Q&A Forum - July 2009
Q. Dear Elise Sutton, I have been reading your Q&A for years and I have noticed recently that men write to you complaining about being placed in chastity by their wives. For example, last month a man wrote complaining about his wife placing him in a cock cage. He said he was worried that he will never be allowed to masturbate again. I’ve read similar letters on your site from other men.
This is mystifying to me because these men say they enjoy female domination and most of them introduced female domination to their wives. I think the casual reader of your site may come to a wrong conclusion when they read these letters. They may think that women are forcing their husbands to wear chastity devices, against the husband’s will. I don’t want to call anyone a liar, but I don’t think the men who write these letters are being totally honest. It seems to me that they are more interested in reading your response as a way of heightening their arousal while they are in chastity.
I say this because I have been involved in female domination relationships for decades, long before the Internet, and I can tell you nine out of ten guys that wear chastity devices or cock cages initiated the male chastity with their wives. Some men beg their wives to place them in chastity whereas other men are more subtle and they get their wives to place them in chastity by pointing out the benefits to the woman (or what I like to call the Elise Sutton approach since you encourage men to seduce a woman’s dominant nature).
I have a good friend who is a professional Mistress and men come to her and ask if she will place them in chastity and become the key holder. She has clients that pay her to place them in chastity devices and some of them are in long term chastity and she keeps the key and controls when and if they are allowed to masturbate. Submissive men like to be controlled and placed in chastity. It gets to the crux of sexual submission. What can be a more submissive feeling than to allow your partner to control your sex life?
I have been in various forms of chastity for decades. I think the first device I purchased was the bulky “gates of hell” device that I bought at an Adult novelty store in the 1980’s. Whenever I had a session with a Mistress, I would always request that she make me wear it. Later, I bought a leather chastity device similar to the gates of hell, only more comfortable, and after that I got a metal device that went around my waist which I could comfortably wear for weeks at a time. When the CB2000 first came out, I bought one of them and the Mistress I was seeing kept me denied and only allowed me one orgasm a month. That was ten years ago.
Since that time I have invested in a custom made chastity device and I got married and my wife now keeps me in chastity 24/7. The chastity device works with a Prince Albert piercing, such as what you wrote about last month. As you can tell, I love being in chastity. It makes me feel submissive to the woman who holds the key. I love to be aroused and denied. I love the power exchange that I have to pleasure my wife but I am denied. It adds to the entire female domination experience. It keeps me on my toes and it keeps me focused on my wife.
Our sex life is mostly me orally pleasuring her or using sex toys on her. When she wants sex, I am always ready to go and I love that she keeps me in chastity. You once wrote that male chastity is like prolonged foreplay that lasts weeks at a time. I think that is a great description. I am almost disappointed when my wife orders me to have an orgasm because I know I will experience a great sexual letdown after I have climaxed, and since I am no longer a young man, it takes days before I am back into that intense state of arousal again. I love being in that state of arousal and denial.
My purpose of this letter is to give the other side to those letters that make it sound like women are out there forcing men into male chastity. From my experience the vast majority of men that are in chastity are there because they want to be in chastity.
Thank you, Elise, for educating people about female domination. I feel sorry for any man that doesn’t submit to a woman.
A. I would agree with your assessment that probably 90% of men that are in chastity are there because it was originally their idea. That does not mean that all of them like it as much as you do. Sometimes fantasy does not translate over to reality so a man may have the fantasy of being in chastity for long periods of time (possibly even 24/7 chastity) but once he is placed in a chastity device, he finds out that the experience is more challenging than he thought.
A man that is accustomed to touching himself whenever he wants and masturbating multiple times per day might be excited about the thought of being placed in chastity by a woman, but he may find the reality is physically and mentally taxing. That is not a problem for the man who experiments with chastity with a professional Dominatrix because if it becomes too much to handle, he can always stop the D&S play. He has some control because he is paying her.
However, when it is a wife that is the key holder, and when the wife is enjoying the benefits of having her husband denied and in chastity, it is not so easy for the husband to get her to change course, especially if the wife is growing in her dominance. Naturally, all D&S activities within a marriage need to be negotiated and flexible, but if the woman believes in male chastity and orgasm denial, she may be willing to alter the device and the time period between orgasms in order to help her husband’s comfort level, but it is doubtful that she will ever sanction him being allowed to masturbate without her permission. Once a man opens the door of male chastity to a woman and once she experiences that power, it will not be so easy to close that door.
Nevertheless, I concur with most of what you have written. A lot of submissive men desire to be placed in chastity because they want a woman to control their cock and their sex drive. It can be very erotic and a powerful expression of female domination and male submission. Nine out of ten may be correct but that still leaves one out of ten males that are placed in chastity at the suggestion and prompting of their wives. So perhaps the letters you refer to are from the ‘one out of ten category’ where the wife is pushing for male chastity and the husband is apprehensive.
Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences with male chastity. It sounds like you have been on a fascinating and exciting journey and I am so glad to hear that you met a dominant woman who was able to take your desire and need for chastity to a 24/7 level. You did not begin at 24/7 and it took decades for you to get to this place, but now you have a female domination marriage with a woman you trust with that kind of power and control. For at the end of the day, male chastity like any other FemDom activity, requires a level of trust and communication in order for it to be fulfilling to all those involved. Best wishes.
Q. Dear Elise: I am somewhat new to femdom. I have had a couple of passive boyfriends in the past, but I'm now in my first serious relationship with a true submissive. This man is thoughtful, giving and kind, and we're planning to get married within a year. I love the way he treats me, and I admit I've never been happier than I am right now.
