A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire (31 page)

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Authors: Ogi Ogas,Sai Gaddam

BOOK: A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire
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Though sexual domination sites are very popular, sexual submission sites are even
more
popular—and still maintain a majority male audience. Sexual submission sites are even more varied than their domination counterparts. There’s forced feminization sites: Strapped in Silk, House Boys, and Sissy School. There’s CFNM (Clothed Female Naked Male) sites, where a man is stripped and taunted by groups of clothed women, frequently at school or work; this is one of the very few genres of porn frequently featuring small penises. There are also sites featuring water sports (urination), male milking (forcing a man to orgasm), CBT (Cock and Ball Torture), Ballbusting (just what it sounds like), Ball Kicking, FemDom (Female Domination), Foot Femdom, male spanking, facesitting, FemDom Assfucking (women with strap-on dildoes having anal intercourse with men), trampling (women in boots walking on men), and castration (eek!). The vast majority of these submission sites feature role reversal: a dominant woman sexually exploiting a submissive male.
So why would a man, with desire software that is biologically and socially programmed to be dominant, enjoy watching porn that features a submissive, degraded, or humiliated male? Perhaps the simplest neural explanation is that male fans of sexual submission porn are accessing the female submissive circuitry their brain shares with women. After all, the submission circuitry is still wired to the brain’s reward centers.
But does this imply that women access their very own male sexual dominance circuitry?
FEMALE DOMINANCE
 
