With the growing trend of #Tradwives and the millions who watch, like, and share such content, fascination with the regressive ideals of female service and domestic submission remain prevalent today. Despite the number of posts online, there is very little evidence to suggest that modern women have any desire to return to such arrangements (Beaufils et al 2025.). Instead, studies highlight widespread exhaustion with contemporary systems and unequal labour expectations, all the while professional success and autonomy remain central aspirations for many women. Who, then, do we see practising similar markers of submission? An individual who may wilfully and dutifully ‘serve’: the BDSM practitioner. Yet while Tradwives and BDSM practitioners may appear to occupy opposing ends of a spectrum, their behaviours are explained and justified through the narratives that frame them. This paper therefore demonstrates that such performances of submission are explained and legitimised through fundamentally opposing discourses, each structured through similar linguistic markers, behaviour scripts and, crucially, aesthetic cues. The distinction lies not only in opposing narrative frameworks, but also in the spaces in which these behaviours are practised and presented. In one context, such acts are typically confined to private, consensual settings oriented towards intimacy and pleasure; in another, they are publicly performed, circulated as content, and framed in ways that may encourage or normalise similar behaviours, ultimately reinforcing ideals that call women to ‘stay at home and serve’.

Authors:
Krystal Cassar, Reading College, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Krystal Cassar is an English teacher at Reading College (UK) and an independent scholar specialising in sex studies and contemporary literature, with a focus on erotic narrative and its cultural and political functions.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krystal-c-b08870152/

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