LFA / FLR / D/s S&M / DD / HoH / BDSM (Alphabet Soup Anyone?)

This time I think some of my pleasure in the blogs by female slaves was similarly negative: unlike some submissive men they don’t apologize for their gender. Many of them are proud of being mothers. Sure, sometimes they worry they aren’t “true submissives” but that all of us with an erotic need to be directed and consciously obliging has those moments.

I was back in the larger BDSM culture and not just the female led relationship, loving female authority segments where my browsing has been focused of late.

My discovery of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism was long ago and Larry Townsend’s Leatherman’s Handbook was the first text I ever read. No surprise that gay men would tend to be ahead of the curve in visibly discussing BDSM. Once outside the sexual norm reasons for concealing your desires begin to fade. And gayleathermen don’t feel any shame in their gender.

My education resumed in the pre-WWW usenet discussion groups. If there were any gynocrats I’ve forgotten them. Articles like that would’ve been skipped just like the men who’d use dubious anthropology (one curse of a college education is an illusion of omnicompetence) to justify their sappy opinion that women have an inherent need to submit to men.

I also became active in the local BDSM discussion group. Neither side of gender superiority had any spokespersons there. Aside from a few early tribute mistresses matriarchy wasn’t a much mentioned topic in any of the Yahoo BDSM Clubs.

About two years ago I became active on a number of BDSM forums. Finally I started seeing men posting about female supremacy. Though not often and only on a few of the forums. Hard to get a topic like that going if the women either ignore or deride it.

Half-arbitrarily I’ll say it was about a year ago that I started seeing far more matriarchical and female superiority based blogs. Actually until those started to appear there’d hardly been any F/m blogs. (Virtually none when I started DOMK.)

Not that all LFA / FLR couples think of their lifestyle as anything more than what is right for them. There is a segment that seems the mirror image of the more fervent Goreans. Self-justification - when none is needed - is common.

(Much of the language of FLR / LFA is similar to the Loving Domestic Discipline, HoH (Head of Household) movement that teach that women should submit themselves to their husbands in a traditional fashion and accept corporal punishment in his hands. While the DD subculture has as much variety as LFA / FLR it sometimes looks like kink for conservative Christians.)

I’ve been intrigued by the development. Wondered what would cause loving female authority and female led relationships become such popular phrases.

Some of it is likely rooted in popular books of recent years. And that for some it is BDSM without the kinky wrappings. With the fetish gimmicks given a much diminished role. Women don’t feel they need to buy corsets and thigh high boots.

It focuses more on the relationship. Quite a bit of it seems to repeat much of what you’d find in any advice to couples book. Appreciation of the wife takes a subtle shift to obeying her.

A very middle American sort of D/s. As comfortable as McDonalds and prime time television.

As I ventured back into reading blogs, forums and groups I’d neglected I also realized that much of LFA / FLR seems to be concentrated in Blogger blogs.

Once you get outside of Blogger.com - Live Journal, Bondage.com, forums, email lists, munch groups - loving female authority, female led relationships are a segment within the larger world of people who engage in D/s and/or S&M.

NB: none of this is a criticism of LFA / FLR. Just vague curiosity. There are plenty of people with a broader experience base and more knowledge of the history of D/s.