Up until about a year before we met, my fiancé had been living with a dominant woman for four years. He has totally opened up to me about her, and insists that he no longer has feelings for her. For the most part, I believe him. He's been happily obedient to all my wishes, except one.
My fiancé’s former dominant was Native American, and while they were together, she had several small symbols of her culture tattooed onto his upper back. Since we are engaged, I want him to have these symbols covered over with tattoos of my choosing. I have been told by a number of different artists that this could be successfully done. The problem is, he's ambivalent. He assures me he no longer has any affection for this woman, but he refuses to have this done. He can't even give me a good reason, he just says it "doesn't feel right," and it "might bring misfortune" in the supernatural sense. He might really have these fears to a degree, having been influenced by her power for so long. However, I'm afraid that he just can't bear to make what would be the final break with her.
In every other area, he's a dream come true. We have a lot in common, and I really don't want to lose him. Am I making too much of this? Should I just forget it or give him an ultimatum? What is the best way to handle a man who seems to want to retain something of his former mistress?
A. I don’t think you are making too much of this but I do think that you need to have a heart to heart talk with you fiancé about his personal feelings and his interpretation of the tattoos on his back. If he is serious about submitting to you, he needs to be willing to obey you. If he will not submit to your will when it comes to his tattoos, in what other ways will he resist your authority after the two of you are married?
If he is going to honor you, he needs to respect you enough to explain to you why he refuses to cover up his tattoos with symbols that are acceptable to you. He may have a good reason (such as his spirituality and the spiritual significance of those tattoos) but he is disrespecting you by not giving you a proper explanation. You are going to be marrying this man so you deserve to know what those tattoos mean to him and since your marriage is going to be FemDom, he must be willing to submit to your authority and your decisions.
Be that as it may, the one area that I believe a dominant woman has no authority over is the spirituality of her submissive male. She has the right to control his body, his sex life, his finances, and how he spends his time, etc. But she does not have the right to control his spiritual life because that is a private matter between him and his Creator.
A person’s spiritual walk is at the essence of who we are and what we believe. I am all for Female Authority in most areas of life but I cringe when I hear about women trying to force a man to submit to a spirituality that does not resonate with his heart and his soul. I have heard of Dominant women demanding that a man renounce his particular faith and to embrace her beliefs as a sign of obedience to her. This is very unwise because spirituality cannot be faked. If a woman wants a man to convert to her belief system, she must convince him through reason and he must convert of his freewill, thus making the conversion genuine and heartfelt.
Bringing this back to your situation, if your fiancé equate those tattoos with his spirituality and if they hold a spiritual meaning to him, I would strongly suggest that you do no infringe on that. Even if his spirituality was greatly influenced by his former Mistress you would be wise not to make him choose between you and the spiritual significance that he places on those tattoos.
Now when I say spiritual significance I am talking about the Native American spiritual meaning of those tattoos. I am not talking about any kind of devotion he feels to his former Mistress.
That is why I say you need to have a heart to heart talk with him about those tattoos. Have him tell you what they mean to him. If he cannot tell you, then I would say the spiritual significance is shallow and thus you have every right to demand that he cover them up with the markings of your choosing.
Communication is the key to a successful relationship and this is even more so within a FemDom relationship where a man chooses to submit to a woman’s authority and where a D&S sexuality will be prevalent. This is obviously important to you, and those tattoos are obviously important to him, therefore communication must take place in order for the two of you to understand where the other is coming from.
You have every right to demand his whole heart since he is going to be entering into a covenant with you through marriage. No matter how he feels about his former Mistress (and it is only natural for him to have some feelings toward her) he must let go of the past and embrace his future as your submissive husband. If those tattoos are his connection to her, he needs to allow you to replace them with symbols that will become his connection with you. If those tattoos are her mark on him, those are of the past, so he must be willing to take your mark, whatever that may be. If he refuses, then I say he is not ready to enter into a covenant with you through marriage. Perhaps the two of you should extend the courtship until he is willing to prove his total devotion to you.
That’s my two cents, for what it’s worth. Always remember to communicate with each other as you try to resolve issues where you do not see eye to eye. I do wish you both the very best.
Q. Dear Ms Sutton, you have written about men who have a fetish for seeing their Mistress wearing leather outfits when they are being dominated, but what about submissive men who have a fetish for being bound in leather clothing?
I enjoy both. I love it when my wife wears leather outfits but I also have a fetish for wearing leather outfits when my wife places me in bondage. What she does is she will put me in a tight leather corset, thigh-high leather boots, leather gloves, a leather cock cage and a leather hood and she ties me down tightly to our bed. I lose myself in submission from the sensation of the leather articles of clothing that tightly encase my body while I am restrained.
My wife might turn off the light and leave me like this in the dark, checking in on me from time to time, or she may dominate me while I am helpless like this, whipping me or pleasuring herself on her dildo that she attaches to the face of my leather hood, or she will unzip the mouth of the leather hood and have me orally pleasure her as she straddles my face.
We have a great sex life but this is by far my favorite way to have sex. My wife is very accommodating and she has come to accept my fetish.
A. You are indeed a most fortunate man to be married to such an accepting woman. I hope you reciprocate to her by serving her both inside and outside the bedroom. She deserves your devotion and submission.
