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Chapter 2
I have lived with
Jane, a much younger woman than I, for several years. She
has me completely under her thumb, and she has taught me how
glorious humility before a woman can be. She attributes her
skill at conveying this lesson to conversations with, and
letters from, a well-known writer who had been a teacher of
hers and later became a confidante. In Jane and my last post,
we gave the first numbered "rules" this woman set down in
her letters. What follows is the second part of our selection
from these remarkable writings.
Do you remember
my saying that, when a man is fully enthralled, a mere tap
from you to any part of his body will have the effect of a
gigantic assault upon his will. The sweet thing about the
tap is that it is almost effortless for you, but earth-shaking
to him. It will make him believe his most basic intuitions
about the divinity of women confirmed. Once a man has felt
the tap, he will live for it, he will lose the world for it.
The metaphor of
orgasm as a kind of electrical discharge is misleading, at
any rate in the case of males: it is more a short-circuit
(which is why men do not recover from it as rapidly as women
do), always abrupt, a truncation of pleasure, even if long
delayed. The powerful relief it furnishes nonetheless partly
lies in the rescue it offers from the submissive plunge of
male desire, and it is always compromised by an intuition
of the bliss that it has abridged.
If a man can be
brought to the point where a mere tap can seem to be delivering
the entire force of a woman's will, it will be more precious
to him than any orgasm, deeper and truer, because in being
toppled by it he is pleasing a woman, not merely finding relief
for himself. If he was in awe of women before, he will certainly
be so now, and nearly every woman will seem capable of subduing
him just in passing with an easy flick.
The tap is more
than a figurative expression, because when a man has reached
the state of full submission, his entire body is exquisitely
sexualized and the most glancing stroke anywhere on it is
in effect delivered to his penis. He can even feel your gaze
in this way: it becomes almost indistinguishable from actual
touch. At this point a little touch - a tap, in other words
- goes a long way, and the lingering touch, though the poor
man thinks he wants it, can be too much for him to bear. Do
not fear the language a man is apt to use at this time: it
is unequivocal and totally sincere, and it implies no demand
upon you. The man is not exaggerating when he calls himself
your servant, your slave, when he professes to worship you,
when he insists (as though not getting the point across would
result in unbearable pain to him) that he belongs to you.
As a woman, you
may not be able to understand how it comes about that ecstasy
must extort such humility from males, but the mystery is no
deeper than that of sexual attraction itself, and your own
reciprocal ecstasy will in any case be purer and more enduring
if you take the man at his word and make the most of what
you have caused him to deliver up to you. A man's words may
sound wild at such moments, but he is beautifully tame. He
will do anything for you: have him do it. Nothing now moves
him more than your own serenity. Once again, it is imtant
to show your indifference to his needs and your dedication
to your own.
If you are to take
any measure at all of his immediate wishes - which, recall,
are often contrary to his real interests - it should only
be for the sake of determining the most efficient way to thwart
them. Is he immobilized by desire? Then have him dress and
send him on an errand. Is he trembling with fervor? Then send
him to the showers and let him tremble with chill. If you
wish to reward him or bolster his courage, you can always
do this with a tender word and a caress of his hand; if you
have been sparing with your touch, a moment's pressure on
his penis before you send him packing will be enough to consume
his memory for hours. [A certain woman used to like to distress
her men by requiring that they sit in an empty bath-tub, which
she would slowly fill with cold water. She would state her
intentions perfectly beforehand, and she would encourage the
man by explaining how convincing a show of devotion he would
be making. She would be tender to him during the test, but
never interrupt it. She would hold his hand as the water rose,
pleased to see him wince at moments and to feel his grip tighten
around her hand. She would repeat that he must try to be still,
not wince or shiver, be manly, and he would attempt to comply,
although, of course, this was not fully possible. His shrunken
organs caused him great embarrassment, a vestige of his pride
and narcissism, but it also did much to undermine those purposeless
emotions.]
When he first
falls into this condition, test him. Establish a great stillness,
and explain to him that you are going to test his word by
subjecting him to some distress. Be very deliberate and unhurried,
but don't be shy. You might tell him exactly what you intend
to do, what sort of little suffering you intend to cause,
and then wait a moment or two to let him anticipate it quietly.
