Humiliation/Embarrassment

[KoPilot]

*tips hat* You do exactly that for me more often than I can count.

And that submission page... Oh. My.... hadn't clicked there yet.
GOLDMINE.

Ugh, just read it. Totally awesome.

Reminds me just how much I would love for S to make me go out on the town with him as his sub twink and somehow work in some humiliation-type stuff about me being too effeminate.

Too bad he's probably lightyears away from being able to couch our relationship in gay men's terms.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Ugh, just read it. Totally awesome.

Reminds me just how much I would love for S to make me go out on the town with him as his sub twink and somehow work in some humiliation-type stuff about me being too effeminate.

Too bad he's probably lightyears away from being able to couch our relationship in gay men's terms.

Okay now we're getting somewhere!

 

[BrightlyGo]

And that submission page... Oh. My.... hadn't clicked there yet.
GOLDMINE.

Your stories are pretty awesome, too, BTW.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Your stories are pretty awesome, too, BTW.

true that, I can't believe I never favorited them

 

[Allyourbase]

Might it actually be more comforting to think that you could put on a binder and dress 'butch' and /not/ have random men still find you attractive?

I dunno, partly true for me. One of the fun things of dressing femme, which I occasionally do, still, is also the hardest part: all of a sudden I'm visible, people have an opinion on my femininity, my 'beauty'. Random men, as well. (Always good for a 'wtf?'-moment.) Even though often I hear positive remarks, that does send the message that I am watched and could just as well fail at it. I don't like the thought that that would be what I needed to do just to get a guy, though.

But I'm pretty sure men can walk around in a suit, not get randomly ogled on the street or verbally judged on how they look, yet still feel attractive and see themselves represented in culture as sexy creatures. (Some of them are Men in suits... hmmm.)

Ugh, just read it. Totally awesome.

Reminds me just how much I would love for S to make me go out on the town with him as his sub twink and somehow work in some humiliation-type stuff about me being too effeminate.

Too bad he's probably lightyears away from being able to couch our relationship in gay men's terms.

...his too effeminate sub twink...
*twitch*
I want that.

Mine: lightyears away from that as well. But I so get you.

Your stories are pretty awesome, too, BTW.

true that, I can't believe I never favorited them

(Too bad I'm a slow writer these days (like, glacial), but that'll return.)

 

[BrightlyGo]

But I'm pretty sure men can walk around in a suit, not get randomly ogled on the street

Prettymuch a non-issue whatever the guy is wearing, yeah.

yet still feel attractive and see themselves represented in culture as sexy creatures.

Not so much.

(Some of them are Men in suits... hmmm.)

I'm curious about that. What makes a man in a suit sexy? Suits obscure just about everything except face and height. It's /just/ the suit (and what it symbolizes), isn't it?



Y'know, i think you've indirectly resolved my confusion: i was suffering some cognitive dissonance over the idea of 'humiliating' an msub by putting him in feminine clothes - because Dommes dress feminine, so wouldn't those clothes become empowering? i was looking at it from the wrong angle: Feminine clothes are designed to display a "sexy creature," as you put it, to advantage. Men (the essential form of the male animal - a hairy, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, rough-featured primate) aren't really perceived that way, so when displayed in a nightie or something (instead of concealed in a suit), they're comical or repulsive - and thus humiliated.

 

[Allyourbase]

yet still feel attractive and see themselves represented in culture as sexy creatures.

Not so much.

Please elaborate? I mean, I see ads sporting (white, slender) men looking good in suits all the time? (I live in The Netherlands, though, I should add that.)

I'm curious about that. What makes a man in a suit sexy? Suits obscure just about everything except face and height. It's /just/ the suit (and what it symbolizes), isn't it?

I'm not really sure. It could be 'just' the suit, like, in a fetishistic way, though on some people it really doesn't work. The match between suit and wearer should be right, but still, a fetish element, like other uniforms, yeah probably. It's formalwear in which the wearer has power and is not *supposed* to be sexual. (And in the case of police uniforms: handcuffs. )

But I dunno, these are personal tastes, with quite a dash of D/s in them. And in this I don't care about the wearer's sex, just gender expression. And I get turned on as well when I wear the suit myself.

(...) Feminine clothes are designed to display a "sexy creature," as you put it, to advantage. Men (the essential form of the male animal - a hairy, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, rough-featured primate) aren't really perceived that way, so when displayed in a nightie or something (instead of concealed in a suit), they're comical or repulsive - and thus humiliated.

Hm. I have to think about that some more.

Must admit that I haven't read the entire thread, so I am probably repeating other people's thought patterns.