Without knowing more about you it would be most difficult to fully understand why this experience touches certain sexual triggers within your psyche. However, having talked with other submissive men over the years that had a similar fetish, I think I can paint a general picture as to what you are experiencing when your wife places you in this kind of bondage.
Your submissive nature is touched when you are bound, passive and helpless. In your circumstance, the leather clothing is a part of the restraints that places you at your wife’s mercy. The rope, the cock cage and the hood are instruments of bondage and so are the corset, the boots and the gloves. You enjoy being forced to wear tight, fetish clothing that encompasses your body because it makes you feel restrained, restricted and enclosed. Along with the rope that secures you to the bed and the hood that envelops your face, the corset and the boots form a cocoon around you, a leather womb, and you feel helpless but also secure because you trust your captor. You are powerless to her whims (and that thought excites you) but you are also secure in her nurturing hands.
The fact that the material that binds you is leather adds to your experience because of your evaluation of that material. Your fetish is not so much for the leather but what that leather represents to you. Leather clothing represents female domination. When a woman is adorned in leather, it sends off psychological and subliminal messages to the submissive male. It contains an animalistic meaning, as the traditional hunter (the male) who hunted the animal and converted its hide into a sexy garment of clothing, is now the hunted. When a woman wears leather and disciplines a man, it represents the female conquering and dominating the male. Not to mention that women look damn sexy in leather.
You want to be conquered and when you are bound by “her outfit” (and lets be honest, the corset, the boots, the gloves were made for a woman to wear) you feel vanquished. You lose all sense of pride and ego as you are tied down, helpless, vulnerable, and alone in the dark with your thoughts. She has dressed you up in her outer skin. She has taken your fetish off of her body and put it on your body. Now you can lose yourself in her dominance and her power. You are at her mercy. She can punish you, she can pleasure herself on you or she can turn off the light and ignore you. You have no say. She is in total control.
This whole experience touches your submissive nature and allows you to be consumed in your wife’s essence and her power. The leather clothing is vital to your experience only because you equate the corset, the boots, and the gloves as representing a woman’s sexual power. These are sex clothes. These articles of her outfit were made to enhance a woman’s beauty and her sexual command.
Would you feel the same were she to wrap you in a leather mat or a leather rug or some other kind of leather apparatus? You may enjoy the feeling of being in bondage regardless of how it is manifested but your fetish for leather is tied to a woman wearing it as an article of clothing. Her boots and her corset are sex clothes and they are clothes of female domination. You want to be bound in them because they represent her sexual power. This adds to the entire dynamic and that is why this is your favorite way to be intimate with your wife. From a psychological perspective, when you are encased in the leather, you are encased in your wife because the outfit is her second skin.
There is no place you would rather be than to be bound to your wife’s bed, encased in her leather clothing, completely helpless, wondering how or even if she will use you for her pleasure. You drift off into subspace as you are secure in her love. That is what this experience means to you and that is why you desire it. Your wife is a Goddess and words cannot describe how blessed you feel to be married to her. But action is better than words, so your charge in life is to show her everyday how much you adore her and how thankful you are for her. Best wishes!
Q. Dear Ms Sutton, I was born with submissive desires towards women, even as a little boy in grade 1, before I knew anything about sex, I would sneak in my older sister’s room and hide there. I had this craving, just wanting to be close to her was enough to transport me to subspace (really weird).
I’m a writer/artist/theologian and free thinker. I read your Femdom Q&A about spirituality. You make the Bible look like it promotes Femdom. I can do exactly the same and make it look like the Bible scorns Femdom. You and I both interpret the Bible to support our arguments.
You mentioned that marriages fall apart because of balance, well not according to Jesus. Marriages fall apart because people are not one with God. How can a man be one and remain one with his wife if he or she is not one with God first? As far as worshipping a woman as a goddess, well I don’t know how anyone can approve of this.
Femdom could never tie in with true Christianity. Why would God be moved (touched) by a man that gives into femdom because this is simply a man that gives into his carnal selfish self. This is a man that gratifies his carnal desires. Jesus said that men here in this plain of life marry just to gratify their selfish selves. Is this not what Jesus would say about femdom?
A. I think you have misunderstood what I have written about FemDom and spirituality. I do not believe that the Bible promotes female domination, no more than I think the Bible promotes Patriarchy or male domination. One should read the Bible in order to seek spiritual guidance and to feast upon spiritual food. One should not read the Bible to justify their lifestyle choices. To do so is to use God as means to an end, instead of humbling one’s self in search of spiritual truth.
What I have addressed is how I believe female domination can be compatible with the Christian faith. People will often quote the Bible to enforce a male domination point of view and to try to keep women as second-class citizens. This is trying to promote an agenda, using the Bible as means to an end. What I have addressed is how often used scriptures (to justify male dominance in society and marriage) are taken out of context. I have examined these scriptures and have given my interpretation how these scriptures are being misused to enforce a theology of male domination.
Furthermore, I challenge the traditional thinking of Christianity that God is male. I have demonstrated how the names of God used in the Bible are both male and female; How God is referred to as both Father and Mother; How God created the species of man to be both male and female, after the very image of God. I have given scriptural references to my beliefs as well as the original Hebrew meanings of words, which anyone can verify with a Biblical Concordance.
