Whenever the topic of dating and “unrealistic standards” come up, my response is the same: there is no point of scolding anyone for having unrealistic standards, because if their standards are unrealistic, the natural consequence is that they won’t find anyone who fits them. Conversely, if someone’s standards seem insane, but they actually have no trouble finding such a person, then their standards weren’t so crazy after all.
The latest unrealistic standard (at least on tradcath Twitter) seems to be for a submissive woman who, for whatever reason, will make all the first moves and aggressively embrace the role of the pursuer, conquering a man with the gusto of Prince Ali showing up in Agrabah on an elephant to woo Princess Jasmine. While a few viral tweets this week made this topic especially prescient, I’ve noticed this phenomenon for a long time now. There are plenty of men who want a woman they explicitly describe as “submissive” but they don’t realize that part of having a submissive partner is being dominant. And while I suppose you could, theoretically, be dominant and not take any initiative, there are very few submissive women out there who also want to be the pursuers. I mean, women hate making the first move in general, but women who identify as submissive and traditional are typically even more opposed.
This is not me saying that women “should” or “shouldn’t” make the first move. This is just the way the market functions, for better or worse, and that’s before controlling for other variables like relative attractiveness. If you can find yourself a submissive woman who nevertheless enjoys aggressively pursuing a man, all the more power to you, but as far as I can tell, these women are about as rare as Aria Schrecker’s famous Wasian Kim Kardashian, who has a BMI of 18 and natural F-cup boobs. An ideal, a fantasy, sure, but not something you are likely to find in the wild, especially if you are not an equally remarkable catch.
But, of course, it’s not only men who want to reap all the benefits of a specific dynamic without fulfilling their end of the bargain. To some extent, everyone wants to be the lazy one in the relationship, the person who gets to be pursued, the person who never has to worry about rejection, and nevertheless is receiving this attention from a total unicorn of a partner who gives them all the benefits of traditional gender roles without any of the drawbacks. In a way, “being lazy” is the kink that unites the genders. The only question is whether or not they’re actually able to obtain such a dynamic, and usually, they’re not.
