There are a lot of posts, guides, lists, and how-tos floating around online telling submissive men how to find themselves a dominant woman. And there are lots of guides available on how to go about dominating a submissive man. But I’ve noticed a distinct lack of guidance and advice specifically for dominant identified women looking for a submissive male partner.
At the same time, I’ve noticed that there are plenty of women who identify as dominant (or tops, or switches-looking-to-dominate) who are having difficulty finding an awesome submissive male partner. Since I’d love for everyone who wants to have a F/m relationship be able to find one, I decided to put this guide together. I gathered input from several dominant identified women and a few dozen submissive identified men on what is hard about finding a submissive guy, and where the submissive guys are and how to best connect with them.
I trust I don’t have to do a bunch of patronising hand-holding talk about how we’re all just people and you just need to get out there and meet everybody until you find someone who “clicks.” Although that is a point several of my respondents made. Submissive men are just men who respond well to dominance and you might find us anywhere, if you know how to look.
- Finding a Submissive Man
If you want to meet a vanilla-submissive man, (or a sub guy who shares your interests) then whenever you go out you could try flavoring your flirting with a little D/s. It may take practice and it might not always go over well, but guys who don’t appreciate the woman that they’re flirting with tugging on the reins a little probably aren’t interested in handing them over in a relationship or in the bedroom.
If you want a man who identifies as submissive, or a play partner, or someone who is kink compatible to play with you’re of course going to have better luck looking in places that are focused on that aspect of things. Most of the guys who responded had fetlife accounts. I noticed that guys who are looking for casual play tend to be more likely to attend munches and BDSM events.
The guys who seem to be more reserved about submitting outside of a dating-type relationship were more likely to mention their OKCupid accounts, which with strong filtering and careful observation may be the best place to find a kink-compatible partner online. (Although it ‘s been pointed out to me that OKCupid is public and indexed by google, so anyone can stumble upon what you put there.) Others mentioned Collarme, and Craigslist, though no one was singing the praises of either. The point is “we’re out there.”
- Meeting and Connecting with a Submissive Man
Most of the guys who responded said that they would react favorably to polite contact from a domme, both online and off. However the rarity of this occurrence was also mentioned. I had one guy mention that:
“most of the single dommes I’m friends with never really take an active role in seeking out a sub they like, even when I refer them to really cute & likeable friends of mine; they just put up a wall of expectations and then a lot of waiting…”
My advice, based on what would work on me, and how a couple of the guys mentioned they met their SO’s is Initiate contact.
Unfortunately cute submissive boys don’t come with free shipping.
From the talk online, it seems that once a woman declares that she is dominant she can expect to have her inbox crammed full of propositions constantly from that moment on. Also, those propositions are terrible. It’s seems like most guys figure out that submission turns them on sexually first, and many never really get past that point.
If you’re online, just delete spammy/wankery/thoughtless messages. Don’t give them any more energy than that, no feedback positive or negative. Spend your time looking for guys who spark your interest and message them instead. Positive contact that shows interest in him as a person is enough to send a lot of submissive guys over the moon.
Out at events and munches, the same tactics can be employed. This is how Tavi snagged me by the way: at a geeky-game themed munch she was setting up a game I enjoy, she invited me to play and offered me a seat next to her. We talked, I noticed some frisson and was hoping to see her again. I may have waited til the next munch, but she messaged me the next day and asked if I’d be interested in hanging out or playing sometime. She told me I was cute. I was hooked. It was that simple.
Some D/s flirting is encouraged, but make sure that you take the time to show some interest in a guy as a person first, gauge they’re interested before trying to push any buttons. I wish I didn’t have to mention that, but several respondents mentioned their experiences with dommes who started a conversation by talking down to them. I trust everyone reading this should know better, but is seems to happen often enough that it needs to be said: Don’t expect submission from someone you don’t have a relationship with.
- Attracting a Submissive Man
When it comes to attracting submissive men, confidence is important. It takes confidence to lead, and guys looking for someone to lead them, either through a scene or through a long-term relationship, will notice that first. It may be the case that you can fake it til you make it, but being able to display confidence makes a strong first impression.
