March 2007

Letters from Women

Dear Emily,

I was one of those wives that found out about your website on Valentines Day. My husband gave me a wonderful handwritten card, a copy of your book, and had loaded the confessional CD on my Ipod.

I want to first show you what he wrote on the card:

Dear Jan (not my real name),

There is no man alive that could love his wife more than I love you. You mean everything in the world to me. I know that I don’t always do a good job at showing it, but I promise you that my love for you is at the very core of who and what I am.

The fact that I do not always do a good job of showing my love is really what your Valentine’s present is all about. You will understand better when you listen to the track labeled “Around Her Finger” on your Ipod. The book is sort of a follow on to what you will hear and will explain it a little better.

I just hope you will be open-minded about this present. I promise you that it is ultimately about my expressing my love for you. Whether you are interested or not is completely up to you, and I will go on loving you either way. I know this doesn’t make sense just yet, but listen to the Ipod and you will understand.

Love always,

John

I could not have been more curious when I read the card. He had left it for me on our kitchen table along with a wonderful breakfast, a table set with flowers, and fresh squeezed orange juice. He was already gone to work by the time I woke up, so he was not there to answer any questions. I immediately listened to the track on the Ipod and understood instantly his intentions.

My first reaction was surprise. He is not the sort of man that wears his heart on his sleeve, so I was amazed he was taking such a bold step. My next reaction, however, was immense gratitude. The CD and the card both helped me to understand that his submission is an act of love above all else. I embraced it immediately. I actually finished reading the book before he was even home from work. While I had already purchased him some very simple valentines presents, I knew right away that I had another more special present to give him.

I emailed him at work and told him that I expected him to be home at exactly 6:30, and that he should walk into the house and read a note I would leave him on the kitchen table for further instructions.

As I planned, he arrived at precisely 6:30. The note simply told him to remove his clothes and come back to join me in the bedroom. All of the lights were off in the front part of the house. When he opened the bedroom door, completely naked, he stepped into our candlelit bedroom to find me seated in our sitting area in nothing but a very lacey robe. Next to me was an open bottle of wine, and while I was already into my second glass, I asked him to come over and pour me a third.

I asked him to kneel in front of me. I had him reassure me that this was what he really wanted in our marriage. I wanted to know that it was not just a bedroom game, but truly a change in how we would relate to each other in every aspect of our marriage. He assured me that this was the case. I put out my hand and allowed him to gently kiss my fingers. I told him that I was not only ready for this change, but that I agreed it would work better and that it was absolutely the natural next step in our marriage. I told him quite firmly that I would expect him to obey me, but I would also expect him to be proactive about doing those things that he knows would please me. I then opened myself to him and enjoyed his very selfless physical love for my body. This was one week ago. We have not had intercourse since that evening, but we have been intimate every evening and I have been more sexually satisfied than I have ever been at any time in our marriage.

More important than even the physical satisfaction has been the emotional satisfaction. We have talked more in the last seven days that we have in the last seven years. I am looking forward in growing in our relationship as I understand how this wonderful new change begins to evolve and take shape.

Thank you so much for the work you do,

Jan in San Antonio

Emily responds…

What a wonderful story of love and honest communication in a marriage. Your quick acceptance of your husband’s submission says a great deal about you. Your revised Valentines Day gift to him will pay rewards for many years to come.

-----

Dear Emily,

Guess what I got for Valentines Day!

I was more than a little surprised when the note in my husband’s Valentines Day card to me ran on for so long that he had to staple another piece of paper to the card. I am pretty sure that the last few cards he got me had nothing more than a few X’s and O’s followed by his name. I was even more surprised when I read the note. Wow, I would never have guessed that my husband would be the submissive type. In opening up and sharing with me, he let me see a part of him that I was amazed even existed.

I just got finished reading your book and we are already two days into the Boot Camp. It is amazing! I think, no correct that, I know, that the last two nights are the first time ever that I have had an orgasm and he hasn’t. It’s usually the other way around. But just like you say in the book, the pleasure I get from the sex is nothing compared to the pleasure I am getting from a level of closeness with my husband that hasn’t existed since we were dating. The other night, after having him go down on me, we lay awake and talked for hours. I did stroke him a little as an expression of my interest and awareness in his sexuality, but he did not even get close to having an orgasm. I love it. I absolutely love it.

Hope that Oprah never finds out about your methods because you won’t be able to keep up with all the letters of thanks that you would get. I guess it’s just the lucky few of us who ever find out about your book.

Thanks,

Unsigned

Emily responds…

I loved a phrase that you used in your letter. You said you touched your husband “as an expression of [your] interest and awareness in his sexuality." This is another one of those moments when I am in debt to my readers for expressing a concept with language better than I have been able to come up with on my own.

Your expression is really an extension of the concept that stealth submission will never be enough to satisfy a submissive man in the long run. We often write about the fact that a man cannot sustain any satisfaction from submitting to a woman that does not embrace her authority. However, even women that do embrace their natural, dominant role in the relationship will find her husband more obedient, and more importantly, more emotionally engaged, when she takes extra pains to recognize her husband’s sexuality and intensify his arousal in the absence of his release.

Physically touching him is one way to do this. Another very effective way is to openly discuss how his arousal is good for both of you. Let him know how much you appreciate his behavior when he becomes so intensely turned on and left without an orgasm. Women would do well to bring those things that often go unsaid to the surface, particularly as they relate to his sexuality. Just as you would be unhappy if his head was full of loving thoughts for you and he said nothing, he is less than satisfied when these matters of such interest to him go unsaid.

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Dear Emily,

My husband gave me your book and CD last Valentine’s Day, so it is now been one year since we have begun to practice loving female authority. I thought I would give you and your female readers a quick snapshot of my marriage before and after being introduced to Around Her Finger.

Television in the Evenings

Before: I would watch my television shows in the den while he would go in the basement and watch sports or the news on a different set.

After: We watch mostly my shows in the den, but I have a couple shows I let him choose. No matter which show it is, we are both together and he sits either next to me or on the floor rubbing my feet. In fact, we watch must less television these days because of the time in the evenings he spends giving me a massage.

Sex

Before: Maybe once a month we had a very quick (and hardly enjoyable) ten minute romp in the bed.

After: Three to four times a week we have some sort of sexual contact. It may or may not include intercourse, and if it does, he may or may not have an orgasm. I always have an orgasm.

Communication

Before: It was as if his brain created a wall that stopped him from talking about his feelings or listening to me talk about my own.

After: He talks to me and really listens to me all the time. It is not that he talks to me and listens to me because I am telling him to do so. It is not like that at all. It is as though he really wants to do these things. This is particularly true on evenings and days following [orgasm management].

Thank you, Emily. As you can see, you have made a tremendous difference in our marriage.

Unsigned

Emily responds…

Thank you so much for taking the time to write us with the wonderful before and after comparisons. I take note that your letter is the third letter published in the woman’s letter section this month, and it has one very wonderful thing in common with the first two. It calls out the impact that loving female authority has on your emotional closeness and communication habits. This is the single greatest gift that LFA has to offer women, and the one least anticipated by woman that venture down this path.

I wish you many more years of a happy marriage.

Letters from Men

Dear Ken,

I am a happily married man who is fortunate enough to actually be living in a female-led relationship and had a quick question for you that may actually need your wife's input for the guidance I need.

Due to a lot of stress and the winter weather, m wife has put on a significant amount of weight. While I will always love and worship my wife no matter what her size or looks become, I am concerned about her health. How would you suggest I address these concerns with her without coming across as being superficial about her looks and making her feel bad? I'm really struggling with this and any advice you could give would really help!

Unsigned

Ken responds…

I will let you off the hook and just accept at face value that you are only concerned about her health. I am only stating the obvious when I say that many men in your situation would also find themselves concerned about their wife’s physical appearance and not merely her health. I do not think this makes these men bad people, it just makes them men. For submissive men, their physical attraction to their wife is an important element of the sexuality that feeds the satisfaction they get from loving female authority. However, for most submissive men, and apparently yourself, their wife’s overt exercise of her authority trumps mere superficial beauty. As you say, you would adore her no matter what.

I would suggest that if you have noticed your wife gaining weight, she has likely noticed it as well. Just as she knows what is best for you, she also knows what is best for her. Leave it alone.

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Dear Ken,

I gave my wife your book for Valentines Day along with a little card saying I would like her to consider some new ideas that could build our relationship even stronger. She said nothing about it for a week and a half. I didn’t know if she had not read the book or had read it and thought I was crazy.

We went out to eat this past weekend, and again said nothing about it, but when we got home, it was a different story. When we walked in the house she told me to go back in the bedroom and take off my clothes. I guess this was a little unlike her, but I still figured she was just wanting to be romantic in the traditional, vanilla sense. But when I started walking away, she told me to come back into the living room when I was done. This was when I started to think something was up because our living room is one of those formal rooms that we never really use, except maybe if we are having company.

When I came back to the living room, naked of course, she was sitting in a very stiff-backed chair. She had all of her clothes on. She told me to kneel in front of her. She asked me how long I had been thinking about giving her that book. I told her the truth, which was that I had felt this way for years, but had only discovered the website about six months before, and had been thinking about it ever since. She asked me if I was really serious about her being in charge of everything. She asked me how I would feel about golfing once a month instead of every weekend (which I know has always been a sore spot of her). She said she would expect me to wake up early on weekends to clean the house and have breakfast ready for her when she woke up. The thought of all these things, as I knelt naked in front of her, was making me feel whole and complete in a way I have never experienced before.

She had me remove her shoes and kiss and rub her feet. She told me that she expected not only my obedience, but also my continued love and affection, and she wanted me to show me that love in new ways every week. She wanted me to be romantic and express my feelings more, and that in exchange, she would always love me and would always have my best interests in mind. I undressed her and she pulled my head between her legs. Then we made love, but she pushed me off of her before I had a chance to have an orgasm. This was the first time I have ever experienced her “owning” my orgasm and stopping me after we had begun making love. It was amazing.

