The Healthy Submissive II

What makes a woman a submissive?

As with all conjectures about human development, the answer is likely two-fold: a
combination of nature and nurture, biology and environment.
There is a whole body of literature that makes observations about temperment. This
literature talks about the variations in behavior in infancy as a manifestation of temperment:
the expression of regularity, responsiveness, and reactivity. In the area of regularity, some
infants are regular and predictable from the get-go: they sleep regularly, wake at predictable
intervals to nurse, and have predictable periods of alertness in which they begin the earliest
socialization. Some infants are irregular: they will one day sleep for an 8 hour stretch, then be
awake all night, the next day they will sleep for one hour intervals through a 24 hour period.
In the area of responsiveness, some infants will find novelty and intense stimulation aversive,
and will withdraw or become irritable when presented with those; some infants are stimulated
to engage and explore novelty and intense stimulation. Some infants have high thresholds for
sensation, requiring a relatively intense stimulus to become aversive, some have low
thresholds, and respond to mild stimulation. Some infants will for example, be intensely
distressed by a wet diaper; some will not register discomfort until diaper rash sets in.
The sum total of these innate, biologically founded responses make up temperment. It is
easy to see what people mean by an "easy" baby: one who sleeps, eats, and eliminates
regularly and predictably; one who has a moderate response to stimulation, neither
withdrawing nor reacting intensely; one who is drawn easily into social exchanges, and
provides pleasurable reinforcement of socialization with their caregivers, one who is easily
"read" and easily comforted, one who accepts change without undue distress.
I think one of the traits in this biologically grounded array that makes up temperment is
common to all submissives. And that is social responsiveness. I would suggest that the baby
who is tempermentally "set" to register and respond selectively and sensitively to social cues
has the seeds of submissiveness in her nature. This is the baby that will search the
environment for a human face; who will be attuned to, and very responsive to the human
voice; who will preferentially and selectively attend to, and process, human interaction.
This baby, as she grows into childhood, will be easy to control, to shape, especially if she is
tempermentally on the "easy" side. This little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to criticism and
correction, to disapproval, to praise. Rather than requiring a raised voice to correct, a raised
eyebrow will often do.
Even further, this little girl will be exquisitely sensitive to nuance: she will know when
others are angry, hurt, sad, bewildered even when they are not spoken about. She has a "sixth
sense" about people.
As children do, she requires the adults in her life to validate her perceptions when
appropriate. Let's say her parents are troubled by a financial stress, and like good, responsible
parents seek to shield her from their stress. The child will pick up on the unspoken tension,
sensitive as she is to subtleties of body language, voice pitch, facial expression. She might
inquire of her parents what is wrong, and be told "nothing is wrong, honey... go and play."
This leaves the child confused: she knows in that way that she knows, that something is
wrong. But her perceptions are not validated. She is told nothing is wrong. But her parents,
who are not at their best, may be a little short with her, and picking THAT up too, she goes
off to play concluding that she must have done something wrong, to be sent away. Part of
this is the megalomania of childhood, part of this is a reasonable and logical synthesis of
resolving the child's felt sense of things with what she is told.
This kind of interaction, repeated over the years, in the BEST and most loving of families,
leads to an adult personality in which there is some anxiety associated with relatedness. The
submissive female learns to scan the social environment for signs of trouble, seeks to "fix" the
trouble, and all too often, believes herself to be the cause of the trouble. If someone important
is tired, the submissive has exhausted them. If someone important is angry, the submissive
must have angered them. If someone important is disappointed, the submissive must have
failed them.
This trait, this interpersonal sensitivity in its highest expression is when the submissive
accurately registers interpersonal nuance, and responds to it with a minimum of self-referral,
recognizing that other's emotional states may have nothing to do with the submissive herself.
This is how it works for the healthy submissive, who as an adult, often finds great fulfillment
working in fields such as social work, nursing, medicine, counselling, teaching. there are
certain vulnerabilities a child constituted with a submissive nature faces.
Because of her intense awareness of interpersonal nuance, she is highly sensitive to both
criticism and praise. When criticized, she is likely to feel intense shame; when praised, intense
pleasure. Since the shame feels so bad, and the praise so pleasurable, she becomes a
people-pleaser. This tends to lead to the development of what psychologists call "an external
locus of control." Meaning that child bases her self assessment (am I good or bad?) on factors
outside herself. The female submissive defines herself based on what others tell her she is.
Parents have enormous responsibility with such an influenceable child. Nascent talents can
either be nurtured or aborted with just a word. This child will likely live up, or down to,
whatever is expected of her. Expect more than she can constitutionally do (like academic,
athletic, or social success) and she will develop an intense sense of inferiority. Praise her out of
proportion to her talents (this is the BEST drawing any child EVER did) and she will develop
an inflated sense of self. Accurately and sensitively validate her real abilities and talents, and
she will seek goals appropriate to her ability, and take pleasure in achieving them.
When the environment is reality based, sensitive, and balanced, the child grows up
embracing her special ability to be "related" to others, to be sensitive, and has a sense of self in
reasonable tune with her true abilities and vulnerabilities, neither excessively self effacing or
self aggrandizing.
But if development should go awry, as it too often does for this child, the personality traits
she has develop in a distorted manner, and cause her difficulties. in dysfunctional families,
this child suffers more than others with tougher hides, less reactive temperaments. She is often
the one singled out for physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Her very nature makes her
available for use: for the parent's angers, frustrations, sexual impulses, or narcissistic
gratification.
When a submissive child is misused in this fashion, she is unable to utilize her
interpersonal talents in a constructive way. She must either develop rigid defenses that
constrain her ability to be flexible as an adult, or be blown about by the winds of other's
emotions all her life, or become stuck in what are popularly called, "co-dependent
relationships." women who emerge from childhood with these traits will be more or less
consciously submissive in that they are STILL moldable, controllable by others. Those who
don't consciously seek a Dominant partner will naturally gravitate to a man who influences,
controls her in a benevolent manner. Who accepts her, loves her, nurtures her, and values her
sensitivity.
Those who consciously seek a Dominant partner are those who are perhaps, so sensitive
that they require not only benevolence, but someone who understands PRECISELY how
moldable and influenceable they are, and is capable of using the power to mold her and
influence her deliberately and consciously, for her good and the good of the relationship. in
that kind of relationship, the submissive is freed to be all of herself. She is safe enough to feel
her exquisitely sensitive reactions to others, to play like a child, to give care and to take care,
to be angry, to lose shame.
There is a strength beyond measure in self knowledge and acceptance. There is freedom in
jettisoning shame, in letting go of "shoulds." to know oneself as a submissive woman, to
accept that it is neither the terrible thing that society tells us it is, nor the only right and true
way to be for OTHERS, is to be free. What is, is.
There are two kinds of strengths: the strength to lead, and the strength to follow; the
strength to control, and the strength to yield. There are two kinds of power: the power to strip
another's soul bare, and the power to stand naked. do not mistake following for weakness, for
it is not. Do not mistake yielding for weakness, for in yielding there is resilience. Do not
mistake the submissive's need for relatedness for inability to be alone. submissive women are
not weaklings. They are sensitive people who have a great deal of resilience in the face of their
particular challenges. submissiveness is a strength seeking a proper context.


Essay By: Yaldah Tovah, M.D