I do not say that God is all female. I point out that God is both female and male, thus I have been balanced based on my interpretation of scripture based on my own studies. I do believe that Eve was God’s last and greatest creation based on the theology of Henricus Cornelius Agrippa;
“We know that, among all that was created by the best and greatest God, the essential difference consists in the fact that certain things live forever, while others are subject to corruption and change, and that, in the course of this creation, God advanced following an order that consisted in beginning with the more noble of the first group and ending with the most noble of the second. Thus, he created first the incorruptible angels, then the souls (for Augustine affirms that the soul of our first parents was created at the same time as the angles, before the body was fashioned). Then he created the incorruptible bodies, such as the heavens and the stars, and elements that, although incorruptible, are nonetheless subject to various changes. And from them he formed all other things that are subject to corruption, proceeding again by ascent, from the more insignificant through all degrees of humor to the perfection of the universe. Thus were created first minerals, then vegetables, plants and trees, followed by animated beings, and finally brute beasts, in order: reptiles, fish, birds, quadrupeds.
Again after all this he created two human beings in his image, man first, then woman, in whom the heavens and the earth, and every embellishment of both, are brought to perfection. For when the Creator came to the creation of woman, he rested himself in this creation, thinking that he had nothing more honorable to create; in her were completed and consummated all the wisdom and power of the Creator; after her no creation could be found or imagined. Since, therefore, woman is the ultimate end of creation, the most perfect accomplishment of all the works of God and the perfection of the universe itself, who will deny that she possesses honor surpassing every other creature? Without her the world itself, already perfect to a fault and complete at every level, would have been imperfect; it could only be perfected in the creature of all others by far the most perfect.” --- Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, 1529.
Perhaps that is why you desired to sneak into your sister’s bedroom, just to be near her. As you said yourself, you were not driven by sexual desires at such a young age. There was something about the female nature that fascinated you, and you being a spiritual boy, had a spiritual experience (subspace) when you hid in your sister’s room. You see, it was not weird after all. Too bad religion has since perverted that experience and has convinced you that it was unnatural.
I do not believe that female domination is driven by carnal desires. I believe these desires are spiritual in nature. Sex is often carnal and most sites (FemDom included) do play on the carnal desires of man. However, what I believe sets female domination apart from other forms of sex (BDSM and D&S included) are the spiritual elements.
As far as your other comment goes, do you really believe that marriage was created just so people could gratify their sexual desires in a way that God could sanction? When I study marriage in the Bible, I see romance, love, and spirituality. The Bible talks about a marriage between Christ and the Church, so obviously marriage is a spiritual union. In the Bible, ‘The Song of Solomon’ is about the dual love of a man and a woman and the love of God for his people. There are many romantic and sexual descriptions in ‘The Song of Solomon’.
If a person feels they are called to a life of devotion to God, abstaining from sex and marriage, I say more power to them. I respect people like this if they can truly abstain. However, most people are not called to this kind of service. Most people desire to have a sexual relationship with a soul mate, the way that God created it from Adam and Eve to couples that are married today.
God created sex, so sex is good. God created marriage, so marriage is good. We can debate the rest, and it is healthy for people of faith to examine and reexamine what they believe and why they believe it. The Bible was written for a far greater purpose than to promote female domination or male domination. I agree with what you said, ‘How can a man be one and remain one with his wife if he or she is not one with God first?’ Nevertheless, I must reiterate that I believe one can be a committed Christian and also practice the female domination lifestyle.
I also believe that a man can worship his wife (adore her, revere her, submit to her) and view her as his earthly Goddess without taking away from his devotion to his Creator. In fact, to worship a woman may in fact enhance man’s relationship with his Creator, as he is able to better comprehend the feminine side of God. Thanks for the comments and may God bless you in your spiritual journey.
Q. Dear Elise: Thank you for a great site. While I don't agree at all with some of the more radical practices discussed (e.g. cuckolding), I'm continually impressed by your knowledge and your insight and wish I could hire you to explain why I'm obsessed with being submissive.
I've been happily married for twenty years with four children (2 boys and 2 girls). My wife and I are both professionals. I'm a partner in a CPA firm. She's a professor at a University. We're very active with our Catholic church. No-one beyond my wife knows about my other self. She struggles a little with my submissiveness. She loves the attention I give her, things I do for her and buy for her. She hasn't done housework of any type for years. She likes control in the bedroom. Having me as her "wife" is probably her greatest need and her greatest fear.
It's hard for her to accept the changing roles of men and women today. For example, she is really and genuinely concerned about the direction that the workplace is taking with more and more women joining and rising. I see it in my own firm, where 22 of our last 25 college graduate hires were female (amazing, I don't do the hiring by the way). She contends that women of the future are not going to be happier but a lot more stressed.
Some of the questions my wife brings up:
Do you think that women will want to work really hard (usually a cost of success) as the main breadwinner? Are they going to have less children as a result? Do women want a house-husband to be the primary caregiver of their children? Would women like to stay at home instead?
I guess society will find out because it seems that women may be taking control outside the home. I could be a great house-husband, but I can't because of our family's need for my income. Actually I'm already one but with a full time career on the side.
Elise, do you really think women of the future will be happier? In most homes, they already control their husbands. Is control outside the home going to make it better or worse? I'm the exception, because I respect women in control at all levels.
Can you help me to have my wife better understand the societal evolution in progress? Can you also comment on whether submissiveness will lead to the feminization of men, and is that good for women? Are we forcing a change in the natural instincts of women as nurturers and men as aggressors and who can predict what the role reversals will result in? Sorry for so many questions but I could go on and on. Thank you.
