Is Female Domination Unnatural?

Is there anything invalidating female domination in prehistory and ancient sex roles? No. But some people think so.

These comments are by the estimable Sartan:

I’ll dredge up an overused (and under-understood) term… needs. Human needs are founded innately and influenced, heavily some might claim, by environment… particularly that of early life. Dominance as a personality trait is founded in needs, not choice. A person who finds themselves driven to be dominant is so because associated roles and behaviors meet their needs better than other modes of interpersonal contact. The same is true for submission.

The “men are dominant, women are submissive” theory… it just doesn’t jibe, IMO. As a personality trait (as opposed to sociocultural phenomenon, which has absolutely no probative value here), there is no significant evidence supporting radical juxtaposition by gender. Nearly all human characteristics reflect something close to a standard distribution… height, weight, intelligence, etc. No reason exists to suppose innate interpersonal mode drivers should be different. …

The vast majority of human relationships settle to a mutually understood power dymanic. That’s fundamentally what “power exchange” means. Of course, we (meaning BDSMers, SMer, kinksters, whatever term you prefer) use the term to indicate this plus a bit more… explicitness in this mutual understanding. My mother and father were in a “power exchange,” although they certainly didn’t call it that, nor do most folks today. However, there was a distinct disparity in interpersonal power in their relationship.

Leads right into the next example of confusion. A cornerstone of your “evidence” has been the predominance of “male-dominated” social structures in human history. What does that mean, exactly? What does “dominant” in the sense used in you conclusion (that men are naturally dominant and women naturally submissive) mean? Even a cursory examination reveals that these are two entirely different concepts. …

Gender and D/s