Photo credit: "Beautiful Woman" by Alaskan Girl
Why does a successful career woman, not intimidated by any man in her professional world, fantasize scenes of erotic domination? And why does she sometimes live out those fantasies, with carefully chosen male partners who let her “top from below”?
Because it makes her feel sexually desirable—not because she likes being hurt, rejected, humiliated.
In SexyPrime conversations and interviews with my guy pal Alex Zola (The Zola System blogger), I’ve been exploring this phenomenon. I named him The Spanking Man after he confessed that his sex life in the decade of his thirties—He’s forty now—consisted of “being a kink provider for the women who want it,” with a specialty in erotic spanking. I’ve had some interesting emails from readers in response to Zola’s confessions.
Some women hate him; other women say, “I use guys like that to get what I want.” Some men identify with him; others say, “It’s assholes like this…” And every now and then I hear from a total jerk threatening me with physical violence for daring to say there are alpha women and beta men—a dumb total jerk unaware that his computer’s IP number is on record, attached to his threats in a permanent file.
As it turns out, Psychology Today‘s news editor, Matthew Hutson, is blogging about the same subject—powerful women who fantasize domination. (My pal Steve Otero at Sexy Spirits sent me the links.)
Interestingly, the alpha woman who dreamed of having it rough caught the attention of researcher and therapist E. Barbara Hinton back in 1973, when the modern women’s movement was emerging, putting more women into alpha roles. She interviewed women about their fantasies and found many dreamed of being “forcefully taken.” They fantasized aggressive lovers, she said, because they felt more desired by men who were so passionate about having them. (What is spankiing if not a lot of attention paid to one's ass?)
University of Kansas psychologist Patricia Hawley published a paper in the Journal of Sex Research in April that studied how both men and respond to domination fantasies. Both enjoyed fantasies in which they were dominant. But here is the surprise: “socially dominant women” were more turned on by submission fantasies than any other groups in the study.
Hawley concluded, as Hinton did, that women are more turned on by the idea of the forceful man’s passion than the domination itself.
Yes, that reinforces conclusions I’ve drawn in my own interviews with women about their BDSM fantasies—BUT a sizable segment of alpha women also act out their fantasies, finding men like Zola who will, for their own complicated reasons, provide the kink. The Alpha woman assuming the submissive role and the Beta male playing dominant is an interesting dynamic, an apparent flip-flop of their positions in society where she has more money and power than he does. A power exchange, however, is not a reversal of power. When she pulls on her panties and goes home, she is still the Gold Card Babe and he is—what?
Resentful, according to one beta male reader. “These women think they can get anything they want from us, sexually or domestically—and they can discard us the way men discard women.”
Yeah. That would be so unfair.
Into denial, writes another. “I pretend I’m her equal because we come from the same backgrounds.”
The Zola speaks best for Beta men. So I go to him.
“It’s her fantasy but it’s our reverse egotism get-back. We long for women. We want to get them but we want to get at them for all the years they rejected us in favor of Alpha males.”
Aha! Spanking is a passive/aggressive act!
“When I started spanking women,” he says, “It was 90/10 erotic to passive/aggressive. Now I’m never quite sure which is which. I look at the redness of her bottom and ask, is that erotic? Or is that about me wanting to smack her?”
Would you rather spank an Alpha woman or a Beta woman? I ask.
“Alpha women are more cock-sure of what they want…”
Wait a minute! I stop him. Are you saying that a sexually empowered woman is masculine?
“No. She’s the ultimate feminine, projecting all the qualities of a woman. Beta males want the Alpha woman but they’re afraid….so they work out a way of dealing with her. Those guys who are into cheating on her or refusing sex have found the way to regain their manhood.”
That will take us into new territory, a blog post for another day.
Are you happy being a beta male? I ask Zola.
“No, but I try to see the humor in it. I just want to be a regular guy. A pretentious Joe Six Pack.”
I doubt that. He wants to be widely admired and desired by many women. In the act of dominating a woman, he can believe that he is all that and more. His fantasy and hers interact in one fine moment of perfect equilibrium.
Babes, this is social progress.
copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime
