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<p>Whether your family contains a lot of children or all of your children are now adults, doing something together as a family can be fun and beneficial for everyone. With the holidays upon us, it’s likely that everyone will be gathering together to celebrate. Although the holidays are a wonderful time to spend with your family, you don’t have to limit your togetherness to just celebrating a special occasion. You can also make time to do other memorable activities with each other, some of which might even become a future tradition. Here are some family activities to try the next time you and your family are together.</p>
<p>Getting away from it all and experiencing the great outdoors is a great way for families to “unplug” and spend quality time together. Fresh air is good for both physical and mental health, and just being outside, in general, has a positive impact on mental health. Camping is also a great experience for younger children, as they have the opportunity to learn about nature and <a href=”https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/wilderness-how-to-survive-wellness/index.html”>basic survival skills</a>. The great part about camping is that you don’t have to travel to a campground— you can camp out right in your own backyard if you’d like! With small children, you can even build a fort and “camp out” in your living room.</p>
<p>The holidays are the perfect time of year for families to gather together in the kitchen and <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2019/08/20/what-her-cooking-style-reveals-about-her-personality/”>cook together</a>. This is a special activity that can also be done throughout the entire year. If you have special recipes that you want to pass down to your kids someday, you can start teaching them at any age. Even the youngest of children can help out by pouring and stirring ingredients. This is also a good way to bridge the gap between the older and younger members of your family: grandparents especially love sharing their recipes and cooking skills with their grandchildren and children.</p>
<p>A picnic in the park is a great way to spend time with family, plus you can pack some of your most favorite foods and treats! If it’s too cold to picnic outside, you can lay a blanket down on the floor of your living room or family room and have your picnic indoors. Another option is to set up a table in your backyard. This way, you’ll be in the privacy of your home and won’t have to worry about busy, noisy parks. This is also a good option if you have children who are sensitive to loud sounds and become easily overwhelmed when around a lot of people.</p>
<p>Playing cards is another great family activity that everyone of all ages can enjoy. Kids can enjoy classic card games such as Go Fish and Old Maid, and they can even be taught to play Uno. If you’re not into card games, you can always play board games or even video games with your family. A little family-friendly competition can be fun, and you’re still spending quality time with your loved ones.</p>
<p>Though watching movies isn’t as social as the other activities listed, it’s still a good way to spend time with family. It can still be a cozy and heart-warming experience, especially if you light a fire, make some hot cocoa, and choose a family-themed movie to enjoy together. You can go old-school and watch your favorite videotapes or DVDs from your childhood. However, most families now have smart TVs and use streaming platforms to watch TV shows and movies. Some of <a href=”https://troypoint.com/streaming-apps/”>the best streaming apps</a> include Disney+ for kids and adults, and even Netflix and Hulu have a library for kids and families.</p>
<p><em>Every family is unique, so you may have your own traditions you already follow. As long as you’ve gathered together and enjoyed each other’s company, you’re spending quality time with the people you love most.</em></p>
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<p>When it comes to pick up theory and men’s dating advice, a lot of it falls back on evolutionary theory and evolutionary psychology to look for guidance. This is where you get the typical waning about dominance, social status and hierarchy, gender attraction and of course, <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2021/12/06/alpha-males-and-the-women-who-love-them/”>the elusive alpha male</a>.</p>
<p>But there are three logical fallacies that, to my knowledge, every single pick up site and dating coach falls victim to at one point or another. You see them everywhere. And they can lead to some really damaging beliefs about sex and women. I myself fell into these fallacies for years, and it’s only been through reading a lot of the science and having discussions with feminists in the last year that I see where some of the faulty reasoning is.</p>
<p>The three fallacies about women are the Fallacy of Composition, the Fallacy of Division and the Naturalist Fallacy. The industry is rife with them. All of them. At best, they’re harmless but misleading. At worst, they’re misogynistic and damaging. Let’s cover them:</p>
<h2><strong>The Fallacy of Composition</strong></h2>
<p>The Fallacy of Composition is when someone mistakes something that’s true for an individual and assumes that it must true for a group in which the individual is part. For example: atoms are colorless; cats are made up of atoms; therefore cats are colorless. A few examples pertaining to women:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Every girlfriend I’ve ever had cheated on me, therefore all girlfriends cheat on their boyfriends.</strong></li>
