Making Male Submission Real: A Reflection on Subject 2
On warmth, masculinity, and what happens when a submissive man begins to make room for himself.
Some time ago, I wrote a piece about making male submission real. A question I am asked remarkably often is, “How do I find something that's real?” And my answer, much to the disappointment of anyone hoping for the coordinates of a conveniently located dominant woman, was that realness requires cultivation.
You cannot have real if you are unwilling to be real yourself.
I have been thinking about that again while reading the first public reflections of a long-term client, who writes under the name Subject 2.
I asked him to write about his experiences as part of our ongoing work together. He has begun with an introduction, followed by an account of how he found me and what has kept him here. There is something rather lovely about reading an experience you were present for, through the eyes of the other person. Familiar moments acquire details you could not have supplied yourself.
And the part that stayed with me most was this:
“I was discussing with Ms. Nyx my desire to become more accepting of myself, rather than more submissive.”
Well. That is a rather different starting point, isn't it, darling?
When more submission isn't the answer
Subject 2 describes himself as a middle-aged man who has, to his mind, always been submissive. He is experienced in BDSM. He has explored hypnosis for years. This is not someone tentatively discovering that he might enjoy being told what to do.
And yet, knowing what you enjoy does not necessarily mean you are comfortable being someone who enjoys it.
That distinction interests me enormously.
You can spend years making room in your life for a particular experience, while leaving very little room for the person you are within it. You can know how to ask for a session and still struggle to explain what it means to you. Subject 2 writes about keeping this part of himself largely private, and about having considered himself strange for being so drawn to hypnosis.
I don't want to put words in his mouth. His account is his own, and I hope it continues to become more distinctly his as he writes. But I do find myself wondering how often the pursuit of “more” contains a wish we haven't quite named yet.
More experiences. More intensity. Something different this time.
And underneath it, perhaps a quieter question: can I allow myself to want what I want, without making myself smaller for wanting it?
Apparently, I forgot to shout
His description of our first consultation made me smile.
He expected a recognisably commanding tone. What he remembers instead is a conversation, questions, warmth, kindness and understanding. He writes that this made him want to follow my direction even more.
How inconvenient for anyone who thought dominance came with a compulsory voice setting.
I enjoy theatrical dominance. I work in a sphere where performance is part of the pleasure, and I am certainly not above a dramatic moment myself. But I am interested in what happens when the performance people expect is absent, and they still recognise authority.
A woman can be warm and quite certain about what she wants. She can ask a question and expect you to give it thought. She can listen carefully, then offer a direction you hadn't considered.
Subject 2 describes our conversations about whether his understanding of dominance carries patriarchal expectations. What interests me is his willingness to examine that possibility. To notice the ways women express authority, including ways he may previously have overlooked because they didn't look like his expectation.
In my earlier article, I asked submissive men to give a dominant woman room to reveal who she is. There is something of that here. His account suggests that discovering an approach he hadn't anticipated was part of what kept him curious.
Being honest does not require giving everyone your name
He writes as Subject 2 because he wants to keep his everyday identity separate from this account.
I think that deserves respect.
When I write about being real, I am not suggesting that everyone should announce their private interests at the next family gathering. Please let your aunt finish her tea.
Privacy can be a considered choice. Public disclosure has consequences, and someone can decide how much of themselves they want to share without their experiences becoming less meaningful.
What he is attempting is more specific: describing something he has rarely had to explain, for readers whose responses he cannot predict.
He has already said that some relevant details feel difficult to include. He has also said that he won't always understand his responses, and that he intends to acknowledge that uncertainty.
I find that promising. An account doesn't need to become a tidy success story to be worth reading. I would much rather have something we can honestly return to and discuss, including the awkward parts.
The work of finding words
Writing gives us something different from the conversation we remember having.
There is a sentence on the page. We can return to it. He can decide that it is accurate, that he wants to expand on it, or that he would describe things differently now.
This is part of why I asked him to write. His reflections give us material to discuss as our work continues. The account belongs to his perspective; my role here is not to supply the correct interpretation of every feeling he has.
He is also very clear that he doesn't understand this exercise as humiliation. He describes wanting to feel freer within himself, and feeling braver with someone beside him through that process.
That is his description of what he seeks. I am curious to see how he describes the experience of pursuing it.
Making room for the man who submits
As a hypno domme and erotic hypnotist, I am interested in the person who arrives with the desire. Their expectations, their questions, and the things they find difficult to say all belong in the conversation.
There is a responsibility in being trusted with those things. The fact that someone enjoys surrender doesn't make their boundaries less important, or turn uncertainty into permission. My work with him remains a professional adult dynamic; his reflections are an individual account, not a promise of what someone else will experience.
What I appreciate about Subject 2's beginning is that he has identified something he wants beyond another session. He wants to become more accepting of himself.
Perhaps that is where my earlier question takes us this time. Making submission real involves making room for the person who submits: a person with a private life, a history, contradictions, and words they haven't quite found yet.
He has begun finding some of them.
And I am rather pleased to be listening.
Until next time, darling.
If you would like to read Subject 2's blog, you can do so here-
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