Feminist Femdom! Making Femdom Sustainable

Learn about sustainable, feminist femdom -with Giles English

There’s a huge Feminist issue around Femdom, especially Female Led Relationships!

Basically, there’s an epidemic of crap malesubs who treat dominant women as fetish vending machines. It’s not entirely deliberate on their part. In the absence of role models, submissive men assume that submission is either whatever kink turns them on, or else crude role reversal. This gives us weirdness like “he serves her by crossdressing and letting her penetrate him with a dildo.”

It doesn’t help that most of the loudest Femdom voices on the Internet are either prodommes spinning delicious fantasies, or malesubs typing… um… one-handed, and sometimes under false colours. (There are reasons for this, but that’s another story.)

Crap malesubs are doubly tragic.

They miss out on because their expectations ultimately make the Femdom go away. Dommes avoid them, or dump them once it’s obvious how things are going. Long-suffering wives and girlfriends quickly become irritated then exhausted with what had looked like a cool couple adventure.

Much worse, the female partners miss out on being actually dominant.

How ironic is that? And how stupid?

Femdom… Fem Dom… Female Dominant. And yet it’s all about him and his fantasy scripts he picked up off (usually) other men on the internet.

The worst of it is that a lot of women really do like being in charge. Male subs often manage to marry women with a strong dominant streak, the irony (another one!) being that a strongly dominant woman instinctively recoils from being told what to do…

“Tie me this way, call me that name, tease me for half an hour then…”

I think not.

And how satisfying is it really for a male sub to have his partner basically run a simulation for him anyway? To play act through his fantasies for him: “Have you been a naughty boy, then?” It’s the 21st century!

What if – here’s a mind blowing thought – Femdom did what it said on the tin? Actually put her – you – in charge? What if Femdom was Feminist in the sense that it was about your emancipation, your agency, your empowerment?

That’s how most established Female Led Relationships work, and it’s certainly what makes ours tick. Xena is in charge, I do what I’m told.

In most sustainable FLRs – and bedroom kink where the power exchange is real – the woman gets what she wants, but using the agreed kinky tools. So in our case, Xena gets a clean house to her standards through disciplining me, and various bedroom services, through giving me orders and accepting me as a slave in the first place. Plus she also enjoys beating me.

These kinky tools have to be ones the woman wants to use, or at least is comfortable with, and they have to make sense. For example, Xena can hardly punish me by making me kiss her feet – that’s a reward!

So, if your husband or boyfriend asks for a Female Led Relationship, how do you get to this happy place?

(Before we go there OK, yes, you got me, I’m another malesub talking about Femdom. Sorry. My wife Xena doesn’t post online so it’s up to me to share what we’ve learned. Also, I’ve spent a lot of time learning from other people’s FLRs… sifting and reading between the lines to get at the truth. And, I kind of feel this is my mission: to offer the joys of Femdom to more women. Call it a fetish for submission by proxy if you must. I’m certainly not getting off on writing this because I’m “permanently” sealed into a chastity device, and have been for the last eight months.)

First and foremost, if you are in charge then you get to have the relationship the way you want it, especially in the bedroom.

To this end, you need to take a Marie Kondo approach, and identify the things that give you a “spark of joy”. Divide these between Reasonable – e.g. affectionate emotionally faithful partner who is good company – and Unreasonable – e.g. long massages then you fall asleep, scrupulously clean home, or improvement goals for him; I bet he could do with losing weight and increasing his step count.

Those Reasonable Things are non-negotiable. If your partner (it’s usually a husband) has wandered off into Internet kink and forgotten them, then you need to lay down the law and demand them back as a prerequisite for doing any kink. The R in FLR stands for Relationship. You never stop being a couple.

Then you have the Unreasonable Things, things you shouldn’t really expect out of an equal relationship. You get these through the Kinky Tools, because we are talking a kinky relationship here, not just him conceding the Battle of the Sexes.

You arrive at a set of Kinky Tools by laundering his kinks and your own as you discover them. Sort them into:

Reject pile (sorry not sorry).

Things that support the dynamic (make you feel more dominant, and make him feel more submissive).

Rewards for him.

Punishments for him.

Things you like doing that he’s stuck with (lol).

And tell him you’ve done this.

Though it’s OK to gather suggestions from him – he’s probably been thinking about all this since he was a teenager, so might have some good ideas – it’s not a negotiation.

Have him kneel in the corner or listen in some other submissive posture while explain how things are going to be. Sure, he can veto anything that’s a hard limit – anything unsafe or that freaks him out (and, of course, you should have a safeword). Otherwise it’s all or nothing. If he really is submissive, any disappointment on his part will be offset by the thrill of you really taking charge.