 

[KoPilot]

Y'know, i think you've indirectly resolved my confusion: i was suffering some cognitive dissonance over the idea of 'humiliating' an msub by putting him in feminine clothes - because Dommes dress feminine, so wouldn't those clothes become empowering? i was looking at it from the wrong angle: Feminine clothes are designed to display a "sexy creature," as you put it, to advantage. Men (the essential form of the male animal - a hairy, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, rough-featured primate) aren't really perceived that way, so when displayed in a nightie or something (instead of concealed in a suit), they're comical or repulsive - and thus humiliated.

That's about it. Men are powerful and sex-driven, but it's only the women who are sexual. (Sexual gatekeepers as women are called in this way.) So the uniform of a "powerful" (I put that in quotes because its the same sort of pseudo-power that a host might have over a parasite) woman really is meant to just display her sexual availability. Feminine power is looking hot.

Male power is a whole bunch of things, but they can mostly be distilled into competency. Competence and proficiency in something is a quality whose advantages are much more easily accessed by men (women are cooks, men are chefs; women draw smut, men get erotic art book deals; women are bitches, men are assertive).

Cishetero men can don the uniform of femininity for sexy escapism, and cishetero women oftentimes have to don the masculine uniform just to survive.

 

[Netzach]

Except a guy in silky stuff CAN be hella hot, to the kinked eye, anyway.

Take a hot enough guy and he'll be hot in the stupidest panties in existence. The problem with "feminization" is that it's rarely undertaken as a sexifying or visually appealing proposition, though it can be. Really.

Yeah, it doesn't work without a "good" body (whatever your idea of that is, anyway, and mine is unapologetically pretty conventional.) Tyranny of the narrow minded ideas of beauty blah blah well, welcome to the club, dudes.

We're just not good at objectifying men in the mainstream. Give it a few years, we're getting there, whether it's good or not.

 

[Kim_Burly]

Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here, actually I have my own personal limb here at Lit. I must admit that I didn't read the whole thread, I skipped the part that talked about masculine/feminine societal roles and such, too deep for little 'ol me.

Does your the humiliation have to be public? What if you stick a suction cup dildo to the wall (or whatever) and tell him to fuck himself with it until he cums. You can whip, tease and generally abuse him in the mean time.

What about having a get together with some like minded people and have him serve everyone if a French maid's outfit. Then make him masturbate on a table in front of everyone and eat his own cum. Or, if you two are really wild, make him service all of the guests at a gathering, female and male .

There is always giving him a golden shower or making him rim you, but I won't even bring that up . My point is that humiliation doesn't have to be public.

 

[BrightlyGo]

Yeah, it doesn't work without a "good" body (whatever your idea of that is, anyway, and mine is unapologetically pretty conventional.) Tyranny of the narrow minded ideas of beauty blah blah well, welcome to the club, dudes.

"Good" body, for a man, would map to what KoPilot was talking about, above with 'competence.' Men aren't attractive because they're men, but because they've done/won something - accomplishment takes the place of innate sexiness.

A sexy body is one that's been altered, that represents accomplishment in its creation. The body of an athlete, for instance. It's not the body, it's the accomplishment in a competitive endeavor that it implies. A form of "power." Heck, the brute strength of an over-developed male body is a form of crude power.

But, then, an msub is supposed to be surrendering power... so he either fails at that (retains some power), or he loses any attractiveness he may have possessed (since power is the only thing that can render the male attractive). That explains another perplexing Femme Domme phenomenon: the 'ice queen' routine, where the Domme is expected to feel no desire for her sub. How could she, if men have no innate desirability without power?

We're just not good at objectifying men in the mainstream. Give it a few years, we're getting there, whether it's good or not.

promises, promises

Objectify a woman, and you have an object men will go to great length to posses, even briefly.
You could reduce a man to a sex object, but the result is an object with no value.

In traditional culture, say a hundred or so years ago, men had something of a monopoly on wealth, status, and other temporal sorts of 'power.' Women were objectified, but had value (often according to pretty perverse standards). A lot has been done to allow women to have temporal power, less has been done to keep them from being objectified, and basically nothing has been done to grant any value to an objectified man.

In the traditional culture or in M/f, the male has power, the female has value even if objectified, so there's a balance. A Dom can't completely discount the needs of his fsub, because he doesn't want to lose her, because, though she might have surrendered power and even humanity, she has innate value as a sexual being.

