Content Warning

This post discusses themes of sexual assault, which may be difficult or triggering for some readers. Please prioritize your well-being. 
If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, confidential support is available 24/7 at 1-800-656-HOPE or online at https://hotline.rainn.org/online.  

Spoiler warning: Contains mild spoilers for Wicked the musical.

No One Mourns the Wicked: Patriarchy’s Warped View of Submission

“No one cries, ‘They won’t return!’ No one lays a lily on their grave.”

Growing up in a conservative pastor’s household, the belief that godly women should submit to their husbands in all things was woven like a spell into my psyche at an early age. Regular readings from Scripture reinforced the spell, supporting this patriarchal ideal. Nefarious intention or not, the spell extended to indirectly teach me that women were expected to submit to all men, not just to their husbands. 

Ironically, my parents simultaneously raised me to be a fierce feminist, valuing independence and strength. It should come as no surprise, then, that I broke the spell placed on me in childhood and eventually adopted a feminist viewpoint that treated women and non-binary people as full human beings. Under this philosophy, I declared that I would not submit to a man simply because he was a man, and I insisted that my wedding vows mention nothing about obeying my husband. 

Now I describe myself as a submissive and I happily and willingly submit to Helios. 

My younger self would be shocked to learn that I now proudly kneel to a man. But what she didn’t yet understand is the difference between coerced submission and chosen surrender. To understand what I truly mean when I say I submit to Helios, we need to dance through how I got here.

Dancing Through Life: Discovering the Freedom of Consensual Submission

“Life is painless for the brainless.”

Fiyero enters the scene of Wicked as a carefree philanderer who dedicates significant amounts of time to avoiding seriousness and responsibility. Influenced by events and the people around him, though, Fiyero grows to be willing to risk everything for the rebellion he knows truly matters. 

Like Fiyero, I presented a specific face to the public; unlike Fiyero, my public face was that of a strong, independent feminist. I am a natural leader and frequently find myself in charge even when I set out to avoid leadership. I am well respected in my career and hold positions of leadership within my professional association, speaking at international conferences. I am a force to be reckoned with, typically swaying groups to my opinion. 

In my career, one could accurately say that I am dominant. 

Just as Fiyero learned that dancing through life does not solve all of life’s problems, I quickly learned that my public face could not satisfy me forever. It is physically and mentally exhausting. I make decisions all day at work, carrying the mental and emotional weight of doing my work impeccably. Though no longer in a management position, my work day is still full of a myriad of small decisions that add up to impacting thousands of people. 

After a week of meetings, project planning, and policy writing, even picking what is for dinner can feel like a burden. But when Helios says, “You need to be naked now,” I exhale for the first time all week. I don’t have to think. I just have to be. 

For someone like me who has spent their life performing competence and strength, submission isn’t weakness. It’s the moment I finally stop performing and start feeling. And that freedom? That’s the real dance.

Defying Gravity: How Submission Became My Rebellion

“Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love, I guess I’ve lost. Well, if that’s love, it comes at much too high a cost!”

Something had changed within me; something was not the same. Around the same time that I realized the toll of being a “boss babe” I also discovered the concept of authority transfer, taking a relationship from being kinky to being BDSM. There were partners out there who craved dominance the same way I craved giving up control, who wanted to make decisions the same way I despised making them. 

As soon as I knew that was possible, I knew I wanted it. I didn’t (and don’t) want to give someone authority over things like my work or my family, but in the bedroom? To give him complete control over my body, my actions, pleasing him exactly the way he wants. To finally let my brain turn off. 

I needed this. 

And I hated myself for it. 

The idea of submitting to a man, letting him do “depraved” things to me, to “take away” my power, felt like a betrayal of everything my feminism stood for. Isn’t this what I declared I would never do? Isn’t submitting to men what kept my mother and sister-in-law and grandmother in terrible relationships? Women have been told they must put up with even marital rape in the name of submission! How could I possibly want to enter into that arena?

Finally I realized the difference between the submission in patriarchal systems and in BDSM: Choice. The generations of women before me who submitted to their husbands “as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22) believed they had no choice. Their consent was not genuine because it was coerced under threat of eternal punishment. They believed that to do other than to submit was to go against the very will of God, which feels like having no choice whatsoever. 

In the BDSM world, everything starts with genuine consent. The nature of submission in that dynamic is explicitly discussed before the relationship begins, and both parties negotiate exactly what authority is being transferred and in what contexts. Boundaries are established from the outset, and both partners understand that violating those boundaries has dire consequences. The submissive actively chooses to hand over their authority and power, whereas the wife under patriarchy has her power stolen. 

Not only is consent king in kink, but it is well understood that being someone’s submissive does not make you everyone’s submissive. Subs are not expected to submit to anyone other than their specific partner, and attempts from (so-called) Doms to demand submission from someone with whom they have no negotiated dynamic are quickly shut down. 

These understandings let the submissive side of me make peace with the feminist side of me. I had spent years tethered to the earth by the false idea that submission meant a fall into relational slavery, but submission doesn’t weigh me down. It lets me soar. 

