An Essay on The Societal Dominatrix Part 5. Fear of the Submissive Man (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Domme)

Let me tell an anecdote:

I was at a party where a man, gay, was telling a story about his fun experiences with butt-plugs.  Several ladies were affirming their positive experiences with anal sex and laughing along to the anecdote.  Another man, straight, adds that he also thinks butt-plugs were a lot of fun.   (P.S. Not me! I swear. :D  If I had anything to contribute to a story like that, my wife would have happily bragged about it well before I would have.)  The ladies in attendance got creeped out, and his girlfriend got a little embarrassed.   For what it’s worth, the previous narrator rolled with it.

But what was that?  You can’t call it femiphobia, anal play was just fine from the ladies and the original narrator.  Homophobia is also out because of the narrator.  It’s not simple misandry, unless gay men don’t count as men.   That’s why I stretch for a term like hypandrephobia.  Hypandrephobia?  it’s my attempt, my work in progress, to create a word that means “fear of a submissive male.”   Why would anyone be afraid of the submissive male?

 Femiphobia, misogyny, racism, classism, and ableism do play heavily into the various prejudices against the submissive male.  As examples, the fairly disgusting term ‘gimp’ is a synonym for a submissive male, and ‘bitch’ is often used for a man who winds up as the ‘girl’ of a relationship regardless of who his partner is.   Sounds like a very Feminism-friendly narrative right?  That maybe all this submissive flack is caught primarily because of misogyny and femiphobia.   Feminism’s focus is rightfully on women, but certainly Feminism shouldn’t object to a man fighting the heteronormative narrative.  Feminism must love things like harem anime, magical girlfriend anime, and manic pixie girlfriend stories where very ordinary boys and men gain the attention of women much more powerful, intelligent, and/or capable than they are through sheer dint of character rather than Patriarchy approved exceptionalism.  Why, maybe Feminism even produces such media itself.

Oh, stop laughing at me.  Rather than anything I suggested, Feminism has a tendency to tell men to step up and be strong with, that they have to earn female affection, with lines so similar to those of the Patriarchy you could practically hear them speaking in unison.  In the meantime, magic boyfriend movies like Twilight certainly get chastised by Feminism, but mostly for reasons like ‘stalker’ behavior and fear that a woman can only actualize her own awesomeness via men.   His hotness and power however are perfectly acceptable, even strongly recommended.   Show’s like Buffy where the main character sleeps exclusively with superhuman males are much more acceptable fare for Femisnism (it doesn’t even matter if 2/3rds of her partners are, you know, murderers.)  Ah well, it’s certainly no sin on the part of Feminism.  I’ve enjoyed that exact narrative myself, and I think I’d also enjoy it quite a bit if the genders were reversed. 

It may be homosexuality, and homophobia, that is most intrinsically bound up with the submissive male, and not just in the way one might think.

Many social structures have made allowances for men to sleep with men within the right narrative.  ‘Proper’ homosexuality is occasionally to control submissive males.   There were the Spartans, men so manly that they needed other men to be their women.  The Spartans practiced a rigorous, infant-scrutinizing eugenics program, routinely terrorized their helot serf/slaves, and in addition to making their wives cross-dress , captured their brides and locked them away to be constantly watched by a bridesmaid.  What did all these things have to do with each other?   Maybe nothing.  Or maybe there’s the fact that Spartan women, with all the free time away from Spartan men, were known to romp with helots.1   On long war campaigns it wasn’t unknown for Spartans to come home to entire generations of half-grown nothoi (children of slaves and citizens) living in their homes. (Note:  The half-breed offspring of helot women and Spartan men were just A-Ok, generally living as Periokoi – non-citcizen free men)

