Now Let the Fun Begin
Chapter 7: In the House of Tom Bombadil
Two Disclaimers
Below contains a kink-lensed, though not explicitly sexual, analysis of Tom Bombadil as a capital D for Dominant Daddy. If you are my mother or father, aren’t yet interested in considering how your relationship to sex is married to shame, or can’t help but walk through life yucking other peoples’ yums1, please close the tab.
On my own preferences within a sexual dynamic, you might be tempted to project some Abrahamic, transphobic, gender-essentialist, hegemonic bullshit. If you do, that’s on you. In my reality, any sexed body can channel Tom or Goldberry or both at the same time or both at different times, and God is love is me is you is love is God. If you are unable to hold nuance and can’t notice when you’re falling into a you-sized false binary trapdoor, and would rather get freaked out and mad than get curious, please close the tab.
Treasure Trove
Deep reading Chapter 7: In the House of Tom Bombadil unlocked in me a treasure trove of kinks, and reoriented the expression of my sex and gender to better align with my truest, highest, basest, most ecstatic, God-like self. 😳
I’ve written dozens of opening sentences for this chapter, trying to be cutesy or funny or cynical to get at that, but every time I re-read them I see that the cavalier tones come from a shame place. It’s like I’m writing like a rabbit trapped in a blackberry bush, which is not where my truest, highest, basest, most ecstatic, God-like self resides and not what Master wants from me.
My true self resides in the House of Tom Bombadil.
From that truer place I can drop the mask and shout from the rooftops: Tom Bombadil is so fucking hot! The Daddy of my Dreams! And his 24-7 D/s dynamic with Goldberry is the blueprint for my own sexual domicile.
Enter, Good Guests!
The hobbits have just been rescued from the menacing trance of Old Man Willow. We’re standing at the threshold between The Old Forest and the House of Tom Bombadil. Behind us, whispers in a dark that’s getting darker, roots that twist and squeeze, a tightness closing in. In front, lamplight swinging from the ceiling, yellow candles burning bright, flowers in earthenware on the hardwood floors, and a feast of cream, honey, butter, and berries. Behind them, “mist and tree-shadows and deep water, and untame things." (p. 161) In front, woolen blankets, the River-daughter, nothing to fear.
They step over the threshold. Tom’s wife, Goldberry, is there to greet them. Her long yellow hair falls like water down her shoulders. Her gown is green like willow leaves, with beads like silver dewdrops, gold vines, and forget-me-nots. At her feet are water-lilies floating in clay basins, picked from the same deep, clear pool far down the Withywindle, where Tom had found her many ages before.
Goldberry moves through the room like water running over slick rocks in the river. She is marvelous, but deeply familiar, like the soft earth underfoot and the light of the stars reflected on the water. Young like leaves in spring, but ancient like the very first time the brown earth blossomed into green. The hobbits delight in her while Tom tends to their tired ponies, until finally Frodo gathers the courage to ask, “who is Tom Bombadil?”
“He is,” Goldberry answers.
And would have left it at that had Frodo not looked back at her in confusion.
“‘He is, as you have seen him” she said in answer to his look. ‘He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.’
‘Then all this strange land belongs to him?’
‘No indeed!’ she answered, and her smile faded. ‘That would indeed be a burden,’ she added in a low voice, as if to herself. ‘The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.’” (p. 163)
He Is
Tom Bombadil has no fear. Tom understands that all things growing and living belong each to themselves. Tom makes sure his guests are refreshed, cleaned, comforted, fed. Tom gathers water-lilies to please his pretty lady. When Tom tells you to do something, you do it. Tom is Master. Tom is.
This is the erotic energy that brings me to hands and knees in willing submission. In prayerful adoration. In joy, in delight, alive like springtime in the eyes of my beloved and shameless in the unveiling of my full self.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Latin prefix dom, of the word domus meaning “house” or “home”. Dom as in domicile, like “a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world.”2 Dom as in domestic, like hanging the laundry and feeding the children and picking the strawberries when they’re ripe to pick. Domesticate as in bestowing clear purpose and value. Dominant as in knowing just what to do. Dominion as in skilled and tender stewardship of living things around you. Domine as in Lord or Master.
