Hideous, kinky

I'm so over the male domination in sexuality thing.

I don't want to be dominated. I don't want to be spanked. I don't want to be tied up, pissed on, cummed on or passively fucked in the mouth. (I will give blowjobs, though...uhm to my husband, just to be clear, that's not an open invitation.)

Last night we watched A Dangerous Method, a historical drama wherein a patient of Carl Jung falls in love with him as they work through her issues, which include being turned on by humiliation and what I see as abuse. I just rolled my eyes and groaned. It was very timely in the wake of the much maligned Katie Roiphe essay in Newsweek linking BDSM to women's economic success, and its mention of the wildly popular book, Fifty Shades of Gray and HBO's new show Girls. Apparently, getting off on getting treated like shit is all the rage among the younger set. Or is it?

I can't really tell what sex-positive feminists (as they like to call themselves) think for sure except just that maybe everyone should do what they want to do, and if that includes getting spanked, then go for it? It does seem that they just like to dis Katie Roiphe because she copped to really digging her newborn baby (and stuff like that...)

I know old Dan Savage, who I like, and mostly find myself agreeing with, would say that as long as it's consensual and "safe," it's a go, and most other forward-thinking sex experts would agree.

My husband even agrees. When I say there's something wrong with you if you like pain, he says "But it's a controlled pain."

On one hand, I get it. I used to have fantasies about being dominated and humiliated, although not hit per se, but maybe spanked, sure. I remember thinking Secretary was hot, back in the day. When I was a teenager I had an Arab guy fetish for a while because of all the cultural stereotypes about how they boss around their women and are domineering (no matter that the Arab guys I had crushes on were totally Westernized and just hot). And I ended up marrying a Greek guy who actually did hit me and not for role-playing purposes (and the domination fantasies persisted even after we broke up).

But, all that stuff just seems so over to me now, though. And I remember when the news came out last year about the supposedly enlightening and groundbreaking live sex demonstration as part of a very liberated class at Chicago's Northwestern University, I was so disappointed to learn that it featured male penetration of a female, with a power-tool-like dildo. This is forward thinking? Sounds rather cliché to me. Same ol, same ol.

Does this mean I have not achieved the level of success and independence that would have me longing to play out the fantasy of being submissive? I don't think so. Even though I am sort of a housewife, who lives in a household wherein my husband's salary plays a huge role in supporting us, as I make half of what I used to when I worked full time outside of the home, I know that at any point I could go out and get a bigger job and somehow make it on my own, if I had to. And, more importantly, I work part-time in my field doing something I love, and isn't that what they say most moms want? So, while I am appreciative of my husband, I don't feel a huge, ultimate dependence on him. I feel pretty equal in ways that it matters.

With all I know about the horrible things that happen in the world like trafficking and abuse of women, with what I've read about the years and years of history in which women were systemically subjugated by men, I just can't now get turned on by the idea of someone being brutish to me, or doing the thing of "hurting" me, followed by sweet comfort, or humiliating me. I don't think we're out of the woods yet enough to play that way, and I'm not sold on the idea that it would ever be a good, healthy idea to play that way. Would I want my daughter, when she is of age, being treated this way? Maybe I just don't compartmentalize my life enough—sex here, work here, friends here, family here. It's whole for me, to a large degree. It's not that I'm not imaginative or capable of fantasy, either. Really, how imaginative is it for a woman to be dominated by a man? Like I said, it's been going on for millenia.

Right now, I want to be massaged. I want to be pampered. I want to be serviced, maybe even worshipped a little, like the goddess that I am.

Why I would have been turned on by abuse (feigned or not) in my younger years, I'm unsure of. It may be because I had a domineering father who hit me, but of course loved me, and that was my vision of what men were supposed to be? How did I grow out of that? Lots of living and reading, maybe. Maybe becoming a mother to a girl. What about men who like being dominated? Is growing out of it something all women should do, but just have not yet? I think most sex-positive types would say NO, it's not a pathology or something you need to grow out of or overcome, it's a choice. But, I'm not so sure...