I hope my story inspires others. I was afraid to take a chance, but I am very glad that I did.

Jack in Virginia

Ken responds…

Your wife is a fast learner. I predict that your marriage will blossom and grow in ways you never thought possible. As she embraces her authority over you, and as she learns more about the opportunities that loving female authority affords her, she will guide you both to a stronger relationship.

Congratulation on taking the first step.

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Dear Ken,

I just gave my wife your book for Valentines Day. I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I will let you know how it works out.

Unsigned

Ken responds…

Thank you for the quick note. We always see an uptick in book sales right before Valentines Day. It means a lot to both Emily and I that so many men are encouraged to celebrate this lover’s holiday with a bold step towards a female-led relationship.

Best of luck to all of you.

How did Valentines Day go?

We know from past years that there is often a run up in the number of men that use the holiday as an excuse to introduce their wives to Around Her Finger for the first time. If you were one of these men, we encourage you to send in your experience so that we can share it with others in our next update.

Thanks,

Ken

February 2007

Note from Ken:

Our updates section will be a little different this month as it will begin with a recap of the Around Her Finger retreat which was just held this past month. As a result, the letters sections will be much shorter than usual, but hopefully still valuable.

Also, I want to take a moment to extend warm Valentines Day wishes to all of you. For those of you who have still not shared your interest in Loving Female Authority with your wives, I hope this lover’s holiday gives you the inspiration you need to do so.

The recap of our retreat, as promised, follows:

***

We have just recently returned from the first ever AHF couples retreat. Emily and I met with four other couples (a fifth couple had an unfortunate last minute cancellation) at a beautiful resort property in the Southeastern United States. The event was a great success, and we both wanted to share some details of the gathering here in our update section.

We all arrived at different times on the first day. We first met as a group for a small cocktail party in a private suite that evening. This was especially nice, because it provided both privacy and comfort as we all got to know each other. Emily and I had all spoken on the telephone numerous times to everyone at the event, so we were already somewhat familiar with each of the couples. Nobody else had met or spoken to each other before that night.

The couples ranged from their early thirties to mid-fifties. I would characterize their experience with wife-led marriages as very similar to that of Emily and me. We had all been successfully practicing loving female authority for at least two years. We had all had our ups and downs, but for the most part we had a good sense for what worked and didn’t work from a long-term perspective. We were also all very committed to the fact that we could continue to grow as couples with loving female authority as a guiding principle.

It was nice to see a true matriarchal dynamic in the room. To be in the company of other couples where there are no secrets regarding how the husbands and wives have chosen to relate to each other is refreshing to say the least. The men all doted on the women. None of the women were wanting for anything. We were all eager and happy to serve the ladies the wine and snacks that we had set out. When it was time to leave for dinner there was a small scuffle at the door as the different husbands raced to see who could have the honor of holding the door open for the ladies.

From the cocktail gathering, we all went down to one of the resort’s restaurants. We had a wonderful meal and talked about how we had all first met our spouses, how the female-led dynamic had begun and evolved in our marriages, and to some extent, where we wanted to take the dynamic in our relationships. Much of the conversation was also devoted to the sort of perfectly mundane small talk that characterizes any group with similar interests who has a genuine desire to get to know each other.

After a wonderful dinner, the women dismissed the men. We were asked to go back to our rooms and to prepare everything necessary to give our wives a romantic massage when they returned. In my own case, this entailed setting up the portable massage table that I had brought along. It was a full two hours before the Emily returned to the room. The women were having quite a good time and ended up extending the dinner conversation to the hotel bar after they had dismissed us. Apparently the after dinner drinks had relaxed the women’s inhibitions enough that a host of new topics for the following day’s workshop sessions had been suggested.

The initial sessions were held mid-morning and had the men and women separated into different rooms. The men’s session was focused exclusively on how we could better serve our wives. This included not only sharing ideas on the things that our wives like and expect from us, but also how to manage those times when stress, frustration and distractions get in the way of submission. There are times, for example, when even I am too tired for Emily’s late night massage requests. This issue was common amongst the husbands. The key to overcoming these short-term and selfish moments is to just press forward, honor the request and know that her comforts are more important than your own. One of the husbands offered that his wife allows him two “get out of jail free cards” a month, where he is allowed to respectfully turn down his wife’s request. She can override his free passes if she likes, but apparently has never done so.

The woman’s discussion was also an idea sharing session. However, they focused on some of the ways that they have been able to maintain the husband’s submissive intensity by introducing different approaches to maintaining sexual energy in the relationship. This included a very engaging discussion on orgasm management, but also topics that frankly go beyond what we have set as the boundaries for our site. It was clear that some of these women wished they had a forum where the felt they could continue this dialogue beyond the retreat. Emily noted that concern and is considering a way to provide such a forum without jeopardizing the mission of this site.

That afternoon, we all participated in a session with the wives and husbands together. Emily and I had prepared for the session by developing a number of questions, printing them out and pasting them to three by five cards, and then putting them in two separate bowls in the middle of the group, one for wives and one for husbands. The husbands each took their turns first. Some of the husband’s questions follow:

- What activity creates the most intense sense of intimacy with your wife?
- What is one thing we have never done together that I wish we would?
- What is the most romantic evening I could imagine preparing for my wife?

Some of the wives questions included:

- Is there anything your husband could do to make you feel more loved?
- Is there anything you miss about a marriage of shared authority?
- Is there anything you desire that you hesitate to ask for from your husband?

These all generated great discussion in the group, and hopefully that discussion extended back to each couples own room when the activity ended.

Early that evening, Emily had arranged to take all the wives on a horseback riding tour of the area surrounding the resort. The husbands remained behind playing pool and having cocktails. When the women were scheduled to return, we went out to meet them. There was more than one comment from the husbands about how wonderful if was to greet our wives with them on horseback and us on foot. It certainly gave the woman an air of authority to tower above us on such strong animals.

All the couples then returned to their rooms where the husbands helped prepare the wives for the final group dinner of the retreat. This turned out to be another wonderful meal, and as with the last meal, the men were dismissed early while the woman remained behind to finish the last couple bottles of wine without us. When the women finally returned to the men, they were once again welcomed by their husbands with whatever preparations had been requested. In my case, the massage table was again set up and candles were lit throughout the room. We awoke the next morning and had one final group breakfast before we all made arrangements to return home.

For Emily and me, and I believe for the other couples as well, the event was a huge success. One, it was an opportunity to safely dialogue with others who share this somewhat extraordinary and certainly very personal relationship dynamic. Emily and I are typically very private people, and I know that for us, this was one of the first occasions where we opened up about intimate details of our lives to others. Secondly, the event was a chance to examine what works best in our relationship and what opportunities for improvement might still exist. We challenged our thinking on many of our long-held ideas and boundaries, and we explored new paths and thinking. The open and candid dialogue was a catalyst to push our relationship even further ahead, and we are both closer and our intimacy is stronger as a result. Also, I am sure that the coming months will bear the fruit of this reinvigorated energy level in our relationship.

Finally, I offer all of my thanks to the couples that attended the retreat. While we have sent you all personal notes of gratitude, we want also to make this public acknowledgement of our debt for all of the warm friendship and open spirit that you each brought to the sessions an dinner conversations.

Will we do this again and open it up to new couples? This remains to be seen, but our success on this initial event certainly opens up that possibility.

Ken Addison

***

Letters from Women

Dear Emily,

As I read your site, and also your letters section, I get the feeling that you are often coaching the husbands into manipulating their wives to behave in a way that they, the husbands want. It seems like the one pulling the strings is really the husband and not the wife.

How do you respond to this?

Unsigned

Emily responds…

You are certainly not the first one to make this observation. In all fairness, I definitely see your point. In ninety-nine percent of the cases, the men are the ones that want to initiate loving female authority. Women will almost always warm to the benefits that LFA offers them, but they often approach the concept with an initial skepticism. Much of the advice that we give to these men is geared at gently nudging them into a female-led relationship. Then we further the council the men on how their wives can comfortably come to understand the underlying principles of a practical, ongoing LFA relationship. Could this nudging be considered manipulating? Yes, I think it could, and this makes me guilty as charged.

Before the publication of Around Her Finger, and long before our site ever came along, there were and there remain a great many sites dedicated to female led relationships. While most of these sites are nothing more than pornography with the window dressing of female authority, some of them are actually well-written, genuinely intelligent sites. Some of even include advice for men that want to nurture the dominant characteristics in their wives or girlfriends to open the door to LFA. They advocate service to their wives as a gateway to an open and honest dialogue about their submissive nature and where they ultimately want to take the relationship.

I think this is a wonderful approach, and for many, it is certainly successful. But I also think there are many men that need more than just this simple formula. I think many men need constant support and encouragement. They need examples and success stories. I also think they need alternative ways of initiating the “I want to submit” conversation. Furthermore, they need alternative ways of accelerating the relationship dynamic once it is established. They need to understand the steps along the way, and they often need the same encouragement for incremental steps forward as they did for the first step. Orgasm management, for example, is so crucial, yet so often underutilized, that we believe that we could never offer enough advice and tips on reinforcing its necessity in the wife-led relationship.

The other thing that we believe is needed is a place for men to send their wives to learn about the virtues of this relationship. Even the men that muster the courage to share their submissive desires with their wives are often not articulate enough to communicate these desires on their own. That does not take anything away from these men. Sharing deeply held emotional feelings is hard for almost any man. Couple the fact that these feelings and their implications are as complex as those associated with their submissive natures, and you have a recipe for an awkward conversation. That is why we not only continue to maintain the introductory tone that we do on this site, but we also offer tools to men to make this initial conversation easier. These include the books and confessional CD’s which have received so much praise from our readers and listeners over the years.