Like this (the menagerie is optional)
Many guys mentioned intelligence when asked what makes them want to meet with a domme, and I agree. Not only is intelligence sexy as hell, but before I’m going to let someone tell me what to do I want to know that their decision making skills are up to snuff.
Kindness, politeness and affection were also often mentioned. Everyone wants to be cared for, and submissive men are no exception. It is especially important to know that if you’re going to make yourself vulnerable to someone that she’s not going to break you, or that at the very least, she’ll put you back together afterwards.
- Addressing the Hard Parts
When it comes to the things that are difficult about finding a submissive man, I don’t have easy answers. The first thing Ferns had to say to me on the subject was this:
To me, it’s not even really about ‘finding a male-sub partner’, it’s ‘finding a partner who I can love and adore, and who is submissive’.
That’s a major difficulty that everyone looking for a long-term relationship with kink compatibility is going to have to deal with. Even people who are looking for something as low key as a regular play partner or just someone to scene with for the evening, are likely to have more in mind than someone who only ticks the boxes for preferred gender and role.
Finding a partner is hard, and the more qualifiers you add the harder it is. When you plot out everything you want in a partner, or even just the things you need it may seem unrealistic to hope than anyone could possibly match the description. But there are some seven billion people on the planet and each one of them is growing and changing every day.
- There aren’t enough male subs in the scene, or they’re too shy.
The scene can be pretty toxic to male submissives (well a lot of people really, but the point I’m making is about male submissives.) Understand for a moment that for a man to identify as sexually submissive means disengaging from “the man box,” it means that a lot of the cultural lessons he learned about how to “be a man” and how to interact with women no longer fit quite right. It means that the things men are taught to take pride in and gain confidence from may be unappealing.
This is going to lead to self-consciousness, and while not all submissives are introverts, the scene and it’s disapproval (or perceived disapproval) and shaming of male-subs can be enough to make even the extroverted among us think twice about showing up.
If you want submissive men in your scene, they need to feel welcome. That might mean organising a Femdom munch, that might mean inviting them out personally. If you’re active online and you see a promising submissive man in your area, invite him to an event. Even if you don’t click, he might be right for the domme next to you.
Even after I knew I was kinky, I didn’t go to any events until a dominant woman invited me to. Even after that, I didn’t keep going while I was sharing a house with guys who I knew would shame me for being submissive. And I’m still not active in my local scene because the cost of being in that environment isn’t worth it while I have a partner.
When the submissive (or possible-submissive) you do see in your scene is too shy, one of you needs to break the ice. You may be able to do that with clear and unambiguous body language, but chances are you’re going to have to buck up and initiate contact yourself. It may take guys a while to learn that Submission is not passive, in the meantime you can expedite things by taking them in hand (figuratively until you’ve got their consent of course.)
after that, you won’t even have to buy a leash.
I am not saying that D-types need to initiate everything, I’m saying that waiting for the cute submissive boy in the corner to work up the guts to come talk to you is a waste of both your time. (However, if you are the cute submissive boy in the corner, waiting for the smoldering domme by the bar to come talk to you is a waste of both your time.)
- Submissive Men don’t know how to Behave
I don’t know what it is exactly, but I hear reports that a lot of guys identifying as submissive who do make it to the scene are not the courteous and accommodating gentlemen they should be. I’ve mentioned that I think all the spammers and wankers online should just be ignored, or reported to mods as need be, but it’s harder to do that in person.
It’s probably the influence of porn, I guess. I don’t know how you could get all the way from realizing that femdommy smut gets you off to going to a real life meet-up with out realizing that you’re going to be meeting with fully-actualized human beings. But I haven’t any other explanation from some of the behavior I’ve heard about.
Words to live by.
The only thing to do is try to educate, simply and using small words. I suppose what needs to happen is they need to think about female dominance in a way that doesn’t send all the blood rushing from their brains.
It is my sincere hope that this post will prove helpful to someone reading this. Finding someone you can have a relationship with and making it work is one of the more difficult parts of life. It’s frustrating when you realize that so much of the relationship paradigms you grew up with aren’t going to work for you and you have to sort everything out on your own.
