The world we live in is quite removed from The Time Before Writing. For the modern world learning and understanding appropriate dominance and submission are key life skills for both sexes. Whether you are male or female I suggest you submit to your work supervisors male or female, and be dominant towards your work subordinates male or female. With your work peers you will likely have an ebb and flow of dominance and submission.
However in the context of marriage I believe for most of us a pattern of male dominance and female submission has a basis in Body Agenda. Women respond sexually to dominant men and they can become quite aggressive towards men that seek sexual access that do not evoke feelings of submission in them. The Body Agenda literally thinks “if he can’t handle me, he can’t actually protect me from anything”. Often a woman will tear her husband apart over quite minor things seeking a reaction to correct her. If she doesn’t get that correction she can become increasingly agitated with her man and progressively more extreme in efforts to force that reaction. The majority of drama queens are just seeking the king to finally show up and tell her to knock it off.
Again – I’m talking about one man and one woman with each other. I’m not talking about all men over all women. Nor am I saying all marriages have to work this way. Just that I believe most would run better for trying it. Many women actively seek domination in their sexual relationships. Have a look at the #1 result auto-fill below…
As I’ve posted many times before, I’m not a particularly aggressive alpha male type guy by nature. Much of that stuff I’ve learned along the way over the last decade and in the last few years in particular. One of the things I was very careful to do when Jennifer and I married was to strive for equality between us, and I was quite careful not be domineering over her.
The result of those good intentions was that often we’d grind to a halt in a deadlock of mutual submission. “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know, anything is fine. What do you want to do?” Just repeat that conversational cycle for about ten years and you get the picture. I’ve often wondered in the last year how someone didn’t just poach her from me early on by simply being assertive towards her and doing something dramatic like… I dunno, simply asking her out on a well planned date or something clever like that. I guess I am lucky.
Well lucky and good… I don’t mean to distract from the main thrust of this post, but Jennifer and I are each others sexual first and we had been long distance in separate countries up until two weeks before our marriage. When we married I was basically unleashing a lifetime of pent up sexuality and generally quite assertive of getting sex and making sure she liked it. That first flurry of sex basically set the tone of the sex in our marriage and it’s continued on that way. In retrospect I was doing the one very alpha thing with her from the start of our marriage. That solves a multitude of non-alpha displays in other areas.
About five years ago I started getting grumpier with some of our mutual submission deadlocks and just started saying what I wanted. Jennifer lapped it up. This was initially very confusing, I thought and felt acting like this was in fact offensive and waited for the response of anger and annoyance of being bossy. It never came. I shit you not.
Since then I’ve reprogrammed myself a great deal away from the idea that everything has to be perfectly equal and fair. I’ve come to realize that being submissive is something she actually gains an active enjoyment from. Some of that is social submission, some of that is sexual submission. It’s only in the last year or two that I’ve found myself actively enjoying being dominant. I’ve given orders on and off for much longer, but felt quite weird about it at first, then felt neutral, but now can sometimes get physically turned on simply by requesting sexual submission.
Some of this is exceptionally simple everyday stuff. If we have four things that have to get done, Jennifer is great at defining the tasks, but if I step in and say “well lets both go and do A and B together because they are close together, then you go do C and I’ll double back to here and do D” she positively beams simply because I made the decision and set direction. Likewise if she wants to go out to dinner, me deciding the place makes her happy.
We did grocery shopping together today. After we came out of the store I said I wanted coffee, I got a “oh that sounds good” and off we went. We went through McDonalds and got coffee and had a Filet-of-Fish each. (OMFG I HATE THAT JINGLE) I get a “this was a fabulous idea” from her. She’s made happy by this. We did not cover this reaction in my Sociology of the Family course in college. Yeah… I have a degree in being non-dominant towards women. Waste of time and money. True story.