Others would tell submissive men to just obey and serve their wives as an end in itself. It is not that I disagree with this advice. On a philosophical level, I think it is beautiful advice and represents a very pure expression of submission. However, I have been involved in this community too long to think that this will be enough for most men. There is a sense of fulfillment that can only be met in a submissive man when there is an open, shared and very formal acknowledgement that she is the one in charge. In fact, I believe that the most significant contribution that Ken and I have made to the progress of wife-led relationships is that we reject outright the notion of “stealth” submission as a satisfying long-term strategy. Until the woman formally expresses her expectation that her man will obey her, then loving female authority remains unconsummated in the relationship.

So in the end are we enabling the man that wants to encourage new behaviors in his wife? Yes, we are. However, we do so with the larger goals of fostering greater communication, greater intimacy, and a more natural and perfect order in the relationship.

Letters from Men

Dear Ken,

I divorced over five years ago. I would not say that my ex-wife’s lack of interest in my submission was the deciding factor in our divorce, but I would say that our marriage could probably have been saved had she been more open to it and had I understood it better myself. At the time, there was nothing like your site available. I didn’t even understand what it was I wanted, and my submissive [nature] expressed itself primarily as a list of sexual activities in which I wanted my ex-wife to participate. I very casually grouped her lack of interest in these activities into a label of “sexually unadventurous” which I was quick to apply to her. She grouped my great interest in these same activities into her own adjective, but I will spare you and your readers that detail.

So ultimately I always felt like there was something missing in our relationship, and we ended up going our separate ways. I was divorced for over three years before I discovered your website, but once I did, I was absolutely committed to the idea that my next wife would understand this side of me before we got married, and she would be willing to take the head of the household role in the relationship.

A long story short, I ended up meeting that woman, and I am now engaged. We have had many conversations on this topic, and I feel like we really connect on the subject and that we can make it work for both of us. We are scheduled to be married this June.

My question to you is regarding my future last name. It seems as though the right thing to do is for me to take her last name. After all, I already willingly submit to her, and she it clearly the alpha-spouse (as you like to say) in the relationship. At the same time, it seems as though it would be an awkward thing, and I would be forever explaining it to others. I have yet to speak to her about the topic as I would first like to hear your advice.

Gary in Arizona

Ken responds…

The context of your letter is more interesting than your question. It is amazing for you to look back in hindsight and see that a better mutual understanding of your submission could have rescued your marriage. When the need for female authority is filtered through the male mind, the sexual components are often the only ones to surface. Both parties don’t realize that these same instincts can foster intimacy that goes beyond conventional expectations for a relationship. So while that last chapter in your life ended sadly, I am at least encouraged that this new chapter seems to be off to a good start.

As to whether or not to take her name, I think it is of little consequence. Inside your marriage, you will both know that she is in charge and behave accordingly. This is really what’s important. Taking her name would make what is typically a very private element of your lives and wear it on your sleeves for others to see. If this is what you want, there is nothing wrong with it. Just be prepared for the consequences.

If you are troubled by the issue, perhaps a good compromise would be to each keep your own names. This is a very common trend, and it would certainly not attract any attention. In fact, when I showed your letter to Emily, this is what she suggested.

January 2007

Letters from Women

Dear Emily,

I guess I don’t understand why so many men have to agonize over their decision to share your site with their wives. I’m young (23), so maybe it’s a generational thing, but I can’t imagine any woman not loving this. In fact, the group of women that I hang out with are all determined that we will be in control in our relationships. I think the ideal of equality that women talked about in the sixties and seventies ridiculous. Women’s sexuality is biologically designed to give them the upper hand in the relationship. Men’s sexuality is biologically designed to make them dependent on women. Why should women settle for equality? Why should they settle for anything less than being totally in control?

I am still single and dating, but I waste very little time with men that don’t understand that I am going to be in charge in the relationship. It probably comes as no surprise to you, but even the most macho of men become like putty in my hands when I bring up this topic with them. I withhold sex on my first few dates with men not because of any old fashioned values, but rather because I know that done right this makes them more affectionate and more attracted to me. The first few times that we are intimate, I will have them [practice oral sex on me], but I will do nothing to return the favor. They resist until I tell them why I am doing this. I tell them I am doing it because I like to be in control and that this helps me “wrap them around my finger”. Once they understand this, they love it. I absolutely always point them to your website so that they will understand what I want and expect in a relationship.

I don’t know if I am typical of the new generation of women or not, but I am sure that there are more women like me now than there ever were. Please tell all the men that read your site to quit worrying about what their girlfriends and wives will think and just tell them what they want. Their wives probably already know it anyway.

Kate in Illinois

Emily responds…

Your letter is certainly not lacking in attitude. Bravo to the women of the younger generation that feel comfortable with their authority over the men in their lives. Many women, however, grew up in a more traditional world than you did, and they do need a gentler nudging into a female-led relationship that you might suppose.

Maybe more importantly, I think you raise an interesting point for discussion when you mention that younger women are more naturally embracing their dominant side and younger men are eager to accept it. Like you, I wonder just how pervasive your attitude is amongst women of your generation. You seem not only aware of what you want, but you seem gifted in your understanding of how your sexuality can be used to manipulate his submissive nature. While there is likely a growing openness to the attitude that you and your circle of friends embrace, I doubt that it is as well defined and as well understood amongst twenty-something women in general.

I would also suggest that as you move from your early twenties and closer to my -- still undisclosed -- age, that you will come to develop a very healthy respect for men that will compliment your dominant attitude very nicely. Well I agree that women should be the alpha-spouse in any relationship, I also value the man in my life tremendously and respect him as a person immeasurably. This is true even while I accept and demand his service and obedience to my authority. It is the perfect mix of mutual respect and loving female authority that makes our relationship so special to both of us.

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Dear Emily,

I am a forty-two year old, single woman. I have struggled with a weight problem my entire life, and I suppose this is at the heart of why I remain single. I feel like I am an attractive woman, but definitely heavier than I would like to be. I am writing because a friend of mine suggested your site to me as something in which I might be interested.

She suggested that many submissive men are attracted to larger women. She said that if I would be open to a female-led lifestyle, that maybe I could explore some of the online dating services to find a good match. I realize that this suggestion sounds like it could have offended me, but she is a good friend, and I really believe she only wants me to be happy. Also, she has confided in me that her own marriage is female-led, so she obviously is a fan of the idea in general.

She suggested I read through your site and make up my own mind. In looking at the material, I have to say that I am very impressed and definitely interested. I feel like this would be a wonderful way to express my sexuality, and that I could be very happy with a submissive man. However, I wonder what you think about my friend’s idea that many submissive men are interested in bigger women?

First, I don’t even know if this stereotype is true. Secondly, I don’t know that using this to my advantage would even be the right thing to do.

Unsigned in Seattle

Emily responds…

As to whether submissive men are more likely to be attracted to larger women, I have no way to know, but I suspect that this is not the case. However, since a primary point of attraction for submissive men is an outwardly dominant personality, I do believe that they are more likely to overlook body shape and physical attributes than their non-submissive peers. Perhaps this is the source of your friend’s thinking on the topic.

The real issue here is whether or not loving female authority appeals to you. If it does, then by all means pursue a relationship where this dynamic is in place. Typically, I recommend that people seeking an alpha-female relationship pursue partners on the basis of vanilla interests, and only after the relationship is established, introduce the concept to their partner. However, if you feel that vanilla relationships have eluded you due to your size or self-esteem issues stemming from your size, then by all means, explore the dating sites that are dedicated to matching submissive men with dominant women. While I have no first-hand experience with them, I am sure that they exist in abundance and have led to many successful relationships.

Letters from Men

Dear Ken,

For years I have had this nagging awareness that I have a problem with an addiction to femdom pornography and professional domination the way that some people have an addiction to drugs or alcohol.

I have been interested in this topic for as long as I can remember, and the problem has been evolving for about the last fifteen years. I say fifteen years because it was probably fifteen years ago that I first went to a professional dominatrix. At the time, I think I spent $250 for a one hour “session”. Since then, I have probably spent no less than $70,000 (I am not exaggerating) on professional dominants and femdom websites. Furthermore, this “habit” cost me my first marriage. You have to be pretty rich and pretty smart to hide the kind of money that I was spending from your wife, and I can tell you that I was neither of these. She found out about my habit and needless to say was not all too happy. The divorce cost me tens of thousands of dollars over what I have already mentioned and also led to shame and humiliation from a great many of my friends and associates as they learned from her what was behind the break-up.

You would think that all of this would have been enough to break me of my addiction, but like most addicts, it was only a step on the way down. I moved to another city to more or less escape the current mess of which I had made of my life. I took a job making less than half what I had been making, and funneled nearly all my spare cash into one particular professional dominatrix who was more than happy to take it. I knew that none of this made sense, but I just could not stop myself.

I found your site about this time last year. I immediately made a decision that I would break the cycle that was destroying me. I realized that what I really wanted was a real relationship that allowed me an outlet for my undeniable desire to submit to a woman. I started by going cold turkey on professional dominants and pornography. I also made an outright confession to the woman that I was dating by giving her your confessional CD and a copy of your book. To my great delight, she embraced the idea. She was in fact very enthusiastic about the whole thing.

I have since been able to open up to her like I have never been able to open up to anyone in my life. I actually told her all about my past, just as I am telling you now. Actually, with her I went into details which I don’t think are appropriate for this site, so she knows even more than you do. What makes her so wonderful is that she understands my past, understands my submission, and loves me for who I am. The vanilla part of our relationship is still the most significant part, but the loving female authority component has absolutely rescued me. I don’t even think about seeking out other outlets to try and quench the real hunger that my submissive nature has given me my entire life. For the first time I am truly satisfied and feel like I have found something that will work for me long term.

I know my case is probably extreme, so if you feel that it might be a little over the top for women being newly introduced to these concepts, then I completely understand your not publishing my letter. I just thought you should know the sort of real impact you have had on my life.

Unsigned

Ken responds…

We are publishing your letter for a couple of reasons. One, your story of being lost in what you refer to as your addiction and finding peace only when you were able to link your submission to genuine, loving female authority is a lesson for many of our male visitors. Secondly, your story illustrates to the female visitors to this site just how deep and intense the submissive nature can be in men. While many do a better job of controlling their impulses to indulge their fantasies than you did, I suspect that many of our submissive male readers are not at all surprised at how easily you were seduced by your desires.