I’ve done my best to put this together so that readers have a roadmap to work with (even if it is scrawled haphazardly on a cocktail napkin.) If you have any questions, or ever want to pick the brain of a submissive identified man you can comment here or email me: CaptnPeroxide@gmail.com
I want to thank everyone who answered my queries, emailed me their experiences and helped me edit this, and I should point out that of any short comings this post has is my fault not theirs. Best of luck to everyone trying to make their BDSM love story come true.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjnxfWK-wUA&w=420&h=315]
Thanks so much for putting this together!
I’m curious about the non-BDSM dating sites. Fetlife and Collarme are just not my thing, so I’ve recently hopped onto OKCupid, precisely because you can dig into people’s questions and find the stealth subs. I’m not comfortable hanging it all out there in my profile, but I’ve provided a hint or two of my domliness for those to see who are looking for it. I wonder how many submissive men tend to do the same. And if they do, what are some of the hints they’ve use?
I tend to weed out potentials primarily by the questions (and it’s incredibly frustrating that you can’t search and sort by specific questions/answers). But I’ve come across a few whose answers around wanting to be dominated were a resounding “no” but who contacted me interested in exploring it. One was a jerk, the other was respectful and sincere. So it goes to show that self-reported submissiveness isn’t always reliable. I’m sure there are a lot of reasons someone might not answer those questions in a way that reveals their submissiveness, but guys – you make it almost impossible to find you if you don’t.
On my OkC profile I mark a lot of the kink questions in such a way that it should be pretty clear that at the very least I am an s-type (“They take control,” “Get tied up,” ect.). I also mark it so acceptabel answers from matches have to be the opposite.
I also mention kink (without going into details) in the ‘Most private thing I’m willing to admit.’ box and have ‘you are dominant’ in the ‘You should message me if.’
This is probably more than many (most?) would put, but I have a fairly certain idea of what I’m looking for in a relationship. I try to strike the balance between making it clear to already identified dominant women what I’m looking for without getting into too many details that might scare away vanilla-dominant women.
Obviously your mileage may vary, but just my 2 cents.
I closed my OKCupid account otherwise I’d link you to that. You’re right that you cannot rely on people self reporting about themselves unless they are being intentional. Certain questions may be phrased in such a way that they don’t sound appealing to someone who isn’t sure about their submission.
If you filter hard for submission and kink-positivity, and answer lots of questions, you should be able to make it so you only get matched with guys who have submissive tendencies.
Revner seems to put a bit more on his profile page than I was willing. I did mention something about looking for a woman who enjoys taking the lead, but I was fairly oblique because I did not want to turn of possibly-dominant-vanilla-women who have a culturally skewed idea of BDSM.
The personality graph was something I checked often, and it listed me as being a good deal kinkier than the average straight dude my age. And I believe Revner mentioned that the graph now lists submissiveness as a trait as well.
Well…I’ll throw caution to the wind for a moment and link to my OkC profile. It’s just one example, but might give someone some insight on where we are hiding.
http://www.okcupid.com/profile/ob187
Thanks! That seems like a good balance of what is said versus left unsaid. It would be a piece of cake to find submissive guys in my area if they gave that much info up front.
I’m definitely erring on the side of oblique for exactly the same reason – I’m sure there are vanilla men who get turned off from what they think BDSM is, too. Maybe down the line I’ll get more explicit out of frustration, but we’ll see. It gets tricky when the guys don’t answer the most pertinent questions, and they end up matching w/ a high % because what they did answer jives with me.
I haven’t really come across someone with More Submissive in their personality graphs, yet (though More Dominant is the very first thing you see on mine XD).
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Thank you for this, shame you fall in the “lives on the other side of the planet” category or I’d ask you out!
You’re welcome.
Aw shucks, I know that when I was looking there were a couple of very cool dommes that I might have pursued if geography weren’t a factor.
I absolutely love this peroxide! Very well thought out and some really good information! Even I can relate in some ways I see some submissive females having the same problems of course but I have seen submissive men have this difficulty as you speak of.
“casual play tend to be more likely to attend munches and BDSM events” This is one of the many reasons that despite all the advice I hear to go to a munch I really am not interested.
“may have waited til the next munch, but she messaged me the next day and asked if I’d be interested in hanging out or playing sometime.”
I absolutely love a woman who will go after you chase you but I will siddle up beside one I like as well too.
“Don’t expect submission from someone you don’t have a relationship with. ” AMEN!!!!