<li><strong>The girl I hooked up with liked it when I made fun of her, therefore all women like being made fun of.</strong></li>
<li><strong>The girl who texted on her phone all night was young, therefore all young women text all night on their phones.</strong></li>
<li><strong>The black girl I hooked up with liked to be spanked. Therefore all black women like to be spanked.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>It goes on and on. If you pay attention, you’ll see this fallacy <i>everywhere</i> throughout the industry — both by coaches and by students. On forums, blogs posts, articles and in products. The examples above are pretty obvious generalizations, but sometimes this fallacy is very hard to pick out. For instance, can you spot it in these statements:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Females of any species are always submissive, therefore all women enjoy being dominated.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Night clubs are very expensive and glamorous, therefore women who go there are shallow and gold-diggers.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Whenever I approach women on the street, they reject me. Therefore women don’t want to be approached on the street.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Humans are complex. Women are complex. And the act of picking up women involves a great deal of self-selection. What I mean by self-selection is that the manner in which you go about pursuing women will inherently screen them for you. For instance, if you pursue women in a dominant manner, only women who like dominant men will react well to you. If you pursue only women who think you’re good-looking, then you will only hook up with women who care about good looks. Self-selection is an under-discussed yet complicated topic. An entire chapter of my new book is dedicated to it and how it determines, literally, all of your results.</p>
<p>The point is, of course, you don’t actually know. You can sleep with 100 women who like to be spanked. But there will be some women, somewhere, who don’t like it.</p>
<h2><strong>The Fallacy of Division</strong></h2>
<p>The Fallacy of Division is the logical opposite of the Fallacy of Composition, but it’s arguably even more dangerous when it comes to beliefs about women. The Fallacy of Division is when you take a general trait of a group and assume it must be true for every individual. For instance: humans are conscious; humans are made of atoms; therefore atoms are conscious.</p>
<p>To explain how this afflicts our men’s movement, take the following true statement: “Men are taller than women.” Yes, men on average are taller than women. But it’s important to remember: not EVERY man is taller than EVERY woman. Some women are taller than some men. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a distribution of traits between men and women, and what’s true for the group is not true for all or even many of the individuals. Here are some of the most common (and misleading ones) examples in pick up theory:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Women prefer men who are dominant. Therefore every woman wants all men to dominate them.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Women are attracted to men of higher status. Therefore every woman wants to be with the most high status man possible.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Women want to be pursued by men. Therefore every woman wants to always be pursued by every man.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>As you can see, these can lead to some disastrous conclusions. The same conclusions you’ll see scattered around the <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2021/05/17/25-worlds-greatest-pick-up-artists/”>PUA scene</a>: “Any woman will cheat on her husband if an alpha comes by,” “Women want you to pursue them, even if they tell you not to,” or “If a woman tries to be more dominant than you, she’s just testing you.”</p>
<p>Just as individual women vary in height, and height relative to individual men, their desire to be dominated varies and varies relative to individual men. Their attraction to status varies and varies relative to individual men, and their preference to be pursued varies as well. You can’t make blanket statements about entire populations of women in this way. Yes, some of these evolutionary conclusions are useful in broad strokes. But it’s important to remember that culture, psychology, and emotional state are all just as influential on a woman’s behavior as her biology (if not more so).</p>
<h2><strong>The Naturalist Fallacy</strong></h2>
<p>Also known as the Is/Ought Fallacy. The Is/Ought Fallacy is when one assumes what is naturally true is what ought to be morally true. This Is/Ought Fallacy can lead people down very, very dark paths, as you can use it to justify pretty much any heinous and instinctual behavior. For instance, murder and rape are “natural” behaviors, but I don’t think anyone would argue that they’re morally acceptable.</p>