Emily also responds…

Please take note of the fact that your recovery remains short-lived. Embrace the relationship in which you now find yourself and do everything you can to keep your partner happy, but do not use your relationship as a crutch. In other words, you need to be independently strong and able to resist falling into your old habits even if your new relationship -- for any reason -- does not last. Please consider professional counseling to assist you to that end.

-----

Dear Mrs. and Mr. Addison,

About four years ago, after a major argument with my wife, I realized that changes had to be made because I valued my relationship with my wife more than anything. After reflecting, I realized that many of our problems were because of 'control' issues. At the same time, I realized that we agreed on things 95% of the time. The other 5% was causing the problems, but I also realized that she was probably correct on many of these other issues while I was correct on some. Thus, my logic was that if I accepted her decisions as final, I would really be only giving in 2-3% of the time. So I decided that this was the thing to do, and I told her that from then on I would do as she said. I call this my capitulation.

I truly have tried to change and to follow her guidance in all issues. She recognizes that I have changed and says that she would not now accept me going back to the way I used to be. She admits that she was skeptical at first, but admires my perseverance. However, whenever I bring up the subject of her being "head of the house", she always blows it off or if she acknowledges it, it is only in a cursory manner..."yeah, yeah, let's change the subject now" type of thing.

What would mean a lot to me, especially after years of trying to change, would be for her to bring it up on her own, formally acknowledge my efforts, advising that she not only knows she is head of our family but also 'feels' it as well, that that is the way it is going to always be from now on and that she expects my continued obedience. Somehow, I guess I have a need for her authority to be formalized and recognized by her, without me prodding her to do so.

About six months ago, I showed her your site. After she read it, she came back to our room and gave me a kiss. Later, when we had retired to bed, she asked if that is what I really wanted. I told her yes, but she didn't respond; she just dropped the subject.

I have told her that I have reached the point where I feel that a matriarchal marriage just 'feels right', that women are more nurturing and that I am very comfortable with her being in charge of our family. She knows she is in charge, I can tell that from the way she acts. She even gives me a stern look if I forget and walk in front of her in a restaurant, etc.

But for some reason, she is hesitant to discuss it or 'formalize' it, and that is what I lack. At the same time, I don't want to push her to say something she doesn't feel or is uncomfortable with, just to [placate] me. I want it to come from her. Any thoughts?

Best regards,

Unsigned

Ken responds…

Loving female authority is truly the elephant in your living room. It is sitting there whether or not your wife wants to acknowledge it.

She is ignoring the topic simply because she is uncomfortable with it. That said, sometimes people need to get past their discomfort and talk about difficult topics. I suggest you tell her that there is something you really want to discuss with her. Have her agree to set aside some time so that you will know she cannot use another commitment as an excuse to break off the conversation. If you drink, it might not be a bad idea to have the conversation over a couple glasses of wine.

Think about structuring the conversation to accommodate her lack of comfort. Open by telling her that you know that this is a difficult topic, and you do not expect her to be able to open up completely about how she feels about the subject. You, however, need to have a practiced and articulate expression of your own feelings. Say everything you want to say in a consciously non-threatening way. Our site is full of tips to help you do this. Next, rather than waiting for a long, heartfelt reply from her, you should prepare follow up questions that she can answer very quickly without her having to open up right on the spot. For example, ask her if she appreciates the way that you are more accommodating to her requests. Ask if she would like you to add even more chores and tasks to make her life more comfortable. Tell her you would like to buy a massage table for her and ask if she would be up to letting you give her more massages. All of these questions have simple yes or no answers.

Then, tell her you know how subjects like orgasm management and ‘formalizing the relationship dynamic’ seem weird, but nonetheless, they are important to you. Ask her if, in her own time, she will consider trying them with you. For orgasm management, you can offer her a little two sided paperweight to keep next to the bed which, depending on which side is turned up or down, dictates that you will or will not be allowed to orgasm that night. This way she does not even have to verbally communicate it to you. You can also use the little “magic thong” trick that we mentioned in the last post to this update, but the paperweight works just as well and probably costs less.

Getting comfortable with a wife led relationship and getting comfortable in talking about it are two different things. You need to be understanding of this fact, but she also needs to realize its importance to you.

-----

Dear Ken,

I find that nothing is more gratifying than the very intense sense of submission that follows intimate contact with my wife where she actively witholds my orgasm. However, she gives me orgasms as a sort of reward for good behavior. This ends up creating a self-defeating cycle where she witholds my orgasm, I behave like the adoring and obedient husband that she wants, and I am rewarded wtih an orgasm as a result of my behavior.

Is this a common problem? It seems like it would be. Do you have any suggestions.

Unsigned

Ken responds...

While Emily and I do not like to discuss our personal experiences online (instead relying on our general opinions born of experience and reinforced by the anecdotes of others), I will share with you that I went through the same issue. It is sort of like staring at a piece of chocolate cake. You depserately want to eat it, but afterwards, you feel a bloated sense of discontent. Your physical needs have been satisfied, but it did nothing for the more gratifying sense of self-discipline that would have come with walking away. In your case, however, your physical needs are a constant, but you wish that your wife would provide the discipline. A sense of her exerting authority via her sexuality is far more rewarding than any physical experience. In a relationship based on loving female authority, this represents an affectionate token of her love for you that is real and genuinely powerful.

I got past this problem by discussing it with Emily. We now have a much more enlightened approach to orgasm management that is satisfying for both of us. She understands that at the same time that I want the orgasm, there is a very real part of me that does not want it. We are considering publishing a very detailed essay on our approach, but for now just know that it is not just a simple system of manipulation and reward as your wife seems to be pursuing.

If you have read our book(s), look to the coin toss game and the philosophy behind it as an idea for a new direction. The key to this game is that whether or not you have an orgasm should be out of your control. Look to her instincts, impulses and good judgement as to what is best for you.

-----

Dear Ken,

Just got my “magic thong” this week and gave it to my wife. What an icebreaker! She laughed, but she also listened. We talked like never before.

Please pass my thanks along to whoever it was that wrote you suggesting the idea.

Have a great ’07,

Paul in New Jersey

The Gift of Self Sacrifice

We are always looking for clever, non-threatening ways for aspiring submissive husbands to introduce the idea of a female-led relationship to their wife or girlfriend. Here is a clever suggestion sent in by a reader. We have taken the liberty of helping to make it a little easier by setting up the product on cafepress.com (the same site that hosts our AHF Boutique). Silly as it seems, the reader calls it the "Magic Thong" approach to orgasm management.

Go to this link (Magic Thong) and purchase your wife or girlfriend the pair of panties with the subtle orgasm management message printed on them. Then give them the gift with the following letter neatly printed out. (Note, we have also created a card on cafepress.com with the message pre-printed. This will make it seem even less like you had a personal hand in creating the gift. The card can be purchased here. You have to purchase a minimum of eight cards on the cafepress site, so really, we recommend you just type it out yourself.)

***

The Gift of Self-Sacrifice:

Because we both know that I can sometimes be a bit selfish, I wanted to give you this special present which is definately all about you. Surprise me by slipping into them one night. When I see that you are wearing them, I promise to give you a night of passion that leaves you completely satisfied. Moreso, I will prove my selflessness by promising not to end up with any satisfaction, so to speak, myself.

Sound a little crazy? Maybe it is, but it sounds fun too.

xoxoxo,

***

After you give her the panties, I think it is very likely that eventually she will take you up on your offer. Just make sure you deliver as promised. Also, although you will find that you her active management of your orgasms will greatly intensify your submissive feelings, you need to go absolutely overboard so that she understands the impact that intimate contact without climax has on you. Leave no doubts in her mind that managing your orgasms leads to very desirable behaviors on your part. Building this link in her mind is an important first step in showing what is in it for her.

December 2006

Letters from Women

Dear Emily,

I was very excited to have discovered your site, and more importantly, to discover that there is a community of women that have embraced the idea that the wife is often, if not always, best suited to the role of head of household. I would like to share the story of how loving female authority (even though we did not call it that at the time) became the norm in our marriage, and how it has changed since discovering your website.

My husband and I met in our early twenties. We were both very educated and ambitious people. Our careers and our relationship competed for attention, but after several years of dating, we struck a good balance of what worked for us, and we became married. My husband’s career was actually the one that began to skyrocket, but as he became more and more successful, I noticed that he was becoming more and more attentive to me in the time that we spent together. It was clear that he was taking great pains to figure out what pleased me, and even greater pleasure in doing these things for me. He was rubbing my feet every night, offering me massages, and despite his long hours at work, doing much if not most of the housework.

While you would think that all of this would have been any woman’s dream, I was actually struggling with our relationship at this time. In fact, I think my husband’s behavior might have initially been a way to overcompensate for the fact that I was quite jealous of his success at work, and my competitive and naturally dominant nature was not comfortable with his greater degree of success. So while he was overcompensating by being particularly attentive, I was overcompensating by being particularly demanding and often critical. However, I noticed that the more demanding that I would become, the more he seemed to embrace my authority. I stopped asking him to do things and instead told him to do things. If he did not rub my feet long enough, I would tell him to get back down and finish. I started practicing orgasm [management] even before I had heard what the term meant. Very often, I would have him go down on me and then just roll over and go to bed when I had reached my climax.

All of this was happening in the absence of any real communication between us, and honestly, I do not know that this type of relationship would be sustainable in the absence of communication. So one evening, we finally had a real heart to heart about every aspect of our relationship. I conceded that I was very envious of his career success. He was now making tripled the money that I was making. We also discussed what I have just described in terms of how our behavior towards each other seemed to derive from my envy and his awareness of my envy, as if he felt guilty for being successful. But despite the fact that my becoming more dominant and him becoming more submissive was grounded in envy and miscommunication, it also turned out that we both liked it.

