Master female dom­i­nance and male sub­mis­sion, rule over him, and have him eat­ing out of your hand.

Men's myr­i­ad moti­va­tions for sex go beyond the phys­i­cal release — even with the slight­est graze under the psyche's sur­face. Just a few rea­sons men might dom­i­nate or sub­mit include, respectively:

1. To feel impor­tant — or to feel self-​worth in servitude.
2. To feel pow­er­ful — or to reclaim agency in the choice to relin­quish control.
3. To get nur­tur­ing or sooth­ing — or to know that the “unac­cept­able” parts are seen and accepted.

“[Importance, pow­er, nur­tur­ing, and sooth­ing] would more accu­rate­ly define the expen­sive role­play [sex work­ers] engage in,” wrote licensed clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Brandy Engler in her book, The Men on My Couch.

While the book more often dis­cuss­es dom­i­nant men, I have more expe­ri­ence with sub­mis­sives — and their corol­lar­ies aren't that dif­fer­ent regard­ing the desires expressed.

These bite-​sized Femdom prin­ci­ples are just a swift syn­op­sis of sub­mis­sion — and how a man's need for love might show up in the bed­room. Learn from it, live with it, and maybe make some mon­ey off of it if that's your kink. <3

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Submissive men want to prove their worth through action

You've like­ly seen beau­ti­ful women set up wish lists to receive gifts from men online. While there may be self­ish strings some­times (such as sen­su­al snap­shots with lin­gerie), many of these men get off on sim­ply know­ing that they con­tributed to a woman's hap­pi­ness in some tan­gi­ble way:

• A beta simp orbiter buy­ing con­doms for her to use with her partners
• Financial dom­i­na­tion where drain­ing his bank account builds up her wealth
• Buying dil­dos for her and earn­ing the priv­i­lege of skim­ming the saucy secre­tions left behind when she uses them

What these men are seek­ing isn't sole­ly sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion but also appreciation.

Moreover, it's human to crave a sense of sig­nif­i­cance and val­ue in oth­ers’ eyes — includ­ing in more tra­di­tion­al­ly macho con­texts like brav­ing dan­ger to be a badass hero and protector.

Once you under­stand that a sub­mis­sive man's ser­vice is a way of deriv­ing self-​worth, every­thing else about female dom­i­na­tion falls into place: “As long as you're serv­ing me, you are redeemable, you have worth, and you have purpose.”

What makes a man feel like a man is context-specific

There are many ways for a man to serve. Ever hear the say­ing, "If the women don't find you hand­some, they should at least find you handy”?

Handiness and tech­ni­cal skills are prime exam­ples of how a man can step up — regard­less of whether he has the stereo­typ­i­cal romance nov­el cov­er body — and feel like a man while doing it. If he can't be hand­some, he can be handy. And if he can't be handy, he can be help­ful and valu­able in some oth­er way. Providing finan­cial­ly can also fit the bill (no pun intended).

As I've said before, sub­mis­sion isn't inher­ent­ly fem­i­nine.

“It isn't even about get­ting sex­u­al­ly turned on by serv­ing,” added one of my sub­by guy friends. “I just want to know I'm appre­ci­at­ed as a per­son” — one who is want­ed and needed.

Positive reinforcement for tangible tasks feels like gaining XP

Male sub­mis­sives get a ping of dopamine every time you express gen­uine grat­i­tude — and they want to be giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to:

• Make you happier
• Hear “good boy” (or some oth­er affir­ma­tion of how well they're doing)
• Get a treat (pos­si­bly in the form of eat­ing you out)

…and so on.

Ramp up the rewards so they get the see-​sawing spikes of dopamine with each trib­ute they give. It can feel like gain­ing expe­ri­ence points in a video game, par­tic­u­lar­ly when “mis­sions” and objec­tives are clear­ly laid out. Think of:

• “SMART” goals — spe­cif­ic, mea­sur­able, achiev­able, rel­e­vant, and time-specific
• Sticker sheets if you're going for a soft Mommy Domme/​little sub­mis­sive feel
• Bank state­ments clear­ly show­ing how much you've drained them and bask in luxury

From there, pos­i­tive rein­force­ment can form an asso­ci­a­tion between doing some­thing for you and being cel­e­brat­ed. Being thanked for a job well done feels fuck­ing good to a submissive.

Note: I'm not con­don­ing putting more and more into a friend­ship with the unspo­ken expec­ta­tion of evolv­ing into a dif­fer­ent type of rela­tion­ship. Healthy give-​and-​take — kinky or oth­er­wise — works best when inten­tions are clear.

That said, friend-​zoning could be turned into a tease-​and-​denial kink — maybe even with cock cages.

