Female submission

Artistic portrayal of a male dominant embracing a nude female submissive.

Female submission or femsub is an activity or relationship in which a woman submits to the direction of a sexual partner or has her body used sexually by or for the sexual pleasure of her partner. The expression is often associated with BDSM, where submission to such activity is usually voluntarily and consensual. Submission usually involves a degree of trust by the woman in her partner. The dominant partner is usually a man, but can also be another woman, or there can be multiple dominant partners simultaneously. The submissive woman may derive sexual pleasure or emotional gratification from relinquishing (to varying degrees) control to (as well as satisfying) a trusted dominant partner.

A 1985 study suggested that about 30% of participants in BDSM activities were females.[1][2] A 2015 study indicates that 61.7% of females who are active in BDSM expressed a preference for a submissive role, 25.7% consider themselves a switch, while 12.6% prefer the dominant role[3] but a more recent survey from 2017 indicates that women tend to self-identify as Submissive, Slave, Bottom, or Masochist (SSBM) and always perform submissive roles while men tend to self-identify as Dominant, Master, Top, or Sadist (DMTS) and always perform dominant roles.[4]

  1. ^ Breslow, Norman; Evans, Linda; Langley, Jill (1985). "On the prevalence and roles of females in the sadomasochistic subculture: Report of an empirical study". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 14 (4): 303–17. doi:10.1007/BF01550846. PMID 4051718. S2CID 31730499.
  2. ^ Levitt, Eugene E.; Moser, Charles; Jamison, Karen V. (1994). "The prevalence and some attributes of females in the sadomasochistic subculture: A second report". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 23 (4): 465–73. doi:10.1007/BF01541410. PMID 7993186. S2CID 28743901.
  3. ^ Silva, Andrea Duarte (2015). Through Pain, More Gain? - A Survey into the Psychosocial Benefits of Sadomasochism (Master thesis). p. 41. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020.
  4. ^ Martinez, Katherine (2018). "BDSM Role Fluidity: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Investigating Switches Within Dominant/Submissive Binaries". Journal of Homosexuality. 65 (10): 1299–1324. doi:10.1080/00918369.2017.1374062. ISSN 1540-3602. PMID 28854056. S2CID 23833868.