Feminine Men and their Love of Dominant Women: A Jungian Perspective
Written and Researched by Isabella Valentine
Throughout my years as a professional dominatrix I have always been drawn to submissive males, not only because they show their adorable and obedient feminine sides, but because it allows me to showcase power I wouldn’t normally be allowed to use in today’s society.
Most of my submissives may be biologically male, but some are offended when they are called “men” simply because they don’t feel their gender was assigned fairly. Sure they may have been born with male genitals, but one thing I’ve learned is that gender, sexual preference, and sexual identity are all held together by a very thin thread. These submissive, effeminate men have been my sole source of income for years. I work full-time interacting with people confused about their sexuality. Almost all of them have one thing in common: they love being dominated and treated like girls.
When I first heard of Carl Jung’s theory of anima and animus, my first impression was that perhaps this psychologist was well aware of the femininity that men face every day and the challenges that women must overcome.
I grew up in conservative Alabama, in the core of the Bible Belt, surrounded by gentlemen trying to be chivalrous in their virility. Throughout my childhood, I believed that men had their stereotypical roles and women had theirs. Women in suits were lesbians. Men in pink were homosexual. Looking at the world today through adult eyes, I see there is absolutely no way to simply ask “Are you gay?” or “Are you straight?” simply because the world is not as black and white as it appeared to me years ago.
“A part of our persona is the role of male or female we must play. For most people that role is determined by their physical gender. But Jung, like Freud and Adler and others, felt that we are all really bisexual in nature. When we begin our lives as fetuses, we have undifferentiated sex organs that only gradually, under the influence of hormones, become male or female. Likewise, when we begin our social lives as infants, we are neither male nor female in the social sense. Almost immediately — as soon as those pink or blue booties go on — we come under the influence of society, which gradually molds us into men and women.
In all societies, the expectations placed on men and women differ, usually based on our different roles in reproduction, but often involving many details that are purely traditional. In our society today, we still have many remnants of these traditional expectations. Women are still expected to be more nurturant and less aggressive; men are still expected to be strong and to ignore the emotional side of life. But Jung felt these expectations meant that we had developed only half of our potential.” (Boeree 1997)
Sometimes a man might browse lingerie stores with timid eyes, afraid a female behind the counter might judge him. Or worse, what if another man notices him there? Many of these men have prominent feminine sides, called anima, which may influence their lives more than their masculine sides.
These people tend to struggle emotionally, often questioning themselves and their sexual identity when they find urges to wear feminine clothing. These clothes can range from lingerie which aid in masturbation to wearing girdles and skirts which make them feel passable as women.
Sometimes they go to shoe stores and pretend to shop for wives or girlfriends when purchasing items such as heels or pumps in fear they won’t be a “manly man” if they shop for themselves.
Sometimes people discover their counter-gendered lives through dreams where they are surrounded by satin or silk. This may lead them to believe they actually want to WEAR the fabric, which is known to arouse many sensations when in contact with skin. Analytic therapy allows people to use word associations and dream interpretations to help make sense of their perplexing lives. On the other hand, not all dreams have a need for interpretation at all and are simple in their context.
Carl Jung once said: “…the dream comes in as the expression of an involuntary unconscious psychic process beyond the control of the conscious mind. It shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is.” (Bennett 1983)
Jung believed that every human being has a persona, a mask that people wear every day of their lives. One classic example to support this theory, is a retired military veteran who once served as Chief of the Coast Guard in Florida. He lived every day of his adult life as a respected, revered, decorated officer. He spent over twenty years training soldiers to be strong men and had wives who viewed him as the “perfect gentleman.” Everywhere he went, people always saw him as a mustache-wearing, muscular man.
But since the age of six, he hid a little skeleton in his closet. He liked to dress like a girl. None of his Coast Guard buddies knew it. None of his wives suspected it. Throughout his childhood and adult life, he put on his daily persona so the world would accept his manliness as they saw appropriate. This man eventually became my temporary live-in partner. He became my protégé, my conquest. I wanted to know everything there was to know about this alternative lifestyle. I wanted to understand the need for any man to want to wear negligee and feel like a lady.
