Gabby Reece on Being Submissive

Off Topic
82

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]bpick86 wrote:
I think you guys are missing the point. A woman can be submissive and still have a strong personality. And in every relationship there is a submissive partner. When you disagree on something (can be anything from disciplining kids to making a large purchase), who gets to have the final say? My wife will have her opinion on everything and let me know what it is but I almost always decide the way we will go. And I don’t always choose my way. Sometimes I have to be aware enough to know that she is right and her way was best but even still I decided what the final decision would ultimately be.

This is not a you are my wife, you have to do what I say type thing. This is a we both communicate, but she will look to me to make the final decision because I am the man. I have never dominated my wife or ordered her to do anything, it is just the roles we naturally assumed. I think there is definitely something primal there, because I am stronger and more capable physically therefore I have the role of dominance because I am the protector and provider. Also outside of our marriage every one is equal. My boss is female and I have the same level of respect for her that I would for a male boss. And if any man thought that they were going to order my wife around I would probably have to pull her off of them. [/quote]

Very good stuff from bpick. Watch out, though, you’re about to get branded like I did a while back when I made a similar statement. I can already hear the clatter of pitchforks and smell the oily kerosene rags of the torches being lit.

*edit: autocorrect typo
[/quote]

At risk of incurring the wrath of the pitchfork brigade: I find it intriguing that Reece, athletic, dynamic, confident woman that she appears to be, sought out an uber-dominant spouse (Laird Hamilton). To imply that she is a weak, servile person because she chose to be with someone strong enough to fill that role for her is a bit ludicrous, IMO.

I really don’t buy into the idea that gender roles are or should be irrelevant in today’s society or any human society. I don’t see our ideal future as some asexual Utopia where everyone is the same. Distinctions are what make our world make sense. We identify ourselves as humans and as such associate ourselves with certain behaviours and ways of thinking that connect us to how we understand humanity. We associate ourselves with nationalistic ideologies, cultural, religious and family traditions in hopes of further defining that identity and understanding our place in the world. We tend to seek these delineations out in terms of broad generalizations that allow room for individual variance, expression and the ever present exception that proves the rule, but we like to have some broad stroke parameters to work within. Everything exists and is defined by it’s relationship to other, different things. If we eliminate the contrast it all becomes meaningless.

Why would we seek to exclude any concept of gender when we are trying to grasp who we are and where we fit? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Next to “human”, it’s the most fundamental and personal element of our identity. I mean sure, in terms of quantum physics or whatever maybe we’re all just part the same system of energy exchange and don’t exist as individuals at all and all these distinctions are constructs of our minds seeking to grasp this incomprehensible vastness. There’s a certain freedom in that, I guess. However, I, for one, don’t find it to be a particularly satisfying or utilitarian way to understand our existence or relate to others and the world around me in daily life.

Our differences define us. They always have.

83

[quote]debraD wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

Interesting that of the women who have sounded off on this, we seem more conflicted than the men. I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s worthwhile to this conversation.
[/quote]

If that’s the case I do find the forum of choice for the conversation interesting. Wouldn’t a more gender neutral or female oriented forum be more productive for the conversation about women’s roles? All I can see that you will get from the men here are statements about what they find attractive and desirable which do little to add insight into the subject.[/quote]

Agreed that is what you are going to get from just about every male here haha. Including me! That being said I lean towards myself being fairly dominate, but I would let debraD dominate me any day, anywhere, any time… Just saying.

84

[quote]batman730 wrote:

At risk of incurring the wrath of the pitchfork brigade: I find it intriguing that Reece, athletic, dynamic, confident woman that she appears to be, sought out an uber-dominant spouse (Laird Hamilton). To imply that she is a weak, servile person because she chose to be with someone strong enough to fill that role for her is a bit ludicrous, IMO.

[/quote]

I didn’t see anyone suggest anything of the sort. From my recollection, the only issue anyone has taken with the link in the OP was the statement that all women adopt her behavior.

[quote]

Our differences define us. They always have. [/quote]

How about this crazy idea: I will define me and you can define you.