<p>Applied to pick up and women, the Is/Ought Fallacy usually brings out the most misogynistic conclusions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Men produce massive amounts of sperm, therefore they SHOULD be as promiscuous as possible.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Women often have rape fantasies, therefore they SHOULD be raped.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Women are naturally more empathetic and better care givers, therefore they SHOULD stay in the home.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The Is/Ought Fallacy stifles evolution of thought and society. The modern world is complex and highly evolved. Our race is more interconnected than ever before. We have more resources for more people than ever before. Women are not dependent on men for their subsistence. We have a reasonable amount of control over our reproduction. We have legal equalities. What’s “natural” makes up for a smaller and smaller segment of our society today. Therefore our natural drives may not always be most beneficial.</p>
<p>Does this mean that we have to go to the other extreme and become a bunch of androgynous automatons? Absolutely not. There ARE healthy differences between men and women which absolutely should be honored and considered. But the next time you see someone saying, “Well, women like being put in their place, so I just go for it anyway,” or “She obviously couldn’t help but fuck the nearest alpha male, since she is a woman after all,” recognize that these aren’t scientific facts, as much as sick rationalizations and over-simplifications for the author’s sexual whims.</p>
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<p>Chastity is probably the very last thing I would recommend to someone who is seeking to find a compatible mate. Within marriage, one <i>essential</i> area of compatibility is sexual compatibility. And I don’t see any way for two people to determine if they are sexually compatible unless they have sex, and lots of it. Preferably they will do that <i>before</i> marriage, so they don’t end up legally entangled with someone they find they do cannot have good sex with.</p>
<p>But then, I would not just advocate having sex with a potential husband or wife; I would also recommend that both men and women spend some time sowing their wild oats before settling down. Because unless one experiments with different sexual partners, one cannot really get a good idea of the kinds of sex that are enjoyable or objectionable. If you only ever know <i>one</i> sexual partner, then you have no way of knowing how they might compare to another one. (Which, I believe, is one motivation for pushing chastity – men don’t want their wives to know their, um, shortcomings in comparison to other men.)</p>
<p>All this business about how ‘cherished’ virginity is in a wife strikes me as sanctimonious hoohah. A virgin bride is an ignorant bride. She has no idea how to bring pleasure to her mate, or even what she herself might enjoy. And if the man is a virgin, too, that just doubles the trouble. In that case, it’s going to be the blind leading the blind, and it could be a long time before they begin to learn how to have really great sex. And even when they do, there will always be the nagging knowledge that they have no other experiences to compare it to: is it possible their marital sex life is woefully inadequate, compared to the kind of sex they might have had with someone else? They will never know.</p>
<p>I came of age in the 1970s, and my mother was very liberal with regard to sex. She would leave the house so my boyfriend and I could <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2020/12/14/online-dating-etiquette-101-privacy-vs-honesty/”>have some privacy</a>, and she would pay for our hotel room when we went off on vacations. She made sure that I was well educated about sex; and also that I had the pill, as soon as I started being sexually active. (At first, we used condoms and foam; but my mom took me to the doctor as soon as I brought it up.)</p>
<p>This was in the “free love” era, before AIDS, and so pregnancy was the only major worry. Chastity was not considered much of a virtue among the folks I knew. And it was a mystery to me why <i>anyone</i> would think that virginity was a good thing, because first-time sex was painful and difficult; it only got better after the virginity was gone. Of all the men I’ve been intimate with, I’ve never met even one who would have preferred a virgin.</p>
<p>My high school romance was sweet, deep, intense, and idealistic, but ultimately short-lived. He was not the man for me, in the long run; nor was anyone else I ever met quite right, either. But that did not stop me from meeting men that I liked and lusted after; as well as men that I loved and spent a few years with, and kept as best friends for decades. But no matter whether it was an exclusive relationship or a one-night stand, the wonderful thing was learning about sex itself, all the glorious ways that a man and a woman could relate at that most intimate level. And as I learned, I became better at loving men; and it was also obvious to me that men who had more sexual experiences were also better lovers.</p>
<p>I suppose from some biblical view, other people would think there should be some shame involved in casual sex, or at least some regret, some twinge of guilt. But that was never the case for me. The whole idea that sex was somehow sinful or shameful just seemed absurd to me. It made no sense at all to me that such a deeply sacred experience should be regarded as dirty or impure. Sex was one thing in life that seemed purely good, and that was that.</p>
