Odysseys and Observations
On My Knees,
Taking a Stand
by Debra Hyde

But how I feel about my submission is sometimes mine alone to contemplate. Certainly, I experience all the depth and connection that comes with a loving BDSM relationship and I cherish the significant place it has in my life -- I won't minimize its strength. Still, in my private reflections, my observations take some interesting twists and turns, and recently one particular possibility really set me to thinking: Is my sexual submission, in part, a personal feminist statement?

Repeatedly in our lives, women face conflicting "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations, usually centering on some course we're about to chart for our lives, and often at the hands of other women. The first time I saw this message play out I was about twelve or thirteen, and my mother had decided to get her driver's license -- somehow, she had made it into her mid-thirties without one. One winter of walking to a job site for part-time work charged Mom's determination to learn to drive. But one of my aunts pointedly told her, "I'm not gonna teach you to drive if you're gonna use that license to work."

Yes, I've had my own "damned if you do, damned if you don't" moments, and sometimes my sexual submission -- my freedom to claim my sexuality through its practice -- is my big raspberry back at those conflicting messages.

Yes, we talk rather openly about sex. She knows I write about it; she knows I have very liberal and libertine views about what consenting adults do for their own pleasure. I suspect that if I dedicated the time to groom her, I could come out to her about my leather lifestyle. However, I wonder how she'd take it. She'd probably be fine if I declared I was sexually dominant; that's a clear-cut power statement if ever there was one. Being on top in sex meshes with being on top in life. But to willingly put myself under the thumb of a man who orders me to do humiliating things, to take my punishment when I deserve it, to follow his beck and call? That I expose myself through sexual vulnerability and, even worse, that doing so is exceptionally erotic for me? That I submit? That might be beyond her ken of understanding.

I use to call my mom a closet feminist because she believed in the call yet she defied the social code of her time only within the most modest of parameters. (However, even her modest feminism forays reaped criticism, so I can't minimize her bravery too greatly.) Through time, though, her feminism's grown and I've changed my assessment of her. Now, she readily embraces the social dynamics of women's rights, but because she hasn't explored the sexual ones, I consider her a "frigid" feminist. I say that without condemnation though because she intellectually understands a woman's right to pleasure; she rejects the MacKinnon/Dworkin bandwagon. However, her own unresolved issues of personal sexuality keep her from actualizing her own sexual fulfillment, so she can, at best, only struggle to envision how women implement their joys.

The concept of sexual submission, I'm sure, would confuse her. How can a woman find pleasure in giving up power? How can a woman do that in bed and still dedicate her mind to strong feminist thinking? How can she be sure that surrendering sexually isn't some hellish path to becoming an abuse victim? Perhaps she would listen long enough to understand that I submit because I am powerful enough as an individual to make such a choice. That I am exercising my womanly freedom of choice when I decide what my sexual pleasures will be. That I exercise power when I act on those decisions. That submission is how I lay claim to my erotic territories, even if the figurative deed is in my Master's name.

Do I defy my mother when I kneel before my Master? I don't think so. Because my mother examines all the issues of feminine power -- even those she remains ambivalent about -- I have too much respect for her to challenge her directly. If I defy anything, it's the confusion many women her age feel about sexual pleasure, persistent to this day. I thumb my nose at the ambiguities that have hampered her own quest for personal power.

Ah, that confusion -- how lucky I was to reject it, long ago when I first French-kissed a boy and discovered my whole body went all for the ride. When clit and kiss met in a mutual clench of pleasure, I never looked back, just as my mother didn't when she got her driver's license. In that sense, I think she might understand.

In tandem, she's made it clear through the years that sex is a "thing" best left hidden -- a message that not only offends me but has affected the quality of my life as well. It's a message that left her sons clueless in youth and confused as they grew into adulthood. Though my husband's much older, oldest brother took him aside when he was in high school and told him about sex, the tight-lipped moral prudery of her generation had already done its worst: My husband's legacy of sexual inhibition is something that he's only just now, at middle age, beginning to overcome.

