Alex V. Henderson Philadelphia , PA vixenatr ixx gmail. AlterNet republished this article on April 3, Submissive kinky women are far from the shrinking violets that BDSM's critics have characterized them as being. Often they're women who know exactly what they want. BDSM has come a long way in the last 20 years.
A subculture that was once very underground has been infiltrating mainstream American pop culture in a major way since the early s; pop stars like Christina Aguilera, Nine Inch Nails, Madonna and Joan Jett have employed BDSM imagery, and kinky references have popped up in mainstream television programs ranging from Frasier to The Young and the Restless. Even people who are relatively BDSM-friendly may have some wrong ideas about women who volunteer to be tied up and spanked.
Outside of the BDSM scene, there are many misconceptions about submissive women. Non-kinky individuals might assume that submissive women are passive, indecisive or weak individuals who lack ambition—in other words, the anti-feminists.
But spend some time around the BDSM community, and one encounters plenty of submissive women who describe themselves as card-carrying feminists. A female submissive might be a corporate lawyer or an emergency room physician, or she might be signing a major book deal.
Submissive women have a fantasy. I think that everybody who is into BDSM has some type of fantasy that they want to fulfill, and that includes submissive women. In the end, sexuality is empowering—and you can empower people in all the diverse ways that they enjoy sexuality. Power exchanges are one of those ways.
