Submission and Sexuality

Exploring one's sexuality - not just sexual orientation but what turns you on, gets you off and leaves you panting for more - can be interesting and sometimes empowering. Sometimes it can even be a little scary when you find that you want things you didn't think you would or that society teaches is wrong/perverse. It can even be a little odd to find that a person wants things that seem somehow contradictory: how can a woman be a feminist submissive (with a male dom)? Is it contradictory at all, since if the situation is consensual, the woman in question is choosing to be submissive to that particular male dom?

I'd argue, of course, that sexuality isn't "static", and perhaps those more learned than I would agree with me. I'm using purely anecdotal, personal evidence here; certainly my sexuality hasn't been entirely static.

I call myself a submissive but I haven't always been; originally I didn't think of my sexuality in terms of "dominant" or "submissive" at all. I was interested in straight vanilla sex (of course, at the time I wasn't having sex - I was almost 20 the first time I got in bed with someone, but that's another story entirely).

AN Roquelaure's (that being Anne Rice's nom de plume) "Sleeping Beauty" series opened my eyes to dominance and submission; I was fifteen or so and a friend had let me borrow the series. Soon enough I realized that really, Roquelaure/Rice was wallowing in the idea of BDSM, and that not everyone interested in D/s, BDSM, powerplay etc wants a plug with horsehair coming out of it shoved up their ass, or to be ridden like/called a pony. Or to be fucked with a candle, for that matter.

I've explored various activities and "kinks" from the safety of the Internet (wonderful thing, really). I've thought about being a domme, about being a sub, being the penetratee and penetrator, questioned my orientation once or twice, admired the idea of being fisted, and dated a dom who really didn't have a clue about what the hell he was doing but thought he knew everything, and thought that all women orgasm from penetration (uh, hello? Clitoris is on the outside). Of course, this same person didn't understand the meaning of "stop gnawing on my clit, that doesn't feel good" or "for the love of all that's holy stop pinching my nipples like you want to rip them off".

My actual experience differs greatly from my grand ideas; I've never been properly dominated-in-person nor have I dominated someone. My current relationship is long-distance, so the only D/s occurring there is via phone sex; wonderful really but I want the real thing, please and thank you. What interests me at the moment is the apparent domme (Domme?) streak I have going on; that and my significant other's utter disinterest in being submissive for more than, say, 5 seconds. I'm not the type to "switch" between Domme and sub frequently; I believe this is more of an occasional itch.