Alphas, Faggots, Dominants, Submissives
This is now a page linked at the top of my Tumblr, so pay attention.
A distinction needs to be made between the validity of the Dom/sub lifestyle and the fantasy of the Alpha/fag categorizations. As individuals with dignity and beauty, all of us crafted by Nature or the Divine (whatever your beliefs), we should never take on an identity that either exalts us above others or casts us into the dust. Every human being on this Earth no matter their intellect, physicality, or chosen lifestyle are all intrinsically equal as members of Mankind.
This is the reason that while I endorse Alpha/fag as a smoldering fantasy that kindles the embers of so many people, I do not condone taking on that mantle in day to day life.
Both of those words have connotations that are potent, but in different ways. As gay men we have struggled against the patriarchal system that wants to define masculinity as something requiring aggression and power. Throughout human history men have been tortured and killed for not living up to an imaginary standard. What is a man? Go to the bottom of this post and read the poem I included titled “If” by Rudyard Kipling. No one is deserving of worship if you do not believe they are worthy. Both alpha and fag are an imaginary mask that while in the context of sexual play can be as degrading as one likes (you see my blog content and know I like it hardcore), but once you walk out of that bedroom, playroom, or sex club the alpha should leave understanding they are a vulnerable human being with weaknesses, insecurities, and sensitive emotions, and the fag should leave understanding they are not, in fact, a fag; but a man named John, David, or Samuel, who is an extraordinary creature by virtue of his sheer existence. As the alpha should understand he is not, in fact, an alpha - or at least that service to him should be earned through him deserving it. I am comfortable with labels for human beings that are either neutral or positive, so identifying as an alpha is something I’m more alright with – though not completely - as long as the traits that make the individual believe they are an alpha are grounded in virtue; which can be present in a sexual context, certainly. Fag, however? No one is a fag. You are a submissive.
On that note, this is why I prefer the labels of dominant and submissive. Alpha and fag are words that have been warped, and are also relatively new to the English language in the way we use them today. A faggot was the given name in Britain for a bundle of sticks used to burn homosexuals. Think about that for a second when you legitimately identify as that. Alpha is merely the first letter in the Greek alphabet. Dominant and submissive, on the other hand? Oh, how beautiful the English language is - how rich, vast, and storied. These words have been used to express concepts since the dawn of time that yes, certainly sometimes had negative associations - but unlike alpha and fag, also have come to communicate transcendence and purity in all aspects of life, culture, philosophy, religion, and psychology. If you walk out of a scene and identify as an alpha, you’re using a word that could be replaced with “dominant” which is so much more meaningful and potent. It is a word that implies a kind of ascendance that is monarchial, not trivial - after all, a king is the servant of his subjects although he has dominion over them, and they in turn serve him. An alpha? Muscles and a dick.
-Alexander the Great and Diogenes (a meeting of monarchy and philosophy)
Faggot? Why in the world would you walk out of a scene thinking that’s who you are? ignoring the cries of so many people who were oppressed by that word and burned on the pile of sticks for which that word was named. This seems like such a contradiction, doesn’t it? How can it be alright to use that title during a fantasy with this history and weighty collar of oppression? Well, people have always been entranced by the deviant and vulgar. Marquis de Sade, the father of sadism, lived during the 18th century and was one of the most controversial writers in the world. He is also regarded as a brilliant thinker despite his depravity - my quote at the top of my blog “Sex without pain is like food without taste,” is from him. I’m tempted to say that even sin has its virtue; perhaps at times it is constructive to let the devil dance. I do not pretend to be omniscient, so I will not say that I understand the complex spider-web that is sexual moral ground - all I know is that if these things are kept in mind, when the scene ends, then I’m fine promoting degradation and the alpha/fag fantasy on my blog and living out fantasies in real life as long as I, and hopefully people enjoying my content, identify as a submissive - which brings me to my last point.
Submission, and the ability to serve well and with dedication, is an even bigger gift and skill than being able to dominate.. For it is through serving others that we become free, and we gain wings with which to fly, selflessly gifting the ones we love with feathers to create their own wings; even if we have to pluck them out of our own back. Submission has captivated and entranced men throughout the world, for example in the East, when women of the Orient were viewed as the most precious and delicate jewels through various manifestations such as Japanese geisha. Submissives are superior to their dominants in the fact that they have the ability to intuitively know how to serve and nurture, exercising selflessness, and charity in the context of spiritual and emotional self-extension. Dominants are superior to their submissives because they know how to implement the structure a submissive needs. A dominant provides security, and safeness, to someone who might otherwise feel lost and helpless. These things? That is real, valid, and healthy both during the scene, and out of it. Submissive and dominant is a lifestyle, an identity, a fundamental aspect of a person’s core - fag and alpha are irrelevant.
Lastly, I am going to leave all of you with a poem my grandmother drilled into my head when she was homeschooling me, until I could recite it by memory, which I still can. It’s called “If” by Rudyard Kipling, a Nobel laureate from Britain. It’s dedicated to his friend, a politician, war hero, and British noble. All men should attain to this. But if you identify as a dominant? You need to pay extra close attention.
“If” ~ Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
