I’ve been contemplating something for a while now, and I’m just going to throw it out there. There seems a paradox at the heart of enforced male chastity regarding the submissive aspect of it.

It all starts with a powerful sexual fantasy inside a guy’s head, to surrender ownership of his penis to another, having it locked up in a chastity device under the complete control of a key holder. He wants to renounce his own desires and impulses for sexual release and submit completely to the key holder. He wants to please his key holder above all other things.

Never unlock me and give me release for my sake, he says. Deny me because you want to. Control my orgasms because you can, but never because you think I like it. I suppose a key holder, at least one who is eager to fulfill the role rather than perhaps a wife, girlfriend, or lover who has been cajoled or persuaded to lock a guy up likes to hear him say this. I’m certain she must like hearing it if she is truly into enforcing male chastity; if she genuinely delights in controlling a man totally, using his penis only for her pleasure, testing his limits of submission, and pushing him beyond them.

In the circumstances I’ve outlined, it seems the two of them fit perfectly together, like two halves of a neatly carpentered dovetail joint. As it is often said, opposite poles attract. As a straight male, I have in mind here a strong, dominant woman. A woman who understands a man in chastity is far more motivated to please her when his natural biological drive for frequent sexual release goes unmet. A woman who frankly wants to be in charge, to have complete control in the relationship. She is not only a key holder but the literal key to turning sexual fantasies into reality. To put it bluntly, it’s completely up to her to make male chastity work.

And yet, if she wants what he wants, then isn’t he getting exactly what he wants. And in pleasing herself, she gives him what he desires most. How then is the key holder controlling him? It might be argued that he is controlling her, only giving her the illusion that she is the one in control. When all along, she is giving him exactly what he wants.

Would he not be more truly submissive if she offered him only the kind of chastity from which he could derive no pleasure? If she gave him nothing but instead despised him, ignored him, locked him up and then abandoned him? If he still wanted only to be locked for her in chastity and obey her, would that not be true submission?

Whereas he knows full well he will receive from her only that which delights him: locking him in the chastity device which serves as a constant reminder that she owns his penis, the denial which provokes the fullness in his balls that makes him crave release. The intense teasing aimed at driving him wild with need and sexual desire, the edging without ever crossing the finish line, the threats of punishment if he dares to touch himself for self-pleasure without her permission, the acts aimed at emasculating him. All these things, all this cruelty, he craves.

The key holder is both free to do with him as she pleases within the confines of the limits they have negotiated and yet reliant on his consent. He voluntarily agrees to give up his freedom of choice. No doubt when he is aroused, both mentally and physically, the key holder does hold genuine control over him. She can make him do things he might not ordinarily do, endure things he may have thought unbearable, want things he never imagined. This control is real, it’s not something he pretends to give her. When he is in the throes of arousal, it may seem as if her control is limitless. But reality ultimately intrudes, the ebb and sway of power and control will shift again.

His submission is real enough in the heat of the moment. For him, there’s a wonderful freedom in renouncing control, in being taken out of himself. And for her, a heady sense of power in assuming this total control.

The conventional view is that in the relationship between the locked up male and key holder, the male renounces control. It is the key holder who prevails, whose word is law. That’s the theory. However, in practice, it is a bit more complicated than that. The transfer of power from the male in chastity to the key holder is freely given. It’s a consensual transaction. We aren’t talking about something based on force as exists in the outside world, where the strong exploit the weak. It’s a voluntary exchange of power.

But, if consent is freely given, how can it be the key holder is in control? Is not the one who grants or withholds consent actually in control? And yet, the appeal of this relationship for the male who craves enforced chastity is that he has ceded control to another. That’s where the excitement comes from, for him. That is why locking his own penis in a chastity device and observing a self-imposed period of abstinence will never suffice. He needs a key holder with the right to order him to do things, even things he doesn’t want to do. He needs to feel he has renounced his right to say no. If it is not so, then it all becomes a rather pointless exercise. He has to feel her power over him is real, not merely a convention.

Given the paradox, some might say, if this is all true, then surely enforced male chastity is only a game. My reply would be it is indeed a game, with strict rules. If you don’t play a game by the rules, what’s the point in playing at all? And it’s a very serious game, as all games worth playing are. Perhaps we can say it’s like the state of mind you adopt when reading a novel. You know at the outset the story isn’t true. Yet while you read you allow yourself to believe that it is, otherwise the story couldn’t hold you in its spell. Literary people call this “the willing suspension of belief.” I think enforced male chastity may be similar.

He knows he could stop her and demand his release if he wished to, but he wants it all to be real. He is willing to suspend belief. He needs a good key holder for it all to work—a figure of authority who provides necessary guidance and discipline, and even punishment if it is deserved. He needs to trust her, to view her as the one person who will not let him down. He craves her approval, dreads her displeasure, and constantly strives not to disappoint her. But, in all of that, is there true submission?

Here is something I use to think. I believed that a man who desired to submit to enforced chastity wanted nothing but to please his key holder. I believed altruism, and the submission inherent in the arrangement went hand in hand. But now I tend to think that’s a superficial view. In fact, it now seems to me that a man who desires to submit to enforced chastity is really seeking to have his own needs indulged. The submissive aspect to it then is not about self-abnegation. It’s quite the opposite. It’s about self-fulfillment. You concede control, but only so that the key holder will take full advantage of it.