It’s Just Like Your Job

How do you think about your boss at work? Are you submissive to him (or her)? Probably not. Do you obey her? Almost certainly, you do. You wouldn’t have a job if you didn’t. You’re a member of a hierarchy. We all are. Let’s take it a step further. Would you do what your boss tells you if the task is unpleasant? Of course! If you absolutely refuse to do something that is too much for you, then you can use your safeword, “I quit!”

None of this is categorized as submission and dominance, though it certainly is. The reason is that the activities are not sexual or sexually based. If they were, your boss would be guilty of sexual abuse. What about sex workers? Since their jobs are sexually based, are they submissive to their bosses? I don’t think so.

The difference, I think, is that sex workers, just like any other worker, are paid for their services. Obedience to their bosses is in the context of the work they get paid to do. This is true even if the job is to be sexually submissive. I think it all comes down to context. My point is that what we call submission: obedience to our partner, isn’t such an alien, exotic thing. It’s actually pretty mundane, dressed up in leather and lace. It’s also not absolute.

When you take a job, you agree to the limits of your obedience to your boss. Generally, control is exercised only during certain hours and for specific activities. The same is true of a male chastity or female led relationship. I agree that Mrs. Lion is my boss and that in the context of our agreement, she can tell me what to do and punish me if I don’t meet her expectations. In our case, failure to meet her expectations gets me spanked. She can’t fire me; at least, not easily.

I think that one reason more couples don’t have our sort of power exchange is the stubborn unwillingness of many wannabe-submissives to let go of the mythology of sexual submission. Don’t underestimate how significant this is. Let’s consider a mythology-free approach to a partner to begin this sort of activity.

First of all, consider what specific things you want your partner to do. This is tricky. For example, if you want to be spanked for being naughty, this distills down to the fact you want to be spanked. If you want your partner to demand your sexual service, you want to offer one-way sex to her. You want to give her orgasms without reciprocation. If you want to be locked in a chastity device so that she owns any chance for an orgasm, you want her to lock you up and make you wait before you can come.

I think the key is to ask for the activity you want, without the surrounding role play. Make no mistake, much of what we want is role play. Mrs. Lion and I are equals. We share everything. I make as many decisions as she does.. Yet, we say we are in a Female Led Relationship with Discipline (FLRD). Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? It’s not. She would have a very hard time taking over what I do in terms of leadership and management. Being submissive doesn’t mean I turn into the family dog.

Think about the burden “true” submission places on your partner. If the tables were turned, would you want complete control? I doubt it. The reality is that FLRD and male chastity do involve real surrender, but only over a limited set of activities. That doesn’t make it less real. But it does mean that from an objective perspective, the power exchange is quite limited.

This came to mind when I had a brief email conversation with another blogger. She has a very successful spanking blog, Strict Julie Spanks. She gives her husband very strong spankings, much stronger than the ones I receive. She does it because her husband asked her to do it. She discovered that she enjoyed the rush and has fun doing what he asked. That doesn’t mean he gets to control his spankings. She goes well past when he wants her to stop. He loves that too. She spanks him when she decides to give him one. He has no vote.

in our case, I get spanked whenever Mrs. Lion wants to spank meI also get punished when I break a rule or annoy her. Spanking is a consequence of my failure to obey her. My initial request was for her to spank me. That request was a general wish of mine. Initially she spanked me for fun, very much the same way Julie spanks her husband.

I asked Mrs. Lion if she would take charge and punish me for breaking rules. She could decide what rules I would obey and when and how I would be punished. We evolved to two kinds of spankings: the play kind that I had originally requested, and the punishment kind to educate me. It took a long time to get to this point. But we got there.

Mrs. Lion’s scope of control is limited. Because we agreed to have a FLRD, she decides what falls under her power. Essentially, she has full authority over me, but doesn’t choose to take away my decision-making power. She has the right to second-guess and reverse any decision I make and she can punish me if she feels I deserve it.

Note the absence of fantasy or mythology. She doesn’t feel the pressure of taking on ownership of every area of our lives. I don’t expect that of her. If she decides that I need correcting, then I’m punished as she sees fit. That’s our power exchange. It’s under her control. She knows spanking turns me on, at least before she gets very far into a spanking. So, if I’m not earning punishments often enough, she can create a new rule, give me a maintenance spanking, or just a BDSM session that includes spanking.

Her power is real. But she doesn’t bear the burden of deciding everything. It’s a sort of role play. The difference between what we do and a BDSM scene is that ours  goes on full time and that I can’t change the rules. I think that if someone interested in our sort of power exchange approaches it with this factual approach, more women might accept the dominant role. Also, more play spankers might add the spice of rules and punishments to their role play. The key, of course, is to recognize the reality of what we want and what we do and keep that in mind even when it is more fun to be immersed in the fantasy.

1 Comment

  1. Thanks, Lion – this post give me another angle to look at areas of my own relationship that I couldn’t quite reconcile. I like my wife to keep me locked in chastity, and she’s become quite capable at “the game”, although by her own admission it doesn’t turn her on at all. She does it for me (although she’s beginning to enjoy turning me into an inarticulate landed tuna when she teases me). However, I still tie her up, and beat her butt, and force enough orgasms out of her that her abdominal muscles are sore for days. In our non-sexual life, we’re very strongly partners, and I generally take the leading role in our lives.

    It’s clear that I’m not generally submissive to her. I do lots of things for her that a submissive might also do – I bring her coffee in the shower, give her back rubs at night, and open her car door for her, but I do these things because I love her and want to make her life happier, not because I feel “her implicit command” or any such nonsense. (And also not because I hope to get an orgasm out of it. I’ve currently been locked up for over two weeks, and have no idea whether I’ll get to come this weekend. That’s her choice, which is just the way I like it, and I don’t try to “game” the dynamic.)

    So, as in your life, my wife’s power over my orgasms is real. Even if I ask nicely, or complain (I’m not a beggardly type), she won’t unlock me (I could safeword, as could she, but I don’t). In other contexts, I’m definitely her top. In most “normal life”, we’re equal partners, with me filing the leadership role in most cases. This may not fit the leather-clad dominatrix / simpering weasel image that describes much chastity fantasy, but neither of us want that. I’d much rather be her fearless knight, making the road smooth at her feet, and she loves that too.

    We do what works for us, and evolve and tweak it as necessary, just as you and Mrs. Lion have done (and documented in truly amazing detail) for the past four years. Just like penises and vaginas, no two relationships are the same. I’m glad that, through your mutual love and ongoing thoughtfulness and consideration, your relationship continues to flourish.

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