The Invisible Architecture Controlling Modern Love
Most people move through love and partnership without ever questioning the invisible structure shaping their desires, expectations, and behaviors. I mean, think about it. When was the last time you stopped to question why so many people think a man should lead the household or open doors, and that a woman should relinquish her sovereignty to follow him? Everywhere we look, the same old arrangement quietly dictates who leads, who follows, who sacrifices, who shines, and who shrinks.
This unspoken code—what I call the Dominance/submission Standard—is not random, natural, or romantic. It is the social DNA inherited from systems built on White Supremacy, Male Supremacy (patriarchy), Economic Supremacy (unchecked capitalism), and Psychological Supremacy (oppressive religion). And it has shaped our relationships for centuries.
What we call “traditional” dating and marriage is not just habit—it is engineered. It is the direct descendant of hierarchies created to maintain power: white over non-white, men over women, the wealthy over the working class, the seemingly pious grifters over the socially vulnerable. These hierarchies taught generations of people to equate dominance with leadership, submission with worthiness, sacrifice with femininity, and control with masculinity. They taught us to accept inequity as natural, and to confuse hierarchy with harmony. And we internalized it so deeply that many of us don’t even recognize the script we’re performing.
Four Systems That Shaped Our Relationship Scripts
To see the Dominance/submission Standard clearly, you have to zoom out. White supremacy established the prevailing worldview that the white “race” is superior and more worthy of resources. It assumes that they that were made to rule and others to obey. Patriarchy extended that logic into the home, assigning leadership and authority to men, emotional labor and obedience to women. Exploitative capitalism reinforced the idea that those with resources deserve comfort, while those without should endure hardship. And dogmatic religion blessed the entire arrangement with divine approval. These systems work together to create the illusion that dominance and submission are “just how life and relationships work.”
The Cultural Hypocrisy Around BDSM vs. Traditional Marriage
But here’s where it gets ironic. Society often shames or side-eyes kink communities, especially fans of BDSM and Dom/sub lifestyles—labeling them deviant or taboo. Yet the entire traditional marriage model is essentially a lifelong Dom/sub contract, only without the transparency, negotiation, or enthusiastic consent that exists in kink!
In BDSM, the Dom/sub dynamic is chosen, communicated, and mutually agreed upon. In patriarchal dating, relationships, and marriage, it is assigned, expected, and often enforced culturally, economically, and spiritually—with threats and lasting punishments for those who buck.
This inversion is one of the greatest hypocrisies of our culture. People who explore consensual Dom/sub dynamics are often far healthier in their communication than couples reenacting the unspoken hierarchies of gendered marriage. One is a consensual power exchange rooted in safety, clarity, and choice. The other is a social performance rooted in tradition, fear, and the expectation of compliance. The problem has never been consensual BDSM—the problem is the hidden, normalized BDSM that nobody authentically agreed to.
And this hidden dynamic has consequences. It shapes how we date, how we argue, how we parent, how we divide labor, and even how we give, receive, and interpret love. It determines who we deem worthy of love or praise and who we shun. It keeps women over-functioning, men emotionally constipated, and all genders cut off from their full humanity. It blocks intimacy by rewarding one partner for shrinking and the other for dominating. It turns relationships into battlegrounds instead of sanctuaries.
Most heartbreak isn’t just personal—it’s structural.
How to Liberate Yourself from Dominance-Based Conditioning
To break free, we have to name the structure. We have to understand that submission in traditional relationships was never about nature or God’s law—it was about survival and greed. And dominance was never about strength—it was about fear, access to rights, money, and freedom. When you peel back the mythology, you see clearly: we were trained into these roles, not born for them. And if we were trained into them, we can train ourselves out.
This is where my work comes in.
- My new book, F*CK SUBMISSION: Ending the Gender Wars for Good (Coming 1/7/26), is not just a book. It’s an intervention.
- The Renegade Single Archetype Quiz helps you locate yourself within the conditioning.
- The Gender Role Roulette Game allows you to safely explore the beliefs and assumptions you’ve inherited.
- The journals from my Garden of Evolution series (also available 1/7/26) will guide you in dismantling internalized scripts, layer by layer, so you can set your mind, body, and soul free. These tools don’t just entertain—they expel the demons that thrive on structural lies. They deprogram. They help you see what others never wanted you to question.
- and The Renegade Singles Patreon Group will connect you with others who aren’t afraid to live and love on their own terms.
Healthy Love Cannot Exist Inside a Dominance Model
Because here’s the truth you weren’t taught: Healthy love is incompatible with domination. Partnership cannot flourish where one person must shrink for the other to lead. Intimacy cannot deepen where emotional labor is unequal. And connection cannot thrive where consent is replaced by expectation. The future of love requires that we evolve beyond hierarchy and into mutuality.
Consider this: we are often told that in order for any healthy romantic relationship to blossom, a deep and meaningful friendship must precede it. Yet once a man and woman wed, she is supposed to downgrade to his subordinate so he can “lead”. When was the last time you forced your bestie to let you have the last word, the final say in important decisions, or to hand their sovereignty over to you?
That’s not how friendship works. So, you have decide whether you want to be in lifelong union with your best friend or if you’ll turn your partnership into a capitalistic hierarchy— because somebody’s been bullshitting us. You can’t have both.
If you feel the tension between who you were taught to be and who you actually are, you’re not alone—and you’re not wrong. And even if you choose to hold on to some aspects of traditional romance, that’s fine, as long as you have truly chosen to.
The fact that you’re deconstructing these ideas means that you’re awakening. You’re beginning to sense the possibility of a life and love beyond dominance and submission—one rooted in sovereignty, respect, curiosity, accountability, and emotional intelligence. And that is the beginning of real freedom.
There’s no need to stay stuck in the kind of fear that makes men wary of a world where women govern themselves, or that makes women feel they must hide behind a man’s power for validation.
Subscribe now and join the Renegade Singles movement to receive more resources, reflections, and tools for breaking free from the old scripts. They’ll help you live free, whether you ultimately choose to go it alone or with a partner.
Your evolution isn’t just personal—it’s revolutionary.
To see my YouTube video about this topic, click here.