“No man is so entirely masculine that he has nothing feminine in him… there is no human experience, nor would experience be possible at all, without the intervention of a subjective aptitude… Thus the whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned in to woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definitive world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates, etc…. an inherited collective image of woman exists in a man’s unconscious.” (Jung’s words to Bennett 1983 p.124)
It is apparent that men have feminine sides. Assuming that this also can mean having a submissive side, I have concluded that submissive men (when expressing their feminine attributes) will be drawn to assertive women. Women who actively show their dominant side, also called animus, tend to be respected and taken seriously. Men who have assumed their roles as submissives and women who have taken their roles as dominants are both likely to complement each other sexually.
During the six months I resided with the retired veteran, I began to notice things about myself I had never realized before. I enjoyed telling him what to do, ordering him to cook all meals and demanding he only serve it when dressed in feminine attire. Anytime I stepped out of my persona as a stereotypical “lady” and let out my assertive side, he became sexually aroused. He worshipped me, dressed like a woman 24 hours a day, obediently finished every task and chore, and massaged my feet at a snap of a finger. He even tattooed my name on his arm, permanently branding him.
His anima went from being relatively quiet and hidden to being the prominent factor in his life. Jung describes the anima in his own words:
“She stands for the loyalty which in the interests of life he must sometimes forego; she is the much needed compensation for the risks, struggles, sacrifices that all end in disappointment; she is the solace for all the bitterness of life. And, at the same time, she is the great illusionist, the seductress, who draws him into life with her Maya-and not only into life’s reasonable and useful aspects, but into its frightful paradoxes and ambivalences where good and evil, success and ruin, hope and despair, counterbalance one another. Because she is his greatest danger she demands from a man his greatest, and if he has it in him she will receive it.[The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 24]”
Living independently helped me discover things about myself and my own identity that started to make sense to me. My dominatrix lifestyle began to pay off financially in big ways. While dominating men over the telephone, my income soon tripled. When speaking to a submissive man on the phone, I would refer to him as my “lesbian lover.” This usually excited the man, which ultimately meant more income for me.
“The anima and animus can influence a person in either a positive or negative manner. If a man is under the influence of the positive anima he will show tenderness, patience, consideration, and compassion. The negative anima manifests as vanity, moodiness, bitchiness, and sensitivity to hurt feelings. A woman with a positive animus shows assertiveness, control, thoughtful rationality, and compassionate strength. The negative animus reveals in strong opinions, ruthlessness, destructive forces, and “always the last word”. Both men and women are on the path to their own integration and must struggle with the interpersonal ramifications of the anima and the animus.” (Johnston 2005)
Sometimes a submissive man desires domination because he lives in positions of power. The very idea of his power and control being stripped away by cruel, seductive women generally arouses him. Some of my most loyal clients are politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors, professors, and people who are highly respected and credible. However, once he takes on the role of a female while I take on the role of a sweet but cruel Mistress, he gets a chance to step out of his usual reality.
“The boy develops a normal male persona (mask), and enters the world. He goes to school and follows a career. The urge to actualize his repressed female potentials manifests itself in dreams and fantasy. At midlife, he experiences unhappiness due to the unrealistic and limiting nature of his masculine persona. At this time he may feel a strong, even overpowering interest in wearing women’s clothes, or of being a woman in fantasy.
This urge is natural and healthy: it is because his completeness as a person requires expressing the potentials he has repressed. Jung’s theories suggest that in order to be fully self-actualized, a man needs to ‘integrate’ his anima. He needs to get back in touch with his positive feminine characteristics. Crossdressing seems like a step to this.
The anima theory implies that a crossdresser can, once he allows his female traits back into awareness, proceed to the step of complete personality integration. Then he is fully equipped to live life. His various potentials are harmonized and able to work together. Such a person can accomplish great things. On the other hand, if integration does not occur, the man lives divided. A simple analogy would be that of like trying to drive a car with the brakes on. But perhaps a better analogy would be like trying to drive a car with two engines, each pulling the car in a different direction.
