The Healthy Submissive I

In this discussion, I will be talking primarily about the female heterosexual submissive,
because I don't know enough about non-heterosexual female submissives and Dominants to
know whether this analysis is completely applicable. This focus is not to suggest that lesbian
female submissives and their challenges are less worthy of study, merely that I am not
equipped at this time to do such a study.
So often, women who are newly aware of their submissive needs endure a period of self
doubt around the troubling question: am I sick? I've seen women read the psychiatric
diagnostic manual (DSM-IV) and then ask, "do I have borderline personality disorder?"
I am writing here not ONLY about the sexual aspects: "am I sick because I get turned on by
images of being taken, used, forced, swept away by masculine energy more powerful than my
own?"; I am also writing about the nonsexual aspects of being submissive: "am I sick because I yearn to depend on, and follow the lead of, a man stronger than myself?"
I will attempt to address both aspects in this essay.
What precisely fuels this kind of question, "am I sick?" Why would a woman discovering
the language of her nature think she has a mental disorder? Or at the very least, have
something very wrong with her?
A submissive discovers, or more properly, realizes and acknowledges that she functions AT HER BEST in relation to another. And the more intimate, holding, containing that
relationship, the better she feels and the better she performs in cardinal areas of adult life:
work, friendships, and parenting. Realizing she is at her best in such relation makes her
wonder why she can't do it for herself? Why does she need such a relationship to accomplish
what she should be able to do for herself?
In thinking about this, I have come to question the cultural determinants of what is
considered the highest good. Here in Western society, we place highest value on independence, on "pull yourself up by the bootstraps", on the lone pioneer, the trailblazer, the less needy and more self sufficient. We value competition over cooperation, tangible acheivement over acheivement in relationship. We pay big bucks to men (and the few women) who run big corporations, and less to the nursery school teachers, the nurses, the secretaries, the social workers, the caregivers rather than the producers.
There is something wrong with believing that such independence is the only good. It is
especially wrong for the most relatedness-oriented among us, the submissive female.
Part of the newly aware submissive's task is to separate out the internalized voices of her
culture: those voices that tell her she is too needy, too dependent, too focused on the others in
her life. Once she can articulate what those voices tell her, she can begin to question not
HERSELF, but the validity of those internalized values, using her own yardstick to measure
her life, rather than our culture's standard.
We can see how perspective is critical in understanding a phenomenon. In a study of moral
development in children, for example, Dr. Robert Coles, in a study of moral development in
children, researched how children decide what is good and right. To do this, he presented
several scenarios describing a moral or ethical dilemma, presented the scenario to school age
children, and analyzed the results. The description of the study here is to illustrate the nature of
cultural bias and it's impact on individuals.

One of Dr. Cole's scenarios was as follows:

A man has a very, very sick wife, so sick she could die if she doesn't get a particular, very
expensive medicine. The man doesn't have the money for the medicine, so in desperation he
steals it from a pharmacy.
The children are asked questions about this scenario. Coles found that boys tended to
conclude that the man should be punished, because the law is the law, and nobody should
break the law. Coles saw this as a higher order of moral reasoning, reflecting the statement, "a
nation of laws, not of men." That is, that nobody is above the law, and the rule of law is not
situationally defined. The boys applied an abstract universal principle to a singular instance.
Coles understood this ability to transcend the personal as a "more evolved" form of moral
development.
The girls were deeply troubled by the scenario, and most of them sought ways to solve the
man's problem within the context of relatedness: they wondered if the man could ask the
pharmacist for the medicine, and offer to work for him to pay for it, or pay him back later.
They wondered if the man had friends who could help him pay for the medicine, and they
believed he shouldn't be punished for his act of desperation. Their sense of right was
situational, and defined within the context of relatedness. They did not come to articulate an
abstract universal principle, but sought to solve the problem within the context presented.
Coles saw this as a less logical, lower order of moral development because the girls could not
emotionally distance themselves from the central human drama in the scenario.
After Coles' work was published a woman named Carol Gilligan reviewed the studies that
Cole had done and reanalyzed them, in a book called, "In a Different Voice." Rather than
seeing the boys' responses as evidence of "higher" development and the girls' as "lower" she
redefined them as different. And she pointed out that the girls responses, so firmly rooted in
human context and relatedness were devalued by a society in which the typically masculine is
of more cultural worth than the typically feminine. She asked, "why is it considered a 'higher'
order of moral development to value universal principle over human context?" and in so doing
highlighted the sexism inherent in the analysis.
As we can see, this type of analysis is extremely useful in understanding typical submissive
conflicts. We tend to ask the wrong questions: "am I bad, sick, weak?", when we should be
asking, "is there something missing from the yardstick I use to measure myself?"
If one looks at capacity for relatedness as a strength, as a good, then it becomes clear that
the submissive has a talent for this, for relatedness. And that seeking a partner who can meet
her need for this relatedness is a good thing, a healthy thing.
If we begin our analysis without the cultural assumptions about what is of "higher" value,
we can begin to understand that it is possible for a woman to be submissive, and to be healthy.
And we can try to imagine what a healthy submissive functions like, and how she developed her adult personality. Let's start backwards, and ask ourselves, what might a healthy adult submissive woman "look" like, psychologically speaking:

1. The healthy submissive is capable of, and thrives on, intense, intimate, emotionally open
relationships. This is often evident in the number of nourishing, sustaining, and life affirming
friendships she makes over the years
. 2. The healthy submissive is a giver. She often needs help to ration herself because her
impulses nearly always lead her to want to do good for others.
3. The healthy submissive is capable of intense joy, especially in the context of a sustaining
relationship.
4. The healthy submissive finds significant relaxation when properly related. She is at ease in
that place.
5. The healthy submissive has finely tuned interpersonal sensitivity. She is reactive to subtle
shifts in the emotional tone of others.
6. The healthy submissive has a fluidity of self, a flexibility that enables her to adapt to
changing circumstances.
7. The healthy submissive is playful.
8. The healthy submissive has no more than the usual cultural conflicts about her body, and its
goodness and beauty.
9. The healthy submissive takes pride in her accomplishments.
10. The healthy submissive accepts herself as she is, knowing that while her culture values
independence and self sufficiency, she has strong dependency needs and that there is no
inherent "wrongness" about those needs
11. The healthy submissive seeks nourishing relationships.
12. The healthy submissive, in accepting herself "as is" is tolerant of others. But neither will she
allow anyone to tell her what her truth should be.
13. The healthy submissive has a reasonable self concept, aware of her difficulties as well as her strengths.
14. The healthy submissive hunger is to be the object of an intense and penetrating
understanding. When her nature is understood and she is held in a loving and firm frame, her
devotion is almost limitless. The healthy submissive has an enormous capacity for devotion,
from which springs her service.

Essay By: Yaldah Tovah, M.D