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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Also, here's an offensive question. At some point I would like to hear the story of how Mrs. Matisse became ex-gay. Was it an epiphany one morning? A visionary commandment from God(ess)? Pure boredom with lady parts? Any sort of conscious choice? Just curious.
I hope she finds the partner she wants, but maybe having another violent outlet will help her find some peace in the interim.
Not sure if I agree with the observation that there are more subs than doms. Count at play parties and you will notice that scenes other than male-dominates-female are rare. Man doms seem to dominate muches too, and a large number of vanilla guys are in fact dominant (think, for example, about the common reluctance among vanilla men to give cunnilingus), which is just viewed as 'normal' for a guy, not kinky at all...
So I wonder if your queer lady caller's issue finding another queer lady dominant might be more to do with the fact that female dominance is not really socially acceptable (and so strongly associated with paid work), rather than that there's just an all-round lack of dominants. The advice to keep looking was good advice though.
Among my interviewees, for example, the majority of heterosexual women identified as bottom/submissive (71%), while the majority of heterosexual men identified as top/dominant (75%). Further, only 14% of the heterosexual women were top/dominant; 6% of the heterosexual men identified as bottom/submissive
So according to this survey it's the opposite of what Dan and Mistress Matisse thought; it suggests that dominants actually outnumber submissives.
Not sure how the study you cited relates to the caller's conundrum. She identifies as a lesbian submissive who seeks a female dominant. The study you cited states that dominants outnumber submissives among heterosexual men, but that submissives outnumber dominants in heterosexual women. If the finding in this study about the prevalence of dominance in straight women also holds true for queer women then this study does not contradict what Dan and Mistress Matiesse said. However, the study did not survey queer identified women in the BDSM scene, thus it is possible that dominance is much higher among queer women. In light of the study you cited, I would argue that perhaps Mistress Matisse overgeneralized her statement that dominance is underrepresented in the BDSM community since there seems to be opposite trends between the sexes in the heterosexual BDSM community. The rate of dominance in the straight BDSM community y is probably of little importance to the caller. It would be more interesting (and relevant) to see a similar study on dominance in the lesbian/bisexual BDSM scene.
@5: Maybe vanilla guys consider themselves more "dominant", but that's a whole different ballgame from kinky people who consider themselves dominant. A vanilla "dominant" is usually not all that useful for someone who's seeking someone to make them bleed or tie them up or give them bruises everywhere, because most vanilla people just won't go there. Also, I haven't actually met too many guys who weren't into cunnilingus, so I don't really know what you're talking about there.
As for the prevalence of D v s in the queer women's community, there isn't much data on that, but kinkresearch.com does point to one study:
http://kinkresearch.blogspot.com/search?…
The result table is hard to read, but if you get there you'll see that the researchers found no strong skew towards subbiness in queer women (if anything, it's towards toppiness). This is just one study, but really what I'm doing here is not so much disagreeing with Ms Matisse, but suggesting that there isn't any evidence to support her (and Easton and Hardy's) claim of subs outnumbering doms.
@alquna_rubia I think you're quite right that vanilla guys are much more likely to draw the line at leaving marks or drawing blood, but that's also not necessarily what anyone who wants to be dominated is looking for. I don't run into the cunnilingus-dodging guys either, but that may be because I'm a top. My female friends frequently complain of them.
good luck
There are people who are biologically-oriented toward being subs and biologically-oriented toward being doms, and then there are those who get interested when a partner encourages the sensation to bloom.
Plenty of people, like me, deal with with years of physical abuse that represent a stolen submissive sexuality. Having one's hair repeatedly jerked, being slapped... being punched, bruised and beaten... these are sex acts for a dom/sub.
This wasn't "domestic abuse" for me when I was in my late teens/early 20's, it's not strawberry-rhubarb pie for a chronically ill bisexual woman like me -- It was a a variety of rape.
Consider these issues when telling a woman/man to avoid sex work because she/he lives at home. In this economy, it could be a revenue stream that will get a person out of a situation that is sexually abusive in ways vanillas don't perceive as valid.
Just wanted to elaborate a little on a comment you made with regard to the caller who found that bdsm helped her deal with emotional pain. You mentioned that her comments reminded you of how people who cut themselves describe the experience; that it, paradoxically, alleviates their pain.
While it's true that many people who self-injure report that they do it because it makes them feel better in the moment, it's pretty important to point out that it's not a positive or healthy coping skill and can be extremely dangerous. Self-injury is a behavior that typically escalates and even though people who cut themselves rarely intend to kill themselves, it is possible to accidentally inflict very serious injuries upon oneself. Even if no permanent physical damage is done, it almost always indicates that the individual is in very serious distress that is unlikely to resolve itself without help.
I definitely agree with you that kinks in general and bdsm in particular do not indicate that an individual is in psychological distress, but if you're doing any behavior (and especially one that can be dangerous) in order to avoid feeling a type of emotional distress that is debilitating, it's outside the realm of normal kink and into the realm of self-destructive behavior.
Just wanted to make sure that a distinction is drawn between wanting to be hurt because it's sexy and turns you on and wanting to be hurt because physical pain feels better than emotional pain.
Here's a resource for individuals who are falling more into the latter category: http://www.selfinjury.com/