Anyway…
Jennifer is certainly not mindless. She’s not sitting at my feet as I write with a leash and a collar. She doesn’t just sit around and wait for direction. She’s actually one of the most competent people I know. I’m not going to spell out what she does for work, but I can assure you she is extremely talented and a vital resource for her company.
Over the last six months I’ve come to understand how our relationship works best and integrate the sense of wanting to be fair, but also define the element of dominance and submission. I’m come to understand it as being a Captain and First Officer relationship. And yes I first thought of this as a Star Trek metaphor (I don’t dress up for conventions understand, I just like the shows) though it’s basically standard for commerical airliners and miltary chain of command. As Wikipedia describes a First Officer…
“In commercial aviation, the first officer is the second pilot (sometimes referred to as the “co-pilot”) of an aircraft. The first officer is second-in-command of the aircraft, to the captain who is the legal commander. In the event of incapacitation of the captain, the first officer will assume command of the aircraft.
Control of the aircraft is normally shared equally between the first officer and the captain, with one pilot normally designated the “Pilot Flying” (PF) and the other the “Pilot Not Flying” (PNF), or “Pilot Monitoring” (PM), for each flight. Even when the first officer is the flying pilot, however, the captain remains ultimately responsible for the aircraft, its passengers, and the crew. In typical day-to-day operations, the essential job tasks remain fairly equal.”
I’ve always liked the dynamic on the Star Trek series between Captains and First Officers. It’s always been quite apparent that the First Officer is always competent and skilled, and if anything happens to the Captain, they step into the role of being in command immediately. The Captains always listen, sometimes the First Officer has a better idea than their own. Sometimes the First Officer actually overrules the Captain in a crisis and gives the crew an order, the Captain usually just trusts the First Officer isn’t doing this to make trouble and runs with it. But at the end of the day… the Captain is the Captain and leadership comes from them, and final responsibility for the ship lies with them. If it all goes to hell the Captain is last off the ship.
My realization is that most wives want the First Officer job. Not Crewman Third Class, but not Captain either. They want to have a say and be heard, they want to be trusted, they don’t want to be micro managed on decisions they are capable of making themselves, they can happily step it up into “having the bridge” when their husbands aren’t available. They just would rather be the second in command and follow someone else’s leadership and general direction.
The challenge for the husband is not to go into marriage as a Redshirt waiting for the deathblow. If that’s what you expect, that’s what you’ll get. Also not to go into marriage and attempt to simply be a member of the crew. The wife will likely try and assume a First Officer role and that makes her the de facto Captain if the husband doesn’t take that position. That may well piss her off. He can even do everything she says wants and asks him to do, and by submitting to her perfectly, that can actually anger and disappoint her more and more. Most men find this extremely confusing.
We have different areas that we specialize in and basically have complete control over, sometimes I “have the bridge” and sometimes she does. But ultimately looking back over our marriage I can see that the majority of our direction and big decisions have been mine with Jennifer supporting me. I’ve not always been right. Sometimes I’ve been quite badly wrong. But even when I’ve been wrong, badly wrong, Jennifer somehow manages to stay supportive. I don’t quite understand how she does that. I’ve come to be awed by that support, but I don’t fully understand it. Must be a chick thing.
There’s no violence. No screaming matches. No threats or retaliations. No infliction of pain. There are roles, and trust and love. Well… occassional light spankings. But we both enjoy that.
So… Captain and First Officer. That’s my theory for male dominance and female submission in marriage. Maybe not yours, but ours it seems to really work for both of us. There are hardly any of those mutual submission battles anymore. I just decide to do what I want more often, and I know what she likes quite well and a good portion of the time I decide we do that. Upon the rare occassion she complains, I might reach for the verbal nuke… “Captains prerogative Number One.”
One thing to watch for is other women picking up on your dominant sexual vibe. It does not hurt at all to think of your wife as your Number One. After all, that is ultimately what she is to you.
