Very recently I was telling someone that I felt there was a difference between kinky and submissive.

This was my thought process:

A submissive is someone who wants to please someone in the realm of BDSM. A kinky guy doesn’t care if the other person likes it or not, just as long as he gets his rocks off.

I always felt that those kinds of guys give submissive men a bad name. I know a handful of women who have been turned of off submissive men entirely because of guys who just wanted what they wanted and didn’t care if she was pleased.

Then I realize that it’s not my place to judge who’s submissive and who’s not. It’s silly for me to even have an opinion on the matter. Isn’t it?

It’s like those women who say I’m not a true submissive because I’m not willing to submit to anyone who claims to be dominant. Or those who say I’m not a true submissive because I don’t do the lowercase “i” when I send an email to her.

Fine, sure. To them, I’m not submissive. They’re right.

I do find myself giving a pep talk to some dominant friends when they tell me about experiences they’ve had with guys who claimed to be submissive. Assuring them that not all guys are just looking to get their kinks off with no regard for their desires.

Someone very dear to me hates labels. Hate’s them, yet anyone who meets her thinks she’s one of the most dominant people they’ve ever met. The only explanation I can give is that it’s a way for people to identify themselves and what they’re looking for.

A very common phrase that some women put on their profiles is “I want a submissive, not a slave”. To me, this means that they don’t want to live a 24/7 D/s lifestyle but want the control to always default to them.

I’ve met a number of women who really liked the idea of a guy who would bend over backwards for them sexually but the second they got the vibe that there would be more than physical submission they ran the other way. They didn’t want a submissive, they wanted a kinky guy. Or as one woman put it “A man outside the bedroom and my bitch inside the bedroom…..once in a while”.

It gets even more confusing. Sometimes a woman will say slave when what she wants would be my definition of “just kinky”.

What good is a label when it’s not universal?

I’m starting to think my friend is right when she says labels hold people back more than they help.

So what does that make me? Am I submissive? A slave? It takes too long to say everything I’m into. That’s a damn long list as I found out while filling out a profile here.