This summer, I rescued a kitten from the undercarriage of a car. She was screaming for her mother and it brought many of us running—people on the street, neighbors with open windows, shopkeepers with open doors.
All of us wanted to save the kitten. To coax her from her dangerous hiding spot, guide her safely off the road, and make sure she was okay.
Myself and the other women on the scene were on our bellies partway under the car, coaxing kitten with treats and chicken, kitten noises playing on our phones. Come out, little baby. It’s nice out here, with treats and friends.
The men in the group—equally well-meaning—had a distinctly different approach. Without any real discussion between them, they all began to shake the car and shout. The theory: we can scare the kitten out and into our arms.
Well-meaning as they were, I think you see where this is going: it didn’t work. The terrified kitten retreated farther into the car’s undercarriage and would not come out.
I sent everyone away and promised I would come back for kitten in a few hours when she was calm again. And I did: early the next morning with little traffic and almost no people on the streets, I played kitten noises and tempted her with chicken and eventually she came close enough for me to grab.
I tell this story because it’s a tiny example of a larger societal pattern. Women are socialized to care and collaborate and de-escalate. Men are socialized to solve problems with force. That force can be caring and well-intentioned and it is still force.
And because our culture (it should go without saying, but allow me to say it anyway: wrongly) associates masculinity with dominance and dominance with violence, even here in kink spaces, dominance is so often seen as a violent act.
Outside the bedroom, we “dominate” by making war. We “dominate” by enforcing our will. We “dominate” through physical overpowerment.
This so-called dominance is “because I said so,” and it is “don’t question me,” and it is ultimately an act of fear. Authoritarian government. Authoritarian parent. Boss dangling unemployment over your head.
Then it slips into BDSM, this violent idea of what dominance is. It’s “shut up and send, piggy,” in the first conversation. It’s the “dom” men in my DMs telling me their violent fantasies of me forcing them to submit.
And god, how boring, how narrow this vision is.
It leaves behind the reality that peaceful protests have dominated authoritarians right out of power (see: Nepal, see: Ukraine, see: the Singing Revolution). It leaves behind the utter dominance of a nurturing mother. It discards the electric power of the small to defeat the large, of good ideas to defeat violent ones, of the underdog we all are rooting for. Of the quiet power we submit to because we long to do so.
I am not interested in being your Stalin, your Napoleon, your because-I-said-so mediocre dad.
I am interested in the same thing I wanted for that kitten: to overpower her fears and take her through the hard feelings into the safer place.
I am interested in your surrender as healing, as trust, as a gift given freely.
I am interested in breaking down your ego because it’s in your fucking way.
I am interested in you surrendering because of who I am, not what you fear I’ll do if you don’t.
You put yourself in my hands because they are strong and steady. You show your vulnerable parts because you know I won’t look away. You wrap yourself around my finger because it is safe there, warm, full of purpose. You serve and send because you admire and respect and long.
I am not interested in society’s broken ideas of dominance. The way it’s been gendered and narrowed into a violent box.
(I’m not saying there is no violence in D/s. There very obviously is. But you don’t serve because you fear it. You serve because you crave it or because you want to find your limits near it or because you want me to stand with you through it.)
So come out, kitten. Come to me through the dark. Come to me because your trust is larger than your fear of me. I am interested in leaving you safer than I found you. Less fleas. Less scrawniness. Less fear of the darkness, the unknown. A knowledge that you can do the brave thing and what you find there in the scary place is rest. Authenticity.
Yourself.
What you find there is yourself.