Edit: There’s an element of the Google autocomplete being influenced by my own prior searches that I wasn’t aware of at the time. Also Google refreshes the search matrix or flux capacitor, or whatever the voodoo is, periodically as well. If you search on it, you won’t get the same result. I can’t get the same result either, which I said as far back as October 2010. The image isn’t faked, it’s just a snapshot of my computer screen on March 13th 2010. All it shows is some vague evidence of my point that many women are interested in male dominance in their own sexual relationships.
No related posts.
I totally agree with this post! When we first got married my husband was also into "equality" and it turned me off a bit and made decision-making very confusing. But I soon called out his inner alpha-male and we are both happier for it. It was confusing for him at first, just as it sounds it was for you, because he was brought up to believe that male-dominance in a relationship was disrespectful. But I grew up in the South, and Southern women like their men big and strong and in-charge. And furthermore, it's a choice, as I think you pointed out, and it also worked wonders for his career. He soon realized that manning-up made me woman-up and well, there you have it. Let's just say that we have a great sex life and he's glad he married a Southern girl whose femininity can run wild as a complement to his masculinity. It has been my observation that SOME couples who do not allow this dynamic to emerge end up dissatisfied with their marriage. I think that this is a very misunderstood and under-communicated issue in Western culture–thanks for bringing it up.
Hey,
Love the Captain/First Mate analogy. I too used to be the "equality" guy in the relationship; fortunately I think I'm starting to figure this girl out >_> only took me five years ^_^.
Love the blog. Keep it up.
So interesting! My first reaction was to disagree with you…"No! It's about equality!" But as I kept reading, I found that you're right on the money. As a career woman with a type-A personality, the LAST thing I want at home is to be in charge. I can be the alpha when necessary, but it's extremely sexy when my husband takes control of anything from dishes to romance.
Thanks for the insight!
Thank you all for your kind comments. This is one of the hardest concepts to discuss without either sounding apologetic or a monster.
Much appreciated.
"This is one of the hardest concepts to discuss without either sounding apologetic or a monster."
You found the perfect analogy which makes it easy.
Being apologetic about dominance, though? That's a funny oxymoron.
Excellent post, kudos!
I do want to note in passing though that "dominant" is not the same as "domineering":
being dominant is about leadership, while being domineering is about control.
Thanks.
Funny how you also link to Taken in Hand… do you plan blog about this particular site?
Possibly. It's one resource among many. I found it quite useful for myself in breaking the barrier of feeling being an active leader towards Jen was "wrong".
But what do you do if your a woman and your husband doesn't.. step up?
I would try making it exceptionally clear that you enjoy being submissive to him. You may need to ham it up a little until he gets the idea. It does take some time for most men to "get it".
Also talk about it with him.
Hey Man,
I like your blog a lot.
This concept is actually biblical and often misunderstood. I think your aviation example is a modern day recast of Epesians chapter 5 which talks about Wives sumbitting to thier husbands, which has been used to dominate woman. However, before the part about wives submitting comes verse 21 "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." This mutual respect and submission is where its at with the Husband having a tie breaker but always taking prudent input from his first mate. I agree that men who won't lead abdicating thier role just makes woman angry and is just as bad a treating them like a third mate.
Interesting idea. I'm glad you've found what works in your marriage. It won't work for all women, though. Human beings are vastly diverse.
For myself, I do like a man who is strong and will be protective of me. However, I do not find it attractive when a man wants to be dominant to me, even if he is respectful, considerate and truly cares about me. A sexually dominant man is a turn off for me. He doesn't make me angry. He just doesn't do it for me.
Obviously, there are many women out there who do like their men to be the leader in the relationship, but it's important to be aware that it's definitely not universal. So if a man feels it important to be the leader in the relationship, he should make sure that he looks for a woman who is on the same page as him. He shouldn't assume that every woman he ends up with would be fine with it.
I was fairly clear that it wasn't for everyone but once you take away the women that want submission and the men that want dominance, there's not very much left over to play with.
