What makes a true submissive?

[DrDelirium]

I disagree. I don't feel as if it's a role.
It is who I am. I am many things.
I don't adopt a strong independent woman role, either. I am that, too.

Do you think men do this, as well?

It sounds disingenuous.

The presumption that people are lying to you is not helpful to discussion.
I think that people of all sorts have urges of various intensities in various directions, sometimes polar, and that while these are rooted in biology it is impossible to know to what degree the expression of the urges is a function of that biology and to what degree it is a product of adaptation to the environment. In everyone, it is a mix of these factors. If, as I think we both believe, there are variations in the intensity of these biological urges among individuals, then it follows that some people will express different urges, or express them differently, according to what their environment encourages, while others will be more difficult to influence in a linear fashion. Some people will be unhappy if they conform to social norms in opposition to their urges, others will adapt their happiness to those norms.
"Strong, Independent Woman" is a role, because the notion of "independence" is a social construct with a fluid definition, not an objective thing. Human beings are not 'independent,' they are deeply, irrevocably interdependent. Even those who adopt an 'off the grid' lifestyle are dependent on the entire history of the species to have the knowledge and technology to do so. Ignoring or denying the ways in which we depend on other humans and society at large does not make us independent. Abstractions like 'money' and 'property' allow us to form the illusion that we don't need others, but there are probably only one or two people on this board with a realistic prospect of surviving ten days without accessing the fruits of other people's labor- and even they could do so only because they have internalized the hard-won knowledge of generations of their forebears and consumed the products of others' labor to survive thus far.
Do men have similar self-serving constructs? Of course. People have these, in abundance. The essentialism behind contemporary identity politics is one of these, with many variations by race, gender, religion and ethnicity. If we are something, as opposed to being someone who does something, we justify intractability. I don't just want, this, I am this, so you have to accommodate me. And because what I am is just a fact, I don't have to examine its broader implications.
I think there is a valuable flexibility in embracing the concept of choosing what you want to be, who you want to be, what role you want to play. Are there aspects of personality that are essentially immutable? Probably, but we can observe people's operational psychology changing radically, and 'permanently' due to environmental pressures, so to talk about immutable personality traits is to discuss something at a level well below the level of behavior or consciousness.
I understand that people attempting to function in ways that are culturally condemned want to be taken seriously, do not want their desires to be viewed as frivolous or easily subject to change. I have no beef with that. I just don't think that this notion of 'identity' is the best approach to that, in part because it runs into all this debate about what is or is not 'really' BDSM, submission, homosexuality, 'black,' Christian, or whatever.

 

[Farawyn]

^Yes, your last paragraph.

I will sift through the rest after more coffee. Thanks for the reply. I think I agree, now that you explained your thoughts more fully.

 

[barefootgirl69]

My head is spinning, and I need caffeine.

Everyone is going to have their own idea of what is a submissive. Some submissives are only in the bedroom, some are submissive to various degrees all day long. It's a label we put on something that is a part of us... like saying that a domineering asshole is a domineering asshole. We need words to communicate things, to describe feelings or attributes of ourselves and others.

By saying "true submissive", though, it gives place for others to judge our submission. "bfg isn't a true submissive because she homeschools her children. She didn't submit to the government." (Roll with me on this one, okay... I don't want to have to think too hard.) Or "she/he isn't a true submissive because xyz, and I like xyz and I'm a true submissive."

Do you submit to your lover/partner/SO? Then, you are submissive. The degree of submission if between you and that person.

Once we figure out if there are "true" submissives or not, will we discuss if/how they can be made?

*curling up on the couch*

 

[Primalex]

Spent anytime around botanical gardens? Your attempt at wit effectively crushes your attempt at wisdom.

There are over a hundred known species of rose with over a thousand hybrid variants.
[snipped]

And...this is why an argument that roses don't have a last common ancestor?

 

[Primalex]

Can they be in conflict with cultural norms? Absolutely. But they can also be adapted to cultural norms to a high degree. Witness the doms that go to work and don't even attempt to overthrow their bosses. The subs that go to work and boss people around. The subs that don't give blowjobs to the pushy jerks at the bar, etc.

The question is not whether I will try to dominate my boss, but if it would generate sexual pleasure for me to do so. Just because heterosexual people respect the culture they live in and don't fuck on Times Square does not mean that heterosexuality is a role.

 

[Farawyn]

The question is not whether I will try to dominate my boss, but if it would generate sexual pleasure for me to do so. Just because heterosexual people respect the culture they live in and don't fuck on Times Square does not mean that heterosexuality is a role.

Right.
This is what I had an issue with. Behavior/law/societal norms do not cancel out what one is intrinsically, and reduce that to a role.

