Sex Spoken Here: Strong Women and BDSM
Welcome to my virtual therapy room! I am Dr Lori Beth Bisbey and this is Sex Spoken Here. Remember that this podcast deals with adult themes so if you don’t have privacy you might wish to put on your headphones. This week I am talking about strong women, BDSM and rough sex.
I am often asked how and why strong women can desire rough sex and if strong women who enter submissive relationships are really just play acting.
Submissive women are seen as easy to mold and passive in relationships. While some submissive women are passive, many are strong, active women who find joy in surrendering and transferring authority to a dominant partner. They enjoy service to someone who is stronger (or as strong) as they are.
I have talked about the basics of power exchange in the past. But to recap
In all relationships, there exists power exchange. One person is in charge of X and the other in charge of Y. In some relationships, there is a balance of power most of the time, an equal division of labour, responsibilities and decision making. In other relationships, most of the power lies with one person who has overall responsibility, and control of decision making.
Many so called ordinary relationships contain similar types of power exchange. In religious households, there are often strict division of roles and the man is often the one who is in charge as head of household with the woman deferring to him in all decisions.
Current thinking is that it is authority that is exchanged or transferred rather than power. This concepts works better when looking at strong powerful submissives who continue to run many aspects of their lives. The idea of taking power from a submissive rubs many dominants the wrong way. They enjoy the power and the fact that they are given the authority to weald the power as they see fit.
Why would a woman want to be submissive if not for religious conviction? For some of us, surrender is tantalising, exciting and ultimately a relief. As a strong woman, I am often in charge and in control whether it is to do with running my business or managing what needs to be done at home, social planning, financial planning, or parenting my teenage son. When I was a teenager, I was often in charge of projects with friends and I learned early how to take responsibility and plan well so that my goals were reached. I learned quickly that relying on other people often meant that things were not done the way I wanted them done or that they were not done at all. I began to take more responsibility and more control in my life and became known as someone who could and would get things done.
Control felt good. It felt safe. I had difficulty with trust as a result of some early life experiences. This made it even harder for me to give up control in any area of my life. But more control can equal less pleasure as orgasm requires that you relinquish control. At an early age, I found myself craving a dominant partner, someone who could take control from me, who could force me to surrender.
First I discovered romance novels, the type where the man carried the woman off and ravaged her. I quickly discovered BDSM erotica and immersed myself in Story of O, Beauty’s tales amongst others. My desire to submit grew. When I began to have relationships that included BDSM, I discovered that submission and surrender were not easy for a girl who was so used to being in control. I learned that in order to submit to someone, they had to be very intelligent, and someone I could respect and admire in the world. In short, the person had to be stronger than I. That is true to this day. To some this sounds arrogant but I make no apologies. I am a strong, highly intelligent, highly accomplished woman.
I am into BDSM and...