So, if he wants to but you don’t enjoy him crossdressing? Tough, he’s not allowed to crossdress. Or perhaps it’s a reward only. If he’s been very good, he gets to clean the house while wearing a maid’s outfit. Or perhaps this supports the dynamic, and you can find more feminine but still male clothing for the bedroom. The same goes for you wearing particular clothing. In this new world, fluffy slippers and a bathrobe are fine.

Some protocol, for example him calling you “Mistress” in private makes sense as supporting the dynamic. However, that’s up to you – and being in charge – you can limit it to the bedroom. If you don’t want to call him “sissy boy” or whatever, then don’t. Or only use it when you’re punishing him and feeling irritated anyway, at which point you may feel like using other insults as well.

Punishments are ideally things that turn him on because you can do them to him, but which he would prefer to avoid. So, I like it that Xena can cane me, but it hurts too much for me to want it. However, if he really pisses you off, make him go stand in the corner, or ban him from the internet or something else that’s a real punishment. You are in charge, not pretend in charge.

If this all sounds a bit harsh, the upside for him is that you are exerting your authority. If he lets go, accepts the rough with the smooth, then he can experience real Femdom, not just its simulation. Authentic power exchange can be an almost painful turn-on.

Painful turn-ons, of course, lead us to male chastity, which I’ve left to the end because it’s almost a topic in itself.

Online male chastity culture is all about you being a “keyholder”, teasing him, milking him, pegging him, and tormenting him with spoiled orgasms.

How awful for him. For Him. Hmmm.

True, you may enjoy playing that role – a mixture of nurturer and tormentrix. However, a lot of long-term chastity relationships settle into something quite different.

A surprising percentage women discover that they like keeping their man’s tackle locked up, but also that they don’t enjoy the emotional labour, responsibility, and – here we go again – daily focus on him and his needs that goes with the keyholder approach. Instead, they opt to keep him chaste by default or for set periods – a cheap time-lock safe from Amazon removes the possibility of feeling pressured.

If chastity is one of the available Kinky Tools, and doesn’t go in the Reject Pile, you first need to get a handle on the technical practicalities. Ask him, how long can he wear it for? Is it invisible under work clothing? If he’s locked outside the home, does he need an emergency key? (Security is a non-issue: he’ll always be able to pull out the back, but being locked in should make him feel too submissive to want to.) He will probably know the answer to all these questions and more. Make sure he’s being honest.

This should give you a sense of what chastity actually means: does he lock up at night and weekends? Does he stay locked 24/7? How often does he need to be released? (In the case of my current device, apparently never).

Then, just like all the other kinks, work out where chastity sits.

The chances are, chastity supports the dynamic. There’s something primal about him not being able to get an erection, and having no control over his orgasms. Sometimes chastity can feel as if she now has the penis in the relationship.

Most men with chastity fantasies want to wear the device, so it is technically a reward, though it probably feels odd treating it that way. Letting him out to come – or permitting him to get off some other way – certainly can be a reward (though less often than you think, since it can give us a mood drop).

Chastity can also be a punishment. For example, Xena used to gleefully add time to my lockup whenever I annoyed her. It’s worth noting that beyond 2-3 weeks, the hormones settle down and constant lock up is less of a torment.

Finally – and this is the elephant in the room – chastity can just be something that you like that he’s stuck with.

You may simply relish the idea of him not coming except during sex. Or, you may not actually be that interested in his penis at the moment – it’s quite common for women to lose interest in penetration, not least because less than a third of women can get off on penetration alone.

You don’t have to justify yourself. You’re in charge. If you don’t want him to have a penis then – through the non-surgical magic of the male chastity device – he doesn’t get to have one.

There are risks in all this, of course.

Actually doing what he asks and taking charge is relationship dynamite.

If he’s not sincere, if he’s really just wrapping some fetishes in a fantasy of female domination, if you’re just a cheaper alternative to paying a prodomme, then this will blow up your relationship, possibly wreck your marriage.

However, if he really is a malesub trying to find his way, then taking him at his word can knock down the barriers to happiness for both of you.

Though the last five years have been the most gloriously kinky in my entire life, if I had to pick one word to sum up both our experiences, it would be “contentment”.

I hope what I’ve written helps you and your partner get to the same place.

About the writer: Giles English has written two Femdom self-help guides but these days focuses on weaving sizzling Femdom erotica with an awful lot of male chastity. Drop by his blog to read more about Femdom and Female Led Relationships.

Click to read more BDSM advice articles at CaraSutra