Because basically what we have here in this thread are a bunch of people telling me that I am wrong about my own identity. LOL and I’m supposed to be the one with the pitchfork. I’m trying to figure how it concerns any of you how dominant or submissive or what have you I happen to be…It’s not like I’m married to any of you. Thank christ for that! :wink:

Look, you guys are the ones sitting there espousing what I should define myself by. You’re the ones dictating how I should act. I am here simply saying mind your own, thankyouverymuch. I think that would put the pitchforks firmly in your hands. But if you see me as that dominant that I have you against the barn with a pitchfork then what can I say? :wink:

85

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
EyeDentist - My thoughts on the subject? You first. I promise not to flame you too badly. To be honest, her thoughts resonated with me. I think she’s right, although I admit the word submissive makes me a little bit defensive. :slight_smile: I don’t believe she’s supporting anything retrograde in terms of the women’s movement. She’s talking about what works for her and her husband. I believe the majority of women prefer to a man who is dominant in terms of being strong, and being able to protect and provide. There may be a multitude of permutations as to how this gets applied in any given relationship, division of labor, etc…but I think that principle is true and as someone else pointed out, it’s fairly primal.

bpick - About the scripture, I think the “love his wife as himself” part is key. That implies a kindness, and Christlike love there. If you don’t have a good man, there is always the chance that there will be some tyranny. Most of us have seen what that looks like. As they say, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Orion - I was hoping you’d chime in. I never gave Testosterone any thought at all until I started lifting. In many ways we ARE our hormones. And I like the idea of “deference” to each other, meaning mutual respect. I’d agree that because men and women are so different, there isn’t going to be true equality but in a really good relationship they are two complementary parts that together make up a whole.

Mrs. Jewbacca - You had me at “not remotely a doormat.”

Funny story - When I was in graduate school, I had to administer lots and lots of intelligence tests for practice. I was dating my husband at the time, and so I talked him to taking a couple of them for me. Yeah. Well, he’s smarter than me. I knew that before I tested him, but now I had proof! So, I married someone who is not only bigger, stronger, but he’s even smarter. How many of you would choose to do that? Apparently I didn’t have a thing with him being more dominant, or I guess I did, depending on how you look at it!

[/quote]

You know what I notice about you and Emily, PP? You never seem angry or defensive, and the both of you are always a pleasure to talk to.

Funny how that works.[/quote]

For a dominant male you sure can act pretty passive aggressive and downright catty at times :wink:

hiss

86

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]debraD wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

Interesting that of the women who have sounded off on this, we seem more conflicted than the men. I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s worthwhile to this conversation.
[/quote]

If that’s the case I do find the forum of choice for the conversation interesting. Wouldn’t a more gender neutral or female oriented forum be more productive for the conversation about women’s roles? All I can see that you will get from the men here are statements about what they find attractive and desirable which do little to add insight into the subject.[/quote]

Agreed that is what you are going to get from just about every male here haha. Including me! That being said I lean towards myself being fairly dominate, but I would let debraD dominate me any day, anywhere, any time… Just saying.[/quote]

rawr :wink:

87

Debra - do you get the final say in your relationship?

88

The only problem with this discussion is you could not have picked a more biased audience to discuss this with, I mean really what did you expect.

89

[quote]debraD wrote:
If it is biological, then what is the deal with women like me? I’m pretty dominant and I see myself as more dominant than most men I encounter.[/quote]
Here’s my take on that. It is biological. In only a very few sciences are we able to speak in absolutes; in most we are relegated to speaking in probabilities. On average men are biologically predisposed to be more dominant than women. If you are truly more dominant than most men, then it is for the same reason that some men grow to be 8 feet tall.

I have a different theory on that however. You can only view your own dominance relative to the whole of society as you see it. Most men today have become pathetic and weak. Submissive husks of their bestial ancestors who in days long past would have been dead and removed from the gene pool. I think that despite man’s inclination towards dominance he is being conditioned and “nurtured” from birth to abandon it. That’s one of the reasons I love powerlifting. Strength sports can help a man reclaim his confidence and dominance like few things can.

90

[quote]debraD wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

At risk of incurring the wrath of the pitchfork brigade: I find it intriguing that Reece, athletic, dynamic, confident woman that she appears to be, sought out an uber-dominant spouse (Laird Hamilton). To imply that she is a weak, servile person because she chose to be with someone strong enough to fill that role for her is a bit ludicrous, IMO.

[/quote]

I didn’t see anyone suggest anything of the sort. From my recollection, the only issue anyone has taken with the link in the OP was the statement that all women adopt her behavior.

