An Apology to Male Submissives

Guys.   Seriously.  This one is from the heart.   (Or as close to one as I have.)   It’s going to hurt at first, but I’m asking you with a genuine plea – stick around until the end.     I’m good with words…but I’m not good at apologies.  

I’m a male dominant.   It’s what I am, from my vanilla personality on through my career, and down into my sex life, my marriage, the women in my home, and out throughout the rest of my life.   I don’t play it at a play party, and I don’t dress up for the sex – I just am who I am.

I didn’t start that way.   I started out as a confused teen boy looking for a boyfriend, all the way back in 1996.   I knew none of the terminology, had no clue what the hell I was looking for – I just wanted an older, prettier boyfriend.  And since I was younger - of course he'd be the Top, right?  Wasn't how that was supposed to work?

The guy I found was what we now call a “dumbinate”.   He was a cute volleyball player who had just graduated my high school, had four years on me, and just glowed with “the sexy”.  He wasn’t out, he wasn’t waving the pride flag.  I just knew from the way he looked at me that he liked what he saw.   We talked.   He identified as a Dom Top, versatile, and he looking for a dark haired twink.   I had no idea what any of that meant – I just knew he was really cute, had a great body, flirted really well, and made big noises about what he was going to do to me.     

You can probably guess the twist that’s coming– I mean, I wouldn’t be Kenova without a twist, right?

The first time we were alone, getting hot and steamy in his parent’s house…his big talk turned out to be all talk and no tackle.   (Take the “tackle” line how you will – both ways were accurate.   *dramatic sigh*)    He wanted me to be rough when he was blowing me.   He was curious about having his wrists tied to the corners of the bed.   He liked being bitten.  And trying to be a good boyfriend, I did what he wanted.   And you know what?   I no longer liked him…but I liked what I was doing to him.  I liked it a LOT. 

I haven’t really looked back since.   I’ve changed my views on the genders I prefer, opened up a lot of new interests and experiences – but I’ve never seriously looked back at that first relationship.  

Since then, I’ve always viewed female submission as natural.  Comfortable.   Evolutionarily and historically sound.  And female domination was something that also had a place in history (my own tribe is and always has been Matriarchal).   Gay male domination – that’s just good old fashioned awesomeness.   Male hierarchy at its best.   But something about male submission just…didn’t seem kosher.   It didn’t ring true.   It was uncomfortable to be around. 

I blocked it out of my emotional landscape.  Straight, Gay, Queer, Lesbian…all the Dom/mes were like distant relatives.   Lesbian Dommes (and their subs) were especially like the cool cousin – because every straight and bisexual man thinks Lesbians are awesome.  

Female subs were like your best friend’s girlfriend…it was cool to know her, you could hang out and like her, but you kept your eyes and hands off.   Male subs though…I don’t know.   I just never really processed them as sexual or submissive beings in my head.   It was a blind spot. 

When I played with sub boys, as a Pro Dom and as a lifestyler, it was more about getting rough with and degrading a guy.   It wasn’t necessarily sexual, and it wasn’t all that kinky.   It just was.   Did I get off on it?   Yes, sometimes.  

Did they get off on it?  Pretty much all of them did – I’m pretty intensively charming in person.   And that’s what always gave me my “proof” that male submission was weird.   The male subs I played with got off on being degraded, humiliated, and sexually abused. 

The hypocrisy never occurred to me – a lot of the women I played with got off on the same things.  And with them it was Humiliation Play, Rough Body Play, or just good old fashioned rough sex.    There was this hypocrisy there, and I just glided right over it. 

I want to pause here, male subs.   I want to stop here to say again:  “I’m sorry.”   You deserve better than that from someone who is supposed to be your brother and your friend.     

I’ve known a lot of male subs, and I’ve never been terribly comfortable around them until very recently.   I could friendly, social, I even call many of them my friends.   But when it comes to the actual acts of your submission…I just don’t get it.  

I don’t understand how you do it.   I just can’t understand how you can enjoy the things you do – how you can process pain, and humiliation, and emotional hurt, and turn it into something good and wholesome in your lives.   Being as male as you are, I can’t reconcile how you do that within my understanding of the male identity.

I don’t know why female subs get a free pass, and get cherished for their ability to do the same thing.   There’s just an unfair hypocrisy in my head about it, and I’m only now realizing it. 

I tried, for years, to view your gifts, your ability to do these things, as something to be honored.   But until recently, I’ve failed miserably.   It’s something that I’m honestly ashamed of.   I was so sure there was a failure inside you, when the failure was my own vision. 

I guess you could say I had an epiphany.  

When I’ve found myself uncomfortable around people for no specific reason in the past – it has almost always been something in my head, not something wrong with them.   I woke up to that realization a few years ago, and I’ve been slow in applying it all of the pieces of my life.  

So.   Male subs. 

You have the ability to surrender yourselves to someone who society tells you is weaker, smaller and less powerful.    You have the strength to ignore what modern media says you should.  You have found in yourselves a place where you can put aside the judgments, and just Be.   You’re able to turn the same pain, and humiliation and sexual weakness into a warm, glowing, happy place – the same as your female sisters.

And unlike them, you face derision from your fellow men, sneers and glares from common society, and a million and one fallacies ascribed to your sexual orientation.   And you do it on a daily basis.  

If that isn’t courage – I don’t know what is. 

For the years it took to see that – I’m sorry.