The church told me submission was righteous when it was demanded; feminism told me submission was a step back for womankind. But neither prepared me for the radical clarity of choosing submission for my pleasure. That is not giving up power; that’s wielding it differently. 

Philosophically reconciled to submission at last, I could actually allow myself to enter a submissive relationship with Helios. However, I found that the idea of submission and the experience of submission are not identical. 

The idea of submission I had was less wrong than it was incomplete. Yes, submission meant giving authority to Helios and letting him make the decisions in the bedroom. But it is also so much more than that. 

I thought submission was something I did one time and then maintained a state of being submissive. In reality, I submit to him anew each time we are together. It is not difficult to submit to him most of the time, but when the paddle falls on the same spot over and over and the pain radiates from the aluminum through my skin and deep into my body, I actively remind myself that this is an act of submission to him and accept the pain into myself. When I want to play and he says “not now,” I submit to him as the one with the authority to decide not just what happens in the bedroom, but when it will happen. The overall decision to submit happened once, yes, but the implementation of that submission happens every time my instinct is to do or be other than what he has determined. 

The specific activities Helios and I engage in may be enjoyable to him on their own at a certain level, but that is not the entirety of it. He is pleased by my submission to him. How does he know I submit? Because I do as he says, accept what he gives. When I put myself back into place after jerking from an impact, he knows I am submitting to him. When I play with the partner he selects for me, he knows I am submitting to him. When I wear his marks on my body not like chains but like wings, he knows I am submitting to him. 

And through all this is the trust that we have built. Trust that I am absolutely safe with him, that he will never demand I submit to something that will harm me. 

I am at last flying free. I submit not because an outside force says I must, but because I can. Because it is my will. 

Others may never understand how submission became the freest, fiercest choice I’ve ever made, but I’m through trying to make them. Because submission was never about weakness. It is how I choose to fly.

Popular: Brat, SAM, Submissive? 

“It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed.” 

When I first entered the scene, I tried on identities like Glinda picks out shoes. I though I was a brat, the kind of sub who pushes limits and breaks rules – not out of malice, but as a flirtatious dare. “Make me,” I imagined saying with a grin, eyes daring my (fictional) Dom to rise to the challenge. It felt fun, playful.

But as I spent more time in the lifestyle, I learned that “brat” means different things to different people – and not all of them were cute. Many see brats as partners who break their agreements, disrupt scenes, or demand attention they haven’t earned. These type of brats are (largely) seen as annoying and undesirable. Suddenly, the role I had tried on started to feel itchy, ill-fitting like one of Glinda’s makeovers that didn’t quite take.

What was I, then? 

The term “smart-ass masochist” (SAM) seemed to fit far better. That was more my vibe: Poking the bear with a smirk, not out of rebellion but because I trusted the bear to roar in return.  I even had SAM in mind when I named this blog. 

But like Glinda herself, I’ve grown. The longer I’ve been Helios’, the more I’ve realized I don’t need to push boundaries to be seen, loved, or corrected. The craving to brat came, in part, from insecurity, from wanting reassurance that I was still wanted even when I was “bad.” I’ve since come to understand that his desire for me is not conditional, nor is it about performance. It’s about presence. 

And as m confidence in our dynamic grew, the bratty impulse shrank. Not disappeared entirely (I’ll always have a sparkle of sass!), but I no longer need to provoke him to get what I want. I can ask him for roughness, for intensity. And sometimes, he says no. And I submit to that no because it’s his to give.

There’s a quiet magic in that trust, in knowing I don’t have to stir up drama to get attention. That I can serve him, not to prove anything, but because it brings me joy. 

Glinda wanted Elphaba to fit into a mold, to wear the right shoes and smile the right way. But Elphaba found her power by rejecting the script entirely. Likewise, I thought I had to play a certain role in order to be waned in this world. But I’ve learned that submission – my submission – doesn’t need to be loud or dramatic to be real. 

It just needs to be mine. 

Helios is mine, and I am his. And he will take care of me – no makeover required.

For Good: How Submission Changed Me and Why I Won’t Go Back

“Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

People and situations come into our lives for a reason. My journey into kink and authority transfer relationships has not been exactly what I expected, but I can see the change it has wrought in me already. Submission has given me more than just pleasure: it’s quieted the mental noise that once ruled my days, anchored me in clarity, gifted me calm, and made more room for a gentler kind of self-acceptance.

I am glad I can channel the “boss babe” and do what needs to be done. That version of me wasn’t a bad version, per se, merely incomplete. I can’t be the “boss babe” without also being the good girl. Just as strength needs softness, ambition needs surrender, and Glinda needed Elphaba to become who she truly was. The submissive side of me gives me the confidence and security to walk into my office and be awesome. 

Submission has changed me for the better, and I believe there is more growth yet to come. Not only am I more confident in myself, but I am more in control of myself, more emotionally regulated. I accept the risk of being open and vulnerable, of living, and I carry that into my other relationships.

I am grateful for the versions of myself that have come before. Each of those versions got me through specific trials in my life, and I do not think I could be who I am now without having first been them.

I submitted. And I have been changed – for good.

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References

Schwartz, Stephen. Wicked: A New Musical: Original Broadway Cast Recording. New York, NY: Decca Broadway, 2003.