Well, Mrs Jewbacca’s comment about not being a doormat would seem to imply that some people (not necessarily just in this thread) would see a “submissive” woman as being a doormat. Aeyogi implies he could not respect a “weak” woman who approached a relationship in this way. So, you know…

As far as your own personal identity: I really couldn’t care less how you choose to define and express it. It’s completely your prerogative and doesn’t concern me in the least. At no point did I suggest that you were wrong. I simply said that I don’t find it the least bit ridiculous or outdated that people might seek to define and understand their own identities at least in part in terms of gender. I never set out to advance my opinion of how you or any woman should act, I simply said that it makes sense to me that women might want to discuss femininity as a concept in an effort to understand themselves. You, on the other, hand seem bent on insisting that it’s pointless and archaic to have such a discussion or to even think in such a way.

Apparently, neither you nor anyone you associate with gives a second thought to gender and how it affects our lives. That’s fine. We all tend to seek out people with similar views and values to ourselves. Other people may have different experiences and don’t deserve to be marginalized or shouted down for wanting to discuss it. If women want to talk about being women, how is it any skin off your ass? If they have opinions about how other women should behave, so what? Presumably the women listening to Ms Reece’s (or anybody else’) comments are at liberty to consider whether what is being said may have value for them, personally. What makes your definition of womanhood or personhood or whatever so much more valid that you feel justified to ridicule and dismiss other people for discussing theirs? If you don’t think it’s a discussion worth having, why participate?

If you think that “basically what we have here in this thread are a bunch of people telling me that I am wrong about my own identity”, then I don’t know what to tell you. It seems to me that you were never really the intended topic of conversation. This is certainly true of my remarks, which you seem to have interpreted as a personal attack. All I intended was to further a civil discussion (which, sadly, appears to be impossible). I’m not interested in forking anyone.

91

DebraD, I respect that in your experience women feeling as Gabby Reece does is not that controversial. However, that is not the case in my experience. My wife (who is in nursing school right now, top of her class) has always said that she wants to be a stay at home Mom when we have children.

When she has told some of her friends and other women this, there are all these little passive aggressive comments that are made like “Oh I could never be a stay at home Mom, I would have to feel like I contributed” or " I couldn’t do that because I just cant sit around and not do anything." or “but you are so smart.”. My mom who was a stay at home mom for most of my childhood had a similar experience. In my experience, women who work have largely considered themselves superior to stay at home moms regardless of circumstance.

92

Ying and yang people

93

[quote]bpick86 wrote:

“Oh I could never be a stay at home Mom, I would have to feel like I contributed” or " I couldn’t do that because I just cant sit around and not do anything." or “but you are so smart.”. .[/quote]

We’re starting to see the cracks in this lie. That having a job isn’t a way of “finding yourself” rather a necessary sacrifice men make for their wives and kids. I take the subway 5x a week and I regularly see dozens of men in work attire slumped over and looking beaten.

I’ve also noticed by the time women hit their early 30s many realize staying home with your children is the REAL privilege while working is not.

94

[quote]debraD wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
EyeDentist - My thoughts on the subject? You first. I promise not to flame you too badly. To be honest, her thoughts resonated with me. I think she’s right, although I admit the word submissive makes me a little bit defensive. :slight_smile: I don’t believe she’s supporting anything retrograde in terms of the women’s movement. She’s talking about what works for her and her husband. I believe the majority of women prefer to a man who is dominant in terms of being strong, and being able to protect and provide. There may be a multitude of permutations as to how this gets applied in any given relationship, division of labor, etc…but I think that principle is true and as someone else pointed out, it’s fairly primal.

bpick - About the scripture, I think the “love his wife as himself” part is key. That implies a kindness, and Christlike love there. If you don’t have a good man, there is always the chance that there will be some tyranny. Most of us have seen what that looks like. As they say, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Orion - I was hoping you’d chime in. I never gave Testosterone any thought at all until I started lifting. In many ways we ARE our hormones. And I like the idea of “deference” to each other, meaning mutual respect. I’d agree that because men and women are so different, there isn’t going to be true equality but in a really good relationship they are two complementary parts that together make up a whole.

Mrs. Jewbacca - You had me at “not remotely a doormat.”

Funny story - When I was in graduate school, I had to administer lots and lots of intelligence tests for practice. I was dating my husband at the time, and so I talked him to taking a couple of them for me. Yeah. Well, he’s smarter than me. I knew that before I tested him, but now I had proof! So, I married someone who is not only bigger, stronger, but he’s even smarter. How many of you would choose to do that? Apparently I didn’t have a thing with him being more dominant, or I guess I did, depending on how you look at it!

[/quote]

You know what I notice about you and Emily, PP? You never seem angry or defensive, and the both of you are always a pleasure to talk to.