The idea then, is that the crossdresser does not literally wish to be a woman. He is trying to become himself fully. Crossdressing is, in a certain sense, a positive victory for the natural urge to integrate the personality, and to activate all potentials.“ (Anderson 2001)
Men may all have animas, but that doesn’t mean each one enjoys his submissive, feminine side equally. While some men may enjoy exaggerating their animas, such as being slapped around while prancing around in a ballerina outfit, others may be appalled by the idea. Some are simply entertained with the thought of being forcibly feminized, such as a mild threat to be tied up and forced to wear silky panties. Not all men have an equal balance of femininity and masculinity, which may confuse their self-concepts.
Some may argue that perhaps their persona is worn only at work and around others. Others feel that the mask is worn only in fantasy. I disagree. I believe all these men were born with feminine attributes that stem back to childhood and to disregard these girlish qualities is forcing them to hide in society. A feminine man’s persona may only appear as a mask to those who aren’t open-minded enough to see themselves. Almost all men have a feminine side, and most women have an assertive, masculine side that is often misconstrued as being “out of character.”
Men look up to women in power for many reasons:
Carl Jung once said, “What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.” (CW – 10)
The very subject of sexual identity of both males and females is often confusing. Gender differences are argued throughout the world. “There are two major problems with the notion that masculine and feminine constitute universal principles of a cultural gender difference: (1) that it is self-evident and natural for men and women to fit into certain roles and attitudinal types because of their sexual structures or functions; and (2) that the anima complex of the male personality is subsumed under the same category as actual women…[leading to] confusion between male images of female people and the subjectivity (actual experiences) of female people. (Gender & Soul, p. 164)”
I hope that, as our society becomes more liberal and open-minded, more men might be able to feel comfortable letting out their anima without having to hide behind an overly-masculine persona.
All humans hide behind masks. It’s a technique that assures our survival. It’s part of how we try to invite acceptance from others. My hope is that one day men won’t feel that they have to hide their anima.
Submissive men may always be drawn to assertive, demanding women because of several reasons. First, a man being talked “down to” as a form of humiliation can be considered highly erotic. Secondly, a woman in a powerful position can be considered a form of “taboo” and therefore confuse the mind into turning the situation sexual. Thirdly, the act of serving someone sexually (whether demanded or seduced into doing so) is highly erotic for both partners – so having a beautiful woman tell a lowly man to kiss her manicured toes will certainly excite and arouse him.
Another reason, commonly overlooked, is that being forced to dress like a woman in the presence of another is like having all of one’s power stripped away. The act of losing control is often more erotic than sex itself.
Ironically, even though the submissive willfully loses control, (by submitting himself in bondage or confining situations) he is actually using his masculinity to overpower his femininity. For instance, a submissive man finds a Mistress and starts off by informing her of his likes/dislikes, explaining his boundaries, discussing what is expected of her, possibly determining payment for services rendered, and requiring the use of “safe words.” Although the man is asking to be “owned and controlled,” he is essentially setting rules - which, as society suggests, is a masculine quality.
–End
Footnotes/Bibliography:
(2001) Anderson, Catherine Ph.D., “Jung’s Anima Theory and How it Relates to Crossdressing” excerpt taken from informational website - http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/cathytg/anima.htm
(1983) Bennett, E.A., “What Jung Really Said” excerpts from Carl Jung’s dialogues from pages 85 and 124.
(1997) Boeree, C. George, Ph.D., “Personal Theories: Carl Jung” excerpt taken from informational website: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/jung.html
(2005) Johnston, Dan, “Anima and Animus” excerpt taken from informational website written by clinical psychologist: http://www.lessons4living.com/anima_and_animus.htm
(1927) Jung, Carl, “Women In Europe” In Collected Works (also referred to as CW) 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 236
(2005) Sharp, Daryl, “The Syzygy: Anima and Animus,” Collected Works (CW) 9ii, par. 24 excerpt taken from website:
http://www.jungcircle.com/muse/lexicon.html
(1991) Young-Eisendrath, Polly. “Gender, Animus, and Related Topics,” Gender and Soul in Psychotherapy, pp. 151-178.
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