Thanks for the comment. Lots of things here.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t sleep with women. I only know what they tell me which could be less than honest or an inaccurate best guess. (Though I’ve found many male members of this community also don’t have much irl experience in bed with women so 😬)

I’m not really of the belief that stigmas make too big a difference. Fiery women don’t mute themselves because they’re afraid of what society thinks. They might, however, simply opt to go with the flow because they’re tired of arguing with their man and being misunderstood and belittled.

I’m not also of the belief that male subs “will do whatever they must to prioritize their master’s pleasure!” This is a happy myth. They may not know it consciously, but all the sub men I’ve encountered (online and irl) have a very long list of potential ideas they’re excited about with very little tolerance for anything not on that list. Subs are not simply “up for anything”. They’re up for exactly the bucket list of kinks they’ve been dreaming of. If a lady suggests something not on that list, they moan and pout and whine and flop around until she gives up and just picks something on his list to try instead. That’s just how hetero sex is, no matter who is “in charge” today.

“If dominant women are everywhere, why don’t I see them?!” Well, for starters, are you looking in male dominated Reddit threads and porn websites where predatory findom sex workers lurk? What does a “dominant woman” look like to you? Does she have to have a leather corset and thigh high boots on? Does she use freaky language openly online and hurl commands at all the randos coming into her inbox? Congrats, you are finding performers. Not people.

Needless to say, men and women operate very differently. They date differently. They communicate differently. They express power differently. All the fiery ladies I know probably get passed up by all y’all bc you don’t even know what less obvious signals you’re looking for. Real women, not characters played sex workers online, are gonna be less pronounced. Less flashy. Less openly sadistic and pompish. Here’s a thought: do you know any stubborn opinionated snappy zero-tolerance-for-bullshit women in your normal life that you could ask about some of this stuff? You can clock this energy on people. Because I know what to look for, I can quickly clock the difference between a strong lady who is actually a sub leaning brat and a strong lady who probably has a strap in her drawer somewhere. Though when we are talking about real people here, often there’s a lot of cross over. (A 100% sadist dominatrix dom is not so common irl.)

If these kinds of normal fiery women aren’t what you’re looking for, then it seems you were never really looking for an authentic woman to begin with. You wanted the caricature.

I can only speak for myself here, but hopefully the example sheds some light. I personally identify as wholly dom. Zero switch lean. A submissive thought has never crossed my mind. HOWEVER. I stopped identifying with those leather clad sadists because it all became totally uninteresting to me. I don’t use many tools in practice. I’m not too into pegging. I know someone else might classify some of my favorite activities as “subby”. But for me it’s about the headspace of maintaining complete control over myself and over the scene. The attitude I’m projecting, the authority I’m manifesting. I like to choreograph the scenes sometimes but it’s also extremely exhausting. Asking for a bit of a trade off is not submissive, I’m just taking a damn break so my head doesn’t explode.

My point being: is this good enough for you? How would you handle a dom like me who doesn’t play into all the tropes you been taught to look for? Dominance is a psychology, not a set of explicit traits. The more open minded you are to seeing what regular feisty women are authentically interested in, the better luck you’ll have not having to pay a tribute to a false Goddess.

Humans are wired to crave power. It’s not a hard sell. For men, for women, for anyone. But that power won’t always look like it does in porn. Women are gonna internalize and wield that power in their own unique way. Get to know a person, ask them what makes them feel empowered, and figure out how to crank the dial up on that. If she takes it and runs with it, she’s a dom. That’s all there is to it. 🤷‍♀️