BEST EXPLANATION EVER

So often, women who are newly aware of their submissive needs endure a period of self doubt around the troubling question: am I sick? I've seen women read the psychiatric diagnostic manual (DSM-IV) and then ask, "Do I have borderline personality disorder?"

I am writing here not only about the sexual aspects: "am I sick because I get turned on by images of being taken, used, forced, swept away by masculine energy more powerful than my own?"; I am also writing about the nonsexual aspects of being submissive: "am I sick because I yearn to depend on, and follow the lead of, a man stronger than myself?"

I will attempt to address both aspects in this essay.

What precisely fuels this kind of question, "am I sick?" Why would a woman discovering the language of her nature think she has a mental disorder? Or at the very least, have something very wrong with her?

A submissive discovers, or more properly, realizes and acknowledges that she functions at her best in relation to another. And the more intimate, holding, containing that relationship, the better she feels and the better she performs in cardinal areas of adult life: work, friendships, and parenting. Realizing she is at her best in such relation makes her wonder why she can't do it for herself? Why does she need such a relationship to accomplish what she should be able to do for herself?

In thinking about this, I have come to question the cultural determinants of what is considered the highest good. Here in Western society, we place highest value on independence, on "pull yourself up by the bootstraps", on the lone pioneer, the trailblazer, the less needy and more self sufficient. We value competition over cooperation, tangible achievement over achievement in relationship. We pay big bucks to men (and the few women) who run big corporations, and less to the nursery school teachers, the nurses, the secretaries, the social workers, the caregivers rather than the producers.

There is something wrong with believing that such independence is the only good. It is especially wrong for the most relatedness-oriented among us, the submissive female.

Part of the newly aware submissive's task is to separate out the internalized voices of her culture: those voices that tell her she is too needy, too dependent,too focused on the others in her life. Once she can articulate what those voices tell her, she can begin to question not herself, but the validity of those internalized values, using her own yardstick to measure her life, rather than our culture's standard.

We can see how perspective is critical in understanding a phenomenon. For example, Dr. Robert Coles, in a study of moral development in children, researched how children decide what is good and right. To do this, he presented several scenarios describing a moral or ethical dilemma, presented the scenario to school age children, and analyzed the results. The description of the study here is to illustrate the nature of cultural bias and it's impact on individuals.

One of Dr. Cole's scenarios was as follows:

A man has a very, very sick wife, so sick she could die if she doesn't get a particular, very expensive medicine. The man doesn't have the money for the medicine, so in desperation he steals it from a pharmacy.

The children are asked questions about this scenario. Coles found that boys tended to conclude that the man should be punished, because the law is the law, and nobody should break the law. Coles saw this as a higher order of moral reasoning, reflecting the statement, "a nation of laws, not of men." That is, that nobody is above the law, and the rule of law is not situationally defined. The boys applied an abstract universal principle to a singular instance. Coles understood this ability to transcend the personal as a "more evolved" form of moral development.

The girls were deeply troubled by the scenario, and most of them sought ways to solve the man's problem within the context of relatedness: they wondered if the man could ask the pharmacist for the medicine, and offer to work for him to pay for it, or pay him back later. They wondered if the man had friends who could help him pay for the medicine, and they believed he shouldn't be punished for his act of desperation. Their sense of right was situational, and defined within the context of relatedness. They did not come to articulate an abstract universal principle, but sought to solve the problem within the context presented. Coles saw this as a less logical, lower order of moral development because the girls could not emotionally distance themselves from the central human drama in the scenario.

After Coles' work was published a woman named Carol Gilligan reviewed the studies that Cole had done and reanalyzed them, in a book called, "In a Different Voice." Rather than seeing the boys' responses as evidence of "higher" development and the girls' as "lower" she redefined them as different. And she pointed out that the girls responses, so firmly rooted in human context and relatedness were dam I good or bad?) on factors outside herself. The female submissive defines herself based on what others tell her she is.

Parents have enormous responsibility with such an influenceable child. Nascent talents can either be nurtured or aborted with just a word. This child will likely live up, or down to, whatever is expected of her. Expect more than she can constitutionally do (like academic, athletic, or social success) and she will develop an intense sense of inferiority. Praise her out of proportion to her talents (this is the best drawing any child ever did) and she will develop an inflated sense of self. Accurately and sensitively validate her real abilities and talents, and she will seek goals appropriate to her ability, and take pleasure in achieving them.

When the environment is reality based, sensitive, and balanced, the child grows up embracing her special ability to be "related" to others, to be sensitive, and has a sense of self in reasonable tune with her true abilities and vulnerabilities, neither excessively self effacing or self aggrandizing.

But if development should go awry, as it too often does for this child, the personality traits she has develop in a distorted manner, and cause her difficulties.

In dysfunctional families, this child suffers more than others with tougher hides, less reactive temperaments. She is often the one singled out for physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Her very nature makes her available for use: for the parent's angers, frustrations, sexual impulses, or narcissistic gratification. When a submissive child is misused in this fashion, she is unable to utilize her interpersonal talents in a constructive way. Around the core of her submissive nature, psychological pathology develops, and distorts her submissive development.

Women who emerge from childhood with these traits will be more or less consciously submissive in that they are moldable, controllable by others whether or not they call themselves "submissive." Those who don't consciously seek a Dominant partner will naturally gravitate to a man who influences and controls her in a benevolent manner, who accepts her, loves her, nurtures her, and values her sensitivity.

Those who consciously seek a Dominant partner are those who are perhaps, sosensitive that they require not only benevolence, but someone who understandsprecisely how moldable and influenceable they are, and is capable of using the power to mold her and influence her deliberately and consciously, for her good and the good of the relationship. Or she may have been fortunate enough to be exposed to a conscious Dominant, who fulfills her and reveals her nature to her. Or, increasingly evident, are those who recognize themselves in the explosion of information available via the Internet, and proliferation of BDSM-theme publications.

In relationship with an appropriate partner, the submissive is freed to be all of herself. She is safe enough to feel her exquisitely sensitive reactions to others, to play like a child, to give care and to take care, to be angry, to lose shame.

Part of what she is relates to her sexuality, what she finds erotic. To understand what makes a healthy submissive, we need to examine the nature of a healthy submissive's sexuality. We start by looking at the relation of her overall temperament and development to the particulars of her sexual core. It is in childhood, that we learn how to love, how to be loved, and how love feels in some existential way. A blueprint is laid down in childhood that influences adult love relationships in ways often not evident to the adult.

Let's remember what we've proposed about the core of a submissive child's nature: an intense, preferential attention and sensitivity to social cues that develops into a special sensitivity to the influence of others, and an eventual "external locus of control." This child, in a reasonably suitable environment free of excessive trauma will develop as follows: when she senses her parents having even a small degree of distress from the normal tensions of life, she will try very hard to "be good" for them. She will try not to irritate them, make demands on them, she will try to be helpful, while at the same time putting her needs to the side. Because she is still a child, she will while wholeheartedly trying to "be real good" feel some resentment and anxiety for having (in response to her own internal demands) to be good. Now even good and loving parents will encourage this, praise this response: "Honey, thank you for being such a good girl while Mommy has to take care of your baby sister. You are so good to your little sister, and to me." So the submissive child experiences first, the impulse to take care of others, to soothe them, to not be difficult, leading her to put aside her needs, and also the resentment for not having her needs recognized and met. She suffers on some level, to some degree, from the putting aside of her needs, and from stuffing the angers and resentments. She suffers.

Yet at the same time that she suffers, she is being praised, and that feels exceptionally good, exceptionally meaningful to the submissive child. She learns that to suffer in service to another brings pleasure.