The more clinical you are, the better: abstract him, isolate
some part of him, whether sexually central or remote, and
draw his concentration toward it as you gradually intensify
the sensation you are creating. But don't be gingerly; discover
the moves that please you and make them without solicitude
for the man's response.
As always, when
you push yourself to exercise some of the inquisitive ruthlessness
you knew as a girl (before you were taught to be men's caretaker),
both your mind and your man's will alter with the alchemy.
Men are easily pained, but not so easily injured: you will
be doing no lasting damage, but in his present condition the
man would not wish to protest if you were. There is no contradiction
between the inexorable manner recommended here and a certain
tenderness: you are to be a benevolent tyrant, insistent on
your own will, but kind enough to remind him of your superior
knowledge of his needs (which are, in any case, what you define
them to be).
If you wish to
do something to him, or have him do something, at which he
seems to balk (he isn't likely to protest outright), reassure
him in some way, remind him that he is no longer relying on
his courage alone, that you are at his side, steeling him
for whatever feat of prowess or endurance you are requiring.
Remind him that your impulses toward him are loving, and that
you know his own happiness depends upon his not disappointing
you. The fact is that, except in cases of uncontrolled brutality,
the real object of a man's fear (and perhaps of your own)
is the meaning of the act in question, not its execution.
If you are quietly firm in insisting that you have your way,
the man will foresee your pleasure and imagine an accompanying
indulgence toward him, and he will outdo himself to meet your
requirements.
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| 5. |
Remember
that even the most resistant man ultimately wants to acknowledge
female power, and, at the same time, that even the most
willing and accustomed man returns to the experience with
some of his resistance replenished. It can't be avoided,
since every return to the ordinary world gives some berth
to his ambivalence. Of course, after even a single experience
of surrender to a woman, a man's will and the preponderance
of his habits are forever changed. What relapse he does
undergo is negligible by comparison, and in any case it
leaves you the pleasant prospect of breaking him down
a bit each time you meet. |
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| 6 |
All of these
effects are multiplied tenfold simply by inviting a
second woman to the ceremony. The early awkwardness
most people will feel in such a situation does allow
the man's own initial reserve more opportunity to protect
him. He will be embarrassed, attempt to make light of
the situation, even put on a brave, "masculine" front
at first, perhaps representing the whole occasion as
a bit of libertinism on his part.
He is all
the more nervous because he knows that from the earliest
moment, once begins to disrobe, it will be impossible
to doubt the meaning of what is happening. The presence
of a woman collaborator or two not only helps do away
with your own gingerliness, it absolutely eliminates
any possibility of the man's taking refuge in ambiguity.
Though he shifts about maladroitly for a while, inhibited
in speech and movement, when his resistance does break
- which anyhow must occur even before he is quite naked
- it will do so with a greater than normal crack, undermining
more decisively the remaining walls of his pride, which
you will be able to dispatch in record time.
To reach
this point, there is nothing to do but work your way
through the initial embarrassment, performing the necessary
acts clumsily if need be. Here is a case in which deliberate
behavior may induce spontaneity. No matter how self-conscious
you or your friend may feel at the outset, a sense of
superb freedom as well as sisterly intimacy will soon
replace it. It would be a pity to withdraw before savoring
these things.
The emotional
effect of sharing his submission on both you and the
man is much the same whether your relationship to him
is fresh or whether it is an established one which you
are simply divulging to a friend. In the latter case,
her joining you, even if only in the role of audience,
provides the man with a powerful opportunity to prove
his loyalty to you. As long as a relationship is purely
private, there is always some little room for a man
to "reinterpret" it. When it is once witnessed it is
ratified forever.
An effective
exposure of a man's relation to you and to woman may
nonetheless be achieved far short of this full sexual
scenario. Anything, in fact, that opens a window upon
him before other women will have a power to undermine
his privacy well in excess of the literal significance
of the thing exposed.
