In yesterday's NY Times, the reliably perceptive Maureen Dowd describes, in "She's Fit to Be Tied," a current cultural trend, women's fascination with female masochism in the fiction of E L James: "...bondage-themed romanticas that have evoked hysteria, whipping up a frenzy with the housewives of Long Island and rippling out from there..." In this narrative, the female "Submissive" is to sign a contract so that the male "Dominant may flog, spank, whip or corporally punish the Submissive as he sees fit, for purposes of discipline, for his own personal enjoyment or for any other reason, which he is not obliged to provide." Dowd approvingly quotes a Harvard-educated female dominatrix who sees that "most women are sexually submissive" and that the bondage theme is especially appealing for women today because "after a long day of managing employees, making all the decisions and looking after children, a woman might be exhausted about being in charge and long to surrender control."
That is one smart dominatrix! Women "long to surrender control." The underlying problem is that women are trying to be in control!!!!
Women are stressed, depleted, exhausted, depressed, and angry...because they are trying to be in control. No wonder that they enjoy the fantasy of being a passive victim!
Wasn't that the mistake of Eve, who distrusted her heavenly Father as well as her spousal partner and decided to take control of the situation herself?
Aren't men generally absent, inattentive, irresponsible and under-involved?
Don't women want to be themselves strong and assertive within a relationship in which they are cherished and respected by a strong-but-gentle-and-reliable man?
Doesn't authentically virile love entail a strength infused with a tenderness in which he receives the preciousness of his bride even as he gives himself, assertively and confidently, to her? Is not a wholesome feminine love a receptivity rooted in confidence, autonomy and integrity?
Is not receptivity itself, in absolute contrast with passivity, an act, an exercise of freedom, a perfection, even within God as the Son receives from the Father?
Women are taking control because men are absent as husbands and fathers. But the foundational root of the masculinity crisis is a privation in filiality: we men are not sons of the Father! We are not in receptive, trusting, obedient communion with God. We are not properly mentored and supported by fathers and father-figures and our brothers. We can't give what we don't have and we don't have because we don't receive and we don't receive because we don't trust.
The primary need, for men and women alike, (although differently), is to surrender and allow ourselves to be loved by God. We need to surrender control. We need childlike trust and obedience. We men and women alike will exercise our masculine and feminine power only within an antecedent and coincident feminine, childlike surrender. Male sadism (violence to the other) and female masochism (violence to self) are both perversions of the primal Mysteries: filial trust in paternal-and-maternal love and bridal surrender to the Bridegroom.
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