A. First, allow me to address your wife’s questions. Her questions are the result of her upbringing and the societal model that she no doubt learned from her Church and her parents. Your wife is old-fashioned, and there is nothing wrong with that. Some people say I am old-fashioned in a number of of my beliefs. However, I have come to believe that society is evolving toward female dominance. You see it in your workplace and anyone that honestly examines what has been transpiring across all areas of society will come to the realization that the roles of men and women are changing.
Your wife recognizes this and she is a little uneasy because society is moving away from the model she grew up believing was God’s plan. Men were the breadwinners and women stayed home and raised the children. Now women are becoming the breadwinners in many families and more and more husbands are expected to do the housework, or at least help out with a significant portion of the housework. As a woman, I believe this is positive for women, for men, for children and for society as a whole.
Society is changing because it must. The old ways are passing away because women have been afforded equal access to education and employment opportunities. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time that women would begin to succeed and excel in college and in their careers. The reason the ways of our parents was a patriarchal system was primarily because women were denied the same opportunities as men. Once the playing field became more equal, women were able to use their God-given talents and abilities. Thus, I would argue that what we are seeing today is God’s plan in action so there is no need to fear it. As a woman, your wife should embrace it and celebrate it. I know that is easier said than done because of traditions and Church doctrine, but the fact remains that women were treated as second-class citizens under the patriarchal system. Women were housewives not because of choice but because society forced them into this role. But now that women have been liberated, they have the choice to be housewives or career women or both and most women choose to have careers.
The twenty-two new women at your firm were not forced into this career. They could still be housewives if they so desire but younger women do not want to be dependent on a man as their breadwinner. Women of today know they have talents and abilities to do as good as and even a better job as men in the workplace. Women want to be successful and to have careers because the power to earn money brings freedom and independence. Our grandmothers did not enjoy the choices we enjoy today.
Your wife is a professor at a University thus she chose a career over being a stay-at-home housewife and although you have your own career, you do the majority of the housework as that meets her needs in this area (and I might add that it meets your needs as it provides you submissive fulfillment.) Your wife struggles with this at times because of the traditions of her upbringing, yet the two of you have settled into roles that meets both of your needs. It has become a win/win situation as the female domination dynamic has taken the mundane things in life (housework) and has injected it with excitement as you view doing housework as submitting to your beautiful wife. In addition, by you doing housework it no doubt adds some extra passion to your sex life by means of adding to the D&S dynamics.
It all comes back to two people embracing a lifestyle that meets their needs and fulfills them sexually and personally. You and your wife could have embraced a more traditional lifestyle where she did most of the housework and she submitted to you. There are plenty of couples that still choose to live a lifestyle based on a patriarchal traditional model. But would you be happy doing that? Would you be as fulfilled? Chances are you tried that societal model in the early years of your marriage but no matter how hard you tried to conform to that model you had the desire to submit to your wife. It is within you, it is who you are. And likewise, no matter how much she struggles with the back and forth of the old and the new, your wife also enjoys a female domination marriage.
So my advice to the both of you is to embrace female domination and don’t look back at the old ways. Don’t worry what other people are doing or what other people would think if they ever found out. You would be surprised how many other couples you know are living a similar life behind closed doors. What matters is what works for you and your wife. Be thankful that you are living in 2007 where a woman can be the breadwinner and where a woman can have a successful career and where a man can be her helpmate. If you were living in the 1950’s, you may very well be living a different life but society has evolved and it is indeed a new day.
Another issue your wife asked about was the fact that women are having fewer children. Yes, they are but that is a good thing. Again, society evolves because it must. When God gave mankind the decree to be fruitful and multiply, that was a charge to populate the world. Now that we are entering into the twenty-first century, the world is populated and some are concerned about a future shortage of resources such as food and water. History marches on and times adapt accordingly. Your wife and I both grew up in the Catholic church and it was not uncommon for Catholic families to have many children because the church was against the use of birth control. But science has made birth control safe and reliable and most Catholics today use birth control.
Economics have also made it difficult for families to afford many children. Some couples are choosing to only have one or two children. You chose to have four. I think that is wonderful. I chose to have none. It is great to live in a society where women can have a large family if they choose or they can have a small family if they choose. But women are no longer expected to have lots of children. Women are no longer looked down on if they are single or are married with no children. Again, it all comes back to free people making free choices. If the government were to ever legislate that couples could only have two children (like they do in China), I would be the first one out there fighting for the rights of couples to have as many children as they choose. No one has the right to tell you or me how many children are acceptable. The government has no right and the Church has no right. If modern women choose to have no children or only one child, more power to them. And if a modern woman chooses to have five children, more power to her. It all comes back to free people making their own decisions based on their values and the economics of the times we live in.
Your wife asked if women want a househusband. There is no one answer to any of these questions. Each couple will make their own decisions. I do know that as more and more couples embrace female domination, more and more men will be expected to do housework. Whether they will become full-time househusbands will be a decision that each couple must decide but more likely than not, most women will want their husbands to have a career in order to help with the financial obligations. I haven’t met too many women, even women that are female supremacists, who want their husbands to stay home and be full-time househusbands. Usually when this happens, the husband is retired from his career so he has income coming into the home via his retirement check, thus the dominant wife with the career makes him into her full-time househusband. I have known quite a few couple that do this but as far as couples that are not yet to the retirement age, most of the time the dominant wife wants her husband to work outside the home and still do most of the housework (similar to your marriage).
