'VIVIAN': POWER IS SEXY

(Note from Mark Remond: This post is a reprise from the 7-part “Revisiting Vivian’s Domain” archive on this website (scroll down right-hand column), specifically from a longer essay that appears in Part 4, “Toward A Fantastic Marriage: How and Why Domestic Discipline Works.” “Vivian’s Domain” was originally hosted on Geocities.com, but is no longer extant, even on the Wayback Machine. “Vivian” (a cybername) addressed herself to wives, especially those seeking to recapture the romance in their marriage. )

BEAUTY AND POWER

A key component of every man’s sexuality is awe. When he sees a beautiful woman’s face or an attractive figure he is drawn almost against his will. The power that beauty has to take his attention is not lost on him. He is awestruck and overcome by that power. Have you ever noticed how men behave toward a beautiful woman? They fall all over themselves to please her in some way. Even when there is no way such behavior will result in a sexual experience, men become the willing servants of beauty.

Think about it. Your husband’s in a traffic jam. He’s mad. Somebody tries to cut in ahead of him. He curses and revs his engine and inches up to be sure the other car doesn’t get an inch ahead of him. Another car comes into view and wants to cut ahead of him. A pretty face peeks out and waves a delicate hand. What does your husband do? If he’s anything like mine, the same man that cursed and screamed at the car before suddenly becomes gracious. He smiles and nods and lets the lady pass. In this situation he may have his wife and kids in the car and be travelling through a place he will never be again. So there’s no chance he thinks he’ll ever see that woman again. Still, the instinct kicks in. There is power he cannot resist, and he is amazed at his own helplessness. He is in awe of those who can elicit that helplessness. And the most important thing I’ve found is that a man is most helpful to a woman when she makes him feel helpless.

POWER AND BEAUTY

The preceding observation is obvious to most women. We feel it far too often. We see our husbands looking at other women as if they were goddesses and looking at us as if we were mere functionaries, striving to be helpful to women they hardly know and ignoring the needs of the woman who dedicates herself to him and his family. Sometimes we become angry and resentful of our husbands, knowing that it is simply not right that he looks at other women with the passion that rightfully belongs to us. Sometimes we get down on ourselves, feeling unattractive and taken for granted and cheated out of his affection.

Although there are some exceptions (women who are so beautiful and remain so beautiful that they can inspire their husbands with that beauty even after years of marriage), for most women, even attractive ones, it is not possible after years of cohabitation and child bearing to become beautiful enough to inspire the kind of awe that will motivate her husband. So, what can a woman do?

She can understand this: Not only is there power in beauty, there is beauty in power! The “take my breath away” kind of awe that a man feels when he sees a stunningly beautiful woman is similar to the feelings he had as a young adolescent toward women of power in his life—teachers, neighborhood moms, and strict women in general.

In order to make your husband a better man and a better spouse, you need to make him eager to win your approval and fearful of earning your disapproval. You must exert the kind of power that grabs his attention, makes you beautiful to him and takes his breath away. You must make him adore you again!

Making him adore and respect you is a lot easier than you think…

…In these women [I have spoken with] I have found an underlying belief that power is bad, that to want power is worse, and that to actually exercise power is evil. It has been ingrained in these women that they are not worthy of power.

My message is that power is all over the place and cannot be avoided. If you do not exercise power, someone or something else will. It is not only your privilege to exercise power but a moral duty as well.

Domestic Discipline is a wonderful way to re-energize a stagnant sex life in a marriage. If that were its only purpose it would be worthwhile, but it does not stop there. Domestic Discipline secures a marriage on moral ground. Even Freud recognized this when he wrote that “A marriage is not secure until the wife takes a maternal view of her husband.”

For some women this is a difficult concept to accept because we tend to confuse morality with convention. In America today discipline of any kind has become unconventional, but the tide is turning. We are starting to appreciate again the benefits of traditional discipline and the value of submitting to authority in our lives.

While most women understand their own need to submit to authority, they do not understand how important it is for their husbands to do so as well, and the difficulty they have submitting to an authority that is not tangible. If we look at the history of the church in Western civilization, we find that most of the truly steadfast submission to God and church has been

practiced by women. Men have sought to make church an opportunity to gain and exercise power rather than to submit to it. Maybe it’s easier to submit to a God of the opposite gender, that a quality of “otherness” is necessary to truly submit to another, or that there is an element of sexuality even in our spirituality.

We do not hear Domestic Discipline spoken of publicly by society’s moral standard-bearers, and we certainly don’t hear about it in most churches. It is practiced, however, in many more homes than you would think. Except for the few select friends with whom I have shared the disciplinary aspect of my marriage, no one has any idea that my husband and I are practicing this. Others do envy my marriage, the devotion my husband displays toward me and the ease with which we get along. I hear such comments with some regularity. Those who make those comments sometimes ask me for my “secret.” I usually just smile and tell them how lucky I am to be married to such a good man. And I am. The honesty and vulnerability my husband shows by accepting my authority are gifts that most men are afraid to give their wives. He truly is a good man, and he gets better all the time—because I see to it that he does!

I have strayed a bit from the purpose of this section. The following are some of the moral advantages of Domestic Discipline:

THE MORAL ADVANTAGES OF DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE

* A husband who is more faithful to the marriage in heart, mind and body

* Safe, supportive and fun ways to release anger and tension in a marriage

* Motivation for a husband to continually improve himself (“He who stops being better stops being good.”—Oliver Cromwell)

* Increased vulnerability and intimacy in the marriage

* The moral authority in a marriage in is the hands of the partner with the greater tendency toward traditional morality.

* Stronger marital bonding

* The power struggles that can arise in a marriage and cause great problems are replaced with the peaceful acceptance of authority