all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail -- sometimes including our own psyches and sexualities. Plus, if the only available patterns for kink emphasize something a person doesn't like, then that person will probably avoid kink. Note that in the research I linked to, for example, the percentage of submissive women was higher in samples from within the BDSM subculture than in samples from outside the BDSM subculture... perhaps because many BDSM subcultural gatherings emphasize female submission and thereby alienate women who are primarily dominant. Anyway, regardless... this is still the wrong question. In short, "inherent female submission" is the wrong question. Certainly, I've fought through a lot of personal fears about what my interest in BDSM meant for me as a feminist... but these days I have trouble understanding what, exactly, got me so upset. I can't believe how long it took me to outthink those fears. Now, it just seems instinctively obvious to me that: 1) The only reason these conversations happen at all is that BDSM, and especially submission, is seen as broken and problematic and screwed-up and a sign of weakness. What if we viewed S&M proclivities as a superpower rather than a perversion? What if submission and masochism, in particular, were viewed as signs of strength and endurance and emotional complexity, rather than weakness? 2) Sexual kinks don't necessarily affect one's performance in non-sexual fields. A sexually submissive woman won't make a bad CEO (at least, not because she's sexually submissive). I mean, come on, it's not like there aren't sexually submissive men in powerful corporate positions. When I was younger I remember being scared that, in some bizarre way, I was betraying women's liberation by being sexually submissive; this seems ridiculous to me now. That fear can only survive in a culture where people are looking for excuses -- no matter how flimsy -- to control and disempower women. Because it doesn't make any damn