Finally, women will always be the nurturers, no matter how many children they have and no matter how demanding their careers. That is the nature of the female and nothing will change that. A man may be do housework and he may become quite skilled at doing domestic chores, but he will never be the nurturer in the same manner that a woman is the nurturer. He may be very nurturing to the children but he cannot replace the female nature. A woman is able to wear many hats and she can have a successful career and still be a great mother to her children at the same time, and be a firm but loving dominant wife to her husband. I am sure your wife is proof of this as it seems by your questions that she is a successful professor, a loving mother and a wonderful wife. She embodies the female nature and it is little wonder that you crave to submit to her. Take care!
Q. Hello Ms. Elise, I've found many of the articles and stories on your website to be immensely informative to my fledgling journey down a new road into the BDSM community generally, and learning about submissiveness to a woman specifically...I'm sure to your delight. I am unsure at this point how far I will venture, and your insight will likely help me on my journey. I truly do want to understand the ins' and out's of these topics so I can better prepare myself for what lies ahead, and you seem to be an excellent woman to ask.
As you've so eloquently described, relationships based on loving female authority span a wide
array of forms and types. My questions will be centered around the most extreme, when a man
submits all control, power, and personal being to a woman. From what I've read I believe you
advocate total male submission as being what all men should aspire to most. Now for my questions.
Why cannot a man love, cherish, and serve a woman and life partner without yielding control and submitting completely to her will? I've always desired to find a woman to share a loving, caring, lifetime partnership with, and I've always envisioned it being based on mutual respect,
admiration, and open communication. I believe everyone submits some part themselves in such relationships in order for it to succeed, but that it's usually mutual. I find that some of the
things you espouse say otherwise.
How can there be open communication when a man is supposed to yield to a woman's every desire? The communication no longer becomes open or legitimately mutual, but contrived to what he thinks she will desire...he's not the man anymore, he's property. That man no longer exists. He no longer thinks for himself.
Limits must be honored for safe, sane, and consensual practices? How can these practices be consensual and respect any limits he may have if the man is suppose to completely yield to the woman's desires. He no longer has desires or limits, so there is nothing to consent to, except what makes her happy and what she wants regardless of what he may like, want, and desire. This circumstance would mean men should relinquish their standing as human beings, whose personal needs and desires no longer matter. They forfeit all individual identity and exist only to serve a woman and her life, and the man's life means nothing. To me this doesn't seem to be a relationship, but rather ownership, slavery, or something else that words fail to describe, but loving, caring relationship based on respect and admiration do not apply.
Trust? Trust a woman to do what? What she wants, and that's all that matters? There would be no mutual agreement to anything, because the woman is superior and the man, even if he disagrees. Disagreement doesn't exist. He cannot disagree, since that would be disrespect. The standard term applied here for a woman's efforts to help the man achieve greater and greater levels of submission is "training". The word brainwashing enters my mind when I think of the described situation.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I am personally dealing with my own propensities for submission to a dominant woman, and so far it's been an exciting and invigorating experience. I hope you will respond to my questions honestly and openly and not dismiss them as coming from an ill informed, unenlightened man that should just be quiet and learn to submit.
A. Submission is a choice, and you control how much you are willing to submit to a woman. Common sense will dictate to you that you should never surrender to someone you do not trust. However, if you are in a relationship with a woman that you do trust, the deeper you submit to her, the deeper you will experience the power of female domination. You can certainly choose to hold back your submission but you do so at your own loss. Nevertheless, submission of any kind must be rooted and grounded in reality.
I would highly recommend that you get my latest book, “The FemDom Experience”, and read the Introduction and chapter eighteen “The Harmonious Experience”. In my book I try to draw the distinction between fantasy and reality. I edited your question because of its length but you mentioned some fictitious FemDom books you have read. Be careful that you properly discern fantasy from reality because not all FemDom fantasies can become a reality within a healthy and loving relationship. Likewise, not all BDSM relationships have the proper foundation of love, friendship and communication. Just because you become aroused when reading about lifestyle Mistresses that mistreat their male slaves, that does not mean you should seek out such a relationship for yourself.
You rightfully recall that I have said that the FemDom lifestyle is a large tent with many lifestyles within. It is up to you to find a partner that will respect you and value you. A man will only be mistreated and abused if he chooses to accept that within a relationship. Some men want that out of a FemDom relationship and if they can’t get it within a lifestyle relationship they may seek out a professional and pay for it. But always be mindful that fantasy does not necessarily translate over to reality. If you value a woman who will love you and cherish you as much as you love and cherish her, it is up to you to build that solid foundation with her. I have always said that D&S is the cement that solidifies the foundation. It is not the foundation of a healthy relationship. Love, friendship, trust and communication need to be the foundation.
Your questions and concerns about a man surrendering his will over to a woman show a lack of understanding about genuine submission. Only a fool would surrender control over to a woman he did not know or did not trust, and trust cannot be discerned over a short period of time. Sure, a client can surrender to a professional Mistress in 90 minute or two hour intervals at a time but that is not the same as a man surrendering himself to a life-mate. So let’s examine submission.
Submission is the act of surrendering to someone else’s authority and accepting their judgment and their decisions. You submit to people everyday of your life. You submit to others at your workplace, you submit to the laws of your state and your country, you submit to authority whenever you enter an airport (remove your shoes, empty your pockets, etc), you submit to authority all day long, whether you realize it or not. Authority governs your life. You have great freedom but that freedom will always be suspended when it confronts authority. You can choose to buy a fast sports car but you are not free to drive as fast as want, less you risk paying a large fine. You can choose where to work and you can choose to quit one career for another but while you are employed, you must obey the authority of your supervisors if you want to be successful and productive. But are you weakened by submission or empowered by submission? You could be a rebel against all authority but that just hinders you and places you at a great disadvantage. By submitting you are in fact prospering because you are working within the framework of authority and we all need authority in our lives at certain times because submitting allows us to learn from authority.