There are the pretty, femme bishi-boi twinks of slash-fic and yaoi 2 fame.  They’re safe for girls to cuddle and gush over before they are ushered off to have same sexual relations in some corner that is blessedly free of their penises touching vagina and all the paradigms that would threaten.    Such fetishized forms of homosexuality are perfectly awesome ways for someone enjoy their personal kink.  They may just be a way to do a little speculative voyeurism of an alternative lifestyle, or a way to get as many penises into a relationship as possible, or to just try and get in touch with your inner male.  But there’s a hypandrephobic aspect to the practice as well.  Gay porn , slash, and above all yaoi (with its seme/uke relations) consumed and produced by people who aren’t homosexual men is often a way for someone to see ‘the butch’ brutalize ‘the femme’ in a way that will leave misandrists relieved that no women are being hurt or exploited.   They are also a way for women to sexualize submissive males by letting the woman slip into their imaginary man suit so they can dodge criticism when they dominate.  The sub will touch neither breasts nor vagina, those symbols of succor and procreation, and the highest rewards the Patriarchy and Feminism propose to offer.  The dom can fuck him safely knowing that the submissive male will not reproduce or exist as a submissive heterosexual.   

Bisexual erasure 3 follows this trope as well.  Many people advocate against the acceptance of homosexuality, stating that the gay men will ‘recruit’ since they can’t reproduce naturally.   Hilariously, even if a man is 100% homosexual he is suffering from bisexual erasure, because his natural options to have children are being denied by the aforementioned homophobes.  There is surrogate motherhood, adoption, partnerships with a man who already has children, being a parental figure for children that you are not necessarily the legal guardian of (like nieces, nephews, and children of close friends) and for the less than 100% homosexual, there’s always good ol’ fashioned hetero sex.   That’s why bisexual males are even worse for the homophobic; they can submit to men and reproduce.   Submissive males bring a new kind of gay to the table, the threat of an abhorrent male that may find a way to reproduce just like a bisexual can.

The submissive male has his place in society, is even very much needed in fact.  Slavery, castes, castration, conscription, bullying, Rites of Manhood, religious condemnation of various types of sexuality, inheritance: all ways to have the submissive male, but control male sexuality and keep out the undesirables to the greatest extent possible.  Optimally the submissive male is forced into his role; he has to clearly be losing to someone else.  Societies create hierarchal protocols to constantly reaffirm the winners of their status.  The sub is allowed pride, of a sort, as incentive to submit, but he’s not supposed to have pleasure in what he is (especially not more than the real winners).  However the worst sins are those of self-actualization and avenue to reproduce without restraint.

You see, subs scare society quite a bit.  I touched earlier in my discussion of monsters on how the Dom is made scarier and more detestable by adding notes of submission to him.  Some monsters are submissive all the way.   They tend to be small and creepy.  A common theme is the avoidance of light, religion, and morality as if the creature is too weak to stand up to reality and power.    Insanity of the monster and the monster’s victims is common.   The submissive monster frequently taunts and weakens its victims over great periods as if they could not take down a safe, healthy one.  Numbers.   They frequently target children and/or are childlike themselves.   They use deception.  They twist heteronormativity.    They lack ‘valid’ sexuality and family structure (this is important).  They are frequently led by the unusually exceptional leader.   They very often come in and attack in superior numbers, and in fact it is usually the concept of the sub being able to reproduce out of control that is the truest fear at play.

Some examples of monsters that threaten from a position of weakness:

These monsters all have much more specific meanings : Gremlins - Foreigners; Zombies - Consumerism, Communism; Secret Alien invasion - Communism, Foreigners ; Orcs - Souless Industrialism, Progress without heed to consequence.  However, these monsters, like the submissive male, represent things that no one should really be afraid of because the public is dealing with them from a position of power, like foreigners, or only afflict the weak-willed, like the Industrialism and Consumerism.  It’s a fear that something that can’t really hurt you could find a way to hurt you, if it can find a way to reproduce and grow out of control.  It's the human desire to always cast oneself as the victim, even if you are in fact much more powerful and established than the impending threat.

The Dominatrix…  She is the potential naïve townie who gives her mogwai a bath.  She’s a potential Lady Sauron ready to raise an army of orcs.  She’s Ishtar decreeing, “I will break in the doors of hell and smash the bolts; there will be confusion [i.e., mixing] of people, those above with those from the lower depths. I shall bring up the dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts of the dead will outnumber the living,” right before a zombie invasion.   She’s Pandora about to open the box, Eve about to bite the apple, and above all she’s Lilith, refusing to let Adam be on top, and mothering all the demons of hell after she’s banned from the Garden.