March 2006

Letters from Women

My husband showed me your site and has expressed an interest in taking our marriage in this direction. I must say I find this quite interesting even if unfamiliar.

A lot of what your recommend seems like a natural extension and progression from where we are now, as I have always tended to be more of the boss anyway.

One point I am a bit uncomfortable with is withholding orgasms from him during sex. He says this is an important part of making my authority "real".

I am worried that getting him excited and leaving him unsatisfied will tempt him to masturbate. I don't want to discuss this with him because I am sure he would be embarrassed and upset and also because I don't want him to think I don't trust him.

But perhaps you can help me. Has this ever been an issue in your marriage or others you have talked to? Should I be worried? Should I relax and trust him?

Anyway, sorry if this is a dumb question.

Thanks,

Unsigned

Emily responds...

Thare are no dumb questions as they relate to beginning a female-led marriage. There is so much to consider in terms of how you structure your authority, that you are bound to have many questions and many areas of concern. The topic of male orgasm denial is probably the most controversial component of our website, books and CD's. It is no wonder that it is also the topic of so many of the emails that we receive. I understand that you are uncomfortable discussing it with your husband, but I really do think that open dialogue on the subject will be beneficial to both of you.

Ultimately, your active control of your husband's orgasm is probably going to be necessary for you to maintain his consistent and long term obedience. Your husband is submissive, this is not going to change, but even most submissive men will have a tendency to revert to thier old habits if their orgasms are not managed. Note that I use the term managed. By managed, I do not simply mean denied. Management implies some key elements. For starters, you will need to accompany his periods of denial with physical intimacy that arouses him, but leaves him unspent. For example, have him strip, give you a lengthy massage, and at the end of the massage, have him perform oral sex on you so that you achieve your own orgasm while he does not. You should acknowledge his arousal, perhaps even touch him intimately, but make a point of letting him know that you are denying him in order to achieve some end. Perhaps you will need him to do something for you the next day, or maybe just tell him that you know that in being denied his submission will intensify and you will both be happier for it. When you do allow him release, be certain that it is a reward for something special that he has done to please you.

As to your other concerns, your judgement call on whether or not you can trust your submissive husband not to masturbate is an important issue, and there are a number of considerations. Most men can be trusted in the early stages of their submission to their wives. It is only after the routines have been established and the newness of the arrangement is wearing off that they may begin sneaking off to satisfy their needs on their own. You should talk to your husband about his current masturbation practices and what your expectations would be going forward. To the extent that he is open and honest with you may be an indication of what you can expect. If he does violate your trust, you both will be the worse off. Remember, the surrender to you of when and how often he achieves orgasm's is intended to benefit you both.

If you come to the conclusion that he simply cannot be trusted. Please write to me. I will forward you some solutions that are ultimately very close to foolproof. I am considering discussing these solutions in more detail on these letter pages, but for now I prefer to do it in private correspondence.

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Dear Emily:

My husband and I are in a loving marriage that is evolving into a female led relationship. I would say that 90% of the time my husband treats me like a queen, is respectful of my position as the head of our household (having final decision making authority in family matters), and otherwise is generally compliant in meeting my emotional and practical needs.

However there is that other 10% of the time when his behavior is less than what I want, and I would like your advice in a couple of the issues we presently are having.

1. While my husband generally does a good job performing the household chores and child rearing tasks I assign him, there are times when he does not accomplish everything that I've asked him to do for me each day. He usually has the excuse that he "didn't have time" but I know he could make better use of his time if he wasn't spending so much time on the internet and watching TV. To this end I have implemented the orgasm management methodology you recommend and have had some success. If I do this for too long a time I know, I suspect he simply gets on the internet and pleasures himself, thus defeating my purpose, even though I know he would much rather receive his pleasure from me. I was wondering if you had any recommendations concerning this situation, and if there were any other methods of discipline you recommend for correcting a husband's errant behavior.

