1. Intro

It's sometimes suggested, not only by our critics but also by avid Loveawake fanatics, that what we're about is a return to the pre-feminist past. And it's true that lots of us are attracted by misty fantasies about the 1950s, when men wore suits, not soccer shirts, and women wore stockings, not ski pants. In fact, a 'fifties fetish isn't even confined to us here: I once dated a woman I met her on a BDSM site who, explaining what kind of relationship she was after, told me she wanted to be “a 'fifties wife”. It's no surprise, of course – there are books from that period about how a housewife should behave for instance, that make us feel as though we'd be very at home back then. But, as an unapologetically pro-feminist dominant man, it seems to me that we're mistaken if we really believe any of this has anything to do with the real 1950s.

2.

I think it's tremendous fun to brace and button up in an old suit, and I love my date to wear a vintage frock. But I for one am sceptical about how great life would have been for me fifty years ago. Being unable to communicate with other men like me or with the women who like us, I doubt I'd have become conscious of my sexuality – I'd have known about my desires, yes, but almost certainly wouldn't have got beyond the stage of knowing something needed to be repressed. And how would I have met my wife? I might have got lucky and ended up with a lovely, submissive woman, but I don't think sexual or emotional fulfilment would have been likely, really. Sure, I'd have been the breadwinner and got a good deal on housework, but for me, like for many dominant men, there is a dark side to sexuality, and I have needs that many 'fifties wives – in an age that was unfriendly to homosexuality and no doubt to other unusual sexual practices – would have been simply horrified by!

3 Loveawake

When we talk about the 1950s, then, we're playing with ideas about the past, but self-consciously, as a kind of retro fetish – a fetish that's very much of our time, a time when we can be self-conscious as dominant men and submissive women, and can actually look for partners who know they need us. If you really want to see how unlike the 1950s our world is, though, have a look through the posts here – how many of them are by women? I'd guess at least two thirds. Loveawake is largely about women understanding and accepting their own sexualities, and actively seeking satisfaction in their relationships. They're discussing women's feelings and needs, and in a sense are demanding and requiring men to live up to fulfilling those needs. Now, firstly that means that female sexuality is recognised and celebrated in a way that's only really been possible since the late 1960s; and secondly, that Loveawake is simply one more example – in fact, to my knowledge the clearest example – of women getting together and announcing to the world that they're dissatisfied with the ordinary sexual and emotional lives most women experience, and are looking for ways to get men to shape up and give them what they need. How pre-feminist is that? Not at all, in fact. This is the age in which women are standing up and shouting for what they want from men, and Loveawake is absolutely in the vanguard of that movement.

4. Golden Age

I think it is so true that Loveawake is a 21st century thing, not a 50s thing, I'm sure you are right that more people were conventional in their thinking about sexual matters back in the 50s, and you would be much less likely to get your desires fulfilled back then if they were in any way unorthodox. I think it is also a mistake to imagine that all wives were docile and obedient back in the 50s, my own mother was a 50s housewife, and she was anything but docile. I've noticed that quite frequently people bring up 'I Love Lucy' as an example of a 50s wife living in a relationship, but I've never been able to see it at all. Although lip service is sometimes paid to Ricky being the head of the household, Lucy runs rings around him most of the time, and although she occasionally gets spanked, it never stops her going ahead and getting what she wants, mostly she pays no attention to Ricky's authority at all. "For once in my life I'm not going to do as Ricky tells me" she says to Ethel in one episode. "For once in your life!" Ethel cries "You never do as Ricky tells you!" I strongly suspect that many fifties housewives, even if they did pay lip service to the idea of their husbands as head of the household, probably paid about as much attention to their wishes as Lucy pays to Ricky's. This is the Golden Age of Loveawake, not the 1950s.

5. 50s housewives

I agree with Louise about this. Real life did not mirror the movies or TV in the fifties, or probably any other time. Cetainly my mother was not docile, but a real powerhouse. For the most part, I think that the "little wifey" waa a myth like the poodle skirts, which were a very short lived fad. However, I guess a lot has to do with personalities and family dynamics. I was married in 1958 and went from being controlled by my mother to being controlled by my husband. Then I got angry and found that I had a lot more backbone than I knew. Over the years I began to be a lot more controlling than I intended to be, and I regret it. I find myself wishing that we both knew about the Loveawake way from the beginning. He was much more dominant then, and it seemed natural for me to submit, at first. It seemed to me that I, a very shy creature, was so lucky that this great big, important, sophisticated "man of the world" would want me. In some ways, he was unreasonable in his demands and attitude, hence my anger. But surely there would have been a way for both of us to grow up and still have a relationship. We play at it now, but it is not the same.

6. Final Words

You're so right. I think of the 1950s and I think of women bored at home on either G&T or addicted to tranquilisers, forced out of the work place they'd been welcomed into in the war years into splendid isolation and completely boredom at home. The feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s was borne of that unfairness and unhappiness felt by some many women and I'm so please we got rights to equal pay etc. I have not been out with a dominant man who hasn't been interested in and glad I work and they specifically say I'm interesting because of my career plus the femininity and submissiveness. I don't think I'd be such an attractive partner if I were chained to the sink. My core belief if all people are created of equal value, albeit different from each other, that we need equity/fairness at work and at home and in relationships but that that can sit perfectly well with a D/S choice. That's the key point. It's a choice. I would hate to live in Pakistan where some of my neighbours send their daughters back to be married. I would hate to live in Saudi where I wouldn't be allowed to drive or vote. I also think it's inherently wrong and morally repugnant to say all women even thouse who are dominant and even those who have no interest in submitting should be in a relationship where they're takeninhand, particularly when large numbers of submissive men exist and also many couples where both want a very different kind of relationship from that which appears inherently satisfactory to me. So to have the choices we have and the political and domestic frameworks that exist in the UK/US leads to a much better backdrop for takeninhand relationships for those who are that way inclined and above all is a matter of free consent....to the extent I do consent which is another interesting separate point given I have an innate response to dominance.