Thoughts – Page 19 – Femdom Resource

Kink, sex and money (continued)

In yesterday’s post I was pondering the intersection of sex and commercial domination, and suggesting that the laws around sex work had led to the well defined modern pro-domme industry. I thought in this continuation post it’d be worth thinking about the other side of the sex work coin, the escort business.

Now I have to admit that I don’t have as much experience in this area as I do with pro-dommes. However, I have hung out on a wide variety of sex forums and sites, and I’ve always been puzzled by one question. Why aren’t there more kinky escorts? While legal issues may have helped shape the pro-domme industry, why should that have any impact on escorts? In the vast majority of the US (outside a few bits of Nevada) paying for sex is illegal. So given escorts are already operating without the same legal and conventional boundaries pro-dommes typically have, why do so few not try to broaden their appeal to capture both the sexual and the kinky market?

I should probably briefly pause at this point to make clear that I’m not suggesting that the skill-sets between the two professions are the same. Or that all an escort needs to do to steal some pro-domme customers is to buy herself a whip and a pair of leather boots. But at the same time, you don’t necessarily need a MA in rope suspension and a PhD in medical play to mix some light kink with a little sex. Why isn’t that category better represented by sex workers?

My personal theory is that the reason can be indirectly traced back to those same laws that helped define conventional pro-domme activities. As I suggested yesterday those laws created a fairly well defined idea of what a pro-domme is and does. It’s a role that’s externally perceived to be about pain, punishment and humiliation. It’s about naked guys on all fours while a woman struts about dressed like a leather clad Nazi stormtrooper. There’s no fun and there’s no pleasure (as it’s conventionally defined). I think that’s an incorrect perception, I’ve had all sorts of fun, playful and pleasurable sessions, but it’s a common one.

This dichotomy of sex and kink creates a marketing problem for anyone trying to bridge it. The kind of forums where you can advertise and reach out to pro-domme clients frown on any kind of sexual service. There’s the ‘circling the wagons’ syndrome I discussed yesterday from the dommes (‘escort with a whip’ is a common disparaging description), and there’s the site moderators worried about any legal ramifications. Well know places like Max Fisch will rapidly delete any discussion that touches on potentially illegal behavior. On the flip-side, trying to market to the escort customers who might be kinky, runs the risk of scaring them off with all that weird BDSM stuff. Mistress Matisse wrote a blog post several years ago that touched on this. She had a friend who worked as an escort and would call up Matisse if one of her regulars suggested anything a little kinky…

…she always introduced me by another name, because a lot of her guys displayed nervousness when she floated the idea of bringing in “a pro domme”. Oh, no thank you, that would be too much, they’d say. They weren’t that kinky. But when Miss K said something like “I have a girlfriend who has a flogger and a strap-on” – or whatever the appropriate thing was – the answer was: “Sure, love to meet her!”
Mistress Matisse

The ironic thing about the very limited intersection between these two commercial areas is that in the non-commercial domain that’s where most kinky people find themselves. A couple exploring BDSM doesn’t rush out to fit a hard point in the bedroom, buy a 6 foot bullwhip and enroll in advanced classes in piercing and cutting. Instead they do a little bondage, maybe some spanking or CBT and buy a few fun toys to try. Even among couples who get seriously interested in it, there seem to be very few who take it to the level of putting together the kind of set-up you’d find a pro-domme using.

Personally this gap in the market doesn’t bother me too much. I like the kind of intense and heavy pure BDSM sessions a skilled pro-domme can put together. Sex is pretty much the last thing on my hand after I’ve been bound and tortured for two hours. But I do think the distortion to the market caused by the law in this area probably leaves a lot of potential clients out in the cold. They don’t think they’re kinky enough to see a pro-domme, but they’d like a little more than meaningless vanilla sex.

At this point I’m going to once again stop with things still left to say. Looks like this’ll have to stretch to an unprecedented third post. Tune in tomorrow for more of my meandering thoughts.

Finding an image for this post wasn’t easy. I really wanted a shot of that rare breed – a kinky escort. Luckily my hard drive is replete with images from odd sources, and I managed to locate this one. The woman here is Tigerr Juggs, a London and Tokyo based escort who offers a very complete set of kinky services.

Kink, sex and money

There’s a post title with three simple and uncontroversial topics in it. I should have no problem dusting them all off in the space of this one blog entry.

More seriously, I’ve been idly musing over the intersection of these three areas for sometime, but this particular post was prompted by this blog entry by January Seraph. You can go read it for yourself, but the short version is that having been invited to participate in a pro-domme calendar project she was then uninvited for combing sexual acts with BDSM in the videos she’d shot. In the words of the unidentified calendar creator:

On a professional level this concerns me greatly. I require that all of the Pro Dommes in my production are not filming any sexual acts to protect my name, and themselves as well.