2. While my husband usually respects my having the final decision making authority in our home, he is currently being difficult over my choice in what school to put our 5 year old in this fall. I want to put our child in a private school, which is expensive but affordable for us, while my hubby wants to opt for our public school which is reputed to be a good one. As the wife I feel my say should be final on this matter, especially as I make more money than he does. However, he is adamant in saying we should put the money toward other areas and constantly fights with me on this hoping I wile give in. Additionally, I feel my husband spends to much money sometimes (especially in Sports memorabilia on eBay). I would like your opinion on how I should assert myself as the undisputed final authority in personal finance related matters.

3. Finally I wanted to suggest that you create on your site a place where we couples who practice the female led relationship lifestyle could list our email addresses to communicate, give advice and share life experiences with one another. I would enjoy such discourse with other wives in female led marriages and I'm sure my husband would enjoy talking to other husbands. My email address is moflrcpl@hotmail.com and feel free to list it if you chose to make such information available, perhaps in some kind of database.

Thanks again for your wonderful books and website,

Jessica

Emily responds...

If I may, let me answer your questions in reverse. First of all, while I have left your email visible in the letter you sent, I will wait until I get a number of such requests before posting a list as you describe. In the meantime, I will be happy to keep a repository of email addresses to share with other dominant wives on a request by request basis only. My only hesitation is that I do not want this list to end up as a target for spammers. I will likely be very careful as to how I ultimately manage this list.

As to your husband's insistence on how you handle the question of where you send your child to school, you need to draw a line in the sand. I believe you are right that you solicit his feedback and input. However, either you are in charge or you are not. As is often the case when you are telling your husband to comply with something that tests his obedience, do it under ideal circumstances. After a couple nights of being intimate with him where you have had an orgasm and he has been managed, you should have a talk with him. Tell him you are quite happy with the arrangement in your marriage where he is submissive and you are in charge. Have him again concede that he too is happiest when you are in charge. Remind him again that you value his opinion, but that final decisions are always to be yours. Then tell him that you plan on having a conversation with him the next morning, and that you want him to keep the evenings conversation in mind when you talk. In the morning, make it perfectly clear that your decision regarding the private school is final. He can either accept it, or you will end any pretenses that you are the head of the household and things can go back to the way they once were. He will likely comply immediately, but he will certainly do so within one week of going without your loving female authority.

As to your other question concerning your husband's masturbation habits when denied an orgasm, please see my response to the letter above. Write to me directly; I will provide you the same foolproof advice.

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Dear Emily,

I was very pleased when I saw your no-nonsense reply to a woman complaining that her husband had reverted back to his old ways. I had an incident with my husband several months ago were he deliberately disobeyed me in front of my best friend. I would be interested in what you thought of how I handled him.

We have been in a female-led marriage for slightly more than five years. I control every aspect of our marriage. I make the decisions and fully expect my husband to obey me without question. I may sometimes ask his opinion but it is understood that the final decisions are always mine to make. While I handle all the finance, my husband is solely responsible for all the cooking and all the household chores including all the housework.

Last June, my best friend Linda decided to visit us. She and I have been best friends since we were teenagers. I had visited her in California twice in recent year, but she had not had the chance to visit me in Tennessee. She knows about me being the head-of-the-house and is very, very supportive. As Linda and I planned her trip I told my husband I expected him to continue with his household responsibilities during Linda's visit. I was eager for her to see how I managed the household.

When Linda and I arrived from the airport things were as I had instructed. My husband had thoroughly cleaned the house, had arranged the guest bedroom for Linda, and had set up the guest bathroom for her use. I had told my husband that Linda and I would eat dinner at home that first night but we had planned on being out of the house off-and-on over her two week stay. I was taking time from work, and I had also decided my husband would take three half-days off so he could be at home to straighten things up during Linda's visit. My husband has become a very good cook (and a very good housekeeper) .

