assessment of his mistake. And then I immediately follow that up with a mental slap upside the head, and tell myself to shut the fuck up before 30 becomes 60 for being petty.

By the time He reads this, it’ll probably be done and over. He’s not due home now until Wednesday (boo) and He doesn’t access the site from the company comp so He won’t read this until I dunno when. Which gives me incredible amounts of time to stew and decide to argue only to decide to shut up only to stew on it some more. So what do you do when the Boss is wrong? Do you correct Him or does that just tend to make it worse? (which is what I’m afraid of!) Do you suck it up, buttercup and take it like a good lil soldier?

Edit: 5/06/08

You’re right. You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s not the answer I *wanted* mind you, but it’s what I expected.

You know what this is called? Deflection. Yep. Deflecting attention or blame away from my own fuck up.

“It is an easy to apply response to compensate for defeat and disappointment, that negates the taking of personal responsibility”

“Recent research has shown that people can enhance their own reputations by accusing others of faults they possess”

“If you do bad, finding a way to hide or deflect that truth is the backup position to avoid disdain and consequences, whence come such behaviors as lying, blaming, deflecting, and attacking back (the best defense is a good offense), strategies to preserve the image or power.”

Good little soldier. Ayup.

A child’s justice — that the world be as one wishes it for oneself.

It used to be that women had no choice in their lot in life. A woman had to agree to serve, honor, and obey a man.

Women had all been brought up to believe that our role and purpose in life was to please men and look after them and their children, and to put their needs ahead of our own. There was a clear, unspoken expectation that we would derive our satisfaction in life by getting married, and thereafter living our lives vicariously through our husbands, supporting them, sharing their triumphs, subjugating our hopes and dreams to theirs and exchanging our sexual and domestic services in return for their financial support. Psychiatric theory at the time assumed there was something wrong with a woman if she wasn’t perfectly adjusted to marriage and motherhood, because getting married and having children was thought to be a naturally fulfilling state for all women. (From: here.

There is no question that the women who fought and sacrificed to erase that expectation are to be commended. There is no argument that the Women’s Liberation Movement needed to occur.

But the assumption that all women wanted this liberation is insane. To claim that all women were stifled under the oppression, that all women resented being forced into that domestic role, is pure propaganda. There were, there ARE still, many women who thrive on, and choose to be, domestic, “oppressed”, feminine souls.

It’s come full circle. Women worked so hard to ensure a choice, to create opportunities, to secure that their sisters and daughters and granddaughters would not be boxed into something that they *had* to be defined merely by their gender. Only to come to find out that they’ve been boxed just as deeply into something else entirely. Under the name of fighting to secure choices, the only choice acceptable to the masses is the choice of independence and strength.

Oh people want to say that’s not true. People want to say “your choices are fine! Live how you want. It’s a free country!” But that’s followed up with the warning to keep those choices quiet. “Keep your (shameful) choices under the rug where no one else has to see them. Do not, under any circumstances, voice that opinion of yours. After all, we don’t want our daughters to actually SEE you living like that! We don’t want to influence them *your* way. Only *my* way. Not yours. Yours isn’t wrong, I didn’t say *that* exactly, it’s just.. not right.”

What are they afraid of? That we who choose to live in a traditional role are going to turn the tide our way again? We’re going to somehow cause a return of the oppressed woman? Now isn’t *that*an insult to women’s intelligence everywhere.

The women on the forefront of the liberation movement were subject to intense name-calling. Bra-burners, dykes, unhappy bunch of lesbians with chips on their shoulders, man-haters. They were accused of destroying the foundation of society, ruining families. Now, we get called names. Under-achievers, lazy, ignorant, traitors, weak, doormats. We are accused of poisoning the minds of young girls everywhere.

Women have every ’right’ to be completely outraged when they become aware of the kind of outright and subtle oppression they suffer and that their sisters throughout the world suffer. They have every ’right’ to be outraged at the indifference of men to their plight, their willingness to reap advantages until it is no longer possible. But just as might does not make right, nor does right make right. That is, one does not then have the right to play the same game with the tables turned. If one does this, one is playing society’s game, for that is what this society is all about: absorption is its game. (From: here)

The reaction given to those of us who like our choices, who live our choices with pride and confidence, the discrimination we experience from society these days? You’ve become that which you fought so hard to destroy. Why is it not okay for my opinion to exist just as strongly as yours? Most of us who *choose* to live in a traditional role are well aware of the prices paid for that choice. We’re grateful for, and thankful to have, the freedom to make that choice. As such, we return that gratitude in kind to our own children, raising them with full knowledge of the choices waiting them when they reach adulthood. Making them aware of why they have that choice, and hopefully, assuring them that whatever choice they make for their own personal happiness is not one to be ashamed of. Not anymore. Not in this day.

