V Leaks 1.1:
In V-Leaks 1.0: Feminine Surrender as Emotional Dominance I detailed how women use submission as a way of developing dominance in their relationships. Two proponents of the ‘surrendered wife’ lifestyle weighed in to defend the dynamic. I will be addressing their criticisms in this vlog, as well as expanding some of the concepts touched upon in the original.
The Draft Horse
When the draft horse asks, ‘why am I plowing the farmer’s field?’ The farmer will answer, ‘because you’re stronger then me, of course.’
The draft horse’s identity then becomes a self-reinforcing solipsism based on the farmer’s flattering deception: ‘I plow the farmer’s field because I’m stronger than the farmer; I am stronger than the farmer because I plow the farmer’s field.’
A wild horse would have none of this. A wild horse would simply be; his identity defined only by what experiences he chooses to have. It’s not until a horse’s definition of himself can only be expressed in terms of the farmer that he becomes domesticated.
The horse is stronger, faster, smarter then the farmer, but always he is judged in relation to the farmer’s limitations and because this judgment is the domesticated horse’s identity, the farmer’s limitations become the horse’s obligations. When the farmer is weak, the horse must show himself to be stronger and pull her plow for her; when the farmer is slow, the horse must show himself to be faster and carry her upon his back; when the farmer is stupid, the horse must show himself to be smarter and solve the problem she has.
In each instance the horse’s strengths are used to benefit the farmer in her weakness. By tying the horse’s positive identity in opposition to her weakness, she tethers his effort to her benefit as well.
The draft horse then sees thoughts of freedom or any other aspect of his wild horse nature that does not relate to plowing fields as a threat to his own identity. Finally, because the draft horse believes plowing fields to be his identity, he no longer sees the transactional nature of his relationship with the farmer. He starts to see her taking care of him as a benefit rather then an aspect of her exploitation of him. In his mind she takes care of him because she loves him; not because he’s a utility that requires maintenance.
A farmer does not bother to make herself aware of his draft horse’s emotional needs. If she did, she would have to face the fact that the entirety of the draft horse’s life is constructed for the farmer’s benefit and her benefit alone. Regardless of how much extra mash the farmer fetches for her horse as he impatiently stamps his hoof in his stall.
She might say to herself: ‘I feed him, muck out his stall, give him access to sex and raise his young to be future draft horses, what more can he possibly need?’
Of course a wild animal will not allow the farmer to clean it, to feed it, to control its sex life (even if it’s just deciding who the animal will have sex with) or even touch its young much less raise them. A wild horse must be broken, then tamed first before it will even see the farmer’s service as a benefit. A wild horse prefers its independence to dependence on the farmer; that’s why the draft horse’s young must be raised by the farmer’s hand. So they too can learn to be dependent on the farmer’s service instead of independent and self-possessed wild creatures.
So when the draft horse asks ‘why am I drafting the farmer’s field’ and the farmer responds ‘because you are stronger than me’ this is not an answer. It’s a flattering deception. The greater strength of the horse is why the farmer has set him to plow her field; but the greater strength of the farmer is why the horse actually plows it.
The Human Draft Horse
Because women control and have controlled the fundamentals of human survival for generations upon generations, children grow up associating feminine approval with provision of their basic needs. This association persists even into adulthood. As a boy grows into a man, his association between feminine approval and his basic needs evolves into associating feminine approval and a positive social identity. Needless to say those entities we see as the source of our basic needs hold considerable power over us.
Respect for men is now measured in terms of respecting the identities women give them as draft horses, rather then respecting the needs of the men themselves. In fact by setting up a man’s personal needs and vulnerabilities in opposition to his socially approved identity as a draft horse, you create the perfect uncomplaining beast of burden. The biggest threat to this system is a man’s emotional matrix and the possibility he might imprint his emotional matrix on his children.
Each man is the key to freedom for his sons. If a boy associates provision of his basic needs—food, shelter, comfort—with the presence of his father, he starts to develop an association between masculine approval and a positive social identity. Eventually as he grows this will allow him the ability to develop a positive male identity distinct from women, because his social identity will not be provisional on their approval.
The reason why men’s emotional needs are conflated with their base drives for food, sex and hygiene and ignoring their actual emotional needs is disguised behind ‘respecting their manhood’ is because this allows women’s emotions to dominate the relationship, both her relationship with her husband and her relationship with her sons.
And like the draft horse who defines himself as stronger then the farmer, all the mechanics of a man’s domestication are hidden behind his manhood. Because to admit to himself that he is controlled by the farmer, would be to admit to himself that he is weaker then the farmer.
Domestication has become his identity.
The Carrot
A commentator on the article Feminine Surrender as Emotional Dominance posted the following comment.
I have to say that if a woman is claiming to be “surrendered” or as I would call it submissive, and yet she is manipulating her husband, she is nothing more than a hypocrite making Christianity look bad and she doesn’t have a clue about true biblical submission.
First of all, the surrendered wife dynamic may play out to exclude the man’s emotional needs from the relationship without the surrendered wife actually being aware of what she’s doing. That’s one reason why it’s so dangerous.
The commentator goes on to show this potential danger in action in her description of own relationship.
I homeschool our children, clean our house, make my family’s meals, and happily have sex with my husband whenever he wants to. The real Christian meaning of surrender/submission would be putting the needs of husband/family ahead of your own. I am sorry to hear of these situations where women exploit men’s goodness but let’s not call it something it’s not-and it’s not surrender, submission, or Christian.