<p>That does not mean that I was completely fulfilled in my sexual relationships, though; because I always had this deep submissive longing that never seemed to get completely met. But even plain vanilla sex was a holy thing to me. There was just the sheer wonderfulness of a man’s flesh, the smell and the feel of it, that made me realize the goodness of Nature itself. I only wish that I had been better able to understand and articulate my own needs for sexual submission when I was younger; perhaps I would have been motivated to <a href=”https://www.loveawake.com/free-online-dating/Canada-dating-service.html?page=56″>find more dominant men</a> to relate to.</p>
<p>However, the glorious “free love” years came to an end in the 80s, with the discovery of AIDS and the new emphasis on safe sex. Now I’m all for safe sex, even if I don’t always like the actual mechanics what that means in practice. But it certainly does not need to mean abstinence; condoms and spermicidal foam are very effective at preventing HIV transmission. (And since the female-to-male transmission rate is so low, a woman is pretty safe if she’s sleeping only with straight men, and always uses condoms.) Still, my love life slowed way down as I became much more careful. Even my friends who have open <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2019/05/09/the-dos-and-donts-of-a-polyamorous-relationship/”>polyamorous relationships</a> have learned to be more careful about who does what with whom and how.</p>
<p>Now, I can’t help but feel sorry for people who grew up in the age of AIDS, and who never had a chance to know the joyous, heady, liberating days of sexual freedom that followed the 1960s. Nowadays, while most people don’t wait for marriage in order to have sex, most of them still seem to feel that you have to be in a <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2019/12/09/why-are-most-men-commitment-phobic-learn-how-to-deal-with-it/”>committed relationship</a> in order to enjoy sex. For me, that would have been much too stifling when I was young. Sex itself was a holy rite, and it could not be bound by ‘commitment’. Now that I’m older, it’s not such a bad thing to live with; but for a young person to have such tight restrictions on their love life seems sad to me. I can only hope that they will have a large number of such ‘committed relationships’ before they get themselves tangled up in marriage.</p>
<p>Anyway, that’s the view on chastity from where I sit. I just never had any use for it at all, and probably never will. I can see being in an exclusive romantic relationship, of course. But I see no point in abstaining from sex just because one does not happen to be in such a relationship. I would strongly advise safe sexual practices, of course; but no activity in life is entirely risk-free, including sex. There are ways to be safe and still explore the wonders of sexuality.</p>
<p>I would not insist that everyone else should share my views in favor of wild passions, erotic liberation and sexual exploration; but neither do I feel others are justified in implying that we should all share their bible-based views that extol the ‘virtues’ of chastity, either. If that’s the view from within their specific religion, fine. But let’s try to remember that there are plenty of other religions around that would disagree on the value of chastity; as well as atheists and agnostics, too. Not everyone is going to regard chastity as good and virginity as a “treasure”. Some of us regard both of those as unfortunate nuisances, and we happen to regard sex itself as the sacred and priceless treasure.</p>
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<p>I’ve always had a thing for alpha males: even when I was a little girl, I instinctively knew when I had come in contact with one. I’m not talking about men who swagger and boast and try to act macho – as far as I’m concerned, men like that are alpha-male wannabees. A true alpha male carries himself with a quiet self-confidence. He doesn’t have anything to prove: he’s comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is, and what he wants, and how to go about getting it. He has that rare quality that we call charisma or magnetism.. And his age doesn’t matter: young or old, it’s just a part of his make-up.</p>
<p><a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2020/06/29/being-alpha-and-the-price-of-tea-in-china/”>Alpha males</a> have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I respond to this kind of man on a visceral level. All of my senses come alive when I’m around one of them. I suddenly become more aware of myself as a woman and intensely aware of them as a man. I’ve never felt more feminine than I do when I’m with one of these uncommon men.</p>
<p>When I was a much younger woman, I once had a relationship with a man who had these qualities, and I loved him like I’ve never loved another man since. I’m sorry to say that the relationship didn’t work out, for reasons that I won’t go into here; let’s just say that I believe timing played a big factor in the <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2020/02/20/reframe-failure-save-your-marriage/”>failure of our relationship</a>. It’s a loss that I still feel to this day though, and one that I’ll probably carry to my grave.</p>
