Size Matters

I’ve been crazy busy the past couple of weeks, so finding time to blog has been challenging. But I figure I need to post something so this is really just an observation about a common idea in dom/sub dynamics.

Size matters.

Now I don’t mean dick size or tit size or ass size or even height. What I mean is that mental size matters.

Let me explain. It is very common for subs to crave a feeling of being smaller than their dom. They often want to feel less important, less conspicuous, less powerful, and just generally less than their dom. They want to feel overpowered, overshadowed, deprioritized, and insignificant in comparison to the man they serve. That doesn’t necessarily mean unimportant to him, just unimportant relative to Him. Because subs are focusing on their Dom’s happiness and pleasure, it makes sense to them that He is more important than they are.

You can see this is all sort of ways. Subs often prefer to kneel or to sit on the floor, making themselves physically lower and in perspective smaller than their dom. In d/s artwork, there is a strong tendency for subs to be depicted as physically smaller than doms; often a Twink is paired with a Muscle Bear.

One of the most common terms for a submissive man–‘boy’–implies that the sub is physically immature and therefore smaller. Age-discordant relationships are relatively common among gay kinksters, with the sub usually being younger than the dom. The older man is metaphorically larger in age, knowledge, and experience than the sub. Some kinksters enjoy Adult Baby/Diaper play, which similarly creates a sense of physical, mental, and emotional immaturity. Pup play can achieve something similar by positioning the pup physically beneath the handler and the emphasis in pup play on careful playfulness may also speak to a sense of the pup being immature and therefore carefree.

In fact, the sense that size is correlated to importance has a long history in artwork. In ancient Egyptian and Medieval artwork, it is common to depict a ruler as being literally taller than their subjects. So this is realty just another manifestation of a fairly common mode of thinking about power.