Dominance and submission

[Mach123]

Hi, I am finally posting this for me. I'm putting it out here because my posts on the subject tend to go everywhere, sporadically, and in my diary in particular, but it's such a core issue I want a 'nice central location' for all my thinking on the subject. Two posts in particular in the last couple days convinced me I needed to do this one on co dependency, another kind of control, and one on actual dominance and submission in gender and sexual roles. My main concern usually in posting threads has been 'what kind of response is this going to get?' This time that's irrelevant finally. I really want to work on this and I think about it all the time so, I should have plenty of material.

"Gangs of New York" is one of my all time favorite movies and in one scene "Bill the Butcher" Daniel Day Lewis' character gives an (IDK what? Soliloquy?) on fear and how he used it to control that horrible environment. Gangs of New York | 'Fear' (HD) - Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis | MIRAMAX.

This is an extreme example I understand that. Dominance and submission is (for me) what the whole movie is about (and everything else for that matter) and dramatizes it nicely.

The Matrix Reloaded - The Architect Scene 1080p Part 1

This is another one of my favorites about the same thing. I'll get more into the gory details as this goes along. : )

 

[ILoveLife]

I see your posts about it. I think it's a way you learned to see the world, or at least one aspect of it you learned to focus on.
There's a lot of dominance and submission engrained in kids from the start, particularly when we're abused as children. That can become really dysfunctional for us moving forward, hindering our growth - if it's the only thing we focus on.

There's also a whole gray area between complete dominance and complete submission. Like, my pets and me. I'm the big one but they basically rule the household. They depend on me for affection and food and water and a clean litter box, and I depend on their affection. But it's not a trade, because we've built a relationship based on respect and mutual understanding between species which is pretty f*cking awesome. So its not really about dominance or submission but about love.

 

[Mach123]

I understand the sentiment. : )

I emailed the therapist and asked her if I could refer to myself as "pathologically submissive." I can't wait to hear what she has to say. We did that hypnosis yesterday and a lot of things have been popping into my head today, stuff I already think about but that seems in a new light today? Things I don't usually think about too. IDK I've had these "ah ha" moments b4. Interesting day, we will c!

 

[Rani G2]

You know Mach123 maybe that I have my issues with this Dynamic. Fearing submission..like hell..

I'll get more into the

Looking forward to read more...

Still working and digging deeper..


Thanks

 

[Mach123]

It's so scary. I'm right in it right now? I'm trying to run away from it but we are locked together trying to finish a real estate thing? There is a post I want to make it has to do with 'using this whole thing as self harm.' Can't quite do it.

 

[Deleted member 47099]

Hey Mach,

Have you heard of the "fawn response"? It goes with fight/ flight/ freeze.
It's a survival response, like the others.

I wrote about it in my diary the other day, because an ex of mine had this response.

It's basically what puppies do when a bigger dog "threatens" them - they fall to the ground, and lay on their backs to demonstrate "You are the boss, I'll do whatever you want so you don't hurt me".

There's quite a lot of information on the fawn response in Pete Walker's work:
Pete Walker - Fawn Response
Pete Walker - Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn
Dead Link Removed

I think it would be worth talking to your therapist about and asking whether she's aware of it.

Here's a link to 2 threads in the forum about it:
What is your favoured mode of reacting? fight, flight, freeze or fawn?
Fight, Flight, Freeze, And Fawn: Reactions To Trauma Inflicted In Childhood

Basically, it's "submission as a survival mechanism".

If this is a survival mechanism you have, then you will tend to apply this repeatedly.
It could be a form of "re-enactment".

Also, it could mean that you seek out this role dynamic, hence always ending up with "dominant" types.
This would give you the impression that "everyone is domniant" (which is not actually true).

 

[Mach123]

She's aware of it. Thanks so much for the resources.

 

[Mach123]

My (partner wife dom) is not unhappy with me so everything is ok. We were fighting yesterday and I always have been like it's the end of the world if I think she is unhappy with me and nothing is wrong if we are ok. Like she has to forgive me. I learned some stuff yesterday. It is a very stressful time for us so given that we are doing reasonably well. I understand I am working on her and I am trying to stop doing that. It's a pathology about wanting to be submitted. I only caught it the last couple weeks. Like a 'learned helplessness.' She feeds into it. Things will settle down after we move. The stress is making us both 'symptomatic.'

 

[Deleted member 47099]

Yeah, fighting is horrible for everyone involved, even if we often put on a "tough face" and pretend that we're fine.
It rattles everyone, and everyone says and does things they don't mean, cos they're stressed and hurt.
Fighting sucks. I hope you guys make up soon! :)

 

[Mach123]

My friend and I on the phone laughing our asses off together about our wives and what they do to us. I didn't intend ever to open up with him and I'll never remember how it happened but I'm so glad it did. I think I've told him actually everything I told the therapist, not all the details but, he knows about the sexual abuse and stuff. I don't have to see him face to face. I mean I love him the way you love someone you've known since High School. But it was through talking about our marriages that we got really close. I taught him about what it was like to be submitted and why I thought I was like that, and I was completely amazed to find out he was almost exactly like I am in regards to how he relates to his wife. So it's not all just sexual abuse that can make someone submissive. My submissiveness has a deeper pathology. He gets to go be dominant out in the real world though. He's the same as I am emotionally, but he has a strong facade. It's emotionally how similar he feels that really surprises me. I don't think I ever talked about my feelings really ever with any other men. Men don't. You make jokes about it that's all. He told me he'd never admit to another man what he lets her do to him lol. It's a charming idea really that the man is the 'head of the household.' He is if she lets him. If she doesn't, he's not. You can't force her, that's abuse.

My buddy and I are not the heads of our households. Our wives are. They CAN and do force us to do whatever, abuse be damned. They push us out front as faux husbands when they need a front man. It's smart. All good managers do this. Never let anyone know who's actually making the decisions. Keep everyone looking in the wrong direction. Both our wives are abusive but taken as the way people usually behave after they marry, it's condoned and overlooked by society kinda the way #meetoo says the abuse of women is condoned and overlooked. Men are largely disposable. But, I digress. I didn't mean to go down that road in this post but I think I'll leave it. This is a place for me to think out loud about the D&S thing.

 

[Mach123]

Today I get sex thank God. Waiting for her kills me. ive made love to her now two days on the couch and she stops it before it gets to sex. I call it making love because I think to her it is. She likes the build up more than the act. I have to be patient, she makes up the rules. I get oral sex now meaning I get to do it to her. It's much more important that I can do it to her. It only started a few months ago and I really went crazy after that. Now I'm totally submitted. I thou I was before but that was nothing till the oral started. Now I'm crazy in love. I wish she was a little more crazy about me but l take what she gives me. I never had affairs even though I wanted it more? I just argued with her instead. I didn't know I was trying to be submissive all those years. She gets it but she won't talk to me about it. She's not a talker.

I always had sex in the third person. We were talking about the autism and how those kids learn in the third person. They watch the Disney movies then apply what they see in their heads to actual situations. This was how I had sex. I was doing it from the top, but I would see myself on the bottom. There were three of us. I just thought it was fantasy. Then I remembered the CSA.

 

[Mach123]

I just thought of an awful, awful thing I could do to the therapist that would be a giant manipulation from the bottom, to coin a phrase. I am ashamed I even thought of doing a thing like that to her. : ( She would be helpless if I said it, I would be blaming her for the way I'm feeling? I can just feel how I would suck her in with that. I know she'd fall for it. I think I'll tell her that I thought it up and not do it. That would be me revealing a lot about myself. She probably already knows.