<p>The thing that struck me about this man, and what made me love him so much, were the many facets of his personality. He was such a contradiction in some ways. He was a fairly big man, standing 6’1″ and weighing 210lbs of lean muscle with rugged good-looks, and he had a competitive nature, which goes hand in hand with being a Special Forces soldier.</p>
<p>He was a man’s man – tough, aggressive and self-driven, and certainly a hard man at times. And yet, he was the most gentle man with women and children that I have ever known. Never once in five years did he ever raise his voice to me in anger. In fact, when he was angry, his tone would become even more quiet, and that got my attention better than any yelling ever would have. He was never rough with me, his hands were always gentle on me even when he was angry. Although he did swat my bottom occasionally if he thought I needed it; but he wasn’t rough in his handling of me.</p>
<p>It always struck me as odd, how this man who was trained to kill men with his bare hands if necessary, was so incredibly careful and gentle with me. He once said, as he stroked my arm tenderly, “I would never hit a woman…because they are too fragile and can be hurt too easily.” My heart twisted when he told me that, but I was silently amused too, because I realized that although he would never ‘hit’ a woman, he had no compunctions whatsoever about spanking them, if he thought it was needed.</p>
<p>He was a very protective man, of women and children in general, and even more so if you belonged to him. He could be possessive at times, but yet he allowed me my freedom and space. He was an intense and passionate lover and could <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2021/05/17/how-to-use-eye-seduction/”>make me melt with just a look</a>. I never felt so safe as I did when I was in his very capable, loving arms. His touch could ignite my blood and calm my soul like no other’s. He was the love of my life, and I’ll never forget him.</p>
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<p>I have never before felt inclined to participate in an Internet chat room or study group, but the remarkably intelligent, tasteful, and civilized character of this site, together with the fascinating topic to which it is devoted, invite me to do so now. I came upon the site in an entirely fortuitous manner while pursuing literary research. It is not the first serendipity offered up to me by Google, but it is the most interesting. The site immediately captured my attention. I am a sexually dominant man – a term I have used to learn, despite the fact that I regard it as a tautology, like “wet water” – with an amount of experience commensurate with my maturing years. I did once in the past make a tour of several D/s sites. Perhaps I simply came upon the wrong ones, but what I found usually offended either my intelligence or my sense of good manners. The more exhibitionistic and pornographic ones offended both at once! It is a genuine pleasure to come upon a group of lively, friendly, articulate, and generally unweird people who share an interest in a central reality of our sexual natures that, for obvious reasons, seldom moves out of the strictly private realm.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all the articles linked to the site, of course, but I’ve read enough to be impressed by the comprehensive approach. Especially interesting to me is the fact that you have a sub-section exploring Christian perspectives on dominance and submission. It is quite amusing, indeed, to encounter on a website devoted to what most folks in the world would consider kinky and probably repellent sex, a warning to visitors that they might be offended by the religious language found there! Although I probably don’t personally share the beliefs of the contributors to this forum, I view the Christian tradition with great respect; and I applaud the effort of contemporary Christians to bring fundamental aspects of their experience into alignment. One of the tensions imposed by a sexual personality often regarded as aberrant is the need to integrate the “behavior”, mentally and psychologically, within the normal spectrum of other “behaviours”. Furthermore it is my experience than any account of our sexual natures that omits what I am forced to call the spiritual dimension is doomed to inadequacy. What is spiritual may or may not be “religious”, of course. For me the harmonies of a properly ordered relationship between a man and a woman have a spiritual beauty independent of any religious system or pattern of belief, though I have come to see that the mystery of genuine female submission can be usefully approached through religious myth.</p>
<p>It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. One side effect of recent terror attacks in western countries has been that many people in Britain and North America, previously innocent of much knowledge of comparative religions, have heard or read a good deal of elementary information about Islam. I for one was unaware that the root meaning of the word “Islam” is “submission” – submission, of course to the law and will of God. The superficially paradoxical idea that it is in submission of our wills to a higher power that human beings find contentment and fulfillment is of course a common one in other world religions as well. A classic Christian view is expressed in a beautiful line in Dante’s “Divine Comedy” – “E la sua voluntade èènostra pace” (“And his will is our peace”, Paradiso 3.85). T. S. Eliot, among the greatest of modern Christian poets, thought this one sentence was perhaps the most profound in world literature.</p>
