I have been reading MRP and askMRP for a while, both of which I like for many reasons. Coming to RP as someone socially conditioned to be feminist, swallowing the pill can be difficult; it is through my reading of the mens' subs and objectively observing my innate response to their field reports - would I like it if my husband did x, y, z? - that I finally came to truly accept RP sexual attraction truths as valid for me.

The way we talk about Own Your Shit here in RPW though, it's not really OYS. Yes, we do talk about self-improvement and personal responsibility, but my experience of it is as a goal-oriented process we should engage in as women to better our relationships. We touch on doing so because it makes US happier by fostering leadership in our Captains, but that tends to feel secondary to me, as the general tone here.

The thing is, I adore OYS because of the power in it. When everything is your fault, everything is something YOU can change for yourself. The men, their process requires that they improve themselves for themselves alone, and while this will very likely also improve their relationships, that cannot be the goal. That particular side-effect is desirable and often why the men initially come to RP, but it seems that success requires transitioning to a true self-focus at some point.

What I'm thinking is that this is true for us as well, albeit in a different way. It is a nuance that exists here, but not as an outright focus to me, and I'm wondering if acknowledging it might be helpful to others as it has been for me. We talk a lot about our self-improvement being in ways that men find attractive so that they will Captain us and we will be happier, not as something we inherently find rewarding for ourselves. That is, do we engage in these behaviors only to elicit a response from our men (or future partners)? I don't think that's really what is being advocated here, but as I have practiced RP as a woman, thinking about the behaviors I can express makes covert contracts in my mind. If I First Mate, he will Captain.

And my point, I guess, is that I think one of the ways we can be better RP women ourselves is if we were more explicit about our own brand of OYS. I'm not sure if that's contradictory to this sub, though. Isn't the reason we're truly here for ourselves? Achieving a Captain to our First Mate is a nice side-effect, but I want to be a good First Mate for itself. That is something that makes me happy, and one of the things I think (older) feminism got right is agency and responsibility for one's own happiness. As someone who is a recovering feminist (as defined by RP), accepting that and working towards submitting as an exercise in my personal agency feels good and right. It's when I am submitting for myself that it works best.

What do you all think? Maybe I'm explaining it all poorly, but the sum is that true submission requires the knowledge that you have to give it. It can't be pulled from you, and it's not real if you're only doing it to achieve an effect. True submission is to your idealized better feminine self, which can certainly be expressed through service to one's Captain. I doubt I'm alone in finding that the experience of submitting is far more enjoyable when it's practiced with a worthy Captain. But I think we need to OYS it ourselves, to make our OYS "Own Your Submission."