It's much the same as saying "men are taller than women". Obviously there will be some very short men and very tall women. But most men are taller than most women, and in nearly even couple the man will be taller than the woman. There will only be a tiny percent of couples where the woman is taller than the man.
It just gets so tiresome to repeat that every post as a disclaimer lol.
Hi Athol,
I love your blog — thanks for writing.
Just for grins, I typed "i want my husband to" into my Google searchbar. I got only four "pre-fills":
… come home
… love me
… cheat
… leave
Nothing about domination, not even when I steered that way a bit: "i want my husband to d".
And what's up with that third pre-fill? Come back, love me, leave, I get all of those. But cheat????
Considering that there are 179,000 results for the search term "I want my husband to dominate me", the reason it no longer shows up as an auto complete answer is because very likely Google has manually edited it out as an auto complete.
Fyi, Google search results will vary by location. You will more than likely not see the same pre-filled results as the author. It's not because the author is 'doctoring' the results to support the article's message.
Very good post!
You said "I want coffee" and she agreed, therefore it's better for women to be the first mate? Hilarious. You can say "I want coffee," get some coffee, and still have a totally egalitarian relationship. Your boring "I don't know, what do you want to do?" interpretation of equality was just that: A misinterpretation. From this description, it sounds like you do have two captains taking turns flying the plane. Just accept it. You don't have to try to make a case for submission.
In bedroom most woman want bad boy hot sex but outside bedroom they want a good boy to fill other needs. Hot passionate sex is best with man in charge in the bedroom.
I agree with most of this post. I don't know that I always want my H to be the one in charge or the "captain." With MAJOR decisions, it's not me supporting his decision like you described, but the 2 of us having a discussion and deciding together. I don't know if I would support him if he just made a decision to buy a house or have another kid or whatever. I feel like those things make the marriage into a democracy and unless you're unanimous, one person can't just go ahead and get what they want without some consequences.
With everything else though I agree completely! When we first started dating it was always "I don't know, what do you want to do?" SO FREAKING ANNOYING. After a while, I started saying, "I want you to make a decision." This pissed him off. He said "well if you want to do something then you plan it." And I was like uhhh I plan stuff for myself every day, I want to be taken out. I felt like he didn't care enough about me to put in the 5 min of effort to make a dinner reservation somewhere. It took like months before he finally got the memo. It's funny though b/c like you he was always so assertive with sex and that's what kept me attracted to him and able to deal with the frustrating lack of leadership in other areas.
Anon above this comment – I wouldn't make a major decision without consulting her. As Captain Picard often said on the shows when facing an issue… "Options Number 1?"
Jennifer is a smart cookie. Sometimes on the big issues I have to make a final decision after we've talked, but it's always considered with her in mind.
Awesome Athol,
We've been searching for a way to explain/define our relationship, H wasn't comfortable with the IDEA of being dominant, although he was fine with me being submissive.
Thanks, explaining it this way helped him be a little more accepting of the roles we so naturally fall into, but he seems to want to fight on principal.
Hi Luna – well it took me about five years to come to terms with this. We're still learning how it goes too.
Wow! You get it!!! I have been reading posts that my son ( a grown man now) has been posting from other blogs wherein these men seem to really hate women and yet they write about every supposed evil we have and are intrinsically and will never be cured of and they ( the man) are perfect creatures having to some how put up with a woman…
I say all of this just to say…Thank you for getting us women folk…you have great advice here and thank you for not being so negative and spiteful.
Thank you for being so loving towards your wife and sharing how she works and enjoying her talents and strengths.
Thank you for sharing with us.
MrHsMrs.
You are welcome.
How'd you manipulate the Google search box to come up the way you wanted it to?
I got much different responses when I tried the same thing: http://mariatheproblem.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/trust-but-verify/
Thanks for calling me a liar on your blog Maria. We've already discussed the answer to your question here in the comments.