Though I am not so sure of that now. Shame is assigned. And that’s sad.

There’s an article I’d urge anyone with an interest in this to read, if you haven’t already. It’s long, but it’s well written, and from a woman who was accomplished and successful.

Spoiling Eve’s Con Game

(If you choose not to read it, I’m going to quote the last paragraph for you anyway.)

Remember this: The strongest sign of the decay of a nation is the feminization of men and the masculinization of women. It is notable that in Communist nations women are exhorted, and compelled, to do what has traditionally been men’s work. American women, some of them, feel triumphant that they have broken down the “barricades” between the work of the sexes. I hope they will still feel triumphant when some commissar forces a shovel or an axe into their soft hands and compels them to pound and cut forests and dig ditches. I hope they will be “happy” when a husband deserts them and they must support their children and themselves alone. (After all, if a woman must be “free” she shouldn’t object to men being free too, should she?”) I hope they will feel “fulfilled” when they are given no more courtesies due to their sex, and no kindnesses, but are kicked aside on the subways and buses by men, and jostled out of the way by men on busy sidewalks and in elevators. I hope that no man will extend mercy to them because of obvious pregnancies, but will rudely tell them that that is no excuse to shirt a day’s heavy labor, and they should be like Russian women. I hope they will be proud when some court demands that they support “delicate” husbands for a lifetime, and pay alimony. I hope, when they look in their mirrors, that they will be pleased to see exhausted and embittered faces, and that they will be consoled by their paychecks.

The decay and the ruin of a nation has always lain in the hands of its women. So does its life and strength, its reverence for beauty, its mercy and kindness. And, above all, its men.

One more article and then I think I’m done with this subject.

What the Women’s Liberation Movement has done for me.

Women’s lib has made America label the stay-at-home mom as an underachiever. Women’s lib has made marriages disposable now. After all, if we’re spending all of our time working on that high-powered career, who has time to work on a marriage? Good marriages don’t just happen. When you and your husband both work 50 hours a week, there is precious little time to work on keeping your marriage together. What if I don’t want “it all”? What if I don’t want a Burger King breakfast on my way to dropping my son off at daycare? What if I don’t want a grande mochachino in the car on my way to my high-powered job that leaves me too exhausted to share quality time with my family at the end of the day? What if I don’t want to microwave frozen dinners for me and my husband before we retreat to our respective corners of the bed to sleep a couple hours before we start another grueling day? Why do I have to have a career AND a family? Why can’t my home and family BE my career? Whoever defined “it all” anyway? Some whacked-out women’s libber who hates women – that’s who! What if I want to enjoy a home brewed cup of coffee in the morning while Regis and Kelly banter and my son coos in the background? What if I want to starch my own shirts? What if I want to throw a tennis ball around for my dog to enjoy? What if I want to bake the perfect 5-layer lasagna for dinner and prepare fresh cannoli for dessert? What if I want to be at home at 6pm to bathe my son, read him a story and tuck him into bed? What if I want to cuddle on the couch with my husband at the end of the day? I consider “having it all” to be having a comfortable, clean home, a happy marriage that lasts “until death do us part” and happy, healthy children. Unfortunately, between Hillary Clinton and all those other woman-hating chicks, my desire to be a homemaker is suddenly suspect and America wonders what is so wrong with me that I would want to remove myself from the world in such a way. Well listen, if my being a homemaker makes me happy, causes my marriage to last more than the average 7 years and is responsible for raising a gentleman who will remove his hat when he enters a building and step aside for a mother and child then I’ve done my part in making the world a better place. In fact, maybe our world would be a better place if women who wanted careers had them and weren’t made to feel guilty for not having children and women who wanted to have children weren’t made to feel bad about not having careers. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a man criticize a woman for being a stay-at-home mother but I’ve seen that same woman have to defend herself to other women. Maybe it is time for us women to stop being our own worst enemies.

It is possible to have a personal belief and hold that belief only to yourself. It is possible to want something for yourself and not make it anyone else’s reality. My preference runs my life, and my life only. I have to wonder why some of you are so insecure in your opinions, in your children’s future, that you attack my opinions so vehemently. I am not worried that your opinion will influence my child, nor my life, nor my future. I don’t feel the need to protect my children from the knowledge that other opinions, other choices, other beliefs exist. I believe in the success of the women’s rights movement. I believe that choices will remain. And I’m confident that they are smart enough and confident enough to do as I did – choose for themselves, decide upon their own beliefs and live happily.