I told him that I felt I was well suited to the dominant role and liked having a sense of control and authority. He told me that nothing would make him happier than continuing and even accelerating this dynamic, so long as it was accompanied by the open dialogue and genuine affection for each other that had characterized our the earlier days of our marriage. So, years before I had even heard of loving female authority, we started practicing it.

I told you early in my letter that my marriage has changed since discovering your site, and I now want to tell you what I meant by that. I had always struggled with the fact that I thought I was the only woman in the world that had cemented my authority over my husband in the way that I had. I thought that we must have been a very peculiar circumstance, and that this was our thing and our thing alone. The discovery that there are many marriages like this, and that there are even many more men that seek out marriages like this was like lifting a weight off of my shoulders. Suddenly nothing felt strange to me about my relationship any longer.

As a result, I have become liberated in my thinking. Inhibitions that I have had about pushing limits with my husband are now gone. By being exposed to this site and others like it, I now have a better sense of the psychology that underlies my husband’s submission, and I am open to allowing him to express his love for me with submission in ways that I might not have in the past. Also, I am not so casual about my approach to orgasm [management]. My husband and I have now spoken openly about the role that is plays in our relationship, and I am no longer practicing it by chance, but rather by design. All in all, your site has given him and me much to talk about, and I think we understand each other better as a result.

Please keep up the good work that you do in your letters updates. It seems that most sites have difficulty in maintaining the steady stream of content over a long period of time. You are one of the few that has done it consistently, and I applaud you for it.

Sincerely,

Kim in New York

Emily responds…

Your letter serves to reinforce my belief that loving female authority is a completely natural evolution in the way that men and women relate to each other. You did not need an instruction manual to make it work in your marriage, it happened as a result of your husband’s innate need to serve you, and your innate desire to lead him.

I hope you will keep in touch. I suspect that there are aspects to your relationship that would provide great direction to others that are not so far along in their journey as are you and your husband.

-----

Dear Emily,

My husband and I have had an Around Her Finger marriage for about two and a half years. As with others that have written to this site, we have had times when the dynamic has been more intense than others, but overall, it has had a wonderful impact on our marriage, and any time that it starts to ebb in intensity, I have always been able to bring it back through some of the basic techniques that you have recommended on your site.

I write you now because of something unsettling that I just discovered in my husband’s history folder on the computer. It seems that he has been spending some time on websites that, while related to loving female authority, seem to be something entirely different than what you talk about on here and what we live at home.

I have not even confronted him about it, because I am not sure that I should have been snooping on his computer and how he will react to that. Do you have any suggestions on how to handle this? I am including some of the web addresses so that you can get an idea of what I am discussing.

Unsigned

Emily responds…

First and most importantly, of course you are entitled to look at his history folder. He surrenders any pretense to privacy, beyond what you might decide to allow, when you formally accept your new roles in the relationship. This is to both of your benefit, as your husband needs you control and guidance.

I have taken the liberty of going to the websites you forwarded me (I was familiar with most of them). I have put together a discussion guide using some of my own content as well as some cutting and pasting from the websites. I suggest that you have your husband prepare you a nice meal, and that you have him open a bottle of wine for the two of you. After dinner, sit somewhere comfortable and have him strip and kneel in front of you. Then, pull out my discussion guide, and point by point… start taking him through the material.

This will serve several key objectives. First and foremost, it will make him aware that you know about his web surfing. Let him also know that you will continue to monitor his web habits, and that you have in fact installed software so that you can more closely control his surfing (which is readily available online). Also, you want to understand his interest in these other topics. You want to get him to talk about these topics and not let him simply shrug off the discussion with short answers that hide his real thinking. It is your right and your duty to understand his sexuality. Then, when you feel you better understand him; you can make some decisions about how to proceed.

You may want to indulge some of the activities and make it perfectly clear that some of the others will never happen. Or, you may want to threaten that some of them may happen whether you really intend to move forward with them or not. One of the activities on the sites you sent me is a particularly powerful tool for reinforcing male submission from just a fantasy perspective, and you can use just the threat of it without ever having to act on it.

I have sent you my home phone number if you want to discuss this in more detail.

Letters from Men

Dear Emily and Ken,

The wife and two girls from her work usually go out one Friday a month. They just go to a local tavern that has a decent happy hour and draws a nice crowd. These "girl's nights" almost always lead to a big fight between us. My wife is 29, very attractive (easily the most attractive of the three) and outgoing, and I have to admit I do not like the idea of her putting herself out there like that. Although she denies it, and gets pissed when I say it, she is very flirtatious (she calls it outgoing) and could easily give a guy the wrong idea. Most of our fights occur because she almost always comes home much later then she says she will and always drinks to much (in my opinion). I believe that once she gets out and starts drinking, she simply forgets about coming home at a decent time, and instead goes along with whatever her friends want to do, which is drink more, hang out, and dance while I sit at home and wait. I admit that jealousy is also a factor here.

Last night was this month’s girl’s night out, and once again it was supposed to be just a few drinks and home by midnight. Since they head out at 7pm, midnight seems like a reasonable time to come home. True to form, last night she wasn't home at midnight. I tried to stay calm, as I did not want to ruin the weekend with yet another fight on this same subject. I was playing some poker online, drinking beer, and watching the clock. I hesitated to call her because that really pisses her off. She says she is the only one whose husband calls to "check up" on them. Honestly, I find that hard to believe, but have no proof to the contrary. At 12:30, I could not resist. I called her and she answered. I could hear music in the background. She said that they were getting ready to leave, but the bartender offered to buy them dessert, "death by chocolate", so she was going to share that, then leave. She said she'd be home shortly. 1am rolled around and she called me from the bathroom. Said they were dancing and finishing up another drink and would be leaving soon. I was pissed, but stayed calm, if not a little cold.

I've been thinking lately, and especially through the night last night, that I needed to chill out and allow her more freedom. We are both stubborn people and it just seems that I cannot win these arguments with her. I can't convince her that she should come home when she says she will, or that she sends the wrong message to other guys (like bartenders or other patrons). These fights are very frustrating and not worth ruining a weekend over. She has proven that she will not back down and until last night, I have shown the same trait.

When she walked in at almost 2am last night I was calm. Normally I would have worked myself up into a rage. I think I just gave up. As expected she was drunk as was I. I know she walked in the door prepared for a battle, just like very other night. Instead I was silent. I didn't yell and scream or ask her why she was so late. Instead we lay in bed. As I often do before we have sex, I moved down and rubbed and kissed her ass. She loves that (as do I) and I know she was not expecting that kind of treatment tonight. While I was down rubbing she talked about her night. In the past she has never discussed her nights out. I always quiz her, usually in a rage, and she just says we did nothing but hang out and talk about work. Last night was different. She told me that they danced and that someone at the bar was buying shots, and that some guy talked to them about going to another bar, and all kinds of other details. Several things she told me would normally have pissed me off, but not last night. In a way I felt defeated, like she just won our longstanding tests of wills. It was a mixed feeling. I reached down and rubbed her feet, telling her that I was sure they would be sore from all the dancing she did. It just seemed like the right thing to do. She was appreciative. I was enjoying this new, maybe temporary, role. After about 30 minutes, we went to sleep. We didn't have sex even though I was extremely aroused.

Now just a brief background. For awhile, off and on, I have been intrigued by female led relationships. I have never pursued it, as I am to stubborn, independent, and used to getting my way. It's one of those things that sounds good, but just never seemed realistic or possible for me. Last night I got to thinking that if I backed down and gave up on this ongoing battle that has been raging for over a year, maybe that would be a start in leading us down the path. It was not a plan I concocted, and I'm not sure if it is what I really wanted or not, but last night it felt like the right thing to do. Today, it still does.

She woke this morning in a good mood. She was almost smug, but happy with me. I got the sense that she knew something major happened last night. She won a major battle and I think she knows it. And more importantly, enjoyed the feeling. Today was a far cry from our normal day after "girl’s night". We had sex in the morning and had a great day today. I am intrigued by the possible shift that happened last night and am curious as to your thoughts. I am not sure how to, or if I even should, proceed. I am a bit confused and appreciate any guidance.

Unsigned

Ken responds…

I love your letter because it calls out one of the great unsung benefits of Around Her Finger marriages. Once you submit to your wife, once you acknowledge that she is in control and that your first responsibilities are to obey and serve her, you will achieve both a peace of mind and a “peace of relationship” that is worth many times more than simply getting your way on miniscule points.

My only advice is that you need to share this awareness with her, do not accept an unspoken arrangement. Either write her a personal note or have a copy of the Around Her Finger confessional CD available the next time she comes home from one of her nights out with the girls. Let her know that her new freedom is permanent and that she will not be the only one benefiting from a female led household.

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Dear Around Her Finger,

I am single and looking for a dominant woman to share my life with!

What do dominant women look for in a guy? How do I attract a dominant woman into my life? I think being honest and open to a woman about my desires will only profit me. I agree with pretty much everything you say on your site!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely.

Stephen

Ken responds…

I don’t know that I have much expertise on what the best approach is to finding a dominant woman. Our site is more focused on nurturing the dominant role in women with whom submissive men already have a vanilla relationship.

There are websites that help match submissive men with dominant women, but I would suggest you date women with an eye towards compatibility independent of your submissive nature. Once you feel close to someone, then it would be appropriate to open up about this side of your personality. Her attitude towards your openness and honesty will be a good indication of your long-term viability as a couple.

Emily and I have discussed this, and we both agree with the above response. However, we are open to other opinions on this topic. If someone would like to write us with different suggestions, we would be happy to pass them along.

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Dear Ken,

I have been openly submissive to my wife for eighteen months, and it is all thanks to your website and your confessional CD. My wife and I are both huge fans of your site. In fact, she just bought your book to give to her little sister that got married in October. Stay tuned on how that plays out!

I am writing because I have a problem and a solution, but I’m not sure the solution is appropriate. I have been very busy at work, and I just have not had the time to be as good with the housecleaning as my wife would like. I am doing all I can, but I just can’t keep up. I make a very good living, and I can afford to hire a maid, but is this ok? Is it ok to have a woman in my home doing the work that I, as a submissive husband, should be doing?