Considering that there are 179,000 results for the search term "I want my husband to dominate me", the reason it no longer shows up as an auto complete answer is because very likely Google has manually edited it out as an auto complete
Google edited it out manually? Really? Then how come it showed up as the third "auto-fill" when I added a "d" into my search criteria after "I want my husband to"?
And you admit that it got only 179,000 hits, so why would it show up as a first auto-fill? 179,000 hits does not even come close to the MILLIONS of hits that "I want my husband to leave" gets as an auto-fill, or "I want my husband to die," either. The ways of Google are srange indeed, if an auto-fill that gets millions of hits shows up BELOW an auto-fill that merely gets a couple hundred thousand hits.
When I added in the "d", "I want my husband to dominate me" came in BEHIND "I want my husband to dress as a woman."
Frankly, I'd like to see you address the popularity of the "I want my husband to dress as a woman" auto-fill in an upcoming post. It doesn't seem very consistent with the whole "Game" dogma, does it?
If you want to talk about the post, talk about the post.
I just got wind of this tempest in a teapot over at Escapist's blog where Maria and I are having at it: http://escapistart.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/why-i-make-fun-of-mra-puasroissy-in-dcthe-spearhead-and-their-fanboys/#comment-1261
Now, here's the deal – I don't know Athol Key though I've heard of him; this is the first time that I have ever had words with the Man. From what I understand, he is a guy who likes to apply Game principles to his marriage, and writes from that angle. Last time I checked, there was no law against doing that, and as I recall above, he makes it quite clear that what he's talking about ain't for errbody. So, I really don't see what the problem here is. Maybe Maria can explain, since she seems to have a near pathological hatred of Game?
O.
Obsidian has it right. Ultimately this is a marriage blog and I've adapted game thinking for marriage.
She's accused me of doctoring the Google image, so I've given it to her so that she can prove that. Until then, she's simply accusing me of lying, with no proof.
It's an auto-complete, they vary all the time anyway as we've already discussed on this comment thread.
"My realization is that most wives want the First Officer job."
…and from my life , what i do as escort girl and my specialty is being dominant for men who want to be submissive, there are so many men who want wife to be first officer like you say but so shy or afraid to ask.
i'm so busy because of that
http://jaa4u.blogspot.com/
I love this post! When I was just a child, my best friend and I used to watch Star Trek:TNG and daydream about what it would be like to live in that world. She always talked about wanting to be a captain; I never wanted to go beyond first officer. Now she's married to a guy who lets her boss him around and make poor decisions for her family, and I'm married to a wonderful man who leads and provides and protects. We're geographically separated right now–we live in Egypt (he works for the State Department), and our daughter and I were evacuated while my husband had to stay–and I'm doing fine with my decisions as "acting captain," but I really want to get back to first officer status ASAP!
Really great post Athol. It seems that when in the company of women it's always great to have that conspiring sense of direction.
A man that gets it and can spread the word. Too bad my ex husband didn't read this.
Love it as a woman! I have completely changed and so has our marriage. I now:
Keep the house clean
Try to wear dresses daily (I love dresses)
I jump at all of his request (he does not take advantage of this)
Ask Permission to spend our money- we both work (he use to ask me, I hated it)
Sex is open 24/7- no more alone shower time. I am his wife use me (I get plesure from it too ya know).
I use to be in control of our relationship I hated it, I began to resent him. I told him I did not want to be an equal in the marriage I wanted to be his wife and support him – not make the decisions. He finally got this when I stepped up my game. Sometimes I ask his permission for stupid thing just b/c I love it when he takes on the dominanting role, it makes me feel sexy and wanted. It is a joy to be submissive to my husband. Keep up the good work!
Hi,
I like your blog, even though it's mostly geared toward men.
My husband is dominant and always has been:). I love to be submissive to him.
Kitty
Anon.,
I shouldn't be ALLOWED to vote because I love to be submissive to MY husband?!?!
