This may sound silly, but I really light up when Mrs. Lion says, “Good Boy!” to me. I can’t explain why, but it does. I know she thinks it is demeaning and silly and she really doesn’t want to say it. She wrote about that here. The thing is that I really love earning that. I also truly love earning a “Good Job!” too. This is way bigger for me than it might seem on the surface.
Somehow we need to figure out how to support the keyholder led sexual relationship inside a more traditional partnership
In reality, what I really need is praise for doing the right thing, but not praise the way you would praise your employee or friend, but praise from a superior, or, if you will the way you praise a pet. This may sound odd, but Mrs. Lion has control of an important part of me. I have asked her to take control. That puts her in the position of making decisions about rewards and punishments, praise or criticism. It’s what I want.
It isn’t easy to put that on someone you love and who loves you. I am sure Mrs. Lion does not want to think of her husband as a pet. We already have pets. That isn’t what I am asking. I am still the lion of the house. I still pay the bills and make a lot of decisions for us as a couple. I am not passive, nor ever will be. So how does all this praise, punishment, and control fit it?
I have to admit that the praise and punishment is the tip of this iceberg. We don’t tend to think of each other in neat compartments. Mrs. Lion owns the sexual compartment, I own the bill paying one. It is never that easy for either the caged male or his keyholder. But if we are to make long term forced chastity work, we need to do just that. Somehow we need to figure out how to support the keyholder led sexual relationship inside a more traditional partnership. By extension, if other areas of life outside the cage are also involved, the solution must include them as well.
In terms of actions, it may be simpler. If we agree (Mrs. Lion and I) on the boundaries of her keyholder authority, then what is and isn’t inside of our play should be clear to both of us. It still doesn’t help with the emotional components that make it so difficult to be a keyholder. To the caged male the temptation is to say, “All you have to do is…..” I realize this sort of advice, aside from topping from the bottom, isn’t at all helpful. Mrs. Lion is doing her best to work into this difficult role. I have to be patient and constantly remain aware just how much I am asking her to change. It turns out that wearing the cage is the easier job.
It has been said that women justify their existence simply by being. Having a uterus is all a woman needs in order to be valuable. She doesn’t need to do anything special to be seen as valuable and worth attention/time/saving/etc. This goes back to our primitive ancestors, as the tribe lived or died by the survival of the women. One man and ten women = continuation of the tribe. Ten men and one women = certain extinction. Other hominids have died out where we have survived and evolved into the dominant species on the planet through this principle.
On the other hand, men justify their existence by doing. Their value to society is derived exclusively form what they can do – they’re actors, one who takes action – and particularly what they can do for women. This is the reason men are disproportionately employed in dangerous, difficult or unpleasant jobs such as mining, roof tarring, sewer maintenance, ditch digging, and in turn, why 93% of workplace deaths are men.
BTW, this has nothing whatsoever to do with BSDSM or a femdom relationship – it’s anthropologically how the species is wired. (Indeed, it’s something feminists exploit by claiming the exact opposite, to elicit that instinct of doing for the women, even when it is counter to men’s well-being – see also: White Feather Girls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather#World_War_I.)
Both of these concepts survive today, in a supposedly equal society, in concepts such as “women and children first,” and how acceptable it is for video games to include hundreds of men to be gunned down, but even a small number of female gun fodder is regarded as “misogyny”. But I digress.
Suffice to say, a significant part of the male identity is this “doing”. It’s part of the reason “everyday heroes” – those people who jump on train tracks to save a stranger – are almost invariably male. Just search YouTube for “everyday heroes” or “real life heroes” and notice that they are – not exclusively, but certainly disproportionately – male.
When that concept of self is rewarded – by something as simple as “good boy” – the male identity, his value, is affirmed.
So, while she may try to belittle you with “good boy”, it’s not actually what she thinks it is.