Most people imagine a submissive man to be someone with low self-esteem. Weak. Needy. Desperate for attention. Grovelling at a woman’s feet because he has nothing else going for him.
No.
You’ve been watching too much porn.
Most of the submissive men who have come under my dominance are not weak men. They are often the opposite. Athletes. Business owners. Finance professionals. Armed Forces – military and civilian. Men in leadership. Men who are physically capable, socially respected, and used to holding control in their everyday lives.
Men who, in most contexts, other men look up to.
So the question becomes obvious.
If a man is already powerful—socially, physically, professionally—why would he choose to submit to a woman? Why would he not want to dominate her instead?
The assumption is that submission must come from lack. But in reality, it often comes from something far more complex.
The Myth of “Escape”
There is a common explanation that gets repeated everywhere—from blogs to therapists to the BDSM industry itself—that men submit to “switch off.” To escape responsibility. To stop thinking. To take a break from leadership.
It sounds logical, right?
It is also, in my experience, mostly incorrect. (And yes, I am well aware it is because I have very good taste in submissives—haha!)
Men who approach submission as an escape tend to remain on the surface level of it. Their engagement in submission is inconsistent. It is conditional. They dip in and out when it suits them and leave when Domination becomes demanding. It’s a recreation for them. And recreational submission rarely develops into anything satisfying or meaningful.
The secret is, real submission does not remove responsibility, but just restructures it.
Worship
Some men submit because they hold a genuine respect for women. Not abstractly, not just politically, but personally. They observe how women navigate socially, emotionally, and relationally. They recognise a form of strength that is different from their own. It may be less visible, perhaps, but no less demanding. This is what creates in them a deep sense of admiration.
Submission, for these men, is not humiliation. It is an expression of that admiration. It is a way of directing the respect they have into action—of placing themselves in a position where they are responding and attuning to a woman’s power. And that is why they submit.
In psychological terms, this aligns with what researchers describe as admiration-based attraction, where desire is tied not to control, but to reverence and perceived competence (Fisher, 2004).
Identity
Many high-functioning men operate daily within a very narrow band of expression. They are expected to lead, to perform, and to solve problems. Over time, this becomes not just behaviour, but their identity. However, identity is rarely singular.
There are parts of a man that do not fit into the stereotypical life or culture of “men”—such as emotional sensitivity, receptivity, and a desire to be led rather than always leading. These desires are not deficiencies, but they are underdeveloped because there has been no environment in which they are permitted to exist.
Submission allows access to these “soft” abilities and personal traits. Submission for many men is about expansion of who they are and of their capabilities. It is about the development of the capacity to express and hold multiple aspects of their self without contradiction (Jung). So, a man who submits is not becoming less himself, but more complete.
Fetish and Memory
A lot of our pull towards eroticism forms early in our lives, often before it can be processed and understood. It can be the tone of a voice, heels on a wooden floor, being disciplined with a wooden spoon for stealing the cookies—a particular situation or dynamic that imprints itself on the mind when sexuality is coming to the forefront, and they intertwine.
Such experiences from our past do not disappear. They remain in the background, shaping our desire in ways that are often difficult to express. For many men, submission is connected to these early imprints. Certainly not in a simplistic “childhood fantasy” sense, but as what psychology refers to as “conditioning of arousal”, where certain dynamics become linked to desire through repeated association (Rachman 1966).
The problem is that adult life rarely recreates these same conditions. So an erotic gap forms, and a yearning to fill it. A man knows something is missing, but usually he cannot access it within conventional intimacy.
A Domina is more likely to be the one who understands how to work with that gap. She doesn’t do it by replicating the past literally, but by engaging the context or the structure of the dynamic that had created the imprint in the first place. Such can feel to some men like returning to something they held dear—a kind of erotic nostalgia. It is not childish, but a reflection from the past, like eating cotton candy that you haven’t done in twenty years. It’s fun, brings back a sense of who you once were, and ignites the old pleasure centers of the mind and body by the sweet sugar melting on the tongue.
Experiences
There are also men who simply recognise that their erotic life has been limited. Long-term relationships, social expectations, and cultural norms tend to narrow what can be expressed, and over time, intimacy has become predictable. Safe, but maybe a little boring.
At a certain point, a lot of men realise that their erotic life is only going to get better if they do something about it—stepping out of their comfort zone. And they want to do this before it’s “too late.”
BDSM, and particularly Femdom, offers this opportunity for them. But it is not just the new acts that draw them, but a different structure of intimacy. Usually, these men are more experienced at life and know that it is connection that makes erotic experiences. So, they seek out eroticism where connective intimacy is the focal point, and power dynamics offer exactly that. So for a lot of men, it is less about kink and more about expanding their erotic experience.
Put simply, they want to maximise their erotic life so they can look back, later in life, on a collection of experiences that make them smile, having the satisfaction of knowing they didn’t leave that part of themselves unexplored.
Devotion
And some men submit simply because of the woman.
These men are not inherently submissive, but they submit because they are drawn to a particular kind of female authority, a single Dominant Woman they admire. They recognise Her authority, respond to it, and choose to align with it. And this is not always easy for them.
Men who are used to leading do not naturally fall into submission. They have to work against their own instincts. They have to adjust, to learn, and manage themselves differently. But this effort is what makes them able to submit to the particular Dominant Woman who needs their submission to desire them back. Yes, this is when a dominant man falls for a Domina.
Such a dynamic creates great tension, focus, and a form of engagement that is far more deliberate than passive submission. This is a chosen role adaptation, where the man adopts a role not because it is innate, but because it serves a purpose, and it is meaningful within a specific relational context (Goffman, 1959).
It is not about changing who he is in every context, but about who he becomes within a specific dynamic. Many men are highly adaptable by nature. They are able to adjust their behaviour, mindset, and expression depending on the environment they are in—a trait well recognised in psychology as role adaptability or context-dependent identity expression (Goffman, 1959).
This is not manipulation. It is a sophisticated social and psychological skill that allows a person to function effectively across different domains of his life. In a Femdom context, it is simply being directed toward something erotically meaningful. A man is not losing himself, but choosing to meet a Woman within the dynamic She desires. His adaptability becomes the very thing that allows him to align with Her and participate fully in the dynamic. Humans are amazing like that.
So What Is a Submissive?
A submissive man is not defined by weakness. He is often physically capable. Socially established. Mentally disciplined. So, what makes a man submissive?
It is in his relationship to power. He does not experience a loss of masculinity when a Woman takes control of his erotic life. He does not feel diminished by it. He does not need to reassert dominance to emotionally stabilise himself. He can remain exactly who he is while allowing a Woman to lead. And that, for many men, is far more challenging and fulfilling than dominating ever was.
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Fisher, Helen. Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004.
Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. (Original work published 1959).
Rachman, Stanley. “Sexual Disorders and Behaviour Therapy.” Am J Psychiatry. 1961 Sep; 118:235-40.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1959.