That's crazy. I have my own opinions and thoughts on many subjects. I'm not a doormat. My husband treats me like a queen. He is the head(boss) of our home and I'm the manager. It's a great system.
One example of his love is he gave me the opportunity to become a pilot. I hadn't even considered the idea. I took him up on that offer and now am a pilot(hubby has four airplanes). Another example was when I ran a half-marathon last year he was my biggest cheerleader and encouraged me that I could do it.
I'm not abused…far from it. He loves me and would never hurt me. We just celebrated our 26th Wedding Anniversary recently. He is my best friend and I'm proud to be his wife. He tells me that I'm his best friend, too!
Kitty
P.S. I would never want to be married to a wimpy guy that wasn't in charge of me. He doesn't force his authority on me. I give it to him out of respect and love.
Your type of submission is the ultimate low for me, Kitty.
Mutual submission is not supposed to be about both people doing nothing, but about both caring about the other's opinion. That doesn't help if neither spouse has one.
Jennifer
Jennifer,
I really don't care what you think about my submission to my husband, but I have to wonder if you even read my last comment. I guess reading comprehension is not your strong suit.
"I have my own opinions and thoughts on many subjects. I'm not a doormat. My husband treats me like a queen."
Where did the whole mutual submission idea come from? My husband doesn't submit to me. I submit to him.
He is man enough to concede when he's made a mistake and he'll tell me that I was right and he was wrong if that is the case. He's not a domineering tyrant.
We both have strong opinions on many subjects and just because I love to be submissive to him doesn't mean I'm a mindless robot.
Kitty
I'm sure you don't care, kitty, and my reading comprehension is quite sharp. I know what it means when you make a blog called "Sweet Surrender" and call your husband "daddy".
I'm sorry to have sounded offensive, though; I'm just so much the opposite and I've seen extreme submissives promote/cause/endure so much abuse, even if not the lethal kind.
Anon 10:25 – First Officers don't tolerate abuse.
Everything I teach about behavior management can be used by women too.
LOL So true, but I'm not talking about your own methods, Athol. You couldn't make it more clear that your stuff is about what makes you two personally happy. No, I'm talking about men who almost force fierce spankings on their wives; even a woman who loves it writes these sick, sasitic stories about women being abused. That's just why I'm wary about the "daddy" thing; that and the warning I got before trying to enter Kitty's blog.
LOL
"I want my husband to dominate me" got 977,000 hits in my search, but
"I want my wife to dominate me" got 1,680,000 !
So, my wife is a serious hard-charging alpha type. I find it sexy, but pretty quickly our sex life fell apart and I have been trying to put it back together. I am doing my best to step into a more alpha role, and she is fighting me the whole way (oddly, more about little shit like holding the door, and less about bigger shit) Anyway, I'm struggling to move into the alpha place, but she's pushing back hard. Advice?
*sigh* Am I really the only woman out there who is naturally dominant without being either a fetishist or a slave-driving battleaxe of some sort? The more I read, the more I feel like some sort of freak of nature. It’s taken years upon years to find a man who wishes to be *my* first officer (and understands what that entails; not someone lazy or weak, which is all too easy to find).
So many years of people trying to shove me into a submissive role simply for being born female. I’d rather spend my life alone than force myself to be what I’m not.
Awesome article. I consider this to be the natural order of the universe. I am a very opinionated, free thinking woman, NOT at all subservient in the way most people would consider, and I LOVE it when my husband takes control. In fact I have come to the realisation recently that I want him to take more control, I trust him in every way. I know he knows me and I can trust that he will be considerate of my feelings and preferences with all decisions. I know I can submit happily, and he knows that I trust him implicitely. I think that is key, trust. If you don’t have that in your relationship, you won’t understand how this dynamic can work.
Also, I just want to mention that the whole argument over the google auto complete is not relevant anyway. Who gives a f@$k, it’s a valid and interesting article. Some ppl need to get a life.