<p>Many of the great stories of the Bible, both in the Hebrew Jewish scriptures and in the Greek Christian writings, are accounts of extraordinary acts of submission. I think of Abraham, submissive even to his God’s command that he should offer up his only son Isaac in ritual sacrifice (Genesis 22). This nearly incomprehensible gesture of submission provided the philosopher Kierkegaard with the emblem of one of his deepest books, Fear and Trembling. And according to his account of his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul says that a taunting divine voice from heaven rebukes him: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9.5). The meaning of this curious phrase, which has elicited unseemly and ribald laughter in many a Sunday school class, derives from the practices of ancient agriculture and animal husbandry. A spirited horse cannot be ridden until it is “broken” by a severe discipline. A plow-ox will at first rebel by kicking against the lash or goad of its master. Paul, until he submits to the service of Jesus, is like a rebellious beast.</p>
<p>Once sacred texts – the Bible, the Koran, and others – exercise little or no authority over most modern Europeans and Americans in general and, I suspect, over visitors to this website in particular. However, only the ignorant or the imperceptive will fail to see in the great myth systems of world civilizations fundamental psychological truths that transcend the historical and social conditions in which they came to birth. Since I am obviously headed in the direction of an analogy, it might be a good idea to remind ourselves what an analogy is: a comparison in which certain details fit very well and others not at all. When Robbie Burns wrote “My love is like a red, red rose” he meant that his girl friend was beautiful, fresh, delicate, and alluring. He did not mean that her skin was crimson or that she was covered with petals. In suggesting an analogy between a human being’s submission to the divine and a woman’s sexual submission to a man I am not suggesting the divinity of males. I am a man, and my sensibility accepts its responsibility for a commanding role in intimate relations in rather the same way my lungs accept oxygen, yet since I was twelve years old I have stood by in amazed awe at the near-divinity of women, the loveliness of their bodies, their hair, their voices, the delicacy and skill with which they perform daily tasks that to this day lie beyond my capacities. Above all I remain awestruck at the overwhelmingly female facts of life – embryonic conception, gestation, parturition, mammalian nourishment.</p>
<p>My admiration is tinged with jealousy, particularly over the feminine capacity to experience pleasure in a range and intensity that appears to exceed by far my own. I have in mind principally the enjoyment of music and of the simple beauties of nature; but I also have the intuition that a woman’s sexual pleasure considerably overshadows that of a mere man like myself. This speculative topic, of course, could be put to an empirical test only by someone who had genuine sexual experience both as a man and as a woman. The only such person known to me is fictional: the <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias#:~:text=In%20Greek%20mythology%2C%20Tiresias%20(%2F,Everes%20and%20the%20nymph%20Chariclo.”>ancient seer Tiresias of Greco-Roman myth</a>. But his testimony was perfectly clear: the delight of the woman exceeded that of the man by a ratio of ten to one. My closest friends and most admired colleagues and associates have almost invariably been women. If I hesitate to say that such friendships are non-sexual, it is only because I think practically nothing about us is truly non-sexual; but they are free of explicit sexual content.</p>
<p>Perhaps my greatest admiration is reserved for the gracefulness and beauty of a woman’s surrender on those rare occasions when the right circumstances combine with <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2021/11/29/quote-these-writers-make-her-swoon/”>the right chemistry to spark love</a>. Here it is that the language of the religious paradigms I touched on earlier seems to me relevant. In fact our usual words “surrender” and “submission”, though they capture the reality of the woman’s volitional yielding to a male power expressed both in physical and in psychological terms, can express but the lesser half of the mystery. There is, or at least in my opinion should be, a “merry war” between two lover such as that so charmingly depicted by Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing in his characterization of Beatrice and Benedick. And if you have metaphorical war, you then have metaphorical arms, battle, victory and defeat, a conqueror and a conquered. But the proper experience of the act of female submission is not the bitterness of defeat but the exultation of fulfillment. The best analogues for this paradox come not from military history but from spiritual autobiography.</p>