 

[Gotham_Central]

And...this is why an argument that roses don't have a last common ancestor?

No, this is an argument that variety exists within everything. Attempting to establish and monolithic norm is futile.

 

[Primalex]

By saying "true submissive", though, it gives place for others to judge our submission.

The attempt to avoid the words "true submissive" to prevent judgment is like the attempt to avoid the word "nigger" to prevent racial discrimination.

Let's say we rule that a human can be a 0.25 submissive it still means there can be someone out there who is a 1.0 submissive and therefore a "true" submissive.

Is there a true submissive out there or not? To answer this question, we need to find two traits which are mutually exclusive within an individual but either one of them is required for someone to be considered submissive at all. In this case, we would end up with two versions of a "0.99 submissive" without the possibility that one can become "more true" than the other one (as the missing 0.01 is the mutually exclusive counterpart of the other one). Happy hunting!

 

[barefootgirl69]

The attempt to avoid the words "true submissive" to prevent judgment is like the attempt to avoid the word "nigger" to prevent racial discrimination.

Let's say we rule that a human can be a 0.25 submissive it still means there can be someone out there who is a 1.0 submissive and therefore a "true" submissive.

Is there a true submissive out there or not? To answer this question, we need to find two traits which are mutually exclusive within an individual but either one of them is required for someone to be considered submissive at all. In this case, we would end up with two versions of a "0.99 submissive" without the possibility that one can become "more true" than the other one (as the missing 0.01 is the mutually exclusive counterpart of the other one). Happy hunting!

You did that just to make my head spin more!
Meanie!

 

[Primalex]

No, this is an argument that variety exists within everything. Attempting to establish and monolithic norm is futile.

Do you actually realize that you are saying "evolution is a hoax"?

 

[MeekMe]

d-type: do this thing that goes completely against your sensibilities and endangers you.

Me: no.

d-type: By the power invested in me by the Council of BDSM Affairs I must inform you that you are not submissive.

Me: per the guidelines set forth by the Association of the Ethical Treatment of MeekMe (AETMM) I must inform you that "you're fired."

 

[Farawyn]

d-type: do this thing that goes completely against your sensibilities and endangers you.

Me: no.

d-type: By the power invested in me by the Council of BDSM Affairs I must inform you that you are not submissive.

Me: per the guidelines set forth by the Association of the Ethical Treatment of MeekMe (AETMM) I must inform you that "you're fired."

 

[barefootgirl69]

d-type: do this thing that goes completely against your sensibilities and endangers you.

Me: no.

d-type: By the power invested in me by the Council of BDSM Affairs I must inform you that you are not submissive.

Me: per the guidelines set forth by the Association of the Ethical Treatment of MeekMe (AETMM) I must inform you that "you're fired."

This....
All day long.

 

[Primalex]

Me: per the guidelines set forth by the Association of the Ethical Treatment of MeekMe (AETMM) I must inform you that "you're fired."

Hm. What I associate with "Treatment of MeekMe" is somehow totally not ethical.

 

[DrDelirium]

The question is not whether I will try to dominate my boss, but if it would generate sexual pleasure for me to do so. Just because heterosexual people respect the culture they live in and don't fuck on Times Square does not mean that heterosexuality is a role.

That's the question if dominance and submission is just about sex. Even if we take that special case as our focus, though, while I get sexual pleasure out of dominating some people, it simply wouldn't have happened in the case of most of my bosses (I can think of only one exception, actually). Also, there are some that I did, in fact dominate in a non-sexual sense.

It's difficult to know what 'heterosexuality' is because it's the dominant paradigm. We don't have a lot of reliable data about people who are deeply wired to be heterosexual who are under vast social pressure to be gay, because we don't have societies in which homosexuality is normative. We see that when it is socially permissible, most men want to have sex with women, but we don't see how most men would respond to living in a society in which homosexuality was promoted as the preferred mode. I'm not going to try to prove anything here, but I suspect that there are 'core' heterosexuals and homosexuals whose sexual drives are very tightly targeted and largely immutable, and a significant group of people who are fundamentally more plastic, and whose drives are significantly shaped by cultural expectations. The current florescence of 'gender fluidity' supports this notion.
So, heterosexuality may be more than a role, in the pejorative sense of role which you seem to want to use, but it is a role in the sense that it's not a simple, genetically determined binary, but is susceptible to cultural influences in at least part of the population.

 

[TheWhiteBull]

The attempt to avoid the words "true submissive" to prevent judgment is like the attempt to avoid the word "nigger" to prevent racial discrimination.

