It is rare these days that I plan out my posts in the way that I used to plan them. I am hoping that it is a matter of us finally knowing one another well enough constant reader that I can just sit down, have a conversation with you and we open the dialogue from there.
Today I want to toss out some ideas about submissive women, how we are different based on race. Yes, I understand that race is a tricky subject, but I think that for the past two years we’ve gotten to know each other well enough to talk tricky.
I am a Black woman. I choose to submit to my partner within the confines of our relationship. I hear all of the time from Black male Dominants that women like me are hard to find. While I am certainly one of a kind, there can be only one me, I don’t know that I am so rare that it is impossible to locate someone similar to me. I then have to ask are there actually women like me, or are my brethren faking the funk?
When I look at my path to this particular place, I know that it was not a simple thing to find The Man. I know what a series of fortunate and unfortunate events needed to happen for us to end up with one another, and that it is a challenge to keep our relationship together, for both of us.
I look at the men and women that I’ve been with in my previous years and understand that for me I was seeking a power exchange relationship, one where I would be on the ‘bottom’ and one that fit my personal needs. Two came close, but only one hit on all cylinders. In my past relationships with men, I’ve sought out Alpha traits, and dominant personalities, without necessarily understanding that there was such a thing as being Dominant. Early after my discovery of the lifestyle, I also learned that the push and pull of being a bratty submissive made for decent sex, but did not satisfy the other needs in my life.
I met many a Dominant man who said: You don’t act like a submissive woman. In some ways they were right.
What I desired was a Total Power Exchange relationship, in a 1950’s Household model, led by a Black male sadistic Dominant man. Sadly, you can not locate them in aisle 3 at Walmart.
The men that I met along the way would relate stories to me that the White women they encountered along the way made things simple. It got me to wondering if I was doing things wrong, if they were weak, or if I was even along the right path.
As time went along I began to realize that in some ways my White female counterparts did make things simple, but that it was not a reflection on me or my value.
As I looked about and saw my White female counterparts I realized that some of their submissive tendencies came from a place of experience. I had zero experience before beginning this journey.
My observations are not bible for all submissive women, simply a reflection of what I saw, and what I’ve lived.
My competition for lack of a better phrase, were reared in a lifestyle where their role models submitted to their men, husbands, and what they were exhibiting in many cases was a learned behavior. Their formative years were spent witnessing the 1950’s role model (or versions of it) mine was not…not even close.
A part of this comes from the history of Blacks in the United States. It’s taken the Jewish thousands of years to shed all of the shackles of their enslavement, Blacks are only a couple hundred years removed. To imply that is enough time to alter the behavior of our people, is well fallacy at its best.
I grew up in a family with almost no men. My grandfather was ill when I was plucked from the cabbage patch and died before I was 5. My only uncle did his best, he fathered 5 sons, but his death before I was 9 removed that influence from my life as well. My grandmother never forgave her son for marrying such a dark-skinned woman, and those 5 cousins of mine have gone off to live lives not associated with the bigoted part of my family. My own father was in my life until just before first grade, then he like the other men in our family was erased from history as the primary relationship fell apart.
I was raised in a family of women, that hated men…..no seriously they hate men…and insisted that I learn men ain’t shit, and that I would never need one of them, ever.
I’ve learned differently over the years, but that conditioning was what I brought into my search for the type of relationship that I currently have. They do not mix very well. On the contrary, my White female peers didn’t seem to suffer quite the same obstacles, if for no other reason, their male role models seemed to be less demonized that my own.
As man after man after man told me that I was not submissive, I began to ask was I really? I learned that I was, in so many ways it was stupid, but that it was a combination of overcoming my conditioning and finding the right person who was strong enough to allow me to be who I am.
To the outside world, as they look on me the idea that I defer all authority to Master is something that so many other Black women find repulsive. I’ve even found that younger Black men in my life while curious about the sexual aspects of this thing that I do, find the idea of a woman “submitting” to them troubling. I simply chalk that up to them not at the peak of their game. Again this is not universal in its application, but I’ve known men at a certain status in their lives that value a woman who no matter how accomplished in her own right is willing to defer to them. To my brothers that don’t get that concept, I say wait a while…….just wait a while.
The outside world looks at me and can not imagine how I am with Master, yet were I a White woman with him, how he is cared for would not be questioned. Is it actually that rare to see a Black woman in this role? I suppose so, yeah I suppose so.
I am not unusual, there are other women like me, other Black women like me. HOW I do what I do may be special, but there are submissive Black women out there. I am friends with and friendly with many of them. Fuck, I am friends with some that make my level of service look like Sesame Street.
Yet I’ve historically ran into so many Black men who say that I am rare.
There is obviously a disconnect, and one that I am not 100% sure how to begin the bridge building. I attempt to talk woman to woman to my sisters first, it begins with us it ends with us. My words go off into the universe unheard, not respected, and decided irrelevant. When I explain that in the context of a power exchange relationship your personal quest for feminist equality has to be left on the front porch I am labeled a traitor. Maybe it is just not understood that in this TYPE of relationship equality is not in the lexicon?
When I suggest a little self-love (not masturbation but self-appreciation) I am met with the discussion of what Evelyn wore on Basketball Wives, and which designer is the hottest this week.
When I suggest any of the things that I do I am met with resistance, I can’t possibly be more right that the other single and bitter women in their life? Or can I?
When I suggest that they become the most important person in their lives, I am scoffed at, because it is rarely understood that you can not serve with integrity and quality if you are fucked up. Rule number one is protect the property. Rule Number two is see Rule number one.
What I’ve seen in my White counterparts? They get Rule number one and all of the other things that I’ve learned and attempt to pass along.
There is a difference, there absolutely is, but I like to think that the difference makes me and women like me valuable.
We may all be valuable, but some of us are more rare than the other.