In essence this surrendered wife is appealing to the ‘carrot’ offered the man to justify the submissive wife lifestyle.
Before I get into discussing this part of the response, I want to point out that I can only infer from what was written. It’s difficult to describe the entirety of a relationship in a short paragraph and no doubt information is lost in translation. Having said that, from this description I don’t get the impression this surrendered wife has any idea that her husband has a human emotional landscape at all.
First of all she defined all of her husband’s needs in exactly the same way a farmer would define her draft horse’s.
You could replace what she said with: I feed him, muck out his stall, give him access to sex and raise his young to be future draft horses. And lose nothing in meaning. The one thing that addresses a human emotional need is what she says about sex. Unfortunately she does not recognize whose emotional needs are being met in her sexual exchanges with her husband. When she says ‘I happily have sex with my husband sex whenever he wants to’ she believes that giving her husband access to sex when he wants it is an emotional benefit to him.
Access to sex is something you give a farm animal. Desire is something you give a human being.
Desire is the gift, not sex. So when her husband desires her, he’s giving her the gift. In the situation she describes it’s actually her husband tending to her emotional needs as a human being. Namely the need to feel desired.
There was a reason why I explicitly referred to the intricate tapestry of a human’s vulnerabilities, insecurities and fears when I described men’s needs. These vulnerabilities are the man’s emotional matrix. In an equitable relationship the man’s emotional matrix is given as much room as the woman’s.
In an inequitable relationship the man’s emotional matrix is misunderstood as identical to his base needs. In an inequitable relationship a woman provides a man exactly the same things that a farmer provides a well-performing animal. In an inequitable relationship a woman mistakes a man providing for her emotional needs with her providing for his.
This carrot, like all carrots is more about benefitting the person offering it then the one receiving it.
The Whip
To understand how the whip functions in the surrendered wife lifestyle, imagine it is, instead, a ring through a bull’s nose.
When the farmer tugs on the bull’s ring, the bull experiences pain—she tugs on his ring either overtly through shaming language, ‘you’re not strong enough’ or covertly by presenting a weakness in herself that he must act to address or risk losing his positive social identity as stronger then her.
Pointing out the existence of the ring is also painful because, being an obvious point of control and weakness, it challenges his identity as more powerful then the farmer. This pain functions as a control mechanism to keep the ring in place.
But when the farmer says ‘don’t point out the existence of the ring to the bull, it insults him.’ What she means is ‘don’t point out the ring to the bull, he might be able to pull it out if he is aware of it.’ And she’s hiding this truth behind presumptive compassion for his ‘fragile male ego.’
An online commenter using the handle Lilith had the following to say in defense of the surrendered wife lifestyle. The way the former commentator used the carrot, Lilith uses the whip.
And what about the man in this story? You paint him as a hapless, manipulated victim who is comically failing in his attempts to live up to the dominant male ideal that is not very well defined either and usually a target of public ridicule and disgust.
This is in reference to the previous article in which I detailed a story of a man whose surrendered wife sat silently as he took an incorrect exit from the highway, allowing him to drive half a day before discovering his error.
The surrendered wife in question could have easily said to herself ‘I don’t want to insult his role as head of the household by pointing out his error.’ And felt her decision entirely justified by the ideals of the surrendered wife lifestyle. After all she was ignoring his vulnerability in order to respect his role as draft horse—or ‘head of the household’ if you prefer.
Which brings us to an irony. Lilith uses the existence of the nose ring to justify why we shouldn’t bring attention to the existence of nose rings.
Just as the surrendered wife could have justified her abuse by saying she was respecting her husband’s dominance, Lilith is in essence, saying, ‘Don’t point it out to the poor dears, it’ll only insult their manhood.’
On my part will continue point out the traps laid for men in these situations so that they can make their own decisions about what to do. After I’ve pointed out what I see, it’s the man’s call to make.
Finally, since I don’t believe that men’s identities as men need to be predicated on anything to do with their relationships to women—either benefiting women or being stronger then them–I don’t believe pointing out the dangers these dynamics hold for men somehow reduces their manhood.
Rather, it empowers them to start to reclaim defining manhood for themselves. Which is probably the real issue here. Where’s the Love?
If you can talk about your partner’s emotional needs in the same terms a farmer would use to talk about taking care of a draft animal, then you do not even view your partner as human. Further this explains the sinking sensation that a lot of men have (spoken about by WF Price in his post ‘What’s Wrong With Wanting Love?’) that they are not loved.
No. If your female partner talks about you in the same terms as a farmer would about a draft animal, what she feels for you is not love. In fact she does not recognize you as human at all. Love comes from shared vulnerabilities; it’s comes from being strong for your partner which requires recognizing his emotional needs in human terms—not animal terms—and allowing them to drive your decisions.
This is precisely why women in the surrendered model of both secular and Christian relationships do not love.
Not only will your entire emotional landscape revolve around such a woman, no matter how much you serve her needs in exchange for her submission, she will never love you. She may respect your role but she will not respect you.
This is an especially dangerous system for men since it is only the benevolence and forbearance of their female partners—the love of their female partners—that prevents them from being sent to the glue factory.
And a human cannot love a draft horse.