Find ways
to make him serviceable in their presence, even directly
to them; make his willingness to work for you and them
unambiguous and abuse it a bit (if there is any such
thing as abusing what is yours to use as you like) before
them. If there is some way, some pretext, to have the
man remove some clothing, exploit it - off-handedly,
without making a point of it, as though nothing were
more natural, more routine.
Remember,
that it is not a man's narcissism, or even his exhibitionism,
that you are indulging here, but his ever imminent submission.
If his greedy body appears to relish the surplus of
feminine attention, do something to remind it that his
pleasure in this is vain: discomfit him, exact some
penalty, put him to work.
His full
or partial nakedness is never a celebration of the exuberance
of his body but of the quieting of his will. (If, by
chance, you do find the man aesthetically pleasing,
and do care to express this, you should do so in the
most categorically aesthetic terms, disinterested and
formal, objectifying and abstrating him, an ac of careless
connoisseurship that will create no suggestion that
you have a bona fide weakness for him. A man can know
that you have fond and tender feelings for him and still
feel that, as man, he is a trifle.)
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| 7. |
A
man's worship, his need to see women as a higher species,
may seem absurd to you, when you observe it from inside
your skin. It is absurd, and men are absurd: they will
deify you, and you will find it absurd, and in doing so
you will justify their worship. It is by no means the
same thing as deifying yourself - and thereby making yourself
absurd. Men may go to preposterous lengths to prove thei
sacrificial qualifcations: let them go, and find it diverting
if you like, but never think it trivial. Like every form
of worship, theirs coerces ceremony from the most idle
deeds. |
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| 8.
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Remember
that, throughout this experience, you are re-educating
your imagination and even your reflexes (most of which
have been conditioned to begin with). However emancipated
your views, it is still a feat to see differently, and
some conscious effort will probably help. Experiment
with your perceptions, willfully replacing weary ones
with others more accurate if more startling. Oblige
yourself to see a man's erection, for instance, as evidence
of your power and his humility, a gesture not of aggression,
let alone of defiance, but of attentiveness and accommodation.
But see his loss of erection in the same way; it is
no paradox: a man hardens in the hope of pleasing you
and softens in the fear that he will fail.
Your pleasure
is the common element. Whatever the state of his organ,
it is a reflection of your power alone. The penis cannot
conceivably acquire a meaning independent of it. In
this respect, uniquely, it is more like an accessory
than a bodily part, more attire than nakedness; it cannot
escape an instrumental significance (unlike, for instance,
the features of a woman's body, which always reiterate
the priority of her womanhood).
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| 9.
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Expect your
man to be manly. His recognition of your power is fundamental
to his nature, a kind of weakness built into him, perhaps,
but one in an case specific to his relation to women.
If it were anything shallower and more general than
that, a flaw in his development, an impairment of his
social character, its expression in relation to you
would be of no importance and he would not be worth
enthralling. He would be weak from fear, not from instinctive
desire, and he would be a sexual dullard.
A man loses
only his affectations when he succumbs to female force,
and by discarding these he of course relieves himself
of an enormous burden. He should be more robust as a
result, more vigorous, prompt and resilient in his responses
to you, capable of limber exertion and spirited endurance.
Having taken the facts of life full in the face, he
should, if anything, find himself strong and authoritative
in the world of men, and the power he derives from honesty
is in any case enlarged by the power he has absorbed
- or, frankly, arrogated - from you. A man goes in a
relatively short time from feeling too proud to bend
his knee to a woman to regretting that he will ever
have to rise. Knowing that no man could ever harm him
as a woman can, your man will feel a liberating courage
before all other men
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Remember, too,
that the quiescence, even the "passivity," of the man in thrall
is full of potential energy; the stillness you coax him into
is, of course, pregnant, an antidote, in fact, to his excited
and all too volatile yearning. Once again, it is an expression
of his desire - which is to conform wholly to your desire
- and not of his character. There is, in other words, nothing
abject about his humility. Indeed, it infuses him with just
those sensations of courage and exceptional might that we
normally attribute to pride, except that now he is convinced
that this valiant energy is entirely the gift of your inspiration.
the end
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