Femme Domme should neatly reverse this, but it doesn't. Changes in society have made power more accessible and acceptable in a woman, so the Domme can slip into that role easily enough. But, she also retains that innate value as a sexual being, because society has changed less in that area. The msub can surrender power easily enough, but if he surrenders it all, he has no innate value in the sexual dynamic, because that hasn't changed at all. So Femme Domme is plagued with objectified dommes and topping-from-the-bottom Msubs, because otherwise there's no way to hold the relationships together: the msub could be used, abused, discarded, as there's nothing in him for the Domme to desire. So she breaks limits and he withdraws consent? She's lost nothing.

 

[BrightlyGo]

Please elaborate? I mean, I see ads sporting (white, slender) men looking good in suits all the time? (I live in The Netherlands, though, I should add that.)

There's nothing innately sexy about being male. Quite the contrary, the societal judgement is that male sexuality is repugnant. A man can look good, he can look well-groomed, he can look successful, he can look powerful. As KoPilot pointed out, power is all the man brings to a sexual dynamic.

I'm not really sure. It could be 'just' the suit, like, in a fetishistic way, though on some people it really doesn't work. The match between suit and wearer should be right, but still, a fetish element, like other uniforms, yeah probably. It's formalwear in which the wearer has power and is not *supposed* to be sexual.

i think of suits as formal, but i'm in California, and we're pretty darn informal, here. But, yes, a suit, or say a tux, is something like a mainstream version of fetish gear. You put it on, you become the symbol and lose the self.

But I dunno, these are personal tastes, with quite a dash of D/s in them. And in this I don't care about the wearer's sex, just gender expression. And I get turned on as well when I wear the suit myself.

That is a beautiful sentiment.

 

[dexwebster]

There's nothing innately sexy about being male. Quite the contrary, the societal judgement is that male sexuality is repugnant. A man can look good, he can look well-groomed, he can look successful, he can look powerful. As KoPilot pointed out, power is all the man brings to a sexual dynamic.

There's nothing innately sexy about being male according to the dominant culture, which are exactly the forces that actual dominant women and submissive men are pulling against. It's very easy to say power is "all" the man brings to a het dynamic, but power trumps literally everything else.

the male has power, the female has value even if objectified, so there's a balance.

That's...not actually balanced. An object having value doesn't put it on a level with its possessor. My cat has value too, that doesn't mean we're balanced.

So Femme Domme is plagued with objectified dommes and topping-from-the-bottom Msubs, because otherwise there's no way to hold the relationships together: the msub could be used, abused, discarded, as there's nothing in him for the Domme to desire. So she breaks limits and he withdraws consent? She's lost nothing.

You're assuming two things: that the culture's views about a male sub's value = the individual's views, and an "objectified domme" is a domme, which I would argue she's not. She's a service top, filling the role the person in control desires.

 

[KoPilot]

Yeah, and then there's my dynamic, which is M/a, (where I have no inherent genderedness or sexuality to give me "value" after I've been objectified) so all bets are off.

And wai wai wai-- are we really talking about some kinds of objectification being better than other kinds? Really?

I mean, unless there is nonconsensual bodily harm being involved, then you'd think being seen as subhuman is kind of all the same thing. Hmm, but then it just so happens that women suffer more in regards to harm and violence done upon them due to their objectification... so I dunno.

 

[Dyslexicea]

We have the word 'tomboy' to use because it's pretty common for girls to play like boys, now - and, likewise, women have access to prettymuch the full range of once-male options, from fashion to career. You'll find tomboys in every schoolyard in America, mostly getting along fine with other kids. You won't find boys in dresses - if you do, they'll get the crap beat out of them by the other kids.

So that's the sexism, and, yes, it extends into the BDSM subculture in the sense that we were discussing.

BrightlyGo, I find you an interesting man, which for me is saying a lot. Before you get too big of a head, I do find some of the other men who post on the BDSM board every bit as interesting, not many but a few.

Let me point out that being a tomboy is only acceptable to a certain extent, once a girl reaches puberty she may be allowed some of her tomboyishness but she's still expected to present herself in a feminine manor.

Sexism is when a man says "for a girls to play like boys" or "once-male options", the option was not a male option, it was an option denied to women, big difference. Maybe the boy wearing dresses is sexism but it's sexism only to the extent that it would be other boys doing violence to the boy wearing the dress. Boys see feminine as inferior, which is of course nurture not nature. My feeling is the girls would giggle, eventually get over it and just think of the boy as a boy who wore dresses.

I, like KoPilot, would like to see you open a new thread to expand this discussion. As much to hear more input from Allyourbase, KoPilot, Netzach and Stella, along with your own.

