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This essay and all site contents Copyright L. Goodwin 1990 -2001
Kneeling, for example, is universally regarded to be a submissive posture, but if the dominant must kneel to secure the submissive's bondage, for example, I hope anyone can see that this does not compromise domliness.
Let's consider active and passive. I have seen that both active and passive styles have their fans, in dominants and submissives. The active partner is, in general, the one who's running around doing everything. An active type top will stand over you, chase you around, wrestle you into submission, direct your actions, and be always doing things to you. An active type bottom will fetch things, do chores, perform amusing humiliating tricks at your command, and likes to be worked hard.
OTOH, we have the passive types. A passive dom likes to be waited on, entertained, and served. They might train you actively at first, but the goal will be to get you to a point where they can relax while you peel grapes, do your silly slave dance, or suffer, tightly bound, in silence. A passive sub usually prefers to be tied up somewhere, gagged, so they are relieved of household chores and the need to make conversation.
Few of us are one of these pure types. It's natural for most of us to combine active and passive impulses to some degree. Some are passive until striving for orgasm, some only become passive at that time. Obviously some individuals pair up more easily than others. If you have two people who both need to be passive, then it's possible to take turns and work it out that way.
Being receptive to certain things is also confused with being submissive. For example, if you like to be fucked, some people think this is not very domly of you. That assumption has its roots in the toxic soil of sexism.
It's very wrong to equate the male sex organ with a dominating weapon, and it's equally wrong to think of erotic penetration as a degrading act. When a tender mother nurses her baby we don't think of the mother as a dominating invader, and we don't see the child as degraded by that penetration. Two human bodies can connect via penetration without any negative associations.
The penis has been spoken very ill of in times past: it's been characterized as a weapon, a tool of destruction, an aggressive thing, instead of the sensitive, expressive, and very intimate part of a whole person. Why not think of it as a bridge between bodies, or an ambassador from one body to another? It can be seen as a means for pleasing and nurturing, which means that penetrating with it is not an attack, but an offering.
The cunt is not simply passive and receptive, either. The cunt can be very greedy and grasping, demanding adoration and sacrifice. The act of claiming a penetrating organ or toy can be an aggressively acquisitive demand for pleasure, or a grand gesture of generosity and hospitality; it need not ever be seen as an act of surrender. If I invite you to my home to party, I want to share pleasure with you. I do expect you won't think ill of me, because of this, and act like a jerk!
To open your body to another, to be invited to enter and enjoy, says much about your civility but nothing about your D/S status.
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This essay and all site contents Copyright L. Goodwin 1990 -2001