Parenthetically, I’ve never yet seen a relationship characterized by extreme power imbalance in which both partners were actually happy. In many cases, an apparent extreme power imbalance in a happy relationship was in fact balanced out in some manner - my grandfather, for example, liked to pose as the paterfamilias, but my grandmother actually made many of the decisions … her attitude appeared to be to allow my grandfather to say what he liked, as long as she could continue to do what she liked.
99% of time, this will be the answer.
But in this case, I think its a combination of microphallus and gynecomastia.
Bricker nailed it. Dio etc are totally OK with any alternative lifestyle . . . unless Jesus is involved, and then it’s all terrible and horrible.
When “Dio etc.” start trying to make such “lifestyles” illegal or unconstitutional, this might be a valid criticism. But if you can’t see the difference between couples treating each other as equals and couples with wild power imbalances and why people would call that fucked up, there’s no point arguing with you.
You ever tried living with Jesus? It aint that easy. But the man does put up a mean bookshelf.
The problem with religious-based lifestyle choices is that it’s really hard to tell where choice ends and coercion begins. If you raise a kid to think that it’s going to suffer for eternity if it doesn’t live a certain way, and it’s the kid’s fault if that lifestyle doesn’t work out well for them, it’s hard to say it’s a free choice. If you also condition them throughout their childhood to fit into the roles you’ve chosen for them without exposing them to or acknowledging other lifestyles other than to say they’re “sinful,” there’s a somewhat coercive element. If, further, when the kid is older you tell them in no uncertain terms that they’ll be ostracized and essentially lose their family if they choose differently, it starts to look less like choice and more like coercion. This is especially true when joining said lifestyle starts young (especially for women) and precludes them getting an education that gives them other options.
Choosing a D/S relationship later in life as a fully formed adult when you haven’t been raised to think that it’s the only option is a horse of a rather different color.
Not so. Dio has posted in the past about BDSM type master/slave relationships being sick and misogynistic.
I dated a guy who was a Fundamentalist Christian who was raised with the idea of the man as the head of the household once; it was funny when he blew up at me one day, and was so confused and angry about why I wasn’t falling in line and just listening to him and doing what he said, like a woman is supposed to! Oh, honey, good luck with that.
What was the OP again? Oh yeah, Brazil84 sounds like this guy. Either he’s managed to find a woman who actually wants to be dominated, or he found a woman who is so much smarter than he is that he thinks he actually IS in charge. Either way, no skin off my ass about his relationship; I don’t much care for him telling me what I secretly want, though.
I haven’t said a word about Jesus, dude, and neither did the person I’m pitting. This pitting has fuck all to do with religion or with marriage.
Yep, a lot of men will CLAIM that all women want to be dominated by men, or that all men are better leaders than any women, or that women secretly crave bad boys. And these guys will claim that women don’t know what they really want, or that women won’t admit what they want.
See also the guys who claim that ALL women are gold diggers/whores at heart, who WILL sleep with anyone who waves enough money under their noses.
These guys are incredibly dismissive of women and women’s opinions and experiences, and then bitch that they can’t find a good woman to have a relationship with. The reason for that is that any sensible woman would have run far, far away from these guys.
I think we’ve found John Norman on the Dope!
I don’t recall giving you permission to post in this thread. I forbid you to post any more in here!
That oughtta do it. 
Oh oh.
Despite so much evidence and experience to the contrary, I still harbor the belief that the typical liberal doper can learn and change their idiotic beliefs. It’s taking longer than I thought.
Dio is on record here (numerous times) as being against these types of relationships, whatever the justification. Maybe you didn’t know about that, but nonetheless you ascribed attitudes to him which he doesn’t hold. If you are a gentleman of honor, you will apologize.
Yeah, I was thinking that the guy with the “Biblical” marriage might actually be Gorean, but didn’t want to admit it to the rest of the world, and so he calls it Biblical instead.
The thing is, that marriage really isn’t Biblical, because in a true Biblical marriage, the husband is his wife’s champion, her prince in shining armor, who will protect her from the outside world and cherish and respect her for being his submissive wife. He treats her as a treasure, not as a piece of shit. But the guy in the original thread treated his wife like shit.
Every adult is a creature of their upbringing and experiences, to an extent. Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for that - whether the upbringing was religious or not. Saying that religious people aren’t responsible as adults for what they want strikes me as being somewhat paternalistic.
No doubt someone who craves a totally submissive role role in a relationship who was not raised religious has their reasons, and no doubt those have something to do with their upbringing or experiences - but I wouldn’t argue that their choice isn’t “really” free. In fact no choices are “really” free, but we must accept responsibility for them nonetheless.
What I will say, is that not all free choices are equally likely to have good outcomes. Wanting extreme dominance or submission seems, in my experience, to be more likely to lead to unhappiness for someone than wanting rough equality.
And free wine!
Any marriage whose cornerstone is “Respect mah authoriteh!” is not something I want to be part of.
Your willingness to suffer personally for the welfare of others is admirable. I trust you’ll be changing your username?