If you submit to your boss at work, no matter if you like it or not, you are empowered because you can draw from your boss’ wisdom and learn and grow as an employee. Now if you don’t respect your boss and if she/he does not respect you, then that dynamic will not work and you might be better served going elsewhere so you can submit to someone that you do respect. But if you respect your boss and she/he respects you, then the power of submission can work on your behalf.
Now let’s take this same thought process over to submitting to a woman. If you love, trust and respect a woman, and if you ascertain that she loves, trusts and respects you, then you should be able to submit to her in the same manner that you can submit to your boss. She is your chosen Goddess and Queen. Your boss is merely a professional acquaintance, yet you submit to her/his authority for a paycheck or to further your career. But your wife or lifestyle Mistress is someone you have decided you want to be with, someone that you crave to serve, someone you desire to submit to. If you have built a healthy foundation with her, you should be comfortable submitting to her. That does not mean you have to lose your individuality no more than you have to lose your individuality on your job. You are uniquely you, but you yield to your boss’ authority and decision making. Likewise within a FemDom relationship, you are uniquely you but you yield to your Mistress’ authority and decision making.
Will your Mistress make mistakes? Yes, just like your boss makes mistakes in the workplace. All people make mistakes but submission is to serve the imperfect and to be an asset to those in authority, not a liability. Submission is to bite your tongue when your Mistress makes a mistake because you do not seek to show her up, but rather to encourage her. In this regard, the submissive role is vitally important. You can certainly disagree and express your opinion within a healthy FemDom relationship (and a successful Mistress desires your input and opinion) but true submission is when you accept her decision even if it goes against your advice.
Your questions reveal that you see submission as adversarial, two people in a struggle for power. However, submission should be seen as complementary, as teamwork where a woman and her submissive male are working together. She is the final decision maker but you are her advisor and her confidant. You yield to her intellect but she still values your intellect. That is how loving female authority operates within a healthy relationship.
The D&S can and will solidify the relationship and perhaps the male desires some forms of humiliation play which stimulates him sexually and emotionally. Perhaps he needs that to remind him of his place and his role and perhaps the woman needs to engage in this to motivate her to rise above a patriarchal society. However, the woman must respect her submissive or else she will lose out in the end because she will lose that wind beneath her sail, that loving and adoring man that motivates her in life and who encourages her in life. A woman that oversteps her authority and abuses her partner to the point that he is unable to complete her loses out on the power of a FemDom relationship. Just like you should seek out a new boss if your current boss does not respect you, a man would be wise to seek out a new Mistress if his current Mistress does not respect him. In a free society, that decision still resides with you.
Thanks for the questions. I think this next entry will shed even more light on your questions.
Q. Dear Ms Sutton, I have been attracted more and more by the idea of female superiority recently. I feel an increasing desire to be dominated by women. But still I wonder if it’s not a symptom of something bad in my soul. Your web is the first I found which really deals seriously with questions of female superiority relationships. I found here a lot of interesting and I thank you for doing this job.
I was raised in a traditional family with not very patriarchal mode. I was nurtured and taught to respect women. However I was mainly taught to believe that every human can and should be free and an integral part of being free is to be in charge for himself.
You wrote to someone else that woman needs man as friend and lover and slave. But to love, to be somebody’s friend, I need to be a whole man. I need to be a free man, a man that is in charge of his destiny. Can I be whole and real if I surrender my freedom to a woman? Thank you.
A. Freedom is wonderful. Freedom is a gift from God. We should all seek freedom, we should all strive to keep our freedoms and we should all be thankful for our freedoms. However, if a man chooses of his own freewill to submit to a woman, is he not exercising his freedom? It’s not like a woman is forcing you to submit. There is something on the inside of you that wants to submit. Thus, female domination is the act of a free man surrendering certain areas of his freedom over to a loving female.
In my book “The FemDom Experience” I addressed this topic of freedom and the inner male conflict between the desire for independence and the desire to submit to female authority;
“The male nature needs to surrender freedom in order to find fulfillment. In this time of transition, we are beginning to witness women who are developing a desire for more independence and at the same time we are witnessing more and more men who desire to lose their independence to women. This transfer of control is the result of Nature seeking balance. The problem is that the male ego does not want to lose control.
In modern western civilization (especially in America), society has instilled in men a desire for independence. Men want to be free to make their own choices and to live their own lives, without any person or institution telling them what they can and cannot do. Damn the government, the Church and the family that tries to tell them how they can and cannot live their lives. They are free to do as they damn well please. No neighbor, government official or clergyman will tell them what they can or cannot do. Go west young man, stake out your ground, put up a fence around your property and shoot any intruder who sets foot on your property without an invitation. That is the American spirit.
An independent spirit is a good thing as it insures against dictatorships and totalitarianism. Freedom of speech, choice, expression, worship and so forth are all pillars of a free society. Where the people are free, the people are empowered. Where freedom is suppressed, the people are vulnerable. But with freedom comes responsibility and what is good for society as a whole is not necessarily good when it is broken down to the individual level. Freedom is a gift from God but the man who is consumed with his freedom can turn inward and become selfish and selfishness is contrary to God. Therefore, Nature has placed within man the desire to be under some sort of control. Freedom taken to its extreme produces anarchy and chaos. There must be laws to protect the freedoms we enjoy. I may have the freedom to work hard and accumulate possessions but if my neighbor can steal my possessions without any consequences from the law, am I really free?