“When it comes to attracting submissive men, confidence is important.” A confident woman will pull me to her quicker than anything and combine that with intelligence and she almost has me like putty in her hands.
“To me, it’s not even really about ‘finding a male-sub partner’, it’s ‘finding a partner who I can love and adore, and who is submissive’. Finding a partner is hard, and the more qualifiers you add the harder it is. When you plot out everything you want in a partner, or even just the things you need it may seem unrealistic to hope than anyone could possibly match the description.”
Both you and Ferns are right! You are not just looking for a submissive or a dominant you are looking for a partner who you love and adore and who is compatible too you.
Applause!!!!
Thank you! And I love all your points, but it’s late and I’m just going to agree with you on all of them, so I’ll just say goodnight!
I’m not sure how you do it Peroxide, another wonderfully well thought out post. You’ve clearly gone to a lot of trouble to gather views on this and assemble them into a great piece of writing. Thank you for all that you give to all of us. It is very much appreciated.
Well thanks, I try to listen to and empathise with multiple points of view whenever I write something like this. Creating understanding about the different people who do BDSM and the different motivations they have benefits everyone, and so I try and emphasize that in my writing.
I know I said this already, but thank you for doing this write up. The fact that there are so many posts for submissive men to find dominant women yet (til now) none I know of advising the other end reinforces the (frankly terrifying) idea that dominant women don’t need a guide. It can feel like I’m expected to just know what to do and be completely in control at all times when in a dominant role, and showing any doubt/evidence that I’m not omniscient/top drop would just prove I’m not really dominant. It’s nice to see evidence that fantastic submissive men realize we can be human too.
Now about the shipping problem. You can get free shipping on poultry (yes, really) as long as you order in bulk, I don’t suppose the same principle could be made to apply here?
I feel like there is less guidance passed around for dominants in general. But it is especially conspicuous that there is no advice being given for dominant women seeking partners.
I think there is definitely an element of fantasy worship, when it comes to even good advice for male subs on how to treat their dommes. Where even when we are reminded that dominant women are human, we aren’t reminded that they won’t always have all the answers, or always feel like being in control at a given moment, or making a given decision on their own. And the fact that top drop doesn’t get mentioned in every discussion about sub-drop is absurd.
I think if you have your prospective male sub tar and feather himself, you should be able to get him shipped for free.
I don’t think I could even begin to express how much I love this post. You make such fantastic points and I really think that so many people could benefit from reading this! I literally cackled when I saw the pie chart, totally made my night. You are a rare individual, I can’t wait to read what you have to say next.
Thank you very much. I hope that people derive some benefit from it. I’d like to see F/m dynamic become less difficult to arrange and talk about. But I enjoy just making people cackle as well.
Thanks a lot!
I put a link to your blog in one of my tweets last night, couldn’t resist sharing one of the pictures. 🙂 I know personally that the whole point of my blog is to make people more comfortable with getting their wants out in the open, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one!
Totally, feel free to link my stuff to your heart’s content!
You’re a gem, thanks so much!
‘Flirting with a little D/s’. That right there! If I’m genuinely interested in pursuing someone, I will lightly sprinkle some dominance into my flirtations to see how they respond. There’s definitely an art to it. You don’t want to come off as controlling in a negative way, or just as a plain ‘entitled bitch’ to put it eloquently. I think that one key to it is to make it playful and tone down the ‘RAWR OBEY ME’ factor (lmao).
There’s definitely an art to it.
Yeah, and it is totally the case that done wrong it will be really off-putting. I’d recommend having a few positive vanilla interactions first to gauge interest before you start to playfully test how they react to a little dominance. That could be as little as a few sentences at a munch, or it could take several long email conversations to establish that you’re interested in an individual as a person, and you’d like to have the submit to you.
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Can’t believe I’ve only just found this! So many people are going to benefit from this – thanks so much for sharing! The pie chart…hilarious =P
I hope so. Thanks you, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Very well put together article, as a sub guy I definitely think that more articles like this should exist for our Dom female counterparts, It’s important for us to understand that Doms aren’t perfect and don’t always have a perfect knowledge of what to do and how to interact with us. This article was very eye opening and a good read to say the least, nicely done!