...to want to say 'honour and obey' in my vows?

[SteelyMindedLiberal]

Background: we're both feminists. He's a strong personality, very intelligent, very loving, considerate, supports my career, does (more than) half the housework, cooking etc. We're not Christian or conservative.

But...

I am completely submissive to him and he sets the tone in every aspect of our relationship. Obviously there is a strong (and very hot!) BDSM undercurrent to all this. But it goes way beyond the bedroom: he leads, I follow, it's obvious and noticeable, and we both love it.

He's 'in charge'; never controlling. I am always listened to, and feel completely equal. I just do as he says and trust him to do the right thing. We're not ashamed of how we are, it's fundamental to us and because of that we want it to be included in our vows. He says it's up to me but he would like it very much, and I really, really want to say it.

BUT: it would mean outing our 'activities' to all our family and friends. I don't want our wedding to become all about that one line. Maybe no one would really care or give it any thought? We're happy to simply say: 'that's our dynamic and it works for us', to most people, but he has a 20-year-old daughter and it's her we're most worried about. She's sassy and worldly and she'd get it at once and probably be fine with it in private, but might find it really embarrassing and awkward... argh!

Help! It's the whole please ourselves or please others thing, I suppose...

I think what's more harmful is others condemning people's lifestyle choices and using feminism as an excuse. Choices that make them happy, make them feel liberated, choices that ultimately work for them and their relationship.

If you don't like the idea of BDSM then that's fair enough. I'm not sure if I would be into the more hardcore side. But let's not all jump on the 'I'm a feminist therefore I disagree'. It's your own personal prejudice not the feminists ones. Own it if you feel it.

It has nothing to do with personal prejudice. Feminism has always analysed lifestyle "choices". Way back when some women were arguing that it was fine that men controlled family finances and married women couldn't get a bank account.

Feminism is founded on the knowledge that what we do in our personal lives is not freely chosen, and has wider implications.

The OP can do what she wants, but it is wrong to call it feminism.

Really? I don't agree. And if feminism is now about constricting choices then I want no part of it. I have enough hanging over my head restricting what I do and don't do.

I didn't see her call it feminism - did I miss that? I saw her say she was a feminist.

What is the difference between a BDSM lifestyle and a 'surrendered wife' one? Genuine question because, whilst my knowledge of BDSM is limited (clearly), I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference so far.

Women who have chosen to follow the 'surrendered' way of life say how sexually fulfilled they are by it too, and how much better their relationship is. But I can't imagine anyone would regard this as a feminist choice.

She said she was a feminist. When people said that obeying your husband was not a feminist action, she disagreed.

Feminism is not about all choices being equally valid. Being a woman who trafficks other women into a country to be exploited, is an anti feminist action for example. It doesnt matter how much you have chosen to do it.

What is the difference between a BDSM lifestyle and a 'surrendered wife' one?

A 'surrendered wife' lifestyle is one which is (supposedly) god-approved and which is EXCLUSIVELY about the wife surrendering to the husband because the couple both believe that is the natural order of things. A BDSM one could have a dominant husband / submissive wife, or domme wife / sub husband, or a triad in which there is a dom / switch / sub, or various other configurations, and it's done because everyone involved gets off on it not because they're pleasing a patriarchally constructed deity figure.

It's a similar distinction that's drawn between polygamy (where a man is allowed x number of wives, but the same option is not available to the woman) and polyamory (where people can choose to have more than one consenting relationship regardless of their gender identity.)

So no real difference, except men can do it too and we "choose" to do it.

No real difference except consent and negotiation.

Bit like the distinction between rape and sex, or a gift and theft, a cuddle and a sexual assault. They're the same activity, but consent and negotiation makes quite a significant difference, wouldn't you say?

No, I don't think because someone "consents" to it, it makes any activity okay. The man who consented to being killed and eaten by another man who was a cannibal, still meant his murderer was rightly prosecuted and jailed.

The law accepts that some things are wrong, even if you consent to them.

Well I think all SWs would say that they've chosen it. And given that this thread was started because the OP wanted to use a part of the religious marriage service in her civil service...

And in the OP's relationship, they're not switching, are they? He's the dom, she's the sub. Always. She says she couldn't be happy any other way.

Can't see the difference at all.

Homosexuality, not so long ago. And isn't that the same argument that 70s feminists used about heterosexual sex - that all PIV sex was essentially rape, to which no woman could properly "consent" to make it an okay activity.

But I wasn't asking whether consent makes all activities okay, I suggested it makes a significant difference - which it clearly does.

Fortunately for the OP, consensual submission is not criminal. Nor is consensual sex, consensual taking of goods or consensual bottom groping. But all of those things, without consent, are both legally and morally wrong. So consent does make a huge difference.

Surrendered wives and polygamists generally are in those sorts of relationships because they consent to them and feel it makes them happy (or at least are made happy by having their husband's wishes paramount).

The only difference is whether you have this relationship because of God or because of sex. We are told so many times in society that if you do something because of sex it makes it ok, regardless of any other ramifications it may have.

Yes you don't see fat, unshaven, dominatrix women wearing jogging pants and a frumpy top. It still all conforms to a male patriarchial idea of what is "sexy".

Totally agree Thistle that we are told so many time if something is done in the name of sex, it is okay. As if an orgasm makes the unacceptable, acceptable.

I wonder as well how you would raise children within that sort of relationship.

Surely part of your responsibilities as a parent is to model to your children how to negotiate, to reach compromises, to stand up for things that are important to you and to concede when something is important to another. To learn that you don't always get your way, but sometime you do. How do you teach that when the answer is that you always do what daddy wants?

I'm sure that you would have to tell your kids that not everyone leads their lives in that way and that people they may have relationships will probably expect something different.

But at what age do you tell your children that the sole reason you lead your life in that way is because it is how you get your rocks off?

I know people who have explained polyamory, transition, genderqueerness, alternative sexualities, and all sorts to their children. It's a statistically insignificant sample size of course, but those children, whether by luck or otherwise, have turned into pleasant, well adjusted, curiously non-judgemental people.

I'm pregnant and my child will meet my friends, many of whom fall into one or more of the above categories. I think we'll cope, by explaining in an age appropriate way. Kinky friends will not be doing obviously kinky things in front of our child any more than I'll be suggesting that straight non-kinky monogamous friends come round for a quick fuck in the living room while Peppa Pig is on.

People don't choose their sexuality. You can be a feminist and aroused by all kinds of things.

Go for it.

On a serious note, I would be more concerned about parents who unconsciously model a patriarchal relationship than one in which they are able to explain that this is their personal choice. And there are way more of those parents than there are kinky ones.

I was including BDSM in alternative sexualities Kate.

And it always ends up about sex in people's fevered imaginations. Why can't you tell a child

Mostly boys grow up and want to marry girls, but sometimes they grow up and want to marry boys, and that's unusual but it's okay

or

Sometimes there are people who want to be in charge and other people who don't, and if that's how they want to organise their lives then that's okay but it's not for everyone

rather than

Those men are having UP THE BUM SEX OMG ITS THE BUMSEX, and she doesn't like being in charge and SHE'S DOING THAT FOR SEXY TIMES. In the "think of the children" argument it always follows that you HAVE to explain that it's all about sex. You really don't.

Otherwise when the fairytale prince and princess live happily ever after there would be a NSFW chapter on the end.

Haha! Puts a whole new twist on Cinderella!

^And after the wedding, the Handsome Prince took Cinderella upstairs, and she tied him to the bed and rode him like a cowboy."

I think any explanation, done with care, has to be better than the explanation I got about homosexuality when I was about seven. "Some people have something wrong with their brains. They're not normal."