 

[JMohegan]

We're just not good at objectifying men in the mainstream. Give it a few years, we're getting there, whether it's good or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27xs3alDA74

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/kraft-zesty-dressing-ad_n_3441805.html

 

[KoPilot]

Here's my old thread about it, if BrightlyGo wants to carry out the discussion there instead of making a new one:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=769742

 

[Dyslexicea]

There's nothing innately sexy about being male. Quite the contrary, the societal judgement is that male sexuality is repugnant. A man can look good, he can look well-groomed, he can look successful, he can look powerful. As KoPilot pointed out, power is all the man brings to a sexual dynamic.

Maybe from a hetero man's point of view but to say we don't find men sexy or we find men's sexuality repugnant just isn't so. Men can be repugnant, some of their sexual attitudes can be repugnant but to say men's sexuality is repugnant is just so much BS. Maybe it is the societal view, it's you men who seem to dictate those views, regardless of what our views are.

I'm a lesbian so you'd think I could never find a man sexy, WRONG. When I lived in Miami I'd go to Haulover Beach, nudist part, a lot of gay men hang out there. Talk about eye candy, oh my god. No I didn't want to jump their bones but they are sexy. Occasionally you'd find a real nudist who was also eye candy. The theory is that nudist don't find naked people sexy but I assure you a man with a good body, nice package, hetero or gay, did get looked at by the women nudist, the same for the men if the woman fit the male ideal of sex and beauty.

Most of us don't look at men as sex objects, men shouldn't look at us that way either, but that doesn't mean we can't find men sexy. By the way, men for the most part can be taken advantage of because you do look at us as sex objects and a girl can make really good money taking advantage of that. So who really does have the POWER.

Before I finish let me comment on my nice package remark, there is just something unappealing about a naked man with a great body and an average or smaller size dick. Is that humiliating enough for you or do we want to talk about boobs.

 

[Allyourbase]

There's nothing innately sexy about being male. Quite the contrary, the societal judgement is that male sexuality is repugnant. A man can look good, he can look well-groomed, he can look successful, he can look powerful. As KoPilot pointed out, power is all the man brings to a sexual dynamic.

Dude. U are seau straight. *makes queer handwave*

No but seriously. Men not innately sexy? I get how you mean that, and how that works, cultural messages and everything. But I gotta side with Dyslexicea as well here. That might be the 'norm', but trust me, it ain't the reality.

(...)An "objectified domme" is a domme, which I would argue she's not. She's a service top, filling the role the person in control desires.

This ^. Insight moment for me. This is what I meant when I said subs have way more control in my experience. If I want to Dom someone well, it is partly service topping. But I probably suck as a twue Dom, so I would take this remark as proof of that rather than of anything else...

(...)once a girl reaches puberty she may be allowed some of her tomboyishness but she's still expected to present herself in a feminine manor.

Yeah, or maybe expressed like the requirement for females to 'use all available resources for appearance'. (So confusing when you don't! )

Maybe the boy wearing dresses is sexism but it's sexism only to the extent that it would be other boys doing violence to the boy wearing the dress. Boys see feminine as inferior, which is of course nurture not nature. My feeling is the girls would giggle, eventually get over it and just think of the boy as a boy who wore dresses.

I'm giving this kind of sexism towards men some more weight than Dyslexicea does, because I think we shouldn't forget a lot of straight women are also not fond of men showing weakness or femininity (or of women butching up). The gender binary is upheld from both sides, unfortunately (and puzzlingly).

I, like KoPilot, would like to see you open a new thread to expand this discussion. As much to hear more input from Allyourbase, KoPilot, Netzach and Stella, along with your own.

I'm in.

There is just something unappealing about a naked man with a great body and an average or smaller size dick. Is that humiliating enough for you or do we want to talk about boobs.

Uhm. Probably not wise to... Yeah, let's... not... answer that.

 

[BrightlyGo]

There's nothing innately sexy about being male. Quite the contrary, the societal judgement is that male sexuality is repugnant. A man can look good, he can look well-groomed, he can look successful, he can look powerful. As KoPilot pointed out, power is all the man brings to a sexual dynamic.

Maybe from a hetero man's point of view but to say we don't find men sexy or we find men's sexuality repugnant just isn't so. Men can be repugnant, some of their sexual attitudes can be repugnant but to say men's sexuality is repugnant is just so much BS. Maybe it is the societal view...

Dude. U are seau straight. *makes queer handwave*

No but seriously. I get how you mean that, and how that works, cultural messages and everything. But I gotta side with Dyslexicea as well here. That might be the 'norm', but trust me, it ain't the reality.