Your opinion would be greatly respected by both of us.

Jeff in Arizona

Ken responds…

It would be better if you can continue to do the work, but as you say, it may not be practical. I wonder if maybe it would not be better to get someone to help with the outside yard work? Would this free up time for you to dedicate to the inside housework? I say this because I like the idea of you doing what was once regarded by society as the “wife’s work” because it reinforces your new roles. If you do hire help, you should continue to do some chores that are at least symbolically significant. For example, you can do your wife’s laundry even if your hired help is doing everything else.

As to whether is it ok that the help be a woman, I am indifferent on this. Of course it would be better if all the domestic work in your home was done by men, but even if you could find a man that does this work, would your wife feel comfortable in having him around when you were not home? Also, to avoid situations where men are served by women is virtually impossible. Can you not eat out at restaurants where you are waited on by a woman? This would start to seem silly. What you can do is to be absolutely certain that you treat the women with whom you come in contact with the respect and reverence that they deserve. This is really the more important imperative.

November 2006

Letters from Women

Dear Emily,

I am one of those conservative wives that were knocked off of her feet by my husband’s recent revelation that he was submissive. I never had any idea that this sort of thing existed, and I will admit that it has taken some getting used to.

I knew that something was up before he ever opened up about what was really happening. He had gone through the whole mess about doing all of our laundry and cooking dinner. He said he just wanted to start contributing more around the house, but I knew that something else must be going on. At the same time he began stopping himself before he would have orgasms. He had always been one to spend a great deal of attention to my needs during sex (that is to say he always was generous with oral sex), but this new thing about stopping himself before finishing was just bizarre. The first time it happened, I thought I must have been mistaken. I figured he had an orgasm with an unusually small amount of semen, and I just didn’t notice it. The second time, however, I was sure that he did not finish, so I said something about it. He said that he didn’t feel like he deserved it because he had forgotten to make the bed. Honestly, I thought that was about the weirdest thing in the world, but I said nothing about it.

Then he went into a period where he scaled back on all of the things that he had been doing. Without any explanation, the laundry started piling up, he stopped cooking meals, and he became just a little less interested in sex. Being uncomfortable with the entire series of events in the first place, I didn’t say anything about it. When, over a month later, he left your book and a short note on his pillow when he left for work in the morning, I was completely taken back.

I would describe my journey into loving female authority in three stages: rejection, open-mindedness, and now, total convert. I initially thought the entire thing was weird, and just ignored it. I pretended as if he had never left the book on my pillow, and as far as he knew, I had never read his note or the book at all. It was only two full months later, and having spent time on your website, that I finally told my husband that we should talk about it. We had a very awkward conversation in which he ultimately told me that he loved me no matter if I ever wanted to explore this or not. I love him too, there is no denying it, so I told him that if it was important to him, I would try it.

We started with me giving him simple lists of tasks I wanted him to do. I then started having him give me foot massages every night. I have to admit, it was really working for me. I loved feeling like the center of attention. Then he would slip off the wagon a bit, and I wondered if it was really a fad. That’s when he came forward about how important it was that I controlled his orgasms. That very night while we were making love, I had him pull off of me before he had his orgasm. That’s when I learned first-hand how important this was to getting his attention focused on me. A man’s selfishness and self-centeredness is directly tied to whether or not he has climaxed. Also, it seems directly related to whether or not I stopped him from having it as an overt and conscious decision.

All of this again seems kind of weird now that I am typing out this letter. But as I said, I am definitely a total convert to your teachings. He is happier, I am happier, and we are definitely closer as a couple thanks to this new element in our marriage. I think that submission breaks down many of the defenses that a man puts up that keep him from opening up and sharing emotions with his wife. My husband is now much more willing to share very deep thoughts and feelings with me, and I could never give this up. Also, I am growing to feel accustomed to his obedience and to all the many things that he does for me. Perhaps this is selfishness of my own, but as it makes us both happy, I will allow myself this guilty pleasure.

Mary Beth

Emily responds…

Although you may have said it tongue in cheek, one should never feel guilty about allowing your submissive husband the very satisfying outlet of serving you. The more demanding that you are with your husband; the more he will adore you. In fact, try this experiment. Write down a list of five requests which you feel are progressively more outrageous than the last. Watch as your husband lights up with each successive request. He loves serving you because it is the consummate expression of his love for you. Allow him every chance to express himself, and enjoy every moment of it.

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Dear Emily,

Thank God for your site. I have met a wonderful school teacher on an interracial matchmaking site a year ago. I am a black female, he is Italian tall, beautiful thick curly hair and very masculine looking and acting.

Our first conversation was incredible. We wanted the same things in life, a good relationship, based on respect and monogamy, and children. During the course of the first conversation, he immediately asked how I felt about submissive men. No one knew, EVER that I had this very dominate side to my nature and I secretly fantasized about dominating my man. I had let the desire lay dormant because I thought if I ever asked a guy that he would think that I am accusing him of being weird. Our conversations after that first door-opener have been wonderful and liberating.

It has been a year now, and I have still not moved forward, mainly because I did not know how. Before this site, I too thought a dominant woman was like the dramatic images seen in movies and on T.V. You have stated it perfectly... I want to be a LOVING female authority figure for my man. I want it as much as he does.

I think I am going to learn a great deal here, and I want to finally move this relationship out of neutral and into drive.

Thank you,

Angel

Emily responds...

Best of luck to you, Angel. For a woman that is naturally dominant, I think you will find that the baby steps we offer on our site represent the beginning of a wonderful journey. I am sure that wherever you want to take this journey will be mutually beneficial for you and your new boyfriend.

I want to add that I find it interesting that your submissive boyfriend was seeking black women on an interracial dating site. At the risk of stereotyping, it seems to me that African American women appear more outwardly dominant than white women. I obviously have no statistical evidence to support this, but I know that I have had male letter writers suggest this in the past. I would be interested in your thoughts on this. Did your boyfriend have the same preconceived notions that I have, and did he seek out an interracial relationship on this basis?

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Dear Emily,

As I have for at least the past 3 months, I just walked away from my husband after he disobeyed me. I've been trying to practice loving female authority, but he doesn't respond to the loving part or the authority. Take the simplest thing, but one that always makes me angry. My husband and I do the dishes together, but he insists on putting them away wet. They're not damp; they're wet. I've asked him nicely to dry them. I've told him he's not doing anything I don't do, because I make sure mine are dry. I've yelled at him to dry them, and he makes excuses about why he can't or doesn't dry them. I've denied him orgasms, and he's promised to dry the dishes completely, only to break the promise every time. We have many other problems, and loving female authority just isn't working in general. Maybe if you can give me some suggestions on how to make him obey.

Finally, I don't know if this has anything to do with what's going on, but my husband always defied the women in his life. He never valued his mother's or grandmother's opinions, and they're the ones who raised him. In any case, I'd really appreciate any ideas. If something doesn't change, I'm filing for divorce. I'm completely tired of having to do everything if I want it done right, hearing his excuses, and arguing with him.

Thanks for your help.

Angie

Emily responds…

I have said many times that loving female authority is not the only component of a healthy and successful marriage; it is only one wonderful dynamic for contributing to an otherwise positive relationship. You need to assess whether or not the core elements of trust, love, friendship and respect were or are present in your marriage.

It sounds like you have been going through some difficult times, and difficult times are often better handled with help. I suggest you reach out to someone in your local community, maybe a member of the clergy or a marriage therapist that can help you determine what course of action will ultimately lead to the happiest outcome for everyone involved.

Letters from Men

Dear Emily and Ken,

Thanks for responding to my letter in your recent update.

You may recall that while my wife and I were both very interested in pursuing an Around Her Finger marriage, we had recently fallen off the wagon a bit. My wife agreed with your suggestions and things are back on track.....and we are both loving it.

Kind regards,

Tim

Ken responds…

Very glad to hear back from you. Sometimes we post advice on the web and never get any feedback as to how the situation played out. I am glad to hear that her recommitment to some of the core practices in LFA has worked out for both of you.

-----

Dear Emily and Ken,

I read a wife's post in the September entry of your letters update that said she no longer gives her husband oral sex. I didn't think I'd see a comment like this from someone who relates to the Around Her Finger philosophy, which is more benign than some of the more militant approaches to female leadership in the home that I have seen elsewhere.

I realize in the Wife-Led Marriage, or Female Led Relationship, it is about HER pleasure. However, the idea that a wife should not, or does not, give oral sex to her husband as a matter of ....policy... seems be more in line with extreme approaches.

What your thoughts are on the wife giving oral sex to her husband?

Thank you.

Arnold

Ken responds…

The main focus of our site is providing an introductory soft landing zone for those being introduced to wife-led marriages for the first time. We do not necessarily advocate boundaries for the relationship dynamic once a couple becomes comfortable with the core notion that the woman is the alpha-spouse in the relationship.

I assume that many women enjoy giving oral sex. These women should indulge this pleasure and do as they choose. I also assume that many women do not. These women should feel no sense of obligation to do anything… sexual or otherwise that they do not want to do in their marriage.

Your wife should decide what boundaries are appropriate in your marriage and more specifically in your bedroom, and you should abide by them. If she wants to indulge your own interest in receiving oral sex or her interest in giving it, that is completely up to her. That is the best advice I can offer on the topic.

-----

Dear Emily and Ken,

Before introducing my wife to your site, I used to fantasize about all sorts of activities that we could do together which represented more intense activities than you have ever discussed on these pages. While you do not discuss these activities for good reason, I am sure that you are familiar with them. Other sites do discuss them, and in fact, other sites seem to focus on them.

Now that my wife has accepted the dominant role in our household (a long story, but off topic), I find that I still fantasize about these activities. I suspect that mentioning them to my wife would risk ruining everything that we have been able to accomplish with loving female authority so far. Do you suggest that I just keep these fantasies to myself, or, as you said in a previous response, do you feel that I should share this with my wife as she is likely better equipped to understand and help me deal with these issues?

