The Mary Sue
by Elizabeth Coulson
I lead a double life, which isn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds and doesn’t come with a cool cape. Most people know me as a successful, professional feminist woman with a strong voice that I’m not afraid to use to speak out against misogyny and gender inequality. What few people around me know is that I’m also in a full-time submissive relationship with my Dominant husband. Yep, my husband says and does the most misogynistic things imaginable to me, and I melt like a popsicle in the sun.
The feminist-submissive dichotomy is deeply weird and it’s taken me a long time to get comfortable with these two seemingly incongruent sides of myself. Fortunately, the pushback against misogyny women have enjoyed under President Obama’s administration has gone a long way toward helping me realize that enjoying freedom of choice also extends into the most private parts of my life.
My Dominant/submissive dynamic is pretty typical by most standards in the D/s community. First, and most importantly: it’s consensual. My husband and I have logged hundreds of hours of conversation on how to structure our dynamic, what we each hope to get out of it, how to make sure everything we do is physically and psychologically safe, and how to clearly communicate with each other. We talk on the regular about our dynamic and I have complete autonomy to discuss anything I need to address. While my husband holds the power and the authority in our relationship, he doesn’t want a submissive who won’t engage their critical thinking skills to enthusiastically consent to what we do or speak up when they have concerns.
Our daily life is pretty much like other couples’. We have laundry, bills, grocery shopping, family responsibilities, and myriad other things adults deal with every day. The main difference between us and a non-D/s household is that my husband is the ultimate authority in our home, and I defer to him when there’s a decision to be made.
That’s not to say he micromanages me. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I run our home and make decisions about how that happens all day long. I’m responsible for making his lunches, doing our laundry, cooking dinners, and a million other things that give us the freedom to be together at the end of the day and enjoy the fruits of our D/s dynamic. I make sure his coffee and drinks are always filled, shine his shoes and boots, and do whatever else he asks of me. D/s has its place in our physical relationship as well and we regularly participate in BDSM activities that leave me black and blue under my clothes for days. On the other side of the coin, my husband decides what and when I shave, chooses the color of my nail polish, selects dinner from a menu of choices I give him, orders my food for me when we go out, and pretty much whatever strikes his fancy to do or make me do at any given time.
People unfamiliar with D/s dynamics may view our arrangement as misogynistic or downright abusive. I think it’s unbelievably fulfilling and so, so hot. Like, “the fire of a thousand suns” hot. Remember, all of this is consensual and that steers what we do right into alignment with feminism. …