Heterosexual femdom is weird. It’s not colouring between the cis straight lines, but it’s going to get you even more side eye if you call yourself queer than a bisexual woman with a boyfriend does. I tend to settle on the lukewarm “queer adjacent” to avoid some traumatized wee LGBTQ+ getting verbally abusive at me because they aren’t comfortable with spectrums, only binaries. Nevertheless, because our understanding of “normal” heterosexuality has certain gendered power expectations built into it, if you lean F/m, you are going to travel to where your behaviour relative to your gender expectations are not in alignment. That’s even if both of you are the most cisgender folks on the planet. This disconnect is a frustrating, orphaned space. These days, how we perceive the progressive and “safe” is a kind of hierarchical tightness that doesn’t know what to do with things that don’t fit into what is mainstream, but also don’t have a perfectly overlapping experience. No wonder we had to carve out our own “femdom” niche! For its many cultural faults, there is a reason why we are our own distinct identity, and I often feel like the aesthetics of gay men are the only other place you are allowed to consider male bodies as more than a vaguely threatening symbol of potency.
Past readers know I have definitely talked about the transgressive nature of submissive masculinity and put my face to singing their praises. I even spill rather more pixels to the topic than I sometimes wish I did, but telling submissive men not to be terrible and stopping submissive men from making self destructive mistakes are such default parts of our niche that they almost happen automatically. But hey, let’s talk about some good stuff, shall we? If the fashion is currently to help trans people figure things out by leaning to gender euphoria instead of defining themselves by dysphoria, I will spotlight our happiness.
Submissive men offer the opportunity to flip the subject/object nature of typical straight relationships
Sexual perfomance expectations for women are like that old metaphor of the swan, gliding serenely on the surface and paddling like mad underneath. An infinite amount of work, primping and positioning goes into performing femme for fucking, but then there’s a demand for aloofness that borders on disassociative. You become the prize he is then expected to pursue, the elegantly prepared feast to be devoured. Though I don’t doubt submissive women have their own canny inversions, if you are anywhere femme of centre, femdom has the best possible route to flipping that on its head without switching to a same gender partner. Not by default, mind you, as transgressively centring him, his looks and his beauty are hardly the default of mainstream BDSM porn. Nonetheless, big titty anime mommies and needy idiot fanboys or not, there’s a reason gentle femdom tends to be a land of painful yearning. And when you talk to dommes, outside of marketing copy; the people who don’t like submissive men; and the naive morons who think an actual personality like cat piss is a symbol of power, there is a visceral, all quenching immersion in him. He is there for us.
So, even if you have a complex asexual thing going on where it’s the sadomasochism not the aesthetics that matters to you, it also flips how we can interact with the bodies of eachother. One of the most depressing parts of the male default identity is how they are taught to relate to their bodies: penis, penis and yet more penis. Dudes learn this pretty early: Don’t touch anything else, not your nipples, not your lips and for gods sake, not your ass or the puckered hole between your cheeks. It’s no wonder so much straight porn treats its male actors like a life support system for an erection! For a shocking number of men, they live in an inversion of the previous century. Sex positive feminism taught women to look at their vulvas in mirrors, touch themselves down there, and see their genitals as something other than a dirty shame. But for men, almost a century from when your metaphorical (and my literal) granny squatted over a mirror, guys are worrying if proper hygiene makes them gaaaaay.
So, if straight men are putting their prostates off limits out of shame, forget nibbling the inside of his wrist, fingers, sensitive pulse points, etc! By now, our collective sex lore says these are all things that you have to teach men to explore on women. It’s expected it’s not intuitive to him, but agreed on as required, much how millennial dudes and younger now all osmotically learn cunnilingus is the new chivalry. Him though? No dude needs that! Just be hot and grudgingly consenting, ladies!
Of course that’s nonsense. Human bodies are so much more like each other than not. While the individual always varies, the layouts of most things anatomical are lazy, even putting nipples on every dude, and folding a structure that is shockingly analogous to a penis into the groins of cis women. Nerves are nerves, and we are not so sexually varied that a man lacks the physical capacity to enjoy all those erotic sensory things, from finger sucking to a hand pressed to the throat.
Whether you are hurting him or just exploring him, femdom unshackles you from his dick.
So don’t get me wrong, the end argument is not just to lock up all the penises. I agree that men vastly over state how much cock cages and chastity are a universal benefit to women. Men are not actually ruled by their libidos like it was a life sustaining drive akin to hunger or breathing. But what we don’t talk about in so-called chastity is how much it breaks everyone of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, including giving him permission not to receive it. The whole rest of the boy is on the table.
And whether your kink is inadequacy or display, you also get to really look at him. Just as my body is socially considered to be open to public commentary too much, men blunder around uncomplemented even by their loved ones. Stick that guy in the s type role and you center a female gaze that may or may not be pleased, but at least it’s pretty much universally there. Ditto the tentative exploration of lingerie for men, both to humiliate as emasculation via consensually weaponized dysphoria, and my personal preference, to decorate and emphasize. Though dommes grumble that our more shallow needs stay uncatered to, if you are here to oggle a pretty man, whatever your tastes, the options have only been getting better, gradually and grudgingly, over time.
I mentioned GentleFemdom, and while it’s drifted past interest for me into a fandom sausage fest, you have guys pressing in the other direction for a different idea they might be pursued and desired. And while the stock characters might not be my cup of tea, again, the manga influence heavy illustrated boys are most likely to be treated with dialogue that assumes he’s cute.
And likewise, just as his appearance becomes worthy of opinion, physical sadomasochism also needs a bigger canvas. Sure, you can hurt a cock and balls. I do, and enjoy it, but it’s a touch monomaniacal if that’s all you ever do. While you could glide through vanilla on kissing, hugs and touching his dick with bits of you, sadism means you need to get intimate with the sensory possabilities of everything. To stay in the sweet spot of permanent harm free, extended ouchies means more square inches than whatever is between his legs.
Male masturbation toys enjoy more use in femdom
BDSM in general favours a more hands off approach. Be it a flogger, a dildo on a pole, or a bog standard magic wand to give someone a forced orgams, we like our gear. It’s a sexually permissive society that’s has less emphasis, even in femsub land, that you should insist that a vibrator is competition to a man hoping a woman will have an orgasm.
There’s no weird hang ups about it being a cop out to use your belt, not your hand, on the pert behind of whom you are topping. Toys *on* tops are still a bridge too far in most content, and people can normalize for play, regardless of whatever gender combo is featured. However, male subs are the vanguard gradually dragging everyone to admit you can put a vibe on him as much as her. Through our purchasing needs, the plethora of strokers, milkers, butt plugs in various bulbous shapes from the Aneros to the usual blunt christmas tree style stopper are ever so gradually being dragged out of the “gay men only” silo they are stuck in.
Toxic masculinity ruins everything. While I can buy vibrators at Sephora, and female intended sex toys are now aggressively marketed assuming I am the primary consumer, male recreational appliances have a ways to go. And it’s generally part and parcel of femdom subculture for me to be able to talk about using something on Silver without people acting like it’s weird.
I’m enjoying it. One of the most common things I get asked to review, these days, has been the burgeoning male market, and it’s clear it’s a whole new ball game (snrk), with established manufacturers and new brands popping up every day. Between the new toys, and old toys getting more availability, the increasing presence of lingerie and more space to put his body in one’s metaphorical cross hairs, everyone’s sex lives will be better for it. Now to convince more dominants that they can use butt plugs or be masochists. 😛