<p>On the first page of his famous Confessions, an autobiographical soliloquy for which God is the audience and we readers mere eavesdroppers, Augustine wrote that “Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee”. There is an implied theory of human nature shared by many ancient writers, sacred and secular alike – a theory of moral alienation. We are all born as exiles from a homeland we have not seen but are hard-wired to desire. This view is shared in common myths of a Fall from some sort of primal innocence or perfection. In the beautiful story of Plato, sexual differentiation into male and female is itself a badge of imperfection. The act of sexual intercourse is for the individual as the institution of marriage is for society the expression of “a desire and pursuit of the whole” – a long-vanished androgynous unity. The pagan Greeks and Romans had the beautiful <a href=”https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/long-lost-golden-age-just-myth-008803″>myth of the vanished Golden Age</a>. It was a time when Justice reigned, and the characteristics of human society were agrarian simplicity, honesty, and peacefulness. This blissful period ended forever when Jupiter rebelled against his father Saturn, castrated him, and threw the severed members into the sea, whence Venus, goddess of sexual love, rose full grown, as in the memorable painting by Botticelli. In the biblical account of the Garden of Eden the relationship of primal dereliction and sexual disturbance is even clearer. Only after their arbitrary act of disobedience, but then immediately, do Adam and Eve find themselves embarrassed by their nakedness, until then so naturally and innocently enjoyed.</p>
<p>How can one regain a paradise lost? Only through an act of striving that is simultaneously an act of submission, or, in the idiom of this website, by being taken in hand. No reasonably experienced man who has encountered true female submissiveness, unmistakable in its observation however difficult it may be of description, will be astonished by the paradox. The appetite for the feelings of tranquility and certitude that are the fruits of sexual submission are, I think, genetic, instinctual for all women; but the same thing cannot be said of the means of satisfying the appetite. Most women seem never to find it, and even self-realized submissive women often stumble around for many anxious years before achieving it. It is here, in my experience, that the intelligent and loving dominant man has a genuinely masterful role to play. I am deeply honored when a woman, at her request and with my considered permission, calls me Master. I recognize in the word those etymological associations of the master as teacher, trainer, and guide. It is unfortunate that the word schoolmaster has virtually disappeared from American English, and even more unfortunate that so many people, including several on this site, think that the natural complement of the word “master” is “slave”. A woman entrusted to a man’s mastery should be a beloved disciple, not an indentured servant. Again religious language hits the nail on the head. One of the prayers in the old Anglican Prayer Book speaks of obligations to a Master “whose service is perfect freedom”.</p>
<p>A masterful man loves, cares for, nourishes and protects his woman very much in the manner that a trained and experienced teacher nourishes a star pupil. The higher the teacher’s standards, and the more clearly the pupil demonstrates a capacity for growth, the more stern and insistent the disciplinary aspect of the relationship is likely to be. In terms of the purely sexual aspects – by which I suppose I here mean the frankly genital aspects – the man must train the woman to find pleasure through her uninhibited and unquestioning willingness to give pleasure. In an established and stable D/s relationship sexual intercourse, in terms of its frequency, is probably neither more nor less prominent than in any other sexual relationship involving a man and a woman. But as the most notable site for the dramatization of the woman’s submission in all its aspects, it achieves a unique level not merely of pleasure but of that satisfaction that goes so far beyond the physical that I find its description demands religious language. And once again in this mystery it seems that the submissive woman leaves the <a href=”https://blog.loveawake.com/2021/12/06/a-man-leads-with-love-and-kindness/”>dominant man</a> far behind. Hers is an ecstasy guaranteed by her own psyche quite independent of the variable and unreliable performance of her partner.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous statue of the entire Baroque period is Bernini’s “Saint Teresa in Ecstasy”. What a viewer of this remarkable work sees, quite unmistakably, is a nun heavily draped within the folds of a Carmelite habit, gasping in the throes of orgasm. That Bernini intended or that his ecclesiastical patrons found in the masterpiece a sacrilege is obviously preposterous. But since the most available vocabulary of human ecstasy is sexual, the sculptor naturally turned to it to suggest an ecstasy of a different sort. In like manner, I should suggest, a vocabulary first created to deal with religious experience may be helpful, again without sacrilege, in thinking about the sweet mystery of sexual submission. In the words of the immortal <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby”>Fanny Crosby</a>, an indefatigable hymn writer of the Victorian era who appears to have had a great sex life to supplement the literary exertions of her day job,</p>
<p><strong>Perfect submission – perfect delight!</strong><br><strong>Visions of rapture now burst on my sight.</strong><br><strong>Angels descending bring from above</strong><br><strong>Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.</strong></p>
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