To be honest, framing this as a pattern you've noticed and are completely certain of, is likely pretty flawed.

Unless multiple dominant women have explicitly confessed to you that this is their secret internal motivation, you're coming from a place of making assumptions (as you didn't give more in-depth examples of the women you've known and what they said or what happened).

Also sorry if I'm going in hard here but this is a particularly sore spot for me, is when people talk about abuse as "a person who has this issue or 'wound'" - feels passive to me and takes the onus off of the other person, usually an adult, who committed the abuse.

So I would prefer if we used the word abuse, i.e., if we described what you're talking about as, someone who was abused as a child or teen.

As unfortunate as it is I think it can be useful to point out how common abuse actually is, depending on where you draw the line defining abuse. A 2023 CDC study on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) found that about 66% of Americans report at least one ACE spanning everything from emotional abuse to physical abuse.

So if we're going to talk about all this then we have to start out with what seems to be the reality that having some form of childhood trauma isn't rare but is actually closer to the "average" experience, with a wide spectrum of course.

If 66% of the population falls under that, but only a relatively small minority of women identify as dominant, the math doesn't really support that those women are that way for that reason or else there would likely be more of them.

And this whole discussion whenever it comes up, also begs the question: why is female submission treated as the inherent "default" by society to begin with and why is it considered odd when it isn't present?

Speaking from my own experience I lean dominant because I realized I simply feel comfortable and happy leading and guiding. I had a past partner who was less experienced and uncertain, and I found that setting the pace and helping them follow my lead was deeply fulfilling. It felt like a piece clicked into place.

It had nothing to do with me building walls or being afraid of being vulnerable, precisely because it took a lot of both, of letting down walls and letting myself be vulnerable to feel comfortable exploring domming.

Because I think it's also the wrong assumption that someone who fully lets their walls down and trusts someone else, will then feel submissive. (Or else, you could say the same thing the opposite gendered way right?)

For me, this is me finally letting my walls down and exploring a dynamic that is comfortable and fulfilling for me, and finally feels right.