He had prepared dinner for us that first night. Strangely, he balked at serving us. He had fixed the meal but did not want to serve us. He said he was embarrassed. I was furious. He had even walked away into our family room where I followed him. I told him, in a voice loud enough for Linda to hear that I would not tolerate him disobeying me, ever. I told him to get back into the kitchen and serve us. He hesitated, and I told him again in a very loud voice, to never, ever disobey me again. I told him again to get back into the kitchen and serve us. Meekly, he finally obeyed me. It was half-way through dinner before I had calmed down. Linda was very gracious, even complimenting my husband on the meal and the beautiful table setting. He did appreciate her comments. As he told me later, he had just panicked at the thought of serving us but he would never disobey me openly again. And he was very obedient the rest of the two weeks.

Of course, I ensued his obedience by having him satisfy me in our bedroom every night for the next two weeks but not allowing him to have an orgasm. I maintained my control until the middle of second week of Linda's visit when I did allow him to masturbate while I looked on. However he was told not to even "play" with himself until I agreed to allow it. I also mildly scolded him twice during Linda's visit, while she looked on totally supportive of me. .

Two nights after he first disobeyed me, I told him during dinner Linda and I were not happy with the red wine he served us and I sent him to our local package store for another bottle while Linda and I finished dinner. The following week I scolded him again, while Linda looked on, for not greeting her at the door when she and I returned from a day out seeing the sights.

I was so pleased that Linda loved our arrangement. She told me how envious she was. She even decided to begin seeking her boyfriends submissive side as soon as she returned to California (and she has!). I know you must be swamped with requests from other women but I would love to her your views on how I handled things.

Best Wishes,

Paula in Tennessee

Emily responds...

Paula, your letter brings up a couple of topics for discussion. First, however, let me say that you are the ultimate head of your household. Whatever works for you and your husband is best left to you to decide. It is difficult for me to comment on the particular dynamics of your marriage without knowing how the relationship works for both of you. I will only say that there are a couple of ground rules, related to your letter, that work well for us.

First is that we are both very cautious and typically very collaborative regarding how much we let others know about power structure in our relationship. Men have written to us on this site and told us how gratifying it is when others outside their marriage learn that they are submissive to their wives. In a sense, however, this is playing with fire. Most of even our very close friends have no idea of how deeply submissive Ken is to me. While it is clear that I am very much in charge, I am sure that most of them think that he is simply "whipped" in the very traditional sense of the word and nothing more than that. You said that Linda was a very close friend and living in another state. That actually sounds like the optimal situation for letting someone in on your secret. In my own marriage, while the decision would ultimately have been my own, I probably would have discussed with Ken how we would handle openeing up to Linda about our marriage and what I expected as far as his behavior during her stay. This way, there should have been no surprises as to how things would proceed once she arrived. You may have done the same, and perhaps his failure to behave as he had indicated was cause for your angry reaction to his disobedience.

Secondly, while Ken is submissive to me, I tend to be more subtle in how I correct and modify his behavior. While there are certainly times that I scold him, these are rare based on the fact that he is generally very obedient. If I do scold him, it would more likely be in private. In our case, I more often manipulate him sexually as a means to achieving my control. For example, let me provide a counter-example to the way you handled the incident in which your husband refused to serve you dinner (I include this as a different approach, not a better approach). I might have walked into the other room, placed my hands on his thighs and whispered suggestively into his ear that I expected him to obey me immediately and get into the kitchen to serve us. After dinner, I might have been anxious to show off his loving submission by having him rub my feet while my friend and I finished our wine. As was the case with you, however, I would certainly have managed his orgasms for the remainder of your friend's visit. There would also have been some other punishments beyond simply denying his orgasms. Like you, I do not tolerate disobedience from my husband.

At the end of the day, I believe that your letter is illustrative of the fact that there are many ways to manage your household. We should all settle on what works best for us and keep an open mind to new ideas as we grow in our marriages.

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Emily,

I was wondering if you might expand a bit upon the following quote:

If your husband is going through a stressful time at work, he needs to submit to you more than ever.