Let's say we rule that a human can be a 0.25 submissive it still means there can be someone out there who is a 1.0 submissive and therefore a "true" submissive.

Is there a true submissive out there or not? To answer this question, we need to find two traits which are mutually exclusive within an individual but either one of them is required for someone to be considered submissive at all. In this case, we would end up with two versions of a "0.99 submissive" without the possibility that one can become "more true" than the other one (as the missing 0.01 is the mutually exclusive counterpart of the other one). Happy hunting!

Except that the discussion here isnt whether someone is .25, .66, or 1.0 so much as it's asking the question of whether or not there is a 1.0 to compare to. "Nigger" isn't that comparable because there's a more easily identifiable 1.0, namely blackness. Sure, you can argue about how black somebody is of they're mixed, or adopted into a white family and not involved in black culture, etc. But there's still a consensus on what being black means.

It's more like introverts and extroverts. Sure everybody knows what generally constitutes each, but people also display varying mixes of their attributes naturally, and depending on mood even. Would you call somebody who is say, extroverted within their inner circle but introverted with others "not a true introvert"?

 

[Gotham_Central]

Do you actually realize that you are saying "evolution is a hoax"?

Can you stay on the topic for twenty seconds!

 

[DrDelirium]

Right.
This is what I had an issue with. Behavior/law/societal norms do not cancel out what one is intrinsically, and reduce that to a role.

There seems to be some antagonism to the word 'role' here. I am not using it in the sense of a fiction enacted by an actor, but of "the function assumed or part played by a person or thing in a particular situation.
"she greeted us all in her various roles of mother, friend, and daughter""

There's no 'reduction' involved. If you would prefer a different term the meaning I intend, I'd be happy to entertain suggestions.
This does, though, illuminate what I was saying in my earlier post- you react to the feeling that the use of a particular term trivializes or devalues something that, however defined, is very important to you. That's certainly not my intention, quite the opposite. I think desires are a legitimate cause of action, and don't require some story about how they are based on an individual's, or a class of persons', immutable natures. Most of those stories are pretty flimsy, frankly, and can only be argued statistically, not in the case of particular individuals. We should not care whether a person is born gay or chooses to be gay, is born submissive or chooses to be submissive, or 'made submissive' by life experience. These are all legitimate 'reasons' to 'be' submissive.
I will also note that many people change their minds about their sexual identites, along with many other things. Some people do this several times. Do we want to challenge their right to do that? You thought you were a submissive but now you feel like being a dom, so you were lying about being a submissive? Is such a person not a 'true' submissive, or a 'true' dominant? If this is what they are now, and that is what they were then, then what does it mean to say 'this is what I am?' Another reason I prefer the idea of function over essence.

 

[DrDelirium]

But there's still a consensus on what being black means.

No, there is not.

 

[Primalex]

Except that the discussion here isnt whether someone is .25, .66, or 1.0 so much as it's asking the question of whether or not there is a 1.0 to compare to. "Nigger" isn't that comparable because there's a more easily identifiable 1.0, namely blackness.

Is this the case? Is a "true nigger" someone with the proper melanin level?

It's more like introverts and extroverts. Sure everybody knows what generally constitutes each, but people also display varying mixes of their attributes naturally, and depending on mood even. Would you call somebody who is say, extroverted within their inner circle but introverted with others "not a true introvert"?

Why not?

 

[Gotham_Central]

There seems to be some antagonism to the word 'role' here. I am not using it in the sense of a fiction enacted by an actor, but of "the function assumed or part played by a person or thing in a particular situation.
"she greeted us all in her various roles of mother, friend, and daughter"".

I have solicited a similar response in the past for similar reasons.

In hindsight, I did a poor job of conveying my understanding and tripped up several in the thread with the idea of BDSM as containing, or even being based on, an element of theater. Again, referencing the roles played and the suspension of disbelief required.

I wish I could suggest a different term, but I never found one.

 

[Primalex]

Can you stay on the topic for twenty seconds!

I take this as a "Now I did, damned.".

 

[TheWhiteBull]

No, there is not.

Happy to discuss it with you further, either on another thread or pm.

 

[TheWhiteBull]

Is this the case? Is a "true nigger" someone with the proper melanin level?

Most people would define it as such but as I already said we can discuss race elsewhere so as not to hijack the thread if you want to.

Why not?

Shifting the burden since I asked you the question.

 

[Gotham_Central]

I take this as a "Now I did, damned.".

As usual, you'd be wrong.

Pointing out that variety simply exists in nature neither proves nor disproves evolution! All is does is point out that variety exists, regardless of how it developed.

But again, nice deflection of a point you're unwilling, or unable, to address.