“Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist”-Camilla Paglia

I'm not sure how I feel about Camilla Paglia, but this quote hit the mark for me.  I've spent so much of my life thinking that I need to be an empowered sexual woman and following the standard advice to that effect, that I never stopped to think about what I want in the bedroom.

I've suddenly been put in a position where I have to question the conventional feminist wisdom about what should get me off.

After I first talked to my husband about the "guidelines", I found an extraordinary thing begin to happen.  I grew horny.  Serious, abdomen aching, breathless, can't think of anything else but sex, horniness.  The more I thought about the fact that he could just have sex with me whenever he wanted, the hornier I got.  I started fantasizing about him coming in to the kitchen while I was making dinner and forcefully fondling me.  I started thinking about him bending me over the chair in the living room, without my immediate consent and at any time.

It turns out, that this is really getting me off.  Who'da thunk it?  Not me, that's for sure.  I assumed that he would really enjoy this new arrangement, I never thought that the idea of him having that kind of power would be such a turn on for me.  At first it scared me a little.  I'm supposed to be a powerful, independent, modern woman.  I'm not supposed to want a man to have power over me.  But, it's obvious that I do.  In fact, I really, really want him to have almost total power over me.   Just sitting here typing this makes my heart skip a beat.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this now.  I think I've come to terms with it a bit.  I recognize that while I want him to have power over me, I also want/need to trust my partner.  And I trust him completely.  I know that he has my best interests, safety, and well being at heart in everything he does.  I think this is essential.

And a public service announcement from our sponsor:

I need to make a statement so that no one reading this blog gets the wrong idea.  Some women like forcefulness.  They might even like the illusion of being forced.  But, no healthy woman wants to actually be forced.  There is a huge difference between assertive/forceful masculinity and brutish asshole-ery.  So, to be crystal clear, any playing with power needs to be absolutely consensual.  It also needs to be at least as much about the one being forced as it is about the one doing the forcing, if not moreso.

That being said, I can get back to the fun stuff.

I've begun to realize that I really want him to manhandle me.  I want him to hold me down and do the things to me that I'm too shy to ask for.  I want him to give me pleasure "against my will".  I want him to make me his play thing.  In short, I want to be dominated.

Well, fuck me, it turns out that I'm submissive.

What a surprise that was.  As far as self-realization goes, it's a whopper.  And it's given me all sorts of things to think about as far as my relationship goes, and why it went wrong.