The essay below was originally posted to the newsgroup alt.lifestyle.master-slave
In this discussion, I will be talking primarily about the female heterosexual submissive, because I don't know enough about non-heterosexual female submissives and Dominants to know whether this analysis is completely applicable. This focus is not to suggest that lesbian female submissives and their challenges are less worthy of study, merely that I am not equipped at this time to do such a study.
So often, women who are newly aware of their submissive needs endure a period of self doubt around the troubling question: am I sick? I've seen women read the psychiatric diagnostic manual (DSM-IV) and then ask, "Do I have borderline personality disorder?"
I am writing here not only about the sexual aspects: "am I sick because I get turned on by images of being taken, used, forced, swept away by masculine energy more powerful than my own?"; I am also writing about the nonsexual aspects of being submissive: "am I sick because I yearn to depend on, and follow the lead of, a man stronger than myself?"
I will attempt to address both aspects in this essay.
What precisely fuels this kind of question, "am I sick?" Why would a woman discovering the language of her nature think she has a mental disorder? Or at the very least, have something very wrong with her?
A submissive discovers, or more properly, realizes and acknowledges that she functions at her best in relation to another. And the more intimate, holding, containing that relationship, the better she feels and the better she performs in cardinal areas of adult life: work, friendships, and parenting. Realizing she is at her best in such relation makes her wonder why she can't do it for herself? Why does she need such a relationship to accomplish what she should be able to do for herself?
In thinking about this, I have come to question the cultural determinants of what is considered the highest good. Here in Western society, we place highest value on independence, on "pull yourself up by the bootstraps", on the lone pioneer, the trailblazer, the less needy and more self sufficient. We value competition over cooperation, tangible achievement over achievement in relationship. We pay big bucks to men (and the few women) who run big corporations, and less to the nursery school teachers, the nurses, the secretaries, the social workers, the caregivers rather than the producers.
There is something wrong with believing that such independence is the only good. It is especially wrong for the most relatedness-oriented among us, the submissive female.
Part of the newly aware submissive's task is to separate out the internalized voices of her culture: those voices that tell her she is too needy, too dependent, too focused on the others in her life. Once she can articulate what those voices tell her, she can begin to question not herself, but the validity of those internalized values, using her own yardstick to measure her life, rather than our culture's standard.
We can see how perspective is critical in understanding a phenomenon. For example, Dr. Robert Coles, in a study of moral development in children, researched how children decide what is good and right. To do this, he presented several scenarios describing a moral or ethical dilemma, presented the scenario to school age children, and analyzed the results. The description of the study here is to illustrate the nature of cultural bias and it's impact on individuals.
One of Dr. Cole's scenarios was as follows:
A man has a very, very sick wife, so sick she could die if she doesn't get a particular, very expensive medicine. The man doesn't have the money for the medicine, so in desperation he steals it from a pharmacy.
The children are asked questions about this scenario. Coles found that boys tended to conclude that the man should be punished, because the law is the law, and nobody should break the law. Coles saw this as a higher order of moral reasoning, reflecting the statement, "a nation of laws, not of men." That is, that nobody is above the law, and the rule of law is not situationally defined. The boys applied an abstract universal principle to a singular instance. Coles understood this ability to transcend the personal as a "more evolved" form of moral development.
The girls were deeply troubled by the scenario, and most of them sought ways to solve the man's problem within the context of relatedness: they wondered if the man could ask the pharmacist for the medicine, and offer to work for him to pay for it, or pay him back later. They wondered if the man had friends who could help him pay for the medicine, and they believed he shouldn't be punished for his act of desperation. Their sense of right was situational, and defined within the context of relatedness. They did not come to articulate an abstract universal principle, but sought to solve the problem within the context presented. Coles saw this as a less logical, lower order of moral development because the girls could not emotionally distance themselves from the central human drama in the scenario.
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