It’s often observed that men strive for control and domination, while women strive for consensus and equality. One likely reason is because women are not motivated by a testosterone-fueled drive for social dominance. Though Miss Marple prefers her partners to be dominant, most women do not feel the burning ambition to outcompete other women on the way to becoming alpha female.
Of course, many women are driven to succeed—political opposites Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin demonstrate that women of all persuasions have the inner fire to strive for the highest positions of executive authority. But generally speaking, women avoid physical competition and personal clashes in favor of what psychologists call “tending and befriending”—establishing strong interpersonal bonds.
This changes if you give women testosterone. They become more aggressive, perform more rough and tumble play, initiate more fights, and become more prone to risk-taking, just like men. It also increases their sex drive. Female Viagra already exists and it’s called testosterone. “There was a time when I had to take testosterone supplements, and it increased my compassion for men four-fold,” reported one woman. “Not only did my sex drive go up, but I felt more aggressive and a lot more willing to take risks. It was amazing!” Unfortunately, though testosterone can be prescribed by a doctor, it has a number of negative side effects, including problems with blood fats, liver function, and body hair growth.
But even without testosterone supplements, many women prefer to be the seducer rather than the seduced, such as cougars Samantha on
Sex and the City
and Gabrielle on
Desperate Housewives
. During the five-year period from 2001 to 2005, about 250 female teachers in America had their teaching credentials revoked because of sexual misconduct—making sexual advances on a student. (Compared to about nine times that number of male teachers.) One of the first female teachers to make headlines for sexual misconduct was Mary Kay Letourneau, who at age thirty-four began an affair with a thirteen-year-old student. When Letourneau’s husband discovered the affair, she was arrested for second-degree child rape. Three months later, Letourneau gave birth to a Audrey, a baby girl, the daughter of the thirteen-year-old lover. Seven years later Letourneau married her student and, with her new husband, celebrated with a “Hot for Teacher” night at a Seattle bar.
Rebecca Bogard, a twenty-seven-year-old science teacher in Mississippi, allegedly seduced a fifteen-year-old in her Jaguar with plates that read “GRRRR.” She later texted the boy, “I love you, yeah it was the best, which night was the best 4 you, I’m sensitive but not sore, you were good.” One Alabama teacher was even arrested for allegedly having sex with eight members of the high school baseball team.
These examples aren’t necessarily indicative of female arousal from dominance; they may reflect arousal from irresistibility (consider the intensity of desire from most adolescent boys). Still, they all demonstrate a willingness to violate social norms (and criminal laws) in the pursuit of sexual fulfillment with the woman assuming a dominant role. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that most women have a very complex relationship with their desire to be dominant or submissive, one that is much more problematic than that experienced by men. One woman writes about this knotty attitude:
I can read and am very fond of [dominant and submissive roles] between two male characters, whereas a male-dom-female-sub heterosexual pairing has to be very specifically written for it not to be upsetting for me. The most seemingly-innocuous things, stuff that’s normal enough in such fiction not to merit a warning, will turn it in my head from consensual to rape and/or abuse of power, and the male character from a desirable lover into a threatening tormentor.
There was a large gender difference in the responses to the OkCupid survey question “How does the idea of being slapped hard in the face during sex make you feel?” Two-thirds of women answered “horrified,” compared to only one-third of men. But despite this clear preference for no abuse, many women—just like men—are aroused by degradation and humiliation. Web sites like Hogtied, Public Disgrace, and Wasteland feature many actresses who participate because they enjoy it. “I like being choked,” admits one performer and bondage enthusiast. “Especially from behind. I need to be slapped around a bit. I like to be put in my place.”
Several popular categories of fan fiction involve salient cues of submission, such as
rape
,
submission,
and
hurt/comfort
. Hurt/comfort stories typically involve a character who is harmed or suffering in some fashion. He may be physically injured, have cancer or AIDs, or simply face discrimination for publicly admitting he is gay. There’s often a very erotic overtone to the comforting. Here’s a scene from “Breakfast in Bed,” a hurt/comfort story set in the Harry Potter universe:
Remus opened his mouth to speak, but his voice cracked. He winced, and Sirius leapt up to get him a glass of water. “What happened?” Remus asked, not minding the absent teasing of his bangs.
“Dumbledore looked at your dinner plate. Someone mixed silver shavings into your potatoes.” Sirius’ face paled even further. “It’s my fault. Please, eat some fruit.”
“I don’t feel well enough. What if I throw it up?”
“Just take it slow,” he whispered. He reached out and picked up a piece of melon. He touched it to his lips and smiled. Remus’ heart hammered in his chest. Sirius turned the piece and held the kissed end for Remus. Remus grinned and opened his mouth. The melon was sweet on his tongue, wet with juice and Sirius’ kiss.
However, many women are aroused by more intense submission cues. “[In my fantasies] my ‘hero’ is shorter than everyone else, darker, and therefore highly desirable, but as he is totally vulnerable and powerless he is sexually abused,” explains fan fiction scholar Brita Hansen of the University of Melbourne. “My identical twin sister also has a paracosm fantasy, but she won’t tell me what hers is.” As an example of her fantasy, she points to the story “Cleansing” based on the (nonpornographic) family television show
21 Jump Street
. The story is about the police officer named Tom Hanson, played by Johnny Depp on the show. Tom has been captured by criminals, who send a videotape to Tom’s partner Doug:
Doug could feel his face growing hotter and hotter by the minute as he watched the abuse of his partner.
“Who wants him?” Andrew asked. “Or am I first?” He traced his finger down Tom’s cheek, making the young cop recoil from the contact. The four other captors sniggered and hooted at this. “I’ll just take him.”
He pushed Tom to the bed and shoved him to lay on it. Eric covered the officer’s mouth with duct tape that stretched from Hanson’s right ear to his left. It was evident that Hanson was already thoroughly exhausted, and he could not bring himself to waste his strength on trying to force Andrew off of him.
The camcorder focused on Tom’s battered face, catching every flinch of pain and the utter shame present in his usually lively brown eyes. They were soon shut tightly as he arched upward and practically screamed from Andrew thrusting into him.
It appears that just as men are flexible but generally prefer sexual domination, women are also flexible but generally prefer sexual submission. But things are simpler for Elmer Fudd, who can divorce sexual gratification from his other thoughts and feelings. Miss Marple has a more difficult time separating the intellectual discomfort with sexual submission from her physical and sexual response. Perhaps this is another reason so many women enjoy fan fiction: it provides them with an opportunity to explore their complex feelings about sexuality.
So what exactly is the relationship between social dominance and sexual dominance? One special genre of sex may shed some light on this question.
IVY LEAGUE DEANS AND LOST GIRLS
 
