This baby, as she grows into childhood, will be easy to control, to shape, especially if she is temperamentally on the "easy" side. This little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to criticism and correction, to disapproval, to praise. Rather than requiring a raised voice to correct, a raised eyebrow will often do.
Even further, this little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to nuance: she will know when others are angry, hurt, sad, bewildered even when they are not spoken about. She has a "sixth sense" about people.
As children do, she requires the adults in her life to validate her perceptions when appropriate. Let's say her parents are troubled by a financial stress, and like good, responsible parents seek to shield her from their stress. The child will pick up on the unspoken tension, sensitive as she is to subtleties of body language, voice pitch, facial expression. She might inquire of her parents what is wrong, and be told "nothing is wrong, honey... go and play." This leaves the child confused: she knows in that way that she knows, that something is wrong. But her perceptions are not validated. She is told nothing is wrong. But her parents, who are not at their best, may be a little short with her, and picking THAT up too, she goes off to play concluding that she must have done something wrong, to be sent away. Part of this is the megalomania of childhood, part of this is a reasonable and logical synthesis of resolving the child's felt sense of things with what she is told.
This kind of interaction, repeated over the years, in the best and most loving of families, leads to an adult personality in which there is some anxiety associated with relatedness. The submissive female learns to scan the social environment for signs of trouble, seeks to "fix" the trouble, and all too often, believes herself to be the cause of the trouble. If someone important is tired, the submissive has exhausted them. If someone important is angry, the submissive must have angered them. If someone important is disappointed, the submissive must have failed them.
This trait, this interpersonal sensitivity in its highest expression is when the submissive accurately registers interpersonal nuance, and responds to it with a minimum of self-referral, recognizing that other's emotional states may have nothing to do with the submissive herself. This is how it works for the healthy submissive, who as an adult, often finds great fulfillment working in fields such as social work, nursing, medicine, counseling, teaching.
There are certain vulnerabilities a child constituted with a submissive nature faces.
Because of her intense awareness of interpersonal nuance, she is highly sensitive to both criticism and praise. When criticized, she is likely to feel intense shame; when praised, intense pleasure. Since the shame feels so bad, and the praise so pleasurable, she becomes a people-pleaser. This tends to lead to the development of what psychologists call "an external locus of control." Meaning that child bases her self assessment (am I good or bad?) on factors outside herself. The female submissive defines herself based on what others tell her she is.
Parents have enormous responsibility with such an influenceable child. Nascent talents can either be nurtured or aborted with just a word. This child will likely live up, or down to, whatever is expected of her. Expect more than she can constitutionally do (like academic, athletic, or social success) and she will develop an intense sense of inferiority. Praise her out of proportion to her talents (this is the best drawing any child ever did) and she will develop an inflated sense of self. Accurately and sensitively validate her real abilities and talents, and she will seek goals appropriate to her ability, and take pleasure in achieving them
When the environment is reality based, sensitive, and balanced, the child grows up embracing her special ability to be "related" to others, to be sensitive, and has a sense of self in reasonable tune with her true abilities and vulnerabilities, neither excessively self effacing or self aggrandizing.
But if development should go awry, as it too often does for this child, the personality traits she has develop in a distorted manner, and cause her difficulties.
In dysfunctional families, this child suffers more than others with tougher hides, less reactive temperaments. She is often the one singled out for physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Her very nature makes her available for use: for the parent's angers, frustrations, sexual impulses, or narcissistic gratification. When a submissive child is misused in this fashion, she is unable to utilize her interpersonal talents in a constructive way. Around the core of her submissive nature, psychological pathology develops, and distorts her submissive development.
Women who emerge from childhood with these traits will be more or less consciously submissive in that they are moldable, controllable by others whether or not they call themselves "submissive." Those who don't consciously seek a Dominant partner will naturally gravitate to a man who influences and controls her in a benevolent manner, who accepts her, loves her, nurtures her, and values her sensitivity.
Those who consciously seek a Dominant partner are those who are perhaps, so sensitive that they require not only benevolence, but someone who understands precisely how moldable and influenceable they are, and is capable of using the power to mold her and influence her deliberately and consciously, for her good and the good of the relationship. Or she may have been fortunate enough to be exposed to a conscious Dominant, who fulfills her and reveals her nature to her. Or, increasingly evident, are those who recognize themselves in the explosion of information available via the Internet, and proliferation of BDSM-theme publications.
In relationship with an appropriate partner, the submissive is freed to be all of herself. She is safe enough to feel her exquisitely sensitive reactions to others, to play like a child, to give care and to take care, to be angry, to lose shame.
Part of what she is relates to her sexuality, what she finds erotic. To understand what makes a healthy submissive, we need to examine the nature of a healthy submissive's sexuality. We start by looking at the relation of her overall temperament and development to the particulars of her sexual core. It is in childhood, that we learn how to love, how to be loved, and how love feels in some existential way. A blueprint is laid down in childhood that influences adult love relationships in ways often not evident to the adult.
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