"Is that not what you would've guessed?" wonders Jackson.

"I'm not exactly a submissive person or - obedient or compliant or whatever."

"My Daria isn't exactly obedient or compliant either," she says fondly. "Dom told her to get him some water at a meeting a couple weeks ago and she nearly punched him."

Jackson gasps softly.

"She didn't actually, relax. She was there in a professional capacity, he shouldn't have tried to order her around."

'My Daria'. Huh. That's interesting.

"But," says Jackson.

"If it wasn't their arrangement," murmurs Brian. Jackson subsides.

"Should've punched him," mutters Daria.

"That's horrible," says Jackson.

"What, you think she should just do whatever any random idiot tells her to? If someone at home thought I should be doing the fetching and carrying because I was a woman I'd want to punch them too."

"Wait, was this her dom or just some dom?" says Jackson.

"Not her dom, just someone we work with sometimes."

"Oh, that's different," says Jackson.

"Yeah, I wouldn't ask random subs to get me water," says Brian, "rude."

"I'm not sure I understand how roles work, socially."

"Uh," says Jackson.

"Kind of hard to explain," says Brian.

"Yeah, I can't really magine what it would like without them. It's kind of like... there's an assumption that doms are more comfortable making decisions and subs prefer other people to decide for them because it's easier, and then it follows from that, except there's a lot of people that don't really fit neatly into that. I think you'll find it easier figure out by people-watching, there's a lot of little details I'd never think to tell you."

"What's it like when nobody has them?" asks Jackson.

"You know, when you put it that way I can see why my question was hard. Um, we... don't do that? I guess you could argue sexism captures a little bit of the social assumption that one group leads and the other follows, except most places we at least pretend that isn't a thing anymore."

"Back when people thought guys were almost all doms and girls almost all subs there was some sexism but mostly there isn't now we know that's not true," says Jackson.

"Did that happen recently?"

"It's sort of still happening? Like, there are sexist kinds of Christianity, and stuff," says Jackson.

"That's another thing that's weirdly similar, it sounds a lot like our feminist movement. You'd think the differences would add up to more."

"This has been - absolutely fascinating, but I have an appointment that I'm already running late for. I'll be free around 6:00, call me back then or if anything goes wrong, Daria will hopefully find someone to get in contact with you soon."

"You need to call anyone else?" asks Brian.

"No, I can't think of anyone."