There has to be controls to insure that freedom is true freedom. A powerful government is dangerous because it has the potential to enslave its people and to take away their freedom. Yet, no government is just as dangerous because without law and order, what good is freedom? If I can’t trust the food I eat or the water I drink and if I have to sleep with a gun next to my pillow at night to protect my possessions, that is not being free. So there must be laws to protect people and there must be government to enforce those laws.
The same goes with religion. We are free to worship the God of our choosing and we are free to live the lifestyle of our choice. Yet, the Church does have the responsibility to point out (with love) those lifestyle choices that are dangerous to my health and my life. God did not give Moses the Ten Commandments to take away his freedom but rather to protect his freedom. For not all behavior is healthy. There is a certain way to live that is healthy to our minds and our bodies.
Nature has instilled in man the need and the desire to be under loving female authority. It begins when a male child bonds with his mother and other female authority figures, and it continues into adulthood as he seeks out a mate. Men have often teased the soon-to-be groom that a wife is like a mother, only stricter. A wife has been teasingly referred to by men as the old “ball and chain”, meaning that marriage is like being sentenced to prison with the wife being the warden. While this is all done in jest and with humor, such male remarks are based in truth, at least as men see it. Yet, most men still get married and those who escape from their prisons (i.e. marriage) will more than likely seek to get married yet again, and thus return to prison with a different warden (wife).
So no matter how free a society may be and no matter how independent a man may see himself as he conquerors the “wild west” and the new frontiers, he still seeks out loving female authority for he knows that he needs that anchor for his soul.
…Sexual independence is not the only reason a man may shy away from a relationship. The quest for money, power and adventure has caused some males to run away from the responsibility of a committed relationship with a woman. Hearing other males describing their marital plights as being hen-pecked, pussy whipped, and in prison no doubt has caused some men to run from their inner desires and to try instead to find meaning out of life by squeeze the gusto out of life, only to one day discover that they perhaps passed on life’s greatest treasure in search of treasures of lesser value.
Did it ever dawn on these men that perhaps personal freedom is a gift they have been given for the purpose of it being sacrificially laid at the feet of a much greater gift? Over the ages man has been quick to sail the seas, to join the military, to conqueror the next frontier, even though that means he must leave the woman in his life or forego having a meaningful relationship with a woman, all in the name of freedom and independence. Yet deep inside, he is restless, lonely, longing for loving female authority. Is marriage really a prison or is it heaven on earth? Is a wife a warden or is she a Goddess? What a truly wonderful gift mortal man has been given, namely the chance to live with a Goddess, to serve her, to sacrifice for her, to lay down his independence at her feet.
Sadly, some men never realize the gift they have been given. And perhaps even sadder still is the husband who lives with a Goddess but does not see that reality. He does not leave her to sail the seas, or to join the military or to conquer the next frontier. No, he stays with her but ignores her. He sees her as being there for his needs. He views his independence as him being the King of his castle. But just like the male who runs from a relationship, the man who takes his relationship for granted has thrown away one of life’s greatest gifts.
The male desire for female domination is strong, so strong that men will spend hundreds and thousands of hours fantasizing about it. They will create art, write stories, produce movies, create websites, and pay to role-play these desires with a complete stranger. But how many men are truly willing to make the FemDom experience a reality by surrendering their gift of independence over to a woman? At some point, a man very well may hit that wall where he struggles with the internal fight of keeping a firm grip on male pride and male independence.
The early stages of a FemDom relationship may be wonderful and beyond his greatest expectations but at some point, the woman may make a request of him that will challenge his level of submission. It could be domestically as he does not want to do housework. It could be financially as he does not want to give up his financial independence. It could be socially, as he wants his wife’s total attention and affection and he will not trust her to experiment with her own personal independence. It could be sexually, as he does not want to surrender control of his sex life over to his wife and allow her that much power over him.
Regardless of what it is and no matter how strong the male submissive nature, there will come that time and place where the male will be challenged to surrender something that he does not want to surrender. And it is at this point that a man has the potential to experience enormous growth and fulfillment if he can lay his most precious gift at the feet of his Goddess.
…struggles are not unique to the man but if the man fights his nature and his desires (and ultimately fights the rule of his Goddess), he will make her struggles all the more difficult and thus the FemDom experience becomes a negative experience. Therefore, it is important that when such struggles arise, the man is honest and open with his Goddess by confessing his struggles to her and asking her to help him overcome them, so he can surrender to her and thus advance to the next level in his growth.
Perhaps more intimacy is needed or perhaps more intensity is needed. Communication must be the cornerstone of the FemDom experience and ultimately the male must push through by laying down his independence and his male pride. He must entrust his Goddess with this power over his life and she must prove to him that he can trust her so he can be secure in her authority. Yielding is to let go and to surrender the human will. It may not always be easy but once it is done, it brings deeper peace and tranquility. The submissive nature of man wants this and is trying to guide the man to this new place. To look back at Gomorrah is to turn into an emotional pillar of salt because one cannot go back. Peace will only come by yielding, by surrendering and by completing that journey to a new destination.” --- Elise Sutton ("The FemDom Experience")
