There is No Such Thing as a Dom

Man has a natural desire and need of leadership above him. It is built into his soul. We are meant both the lead, and to be led, in different ways and to different levels of completion. This is why it’s far from rare for people to seek out personal spanking relationships outside of their natural place in marriage. The field of wife spanking definitely teaches marriage is the only setting, but many seek that kind of intimate leadership and submission apart from it. They fantasize of being in the relationship, and want to find a way to quickly be part of one. They long for the excitement of a spanking. In the bdsm community it is even more common for such ties to form apart from marriage, with one partner labeling herself a “sub” and the other a “dom.” Even if you assign them different titles — master and servant — they are still doing basically the same thing — seeking something good in the wrong way. Trying to extract from marriage part of its iron-wrought strength, and use it as its own independent exercise. They see what’s good in marriage, but you cannot take it outside of it, and still have the same thing.

The unbeliever, like the believer, can see much of what is true in the world. God gave them reason and a conscience as well. The unbeliever, who might long for discipline, knows rightly that we are fulfilled in having a leader above us. We are given peace by being a part of someone else, tied to another with a powerful bond. We are greatly benefited by having rules, correction, and punishment. It seems the unity, power, and structure of the relationship take us past many of our weaknesses, and makes anxiety fade away to nothing. We still have the anxiety of facing a correction. But we have the fulfillment of being a part of another, and being led by one who is looking after us body and soul. How incredible that is. The unbeliever, like the Christian, knows we need something to bow down to. It is right and good.

We are literally built to bow down. That’s because God made this world with relationships, and with authority within it. We are built to honor and worship God. We are made to exist in other relationships of hierarchy, including being under our government, being under our masters (employers) at work, being under our parents’ teaching and chastisement, and if a wife being under our husbands headship. We share a certain unity with others through each of those relationships, and we also share in a vertical structure — one soul being under another and needing to obey. At the same time, he is watched over, nourished, and protected. God appointed authorities over us, so naturally in our mind and soul we understand that and can find deep fulfillment in it.

The relationship of man and wife is perhaps the most thorough and deep of all those relationships, in fact the one that most imitates our relationship with God. A wife is made “one flesh” with her man. Their bodies are shared properties between them. A wife is taught to submit to her man “in all things” and not in merely a few matters. The two together picture the most important act we could imagine — the act of God saving a people for himself, delivering them from sin and death. Her submission to her man is rich, involving her entire being, and her submission to her lord second only to her submission to God. The man or woman who longs to lead or to submit then, longs for a very good thing. They long for something that SHOULD fulfill them, and which does when done right.

The problem with trying to approximate headship and submission outside of marriage is that it was never built to exist outside of the right relationship. The intimate form of leadership in marriage exists in full harmony with, and in inter-dependence with, all the other facets of marriage: the fact they have a covenant together, the fact their marriage is for life, the fact the man protects and provides for his wife, the fact the wife cares for the home and nurtures the young children, the fact they are a picture of Christ and His special people. You cannot extract the leadership out of that and still have a right relationship. It was not meant to exist on its own, but as a part of the lifelong union of man and wife.

The person who longs to be a dom, or who longs to be a sub, needs to ask themselves this question: where on earth does this relationship exist in God-given relationships or in natural human ones that occur in any society? We have parents, husbands, teachers, magistrates, etc. We don’t have doms and subs. This comes from a desire to play act the important facets of our character outside of the right and organic relationships. We want to fulfill our desire to give ourselves to someone fully, and to know their power and protection, on a mere stage. It is only theater, and I’m sorry to say, not very good theater at that.

If you desire to have lordship and protection over you, seek the right kind of relationship. Respect your boss and seek to please him, so his business does well. Obey the law dutifully, and respect the officers that keep peace on the street, as well as the governors who manage human society. Show special respect to your parents. Obey Church elders. Even show a special honor to those who are elders by age, as this is appropriate, and is called for in the Bible. You will enjoy the right fulfillment in being under those authorities and in showing them the right honor, at times being counseled or corrected by them. You are tied to them in a bond, and there are things you rightly owe them.

Now if you desire the richest and most intimate form of lordship, do this: Get married. Honor your husband highly with your words and by seeking to please him. Treat him as a king daily. Seek counsel, leadership, instruction, and comfort from him. Enjoy his warm protection. Be soft to his correction and his discipline of you, and seek to grow as a woman from them. He may discipline you with spanking, as I discuss in this manual, or he may discipline you through other methods. You do not bear all the weight for your own growth and good behavior, but he will guide you and help you and take charge of you. He will intimately know you, and be your lord. There is peace in being under him.

It is no surprise that in fulfilling the human soul, the right relationship of marriage pictures the nature of God himself. We have spoken of different kinds of relationships in society, which all involve headship of some kind, and that is because God who created us IS perfect relationship itself. The Almighty shares that relationship with us. God, being perfectly one in nature, exists forever as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In eternal relationship, they commune among themselves, in eternal life and love. God did not create mankind so He could have someone to love, or because He was lonely — God has always had someone because He is tri-personal. God is love eternally — not merely as an abstract and impersonal force of love who exists beyond the space and time of the cosmos — rather as love in relationship, active love between Persons who love one another. That is God. That is relationship. Our own must be informed and formed by that truth.

Being alone and isolated could never picture God. It is furthermore dangerous, and usually unrewarding. I remember sitting in a fast-food restaurant years ago when I was an unbeliever. A distressed man came in the door — a large hispanic-looking man — talking about his need for help and how unloved he was. He started downright preaching that we needed love. I was very moved by this, and wanted to tell him that I loved him, and reach out to him, but I was too timid to do that. In a few moments some mental health officials came in the door and restrained the man, and took him away in a straight jacket. To me this is a picture of mankind outside of relationships. Alone to face the harshness of the world, and the harshness of their own inner reality. Here is someone who could have been filled up with the love and warmth of the right human partnerships. With the closeness of friendships, or of marriage. With the good tutelage of a parent or a teacher over him. He, like all of us, needed aid and he needed guidance. This is what God ordains that we provide to one another, and shows us the right way to do it. The one who longs to lose a piece of himself to the love and protection of another is not a disturbed person. He is only human.

The fact that we exist in relationship then, comes not only from God’s will but from His nature. That is why we will find the most peace and blessing in the right kind of relationships, which are the ones God gives us, through His Word and through nature. No one will find the fulfillment given in leadership and submission by acting as a dom or a sub. Never. It is a faulty foundation and cannot hold all the treasures that this partnership is meant to hold. You will only find fulfillment in marriage, which is where headship and very deep submission have their right home. We are nourished by all that a marriage is until the day we die. That is the right place to be lord over another. And it is the right place to bow down.