Roger in New Mexico

Ken responds…

Roger, this is a great letter. It really put me on the spot. I ran it by Emily and we discussed a response.

You are correct. Certain topics exist for which the (predominately male) members of our audience would like us to discuss, but we do not as they violate the core purpose of this site. I am not certain of exactly what activities you refer, but as a web-savvy submissive man, you have no doubt been exposed to the many ways that men have sought to satisfy their desire to submit to a woman. I am not making a judgment call on any of these activities, but I can say with certainty that the audience of women that would be open to participating in these activities is much smaller than the audience of women that are open to loving female authority as we describe it on our site and in our books. Also, many men have written this site to tell us that once they experienced true loving female authority, their desire for these activities went by the wayside. Yours, however, has not, so let us deal with your situation and toss the generalities aside.

You obviously need to make a determination on whether or not you want to share your interest in these activities with your wife, but you should first ask yourself why you want to share these fantasies. If it is because you hope that by sharing them that she will embrace them, then this is a calculated risk. If it is instead because you feel that by opening up that she will have a better idea as to the deeper nature of your submission and be in a better position to nurture it – regardless of whether these activities are ever to be explored- then this makes more sense to me.

You know your wife better and have a better instinct as to how she will react. Philosophically, Emily and I both agree that you should keep no secrets from your wife. As to the practical concerns that might arise from opening up to her, you are better positioned to predict how she will react than are we. However, I suspect the risk of merely raising the topics for discussion offers very little downside as long as you are not improperly pushy as to the outcome that you desire.

Weekend Workshop is Taking Place

Interest in the workshop was much greater than I expected. We are now definately on for the event, and at this time we are completely booked with five couples scheduled to attend and three on the waiting list.

Thanks to everyone that expressed interest.

National TV Show Seeks Wife-led Household: $20,000 Participation Fee

I have been solicited by a national, prime-time television show to help them locate a family with a wife-led marriage to participate in an episode of their show, Wife Swap. I have done some minor due diligence, and I believe that the offer is genuine. I am posting a letter they have sent to me. Please contact me at Emily.Addison at gmail.com if you would like me to refer you to the casting producer. As part of full disclosure, please note that I will receive a modest referral fee for passing your name along.

Emily Addison

---

I'm a Casting Producer with ABC and we're looking to feature families who live by the Submissive Husband philosophy for our hit family program, Wife Swap. We would love to meet families who are passionate about passing this philosophy on to others and we're looking for wholesome families who spend true quality time together and treasure good old fashioned values with their children.

In case you are unfamiliar with the show, Wife Swap is a family show on ABC primetime. The premise is simple: two moms from two very different families get the opportunity to swap lives for one week to experience what it's like to live a different lifestyle. This also provides them the chance to see what they can teach another family about their own philosophy. The goal of our show is for two families with different viewpoints on life and family to both give and take away something positive by “stepping outside the box” for one week.

We are looking for two parent families with children between the ages of 5 and 18 who have outgoing personalities! All featured families receive a $20,000 honorarium as a thank you for their ten day filming commitment.

I appreciate any help you can offer in reaching out to these families. I look forward to hearing from you!

Around Her Finger Weekend Workshop

We are in the preliminary stages of planning a three day workshop on the topic of Loving Female Authority for January 19th to 21st. Preliminary might be an understatement, as we have not decided for certain that we will actually go forward with the event. We do, however, want to solicit our readers to determine the level of interest before moving ahead.

The likely location would be a luxury resort property located in the Southeastern United States. Guests would arrive Friday January 19th, and we would convene for a welcome dinner that evening. Saturday would be filled with workshops, dinner again that night, and then a final group activity on Sunday before departing.

We would limit the attendance to no more than five couples (six including ourselves). This would be a not-for-profit event for Ken and I, but as best as we can tell at this point, the cost would be roughly $1,000 per couple. This would include the costs of the room, both dinners (excluding alcohol), lunch, breakfast, and the cost of the on-site meeting room.

We would first do telephone interviews with all the couples so that we know going into the event that everyone is roughly in the same stage of development in their LFA dynamic. Please email me regarding your interest directly at first.last at gmail.com (obviously substituting my own name in place of first.last).

Emily Addison

October 2006

Letters from Women

Dear Emily,

I recently was made aware of your site and wanted to share the details of how I met the man that brought it to my attention.

I often go the coffee shop near my home to read my newspaper. I tend to dress well in public, even for my trips to the coffee shop. On this morning I was wearing a pair of pumps that while very cute, were also very uncomfortable. I decided to reach down and remove them when I sat down so that I could get more comfortable with my paper. When I did so, I noticed that the younger man sitting near me seemed to take notice. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him staring at my feet over the laptop on which he was working .

This man was much younger than I am. I dont' think I look it all, but I just had my fifty-eighth birday last week. I have taken yoga for years, and I am very careful about what I eat. I have also had a couple of selective cosmetic procedures, so I believe I could pass for a woman in her early forties. That said, this man seemed to be in his late twenties or early thirties (He is, in fact, thirty-three). He was very well groomed, and he was a very good looking man. My first instinct when I saw him staring at my feet was that I might have imagined it. However, when I put my feet up on the coffee table in front of me, I unmistakeably saw him repeat his stare.

I was still certain that he did not know I had caught him staring. I decided to test it further. I stretched out one foot directly in front of me and rubbed it with my hands. This time I had to work hard to pretend not to notice his reaction. He was sitting up and he actually seemed like he took a deep breath to get control of himself. I was quite tickled that I seemed to be having this effect on him. I have been divorced for almost two years, and I was delighted by the attention I was receiving.

I then decided to try something even less subtle. A few minutes later, I allowed one of the sections of my paper to drop to the floor. Well, you cannot imagine how quickly he set down his laptop to pick up that newspaper. I thanked him, then introduced myself. We began to make small talk, and as we did, I made a point of calling attention to my feet. He made some very worthless attempts to hide his interest, but his eyes were letting him down. Emboldened by my certainty, I again stuck my foot out in front of me. I rubbed it telling him that I had done quite a bit of walking yesterday, and that my feet were very sore as a result. This made him very nervous, and he became toungue-tied trying to formulate a response. I pointed out that he seemed to be quite interested in my feet. I stared and smiled waiting for a response.

Later he would tell me that he was overcome with a desire to kneel in front of me and take my feet in his hands, rubbing them and kissing them. At the moment, however, he said nothing. I was nearly finished with my paper at this point, so I collected my things and told him that I must be going. I was hoping that he might ask for my number, but he was much too shy for this. I told him that I come to the coffee shop regularly and hoped to see him again.

Sure enough, the next morning he returned. When I walked into the shop, he was seated in the exact same location that he had been the day before. We again made some small talk, but this time he was prepared with some ideas about how to handle his reluctance to move beyond idle chatter. He admitted that he had in fact been staring at my feet the day before, and added that it was only because he considered them and me very attractive. He then asked if I might be willing to have a glass of wine with him that evening. I told him I had plans, but that the following evening was open. He took my number, but before he took his leave, he handed me a wonderful hand-written note.

In the note he apologized for his shyness the day before, and wanted to provide an explanation for his behavior. He said that he was overcome not only by my beauty, but by a certain confidence that I seemed to possess. He said that I was the sort of woman that men were eager to put on a pedestal and adore, and he hoped that he might have a chance to do just that. He said that a man is happiest when he puts a woman's happiness before his own, and that he wanted to explore this sort of relationship with me. Upon reading the note, I was quite anxious for him to call me. When he did, I thanked him for the note, and I made the comment that his thoughts seemed very well developed and articulated. He said that he had thought about what makes him happy for a very long time, and had developed this notion not only on his own, but through a number of websites that supported this theory. He mentioned yours by name.

He then went on to suggest that we meet at a restaurant very near my home for that glass of wine the next evening. I agreed to meet him, and when I hung up the phone, I immediately looked up your site. I was very surprised at what I saw. I thought that he clearly had a foot fetish, but was really not even aware that submissive men of the type you describe even existed. I knew that some men were attracted to the idea of dominant women, but I thought that fantasies of this sort were restricted to the professional dominatrix with whips and a leather outfit. Here was something completely unfamiliar to me. Your site described a type of man, of which he was one, that truly would take joy in pleasing a woman. This was something that had an instant appeal to me.

I opened the door when he arrived. He stood there holding flowers. I asked him to go put them in some water in the kitchen and then to open a bottle of wine that I had set out for us. I then took a chair in the sitting room. With him kneeling in front of me, I asked him to remove my shoes. As he removed the first, he closed his eyes and pressed the soul of my foot against his face. He placed gentle kisses along the length, beginning at the bottom of my heel and working towards my toes. These he put in his mouth one by one. I had never felt so adored by any lover.

I told him that I wanted to build a relationship with him based on his service and obedience to me. While we were certainly not in love, our relationship would have the quality of loving female authority, and I would reward his service by indulging his submission. I asked him to look at me and tell me that he understood that his total obedience would be required. He looked at me with such a sense of satisfaction as he told me that he would obey me and that he was grateful beyond words for the opportunity to serve me.

I pushed my legs apart. I allowed myself to slide forward so that my hips were against the edge of the chair, and I lifted my skirt to reveal my body to him. This began the first of what have been the most wonderful intimate moments that I have ever experienced. He is completely selfless in his attention to my physical pleasure. There is truly nothing he does not do for me. Very seldom do I allow our intimacy to put him in a position to climax. Typically, after I have been satisfied, I will tell him that I have had enough. I then spend wonderful moments in his arms while he kisses on my neck and strokes my hair as if we had just been together for the very first time. After all of these years of struggling with relationships in my life, I feel as if I have been given the secret to mutual happiness. By channeling a man’s passions into emotional energy rather than physical release, I have discovered a more satisfying outcome for both of us. It is a powerful magic that all women should learn.