Sometimes, insecurities are rerouted as kinks and turn-ons

I've seen wires get crossed time and again. A man's inse­cu­ri­ty, fear, or shame can some­how be among the things he jacks off to most:

• Perceived inad­e­qua­cy com­pared to a partner's real­is­tic dil­do with mas­sive measurements
• Freudian finan­cial sub­mis­sion stem­ming from wor­ries that he'll nev­er mea­sure up to how respon­si­bly pow­er­ful his moth­er is
• A part­ner get­ting way more sex­u­al atten­tion than him (and con­ceiv­ably see­ing oth­er guys)

But why is that so hot to the men who touch them­selves to these hang-ups?

It's part­ly a cop­ing mech­a­nism when cul­tur­al con­di­tion­ing por­trays those emo­tions as weak but anger and lust as accept­able. Eroticizing intense emo­tion can be a way to reclaim and replay the expe­ri­ence on one's own terms to gain con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion. Just as anger could be hurt try­ing to be strong, so can sex­u­al energy.

When a dif­fi­cult feel­ing comes up, hav­ing a good wank can be a good dis­trac­tion — until some­one has done it so much that they asso­ciate that emo­tion with sex­u­al arousal and grat­i­fi­ca­tion. With rep­e­ti­tion, it becomes a habit wired into their neur­al networks.

Feel it to heal it or have some fun with their humil­i­a­tion kink. Better yet, why not both? Vulnerability and being seen are two sides of the same coin.

Domination isn't “just” about sex; it's about time and attention

For some­one to spend her pre­cious time and ener­gy on him is a reward.

Even a degrad­ing com­ment could be inter­pret­ed as approval, espe­cial­ly if he has eroti­cized shame about his mas­culin­i­ty (or per­ceived lack there­of). To a sub­mis­sive who gets off on degra­da­tion, it can be a sign that:

• She cares enough about how he feels to engage and have some­thing to say to him
• He gets to occu­py some of her men­tal and emo­tion­al bandwidth
• Something about his world­view — even when it's a lim­it­ing belief, like “What if my body is inad­e­quate because of my penis?” — is being val­i­dat­ed in some way, and feel­ing like he's “right” can be sat­is­fy­ing. (Note: I don't believe that about penis size, even though many men wor­ry about it.)

And even when he gets off on her play rejec­tion, pity, and dis­en­gage­ment with him? It can some­times be even more effec­tive with inter­mit­tent rein­force­ment, in that he should be grate­ful for any lit­tle crumb from her.

If you want to (not-​so-​playfully) pun­ish a sub­mis­sive for dis­pleas­ing, you could say, “There is noth­ing you can do to make this bet­ter,” and don't give atten­tion beyond that.

Your time and atten­tion are cur­ren­cies of approval and impor­tance. Act accord­ing­ly if you're going to dominate.

Closing thoughts on female domination and male submission

As always, there are so many lay­ers to dom­i­nance and submission:

• Taboos and edges of ethics
• Perceptions of power
• Parental influ­ence (Thanks, Freud!)
• Gender eupho­ria (or dysphoria)
• Cultural (and sub­cul­tur­al) context

And I can't cov­er all that in one blog post; that's why these are bite-​sized female dom­i­na­tion principles.

The under­cur­rent, though, is that peo­ple want to feel like they mat­ter — and sub­mis­sion is just one way to sat­is­fy that crav­ing for sig­nif­i­cance. On the sur­face, it can look like dom­i­nat­ing some­one means using them, but it goes deep­er than that:

1. People want to make oth­ers ecsta­t­i­cal­ly hap­py — and ser­vice can be exchanged for appreciation.
2. Submission means being told your pur­pose, at least for the moment.
3. There are many ways for some­one to serve and many rea­sons they might get off on it.
4. Positive rein­force­ment gives a “ping” of accom­plish­ment — releas­ing dopamine, the mol­e­cules of “yes, more, please!”
5. The atten­tion of a dom­i­nant par­ty is an affir­ma­tion that you are worth some­thing pre­cious to them.

While the sce­nar­ios and stereo­types role­played can be gen­dered, the gen­er­al moti­va­tion is the same. Remember: “As long as you're serv­ing me, you are redeemable, you have worth, and you have purpose.”

Further reading:

• 3 Emotional Needs of Sext Chat & Femdom Enthusiasts

This post was spon­sored. The writ­ing, opin­ions, and obser­va­tions made here are mine — but what I know of the won­der­ful world of BDSM is just a drop in the buck­et. There are so many ways to be dom­i­nant, but you'll like­ly see these prin­ci­ples again and again, in vary­ing forms! Have fun sam­pling the sex­u­al psy­che out there!