I would think that you might adjust things a bit for him ("strike a balance", as you put it), but I wasn't completely sure what you meant.

Thank you!

Kate

Emily responds...

This is a very good question, and my quote does require some clarification. As a proponent of loving female authority, I believe you should always have your husband's best interest in mind. His submission and your dominance, after all, are as much for his wellbeing as your own.

So to clarify, I do believe that difficult, stressful and often busy times are when he most needs to submit to you. However, this does not mean that you have to add to his stress by adding tasks to his to do list. In fact, you might even perform some of his chores for him. At the same time, you should step up your demands for his intimate adoration of you. Keep him on his knees and focussed on your pleasure. Manage his orgasms so that his submission peaks, but do not put too many nights between his releases.

In his submission to you, he can find a comfortable respite from the stress of the outside world.

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Dear Emily,

I have enjoyed reading your website. I am just getting into this lifestyle and having a bit of trouble with it. My husband brought it up, and I love the idea, but I have always been the "doormat" so to speak.

I did pretty good for about a week, but my authority seems to have gone away. I have been sick also so I am sure that is why I let it slide a bit. Now I am back to doing all housework, laundry, cooking and taking care of our 4 children. While being sick! LOL Now of all times is when I need him to be submissive and help out! Any help you can give me would greatly be appreciated!

Lana

Emily responds...

Lana, have you had the conversation with your husband in which you cement the authority in the relationship? Simply stated, loving female authority will not work if you do not clearly express that you are in charge and you expect that he will obey you. If you have already done this, you need to do it again, but let him know you are incredibly serious. To have fantasies of being submissive is easy for most men, to truly live the life of a submissive husband is not. As soon as you are well again, tell him that you expect massages, foot rubs and anything else that pleases you every night. He, on the other hand, can expect that he will not orgasm unless he demonstrates perfect behavior for at least a week.

If you want a female-led household, you need to step up the plate. We know already that he wants it because he told you as much. He will not, however, find it easy to submit to a doormat, so you will need to step up the plate and be the strong women that you know you are.

Letters from Men

I have been aware of your site for over a year. I think I have read every word on your site and every word on the letter pages ten times. The knowledge that I want to submit to women is not new to me, it was not introduced to me by your site. I have known it forever. I have spent countless hours surfing internet pornography related to female domination. Much of the material that used to (and in a very real way still does) interest me would be considered extreme by almost anyone. People that know me, including my own wife, would never imagine that I have these thoughts and feelings. I am ashamed of many of my own fantasies as much as I am compelled to accept them. Where did all of this come from? I don't know, but for the first time, I feel like I have an option to deal with them.

Since first discovering your site, I have maintained the hope that I will one day have the courage to approach my wife with your book. The idea of loving female authority as an alternative to my past ideas about female domination is truly a ray of sunshine in a dark tunnel. My most intense fantasies now involve loving submission to my wife, where before they involved empty lust for some faceless model on the internet.

Thank you for giving me hope.

Unsigned

Ken responds...

I have to admit that in the past I too lacked the self-discipline to avoid femdom pornography. It was only when I finally submitted to Emily that I found the true peace that you seek. Emily will still occasionally check up on my internet habits (I am prohibited from purging my history file), but she has nothing to worry about. The pornography that interested me in the past is no competition for true, loving female authority. Have the courage to share your feelings with your wife. It is what you truly need.

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I am in my mid-twenties and dating a woman who has no idea about my submissive feelings. I definately could see marrying this woman as we have been dating for two years and have a very serious relationship. Do you think I am obligated to discuss my desires for a female led household before we get engaged or married?

Jack in Connecticut

I really do. I discussed this with Emily and we both agree that this is one of those topics that is best brought to light prior to the bond of the marriage commitment. At the risk of making a shameless plug, consider purchasing her The New Bride's Guide to Training Her Husband and getting her feedback on what it suggests.