Master as in giver of deep peace. Deep peace as in nothing to fear.
“Sleep till the morning-light, rest on the pillow! Heed no nightly noise! Fear no grey willow!”
In Tom’s house, where Tom is Master, Tom tells the hobbits what to do and the hobbits do it. They sit down by the fire. They comb out their tangles. They put their fears aside and fall fast asleep. Late on the second night of their stay, Tom tells Frodo, “Show me the ring” and Frodo “to his own astonishment” hands it over to Tom at once3.
Of course, I’ve been thinking also about the prefix sub, like “submission”, from the Latin submittere; sub, meaning “under” and mitto or mittere meaning "to send” or “to put”. It makes me think of Theresa de Avila falling on her knees in ecstatic surrender at the altar of her Beloved, and the prayer she wrote and left in her Bible like a bookmark on her deathbed. Sub as in substantialize, meaning to put meat on the bones, to make more real. As in subserve, like a hard to catch, underground, otherwordly magic. As in subliminal, like that sacred felt space just beyond the veil. As in sublime like Brahman nature like being brought to my knees in submission to my Beloved.
RACK Shack
In Risk Aware or Accepted Consensual Kink, a container is built for the enthusiastic exchange of power between consenting adults. That container is like a little house, candlelit, in the deepest, queerest part of the woods, with sturdy walls to keep the forest out. Within these sturdy walls, concepts of Dominion, Domination, Domesticity, and Domicile can be in conversation. Where power dynamics can be negotiated and maintained by equal, consenting adults. Where I can tap into my truest, highest, basest, most ecstatic, God-like self.
Tom Bombadil’s House is like a RACK Shack down by the Withywindle. The Withywindle like a wellspring of our primoridal, prelapsarian nature, running wildly through an ancient forest where once all creation dwelt together and connected like one beating heart. Can you imagine a dark that was fearless? Before the axes fell and all was cleaved in two?4
Within the RACK Shack by the Withywindle, Dominion is about the consensual transfer of power where the Dominant exercises authority with the understanding and agreement of the submissive. The Dominant's role is to create a structured and controlled environment that meets the needs and desires of both parties, ensuring safety and consent are always prioritized. The Domicile—the space where the Dominant has Dominion and where power is being exchanged—is a place of comfort and security for both the Dominant and the submissive, facilitating open communication and mutual respect. Within the Domicile, the Domestic routines of daily life unfold and the negotiated dynamics are lived out: Tom gathers water-lilies, Goldberry does the autumn-cleaning. Domestic peace in this context means a container in which both (or all) parties feel safe, respected, and cared for. The Dominant’s role includes ensuring the well-being of the submissive, not just through authority but through love and doting, adoration and delight.5
These days I’m thinking about building domestic peace and liberation through RACK. To do so requires clear communication, mutual respect, negotiation & consent, safety & care, and the creation and performance of ritual. Together the Dominant and submissive build a little house in the deepest, queerest part of the forest, with sturdy walls and warm woolen blankets. A Dominion skillfully and tenderly stewarded, where bloom peace, unity, freedom, joy, and full-throated submission at the altar of the Beloved.
In a house like this, both parties are true equals, each belonging to themselves, just as the trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land. As Goldberry belongs to herself and as Tom belongs to Himself, together weaving “a single dance, neither hindering the other, in and out of the room, and round about the table.” (pg. 173)
God Is Love Is Me Is You Is God Is
In John 8:58, Jesus, who was executed for blasphemy and claiming kingship, “said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." The Sufi mystic Mansur Al-Hallaj, who was executed for heresy, said “I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I.” In the Chandogya Upanishads, the sage Uddalaka Aruni, instructing him on Brahman nature, tells his son, Tat Tvam Asi—Thou art that.