Yes, from that first-person point of view, there is nothing sexy about /being/ male. As in, i am male and straight (well, <2 on the Kinsey scale), and i am never made to feel the object of (female, mind you) sexual desire. Other things than sexual desire that just might lead to sex, sure (like pity, curiosity, amusement, loneliness, sadism or desperation - oh, yeah, or love, which is definitely wonderful, don't get me wrong on that account). But not desire. i'm willing to allow that it may be nothing more than the result of cultural programming, but it's my life experience.

Sexual desire from other men is another question, entirely. And, i have to admit, not entirely unwelcome. Feeling desired is wonderful (the more so when it's so rare), even if you have little desire for the one making you feel that way.

There's nothing innately sexy about being male according to the dominant culture, which are exactly the forces that actual dominant women and submissive men are pulling against.

That was exactly the kind of thought that got me into this. Femme Domme seems like it should be a neat reversal of a lot of societal norms.

But, if dominant women are pulling against the dominant culture's tradition of perceiving women as powerless, submissive, and sex objects (and, I agree they are/should be), they've gotten a lot of help from determined political movements going back generations. Generations of determined political activism have only made some progress in changing views about women, but progress has been made. Not so much when it comes to changing views about men. Usually, when the idea is brought up at all ("sure there aren't as many women engineers, but there aren't as many male nurses, either!"), it's obstructionist smoke-&-mirrors, to try to take the wind out of the feminist sails, not to actually try to broaden what's acceptable in men.

To look at it the other way: it's easy for an msub to reject society's judgement of his Domme, because he's been told by activists that it's right & good to do so (though maybe not to the extreme extent he wants to do it). The Domme doesn't have it so easy. Traditional culture has been telling her that a man without wealth/status/power/accomplishment/assertiveness is a pathetic loser, and the activists and counter-culture have, at best, been telling her that she deserves an equal relationship-partner.

That's...not actually balanced. An object having value doesn't put it on a level with its possessor. My cat has value too, that doesn't mean we're balanced.

There's something on each side of the scale, though. It's not everything on one side, nothing on the other. If that dominant cultural idea that men bring nothing but power to a sexual relationship isn't overcome in an F/m relationship, it's not just imbalanced, the msub brings nothing - he doesn't exist.

It's such a sickening idea that i didn't even want to articulate it - but it goes a ways towards explaining things about the Femme Domme corner of the scene that have never made sense to me (sissies, ice queens, cuckolding).

 

[annred]

I think I must be missing something, perhaps my master better read this thread

 

[JMohegan]

Yes, from that first-person point of view, there is nothing sexy about /being/ male. As in, i am male and straight (well, <2 on the Kinsey scale), and i am never made to feel the object of (female, mind you) sexual desire. Other things than sexual desire that just might lead to sex, sure (like pity, curiosity, amusement, loneliness, sadism or desperation - oh, yeah, or love, which is definitely wonderful, don't get me wrong on that account). But not desire. i'm willing to allow that it may be nothing more than the result of cultural programming, but it's my life experience.

Flip the genders, and my guess is that there are plenty of straight, conventionally unattractive females who would say the same thing about themselves.

Decades ago, I was a young, straight, male athlete with reasonably fortunate genetics regarding hair and face. From that first-person point of view, I'd say straight women do feel purely physical desire, and express it, though they're usually more subtle than guys. Probably because society frowns on blatant expression of female urges, especially in relation to strangers.

 

[Dyslexicea]

I'm giving this kind of sexism towards men some more weight than Dyslexicea does, because I think we shouldn't forget a lot of straight women are also not fond of men showing weakness or femininity (or of women butching up). The gender binary is upheld from both sides, unfortunately (and puzzlingly).

I couldn't agree more, which is why I used girls instead of women. Boys are subjected to masculinization very early in life. "Big boys don't cry", "Men don't cry", "Stop crying, you're acting like a girl", "Stand up for yourself, don't be a girl".

Whereas with girls it happen later in life, early they don't see anything wrong with a boy being like they are. Although girls at that age are well on their way to being feminized.

Uhm. Probably not wise to... Yeah, let's... not... answer that.

 

[KoPilot]

BrightlyGo, it's not that msubs don't exist-- on the contrary, they exist with such force and power as any other man. It's just, it seems to me, that the combination of that force + the incredible desire to do away with it that makes people so uncomfortable, and (because, as in Stella's sig essay, lots of self-identified msubs are more just mbottoms) the fdom image so rigid.

Oh and, if you ask me, it's men that are all the sexy and women who are meh, they're just meatblobs, whatever. (Speaking from a binary perspective, obvs.)

 

[rosco rathbone]

it's men that are all the sexy and women who are meh, they're just meatblobs, whatever.

Agree.