Yes, I resent her moral code. I resent the fact that sex simply isn't acknowledged, as if it's entirely too uncivilized a subject to ever have a place in conversation. By extension, a woman isn't entitled to enjoy carnal pleasures, a man's sexuality lacks positivity, and alternative orientations merit immediate condemnation. That sexuality isn't discussed with children as they mature, and that, by default, ignorance equates to innocence.

I am convinced that my mother-in-law's sex-negative attitudes spin as much out of the puritan ethic of self-control as any outright shame. To her way of thinking, society suffers when indulgence wins out over moderation, when people think only of themselves and their own pleasures and forget their greater obligations to society and family. To her, any unbridled behavior is orgiastic and grotesque, full of pride and greed.

In some respects, she's right, but I cannot help but observe that she doesn't practice moderation herself. Her emotional and sexual repression is an extreme of the pendulum that's every bit as strong and detrimental to society as utter hedonism would be. And I must admit, when I look back on my personal history with the messages of her generation, I jump on the pendulum myself out of frustration and defiance.

It wasn't easy. My husband has overcome some but not all of his inhibitions. It remains unclear just how kinky he's capable of being; old fears run deep. In me, old lusts run deep; I need leather. Our compromises help preserve and improve the marriage we share, while I enrich myself in a second relationship that's both meaningful and leather.

Where my submission may fly in the face of my mother's feminism, my renewed sexuality -- bold, brazen, unrepentant -- confronts my mother-in-law's prudery. I refuse to back down from the heated embrace of things carnal and lustful. I will not abdicate my right to be sexual, to embrace erotic expression, and to believe in its life-affirming powers.

I will not be silenced by the repressive voices. I will, if I must, remain ghastly to the older generation. I am audacious enough to rank sensual living high on my personal agenda. I will serve a man's sexual appetite, freely and with lust coursing through my veins. And why not? In coming before him in submission, I bring an appetite all my own, equal to his, and in perfect need of quenching.

Quenching, but not silencing.

Recently, Christmas has come and gone for me. In many ways, it was a typical holiday season -- too much food, too much travel, and too little sleep. But special to this season, I took a small step in coming out to my mother.

We're both writers and, as such, we've always discussed the process of writing. But discussing the substance of my writing -- beyond the fact that I wrote erotica -- was always difficult for me and incomplete. Finally, I took some baby steps; mom knows there's "whips and chains" involved. Yes, a proverbial and trite description, but one I can build on when her next batch of questions, concerns, and curiosities come along. She knows, too, that I like the "whips and chains" because they best keep me on my creative edge, to keep me focused and sharp. That she can understand, artist to artist.

I doubt that I'll be as fortunate in forging ahead with my mother-in-law. I suspect I will keep most all of my life from her, even my writing, because the generational differences are simply too vast and we are each entrenched in our own existence. The pendulum that I mentioned earlier swings between us, sharp, dividing us, irreparably so.

But I am comfortable in at last reaffirming my feminism, defining my submission, and acknowledging my leatherhood. I have found my voice and my strength. Perhaps, in the end, that's enough.

Copyright © 1998, Debra Hyde. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

Debra Hyde is a mostly submissive switch who lives in New England with her husband, two children, three cats, and a dog. She says she is "well-owned and well-loved" by a very special Master, and shares a unique triangle with him and her somewhat submissive husband.

"When England Calls," one of Debra's short stories, graces the pages of the recently published Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica. She is currently working on a number of others, as well as the Great American Leather Novel. Her BDSM work has been previously published on the Internet by Leather Online and Section 12, but Leather and Hyde was her first regular column, originally hosted by About.com's BDSM site and relocated here with her kind permission.

Debra also maintains a personal Weblog called Pursed Lips and can be reached at 75222.2150@compuserve.com... but no junk mail or "Wannas," please.