I picked up New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton on Iona this spring and have been walking around with it in the forest. In the chapter “Things in Their Identity” he’s got this bit about a tree that I love. "A tree gives glory to God by being a tree,” he says. “For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him...The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him. If it tried to be something else which it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give Him less glory."
It’s in this way that Tom is.
Tolkien readers love to make theories about who or what Tom Bombadil is. Is he Eru Illúvatar, the one God and creator of Middle-earth? Is he an avatar of the Vala, Aulë? Is he Tolkien himself? Is he Jesus? Is he a totally worthless waste of pages that Peter Jackson was absolutely right in keeping out of the movies?6 We could dive into canon and make an argument for any of it. Or we can choose to take Goldberry at her word:
He is.
Tom Stays Put
Let’s go back to Chapter 7.
The next day7, the hobbits awake to find sheets of rain out the windows and breakfast on the table. Their plan to pass through the Barrow-downs to rejoin the East Road must be delayed. Frodo is relieved; he hadn’t been looking forward to this leg of the journey. The Barrow-downs are an ancient burial site where lay the noble and royal ancestors of the Dúnedain, then the Númenóreans, then men of the Kingdom of Arnor, now haunted by vicious spirits sent by the Witch-king of Angmar to ensnare anyone who tries to pass.
The hobbits sit at this feet and lean in toward him like little daisies point their faces at the Sun. Day passes into night as Tom takes them on a journey through time and space in Middle-earth:
“Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a while biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind. Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight.” (p. 171)
Tolkien is so artful here—panning out and zooming in and panning out again to show us Tom’s scope and scale. Tom remembers when the river was just a raindrop and the trees were the first acorn. He was here in Middle-earth when the Old Forest spanned all of Eriador and the trees were kings. He “knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless.”8
Setting out on this chapter I thought I’d try and poke at some of the particulars of my own kinks and where they came from or maybe venture into some erotic Tom & Goldberry fan fiction. But I promised myself I’d wrap this up by 10 and it’s already almost 11:30 and my time’s running short to get on my bike and into the woods before I have to pick the kids up from school.
I have so much more I want to say but I’ll leave it at this: when Tom, taking the Ring from Frodo’s willing, outstretched hand, slips it on his big, brown finger, Tom stays put.
Thanks for reading 😮💨
Honestly mortified that I just wrote this phrase and am committed to sending it out for you to read. It reminds me way too much of Rachael Ray saying “Yum-o” or a flow yoga teacher saying “Doesn’t that feel yummy?” but it gets straight to the core of what I want to say and, as a recovering judgey litle bitch need to remind myself constantly, like right here right now in this moment!
From his poem “A Home” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, spy, and Nazi dissenter, imprisoned and executed for his involvement in a plan to overthrow Adolf Hitler. “A stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary,” it continues. Alex and I were given a letter-pressed and framed copy of this poem years ago, before I was ready to receive it. Now, if you invite me to your wedding, I will be reading it on the microphone to you and your guests.
You’ll recall that it’s not so easy to move the ring from one hand to another. Remember Gandalf commanding Bilbo to leave the Ring behind before he sets out for his journey. How firm his grip becomes instead. Frodo is surprised first to find himself so freely passing the Ring to Tom. He is even more surprised—and a little angry—to see that Tom does not disappear when he slips the Ring on his own finger. I think this is what Starhawk calls power-within.
I’m a student of this stuff, not a teacher; if your curiosity is piqued I recommend this podcast, or this site, with a nice list of resources.
The popularly held opinion among incels on Tolkien forums is that Tom Bombadil really sucks and absolutely doesn’t bang his wife, which tells you soooo much about sex culture these days, my gosh.
Frodo has a very important dream that night, but it’s outside the scope of this essay. Keep an eye on it, though!
I fucking love this sentence! Tolkien is so good!
This is the best thing I ever read in months. These thoughts for liberation FASCINATE me. Thank you.
YES. 🤍