Funny how that works.[/quote]

For a dominant male you sure can act pretty passive aggressive and downright catty at times :wink:

hiss
[/quote]

95

[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
The only problem with this discussion is you could not have picked a more biased audience to discuss this with, I mean really what did you expect. [/quote]

How would you achieve a neutral discussion on such a topic? It’s about as neutral as discussing male circumcision.

96

[quote]debraD wrote:

I do still question why a discussion about femininity would be suitable here. You can obviously have it wherever you want but the results are very predictable–basically a back and forth between Orion and whoever objects to him and then some of the usual comments about women need to be dominated but no, assertive women are hot. Not Hot. No, Hot…

Now I can see putting here for entertainments sake but to attempt to get any real understanding of the female experience, I don’t see where you’re going to get that here. Hence my question about why here. For the record I see nothing wrong with a topic for entertainments sake but I see you are taking it quite seriously so I don’t think that’s your intent.

[/quote]

Well said.

I saw this thread, read the article and then told myself, here we go again, this is going to go like the rest of the women bashing threads/ femininity threads and, consequently, the usual suspects, the hardcore misogynists will come out of the woodwork, salivating with their eyes greedy, tongue slithering and licking the drool dripping down the corner of their mouth, and, preaching to whoever is willing to hear, their dislike for the majority of ‘‘unruly’’ American women or any other ‘‘unfeminine’’ woman for that matter, and, most importantly, how women are supposed to act… yada yada.

Bottom line is, this subject had been discussed to death around these parts. It’s like those threads about pants/Tshirt that don’t fit 'cos the legs/arms are fucking humongous.

Then again, it’s PowerPuff’s thread so whatever. She decided to start it here for whatever reason and we can’t chastise her for that. This discussion would have been more relevant had the old gang of girls been still here. It would have been more balanced. But the big swipe has fucked it all up.

I wonder, and I would be interested in seeing what other women --sport oriented/lifting women especially – think of this article, maybe in a place like BB where there is a female off topic section.

97

[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
The only problem with this discussion is you could not have picked a more biased audience to discuss this with, I mean really what did you expect. [/quote]

X100000000000

I believe this is what Deb had mostly an issue with.

98

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]debraD wrote:
If it is biological, then what is the deal with women like me? I’m pretty dominant and I see myself as more dominant than most men I encounter.[/quote]
Here’s my take on that. It is biological. In only a very few sciences are we able to speak in absolutes; in most we are relegated to speaking in probabilities. On average men are biologically predisposed to be more dominant than women. If you are truly more dominant than most men, then it is for the same reason that some men grow to be 8 feet tall.

I have a different theory on that however. You can only view your own dominance relative to the whole of society as you see it. Most men today have become pathetic and weak. Submissive husks of their bestial ancestors who in days long past would have been dead and removed from the gene pool. I think that despite man’s inclination towards dominance he is being conditioned and “nurtured” from birth to abandon it. That’s one of the reasons I love powerlifting. Strength sports can help a man reclaim his confidence and dominance like few things can.[/quote]

You misspelled “neutered.”

f(>_<)

99

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
The only problem with this discussion is you could not have picked a more biased audience to discuss this with, I mean really what did you expect. [/quote]

How would you achieve a neutral discussion on such a topic? It’s about as neutral as discussing male circumcision.
[/quote]

I would say this is one of the few places you’d actually can see honest discussion though.

If I were to write my opinion on this subject on Facebook for instance, people would lose their minds and probably call me a misogynist.

I was called a douche a few months back for saying I did not support entitlements of single moms.

100

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]debraD wrote:
If it is biological, then what is the deal with women like me? I’m pretty dominant and I see myself as more dominant than most men I encounter.[/quote]
Here’s my take on that. It is biological. In only a very few sciences are we able to speak in absolutes; in most we are relegated to speaking in probabilities. On average men are biologically predisposed to be more dominant than women. If you are truly more dominant than most men, then it is for the same reason that some men grow to be 8 feet tall.

I have a different theory on that however. You can only view your own dominance relative to the whole of society as you see it. Most men today have become pathetic and weak. Submissive husks of their bestial ancestors who in days long past would have been dead and removed from the gene pool. I think that despite man’s inclination towards dominance he is being conditioned and “nurtured” from birth to abandon it. That’s one of the reasons I love powerlifting. Strength sports can help a man reclaim his confidence and dominance like few things can.[/quote]

You misspelled “neutered.”

f(>_<)[/quote]
lol