BDSM is an acronym for the very intimidating phrase “Bondage, Discipline, and Sadomasochism,” a sexual subculture that has long befuddled mainstream society—and mainstream science. Until recently, scientists erroneously believed that BDSM participants were concerned with the infliction and experience of pain. This is also how BDSM is often portrayed in movies and daytime talk shows. Certainly the accoutrements of BDSM, such as whips, gags, and nipple clamps, seem like they would
hurt
. But fans of BDSM—and the precious few scientists who study them—now agree it’s about something else entirely.
“It’s about the voluntary exchange of power,” explains Tiiu, a female BDSM enthusiast who performs in fetish shows and stars in online videos on the BDSM Web site Wasteland. “The submissive gives the dominant power out of respect and trust. This is called The Gift.” This centrality of power in BDSM is reflected in the names of many private bondage clubs, like Arizona Power Exchange (APEX), People Exchanging Power (PEP), headquartered in New Mexico, and the Memphis Power Exchange in Tennessee.
Those who participate in BDSM are
doms
(short for dominant),
subs
(short for submissive), or
switches
(able to play either role). It’s frequently said that even though the sub gives power to the dom, the sub is still ultimately in control. (This parallels the conviction in the gay community that the bottom is really in charge.) The sub often has a safe word that will put an instant end to a play session, in the event that things start to progress beyond the sub’s limits. A good dom pays very close attention to the sub’s experience and determines when a sub may be approaching his or her limits. It takes training and experience to become a good dom—usually by serving as a sub for an established dom.
But what kind of person would derive sexual satisfaction from relinquishing control of his or her body to another? Are subs all young, mentally unbalanced slackers, perhaps enamored of the goth lifestyle? Not at all, says Gloria Brame, a clinical sexologist who works with BDSM participants. “[They] are as romantic, loving, and committed to relationships as anyone else. But instead of finding a kiss romantic, they may find wearing someone’s collar to be romantic.”
More insight into the BDSM community can be obtained by considering the Web site Wasteland.com. Wasteland is the oldest continuously operating Web site devoted to BDSM themes. It was formed in 1994 after owner Colin Rowntree (husband to Angie Rowntree, owner of Sssh.com) put a catalog of goth fashion on the nascent Internet. At the time, Colin himself had no connection to either goth or BDSM. In fact, the warm, witty Rowntree, who works out of a rambling colonial home tucked between New Hampshire apple orchards and pumpkins patches, resembles an enthusiastic and slightly rakish humanities professor. His catalog site quickly obtained a lot of traffic, but nobody was buying anything. Visitors just wanted to look at the pictures of attractive models wearing black leather clothes. As an experiment, Colin charged people $10 a month just to look at the pictures. Hundreds of people signed up. Soon people were requesting models in specific poses and situations. Wasteland was born.
Today, Wasteland contains hard-core videos of people acting out various BDSM scenarios, such as getting locked in cages, getting suspended from the ceiling, getting mummified, and getting tied up with ropes that look like they could be used to anchor an ocean liner. So who pays money to join the site? “We’ve got bankers, stockbrokers, Ivy League deans, CEOs,” explains Rowntree with a smile. “People who have a lot of responsibility in real life, and who want to get away from the burden of being in charge. People for whom this is a lifestyle, a chance to play.” The average age of Wasteland members is forty-five. The average income is upper-middle class.
Many of the fans of BDSM are socially dominant, yet prefer to be sexually submissive. Social dominance does not imply sexual dominance—only an increased sex drive. How that sex drive is satisfied varies from individual to individual. Certainly, most alpha males prefer the sexually dominant role. But perhaps a minority feel a kind of psychological relief when taking the submissive role. Or another possibility is simply that the motivation required to become socially dominant is unrelated to one’s preference for sexual dominance. For example, many gay alpha males are power bottoms.

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