Should that choice be to run a company or to run for president, I’ll support them as much as my own beliefs allow. After that, I expect their own beliefs will carry them, just as mine did.

“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”

~cunt

Proof.

Reiterating my own words.

I realize not ALL women have pms.

Do I really think pms is the sole reason not to have a female president? No.

I also know that other countries have had female leaders and it’s been fine.

my main reason for not wanting a woman president is pretty simple, and entirely personal and completely based upon my own opinion, how I see the world,

Nor am I submissive because I think all women should be submissive, or because the bible said so, or because I think women are weak and/or stupid.

But I DO see men as powerful. I am subservient to men in general because they represent – *to me* – superiority. Strength. Control. Power.

It’s my opinion that men are leaders

Which is not to say that women *can’t* be.

you asked my opinion on something

In MY mind, in my world,

would *I* want a woman as the president?No.

And, from a week or two ago, on the issue of my daughters:

They do not think that all women should let the husband rule the roost. Not at all. And they have questioned why I don’t challenge him. I simply explain it as this is how I choose to live and that it makes me happy. That they can decide for themselves what type of relationship they want to have when they are adults. I can tell you that Am will probably not be a subservient female. She has gotten offended on my behalf a time or two and it’s taken several times for me to stand up to *her* about my choices. She’s made her peace with it now and only says that she’ll never want what I do. I tell her she doesn’t have to have it, that’s the beauty of having choices. (and thank you, dara, for posting this. A bunch.)

So here’s the thing. I was asked my opinion and I gave it. Now, I know that what I think isn’t rational, nor is it based on any proof that women aren’t capable of positions of power. I know lots of women do exceptional jobs.

But I wasn’t asked that question, was I? I answered a question based on how something makes me feel. Where I find my safety, my feelings of security, where I sense power. That’s simply what my preference is. That hardly makes me a misogynist. Having a preference does not equate to hating the other. I love chocolate, but I prefer vanilla ice cream. Does that mean I hate chocolate ice cream? Um, no.

I love women, but I prefer men in roles of leadership. I do not HATE women. Seriously. And you allude that I’m the ignorant one?

I also know my opinion is not a popular one, and it shouldn’t be. But it is mine and I’m not going to lie merely because my truth isn’t well received. The good thing is- I’m nothing, nobody. What I think has zero weight. I don’t vote, I don’t campaign, I’m not out trying to convert anyone to Female Submission. The world will carry on regardless of my unpopular preference of a male president over a female president.

To answer another question, given the option I would indeed choose a male doctor over a female doctor. I’d choose a male police officer over a female one, I’d choose a male lawyer, a male soldier, a male whatever. Because men make me feel safe. But times when I’ve had a female doctor, I’ve not left the exam room feeling that I wasn’t cared for properly. I do not think women are incapable of doing the job, whatever it is. But one gender brings up an immediate feeling of confidence and security, and one does not. Given a choice to feel safe or to feel nothing, I choose safety.

Also. I never once made the claim that Master sees women as inferior. Never did those words leave my mouth. He works with women, he reports to women, and he has zero issue with it. Does he find women of power attractive? Probably. His attraction to me initially was based on my masochism. At the time I *was* independent and strong and he found me highly attractive. Don’t project my opinion as his. He may or may not have any qualms whatsoever about a female president.

To be honest, the emotional, angry, insulting reaction I’ve gotten from the mostly female readers here is just further proof for me. I’m not at all surprised that you all reacted the way you did.

I’m a little surprised at how many agreed with me though. And grateful. Not grateful that you agree, but that you spoke up truthfully about a topic that tends to get dicey and heated. Thank you.

Edit: 3-31-08

I just want to point out that some of you (not all! NOT ALL! make sure I repeat that a hundred times or so. SOME of you) are acting *exactly* like I would expect a woman to act. You claim to not be precisely what you are proving yourself to be.

And who am I? Nothing. Nobody. Yet you’re ready to rip my head off for having an opposing opinion. What would you do if it were another country’s leader telling you to shut the fuck up and get back in the kitchen where you belong? Would you become so angry and irrational that you’d shoot him? What about when the media and newspapers and other countries and blogs and magazines start ripping you to shreds over unpopular decisions, like they do to every other president. A subject of intense hatred, the topic of rude jokes.. I mean, Christ, you’re proving that women can’t handle a stupid little nothing journal post in a rational, calm manner yet proclaiming they can run the country just fine. Yeah.. right.