Now, I’m not talking about that.
I just wanted to make a quick comment on how frequently in artistic depictions “dominant” translates to “larger than.” This was brought to my mind today seeing this picture show up on tumblr and being quite confused as to whether the woman is supposed to be a giant or if the fellow is especially petite.
It occurs to me that I’ve read more than a few pieces of F/m erotica that make a point of highlighting size differences between the often short, slim, smooth skinned submissive men and the usually tall and most often voluptuous or muscular dominant women.
I’m sure that for the most part it’s just another symptom of the the tendency of people to insist that masculine traits be paired with dominance and vis versa. On the other hand a size discrepancy is a easier way to demonstrate a imbalance of power than trying to show that your 4’7″ domme character can judo her perfectly submissive 6’5″ man into any position she desires.
The problem being of course that the audience for this sort of thing walks away with the message that to be a dominant women you need to tower over shrimply little subs. Which is of course going to confuse the large portion of people who didn’t have the good sense to be born into bodies that would grow to reflect their sexual roles. For as much as we repeat the cliche about books and their covers we don’t ever heed the advice do we?
Besides, I may be 6’2″ standing up, but I’m only like 4′ on my knees.
If that’s still too tall, you can always try standing on something.
“I may be 6’2″ standing up, but I’m only like 4′ on my knees.”
I love this conclusion!
I’m inordinately proud of it myself.
Yes! i’m so glad you’re talking about this. I hate it so much and find it very odd actually, just another way of making sure that the submissive is as milquetoast and impotent as possible. I’ve always found the converse to be far sexier actually – the idea of a smaller woman overpowering a taller, bigger man. In flats, I’m 5’1 so that stereotype is pretty much null and void for me.
You Sven and Mimi stuff is that way right? He’s big and buff and she’s tiny IRL.
Size really is a non issue for me. It would be fun, I think if a woman were stronger or more athletic than me and could pin me to the bed or up against the wall without me letting her, but let’s be honest I’m going to let her either way.
As lipstickandligature says, I don’t really understand the appeal of subjugating someone who is weaker than you. Where’s the challenge in that? I like that my boy is submissive to me *even though* I am physically weaker than him. It emphasises his submission, it makes it more of a power *exchange*. It also means that it’s not just because of size/gender/blah. It’s an acknowledgement that I am *better* at leading than him, and that he likes to follow *me*.
It’s one of many things that puzzles me about the ‘conventional’ male dom, female sub dynamic. For me, it’s like, (insert sarcasm) ‘oooh, you’re such a *man* because you force a woman who is physically weaker than you and has less social power than you to do what you want’. There’s no pride in it. ‘Well done, you got to be the boss because you happen to be physically bigger. I’m sure it means a lot to you, because you put so much effort into it.’
Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in9SiDtJLaU the gayness of straight men. Could just as easily be applied to kink, imho. You could easily argue that it takes a REAL MAN to be submissive.
I will say that I wouldn’t mind being physically overpowered by a lady, There is some hottness there, and for fantasies involving force a smaller domme/bigger sub combo is either going to have to fake any struggling or break out the tranquilizer gun.
Well, yeh, a stun gun is an option I guess! But most women know that brute strength isn’t everything. Men are used to achieving things by just trying harder (i.e. I can’t open this door, so I’ll push it harder); small women are used to using their ingenuity to get around problems (i.e. I can’t open this door, so I’ll try a different angle).
That is to say, I think that you could be overpowered by a woman, without faking or guns, but it might not be in the way that you might imagine a man would do it. Whether that’s hot or not is individual I guess.
Electricity is fun, and really I would just take a little athleticism to overpower me.
Just as a side comment – I thought that the giant women/tiny men thing depicted in the cartoon you linked was a sort of specific kink rather than being all mixed up within general F/m?
Yeah, I believe you’re correct that there are some people kinking on giantesses and amazons and stuff in that vein, but it seems that there is a lot of overlap, and that often general F/m stuff still makes a point of highlighting size differences.
I used to be a professional dominatrix, and there were definitely a number of men with “giantess” fantasies, and also lots of men who preferred Amazon women. They never sessioned with me. Luckily there are at least an equal number of men, if not more, who want to be dominated by a small Asian woman.
Well that’s good, that sort of evens out in the real world. I wonder why then, I don’t see more representations of petite dominant women?
I’m a larger-than-average guy, 6 feet tall and 240 pounds. But last night (at my first play party, yay!) a 5’2″ woman was able to make me feel small by being the aggressor: after running her fingers through my hair, grabbing my hair and using it as a handle to control kisses, pulling my head back so she was the one leaning over me (mind you, we weren’t standing during this, which would have made for a different story).
Congrats on your first play party, It sounds like you had fun.
I have no doubt that size shouldn’t matter, that one can get around differences in size and strength to make a scene work for the people involved. But if you had been standing, or if you had tried a take down scene, or play struggling the size difference might have been a factor. Nothing you couldn’t make work, but still.
That’s not what we see though. F/m porn, art, and erotica has a distinct tendency to feature taller than average women in excessively high heels beating on smaller guys. Statistically that can’t the most common expression of a F/m dynamic so why do we see it so much?
You’re right that F/m depictions don’t match the reality, but the same is true of most categories of BDSM porn, art, and erotica (or any category of porn, art, and erotica, really). Especially as it relates to people’s bodies.
But yeah, a takedown scene would take a wink and a nod and some willing suspension of disbelief.
I just wanted to mention that the picture of the Superior Amazon dominatrix large woman is a take-off of an old cartoon by French artist kd pierre. He has done a small number of domestic femdom and chastity oriented cartoons, but hasn’t been around since the late 90s or early 00s.
Here’s an Imgur link to the original for anyone interested.
Interesting. I definitely seen both before. I rather prefer the second version as I’ve always found the original’s style of artwork aesthetically vulgar.
But in the first the female character seems less amazonian, the size difference is less dramatic and more about her no longer watching her figure now that her man is locked up.
Whereas the second seems to me that the woman is proportionally larger than the man, making him appear to be very small by comparison.
I wonder if this is just a singular occurrence or if F/m materials have made a major change in themes in the last couple of decades.