Our relationship is not perfect, but this is due to circumstances and not your methods. For example, our age difference has caused enough unease that neither of us is comfortable in socializing with each others circle of friends. Our relationship is therefore private, and we may never evolve beyond this. For this reason, I am considering telling him that we should pursue separate relationships and explore whether or not we can maintain ours in parallel. I would love to keep his loyalty, but I am afraid that ten years from now this dynamic will begin to collapse, and I do not want to be responsible for wasting his relative youth.

For the time being, I am enjoying my emerging dominance, and he is embracing his submission. There are eveneings when I drink wine while reading, and he is content to rub and kiss my feet until I tell him it is time for bed. He loves to kiss my bottom while I drft off to sleep. He draws baths for me on weekend mornings and brings my coffee to me in the tub. It is really wonderful. I am quite certain that he has no inhibitions when it comes to my control over him, and I intend to explore activities with him that I have never felt comfortable with in the past.

Thank you again mentoring this young man for me. He is amazing.

Unsigned

Emily responds...

Your letter is atypical in that your relationship essentially began with him in service to you. I advocate an approach that builds loving female authority on top of an existing healthy relationship, but you seem to have made this dynamic work for you in your particular circumstances. I am delighted that you are enjoying your time with this man. I am also glad to hear that, having come to your own conclusion that the relationship may not be ideal for the long haul, have already thought about an exit strategy.

Enjoy this time. I know that he does. Also, bring forward these ideas and experiences into any new relationships that you have. You have discovered the joys of male submission, and it would be a pitty to settle for anything less.

-----

Dear Emily,

I have quite a bone to pick with you.

I feel as though your site has given my husband the false hope that I would be interested in a wife-led marriage. In fact, I have no interest at all in anything other than a marriage of equals. Why should he be expected to obey me? Why can't we just relate to each other as individuals and work together to realize our dreams and build our relationship?

We have been married for three years, and I can honestly say that we are the happiest, most loving couple that I know. We laugh, we communicate, we do things together. The idea of him submitting to me just is not what I signed up for when I agreed to marry him. I will admit that I have not read your entire website, but it didn't take long for me to get the idea. This is just not for me.

I would imagine that you get many letters from unhapy wives like me, and I would bet you never publish them. I hope you will publish mine as I think other men should really think twice before suggesting something like this to their wives.

Unsigned

Emily responds...

While we have received many letters from women that are hesitant and cautious about the concepts of loving female authority, yours is the first that I can remember that flatly rejected the concept without further consideration. I suspect, however, that others may have shared your reaction but not been inclined to write us. To that end, I am happy to publish your letter. I do hope that you will consider my response. As you know, I have also sent this response to you in email format and have included an electronic copy of the Around Her Finger book and my telephone number in that email. I am very interested in discussing this topic with you, and I hope that I get the opportunity to do so.

By your own admission you did not read our entire site. I think that this is unfortunate. I do hope that you will read my entire response as I can assure you that I am making a very sincere effort to craft a personal response that touches upon all your concerns.

First, consider that your husband had tremendous courage in bringing his desire for a wife-led relationship to your attention. I would imagine that he was fearful that his openness would generate a negative response from you, and in his case, he was very unfortunately correct. Very importantly, you should know that while his submission has likely been with him for a very long time, his desire to share this side of himself with you and to submit to you is first and foremost an expression of his love. Even if you ultimately decide that this dynamic is not something that you want to reconsider, do not punish him for opening up to you. His candor is not something for which he should feel ashamed, it is something for which he should be commended. Ask yourself if you have ever shared anything with him that might have changed the way he perceives you. Ask yourself if there are things about yourself that you have kept hidden for that very reason.

Second, know that just because you decide that you do not desire a wife-led marriage do not assume that your husband's desires will just now go away. He is submissive regardless of whether you decide to embrace this component of his persona. He can mask and hide his desire to submit to you, but he can no more make it go away than he can change the color of his eyes. Furthermore, it is not just a minor component of how he sees himself. Most submissive men think about their submission all the time. It is only once they embrace their submission and share it with the woman that they love that it becomes a positive part of their life rather than a constant, haunting desire. You said that nobody that you know is happier and more in love than the two of you. Your bond is so strong that your husband risked sharing this with you. While he is no doubt happy with the way he relates to you today, he obviously saw an opportunity to achieve a new level of happiness by introducing this relationship dynamic. He knows he could be happier. To me this an intense argument for an open mind on the subject. Simply stated, you can help fulfill your husband and create new happiness for him. This is one thing women have a difficult time understanding. While he will serve and obey you, he will be the one that takes the most pleasure from this service.

Finally, I want to address what I believe is, for most couples, the real barrier to loving female authority. You probably think that the whole thing is weird. I think that you believe that the bulk of the interactions with your husband will now be defined by the establishment of your new roles, and this is not something with which you are comfortable. Our experience, however is different. Over and over again, we see that 95% of the husband and wife interactions in wife-led marriages are just exactly as they were after the wife formalizes her authority as they were before she did so. Yes, sex will be more focussed on your pleasure and as a result you will both enjoy it more. Yes, your decisions will be respected in the household like never before. Yes, your husband will be more helpful around the house. Yes, he will be even more communicative and more affectionate. There are some modest changes that you will have to make, but the bulk of your day to day interactions will remain unchanged. We see this over and over again in letters that we receive from wives that give the dynamic a chance.

You began your letter by scolding me. I am guilty as charged in so much as I gave your husband the confidence to open up to you and share this very intimate secret. Remember, however, that he was in all likelihood submissive when you married him. Before he discovered this site he kept this secret from you. You have only been married three years. You will continue to learn more about him as you grow together, but you will learn more if you embrace him for who he is. There is much to know about being the wife of a submissive husband, and I want to share more with you. First, you need to take the first step. If not today, if not next month, if not next year, then sometime, you need to open your mind and your heart to your husband's unique gift.

You have my personal email and my phone number. Do not hesitate to contact me.

Letters from Men,

Dear Emily and Ken,

Thanks for your book.

My wife and I enjoyed reading it and we both loved boot camp. We agreed to continue a marriage based on your teachings....but it has gone off the rails and we are where we were before we read the book. Where we are is still a pretty good place...but not as good as boot camp. We are both not sure what has happened. Is this a common experience ? Is it hard to maintain the intensity of boot camp for longer ?

We have a number of explanations -

1. Life is busy and we get distracted and otherwise occupied, (both working) etc.

2. The thrill hard to maintain and we have unrealistic expectations.

3. Our natures are not truly dominant and submissive...and we revert to something else with time.

All or none of these explanations is plausible. Any thoughts you have on this would be great.

Thanks,

Tim

Ken responds...

First, I reject that your nature is not submissive. I believe that most men are submissive, and in your case, you even took an initiatve to introduce loving female authority to your wife. Of course you are submissive, you just become distracted and lose sight of your proper role in the marriage.

Your wife may not be naturally dominant, but her actions more than your own will continue to keep this dynamic healthy. She needs to continue to have expectations for your work around the house, and enforce those expectations with a tone and words that emphasize her authority over you. She also needs to sit you down occasionally and remind you that there is no turning back. Thirdly, and most importantly, she needs to implement more careful orgasm management over you. She should be receiving foot rubs, massages, and any form of sexual intimacy that she desires. In your case, your orgasms need to be fewer and farther between than they seem to be right now.

I know that maintaining this dynamic is not always easy for some couples. I also know that it is easier to give advice than it is to follow it in a busy life. That said, it is definately worth it when it all works out.

-----

Dear Emily and Ken,

I wrote to you once before about how the dynamics my wife and I have evolved in our marriage over the past year and a half come pretty close to being a wife-led marriage as described in "Around Her Finger". Your website helped me find the words to express what we had been moving toward, and to understand the desiresI have always had. Ken responded and encouraged me to find a time and tell her how I feel and how I would like her to lead our marriage.

Since that letter, I have been observing my wife very closely to see if she would be open to this as a permanent arrangement. I had half-convinced myself that my wife consciously knew what was going on as well. She had even initiated a conversation with me about how things are better now that I have given up the expectations I had been raised with, that as the man I was automatically the head of the household.

I decided I needed tell her the whole truth about what I am feeling. Instead of telling her I wanted to submit to her, I decided to tell her that I was already submitting to her, and to bring up how much we both seem to be enjoying things the way they are now and how this fulfills a deep need inside me. When I actually started the conversation, however, I got tounge-tied and when her first response was to say she wants us both to "call the shots".

I chickened out. I felt very panicky about it for a day or so, and I was convinced that now that I had partly brought it out in the open, she would stop acting in a dominant manner. She didn't. We carried on more or less as usual, and since then she has been a little more dominant each week. In fact, I am half-convinced (again) that now she really is "aware" of what is going on.

We were in a store recently, and she pointedout a t-shirt to me that had a picture of Pluto thed og and the words "I'm well trained! (Just ask mywife.)" She was so delighted with the shirt that she high-fived me in the store! So I considered this to be an encouraging sign that mywife would be open to this - yet I still find the prospect of telling her to be a very scary one. I guess the point of my letter is to see if either of you can give me any insight into what may be going on inside my wife's head. It seems to me that she understands what is going on between us as much as Ithink I do. It seems to me that she understands me, that she can see that I love to submit to her. It seems to me that she loves to be in the dominant position herself. Yet I am afraid that I could merely be doing a very good job at convincing myself that what I wish to be true is true.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Unsigned

Ken responds...

The only way to know what she is thinking, and for her to know what you are thinking, is to have an open and candid conversation with her. She deserves this.

You are learning what many men have learned. There is very little satisfaction that comes from stealth submnission. You need to feel the liberation that comes from the "you will obey" conversation. You need to have your orgasms managed. You need everything that comes from a wife-led marriage when both couples openly acknowledge their feelings and their roles.

You are lucky in that your wife has opened the door to this conversation with the way she high-fived you in the store. I don't doubt that there are other little signs which might have bopped you on the head, but you continue to ignore due to your fears.

Ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen if you are honest with her?