I found that extraordinary, particularly given that January had also offered to donate a full day of her studio’s time to shoot for the calendar, and it got me thinking more about sex and kink in the professional domain. I should add that what follows are my general thoughts, entirely unrelated to how January conducts herself in the different facets of her professional life. Her original post was just an interesting catalyst.

Anyone who has browsed pro-domme websites or scheduled a session will know that sexual activity between the domme and the client is very much verboten. Almost universally they’ll state that even suggesting it will get you hung-up on or booted out of the dungeon. Of course, there does tend to be some variance on where the line actually gets drawn. Some pro-dommes will do penetration with a strap-on, some will not. Some will limit body worship to below the knees, where others will do face sitting provided they remain fully clothed. But in general nothing happens that would typically be classified as ‘sex’.

I’ve also noticed a tendency for pro-dommes to ‘circle the wagons’ when it comes to defining what should and should not be allowed. I think this comes from an understandable desire to try and have a reasonably consistent boundary line across all pro-dommes, and not have clients confused about what they can expect. For example, masturbating a submissive (aka a handjob) is a fairly controversial area. That can clearly be a sexual service outside of a D/s interaction, and that can also be a very integral part of intense D/s play. Yet I’ve had lengthy on-line arguments with a few pro-dommes who tied themselves in logical knots trying to prove that it was impossible for a handjob to be a dominant act. It seemed that they felt a need to extend the entirely unarguable “I don’t do this” into the unreasonable “…and no other domme should.” I suspect that’s partly where the calendar project owner was coming from. She wants a consistent view of what a pro-domme does, and more specifically she wants it to be her view. Anyone outside of that is not just making a personal decision about boundaries, but in her mind is also bring her chosen profession into disrepute.

I think a lot of the lines drawn around professional domination have arisen from the current laws around sex work. For the most part it’s possible to operate as a pro-domme entirely legally. Some activities are legally risky (anal penetration, force-bi), but with care a pro-domme can be successful without breaking a single US law. I think this legal boundary line has helped create a more universal definition of what a pro-domme actually does. That’s not to say that if all the laws were repealed tomorrow that all pro-dommes would then suddenly expand their range of activities to cover more sexual acts. But I do think the laws have helped shape the well defined form the industry currently takes.

In this context, it’s interesting to observe the evolution in BDSM pornography in recent years. Ten or more years ago it was very much segregated from traditional pornography. Movies either showed penetrative sex or they showed traditional BDSM activities (bondage, fetish gear, mild pain, etc.), but never both together. There was a general assumption that to combine these two things together would land the producer in court under an obscenity charge (mostly thanks to assholes like this guy). The Cambria list provides a pretty good representation of what was then thought to be unacceptable. But a combination of the internet, a big reduction in prosecutions and producers willing to push the envelope changed the perception of the legal risks. Now there are sites like Sex and Submission dedicated to showing explicit sex combined with heavy BDSM. I actually know of pro-dommes who will not shoot for kink.com anymore, as sexual acts have rapidly become an expected part of a scene. So while individuals have kept their own personal boundaries intact, from an industry perspective the legal change (or perceived one) has acted to dissolve the strict BDSM/non-BDSM pornography divide. Now the material distributes itself across the entire possible continuum of activities.

At this point I’ll stop writing further. Clearly my original goal of nailing all the issues around kink, sex and money in a single post was a little ambitious. It turns out I’m going to need two posts for that, so check-back tomorrow for my continued thoughts on where escorts and kink fit in. Until then it seems appropriate to finish with a shot of Mistress Seraph, given that she was the original prompt for my post. Here she is doing a little CBT for the Divine Bitches site.

I’m eccentric. You’re crazy.

Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour) recently published a though provoking post over at her blog ‘The Sex Myth‘. It was triggered by the trial of Michael Peacock for violating the obscene publications act. He’s a UK based male escort who distributed gay pornography featuring watersports, fisting and a various BDSM activities. Thankfully he was found not guilty, which is likely to provoke a rethink on what is and isn’t legal to publish in the UK.

It is of course good news that Britain might relax its ridiculous obscenity laws. It has lagged behind both Europe and the United States when it comes to publishing explicit sexual material. I always find it ironic that the country founded by radical Puritans escaping England ended up with far more liberal obscenity laws than England itself. It also makes me happy to think that a randomly selected jury could overcome their natural impulse of ‘Ugh! That’s fucking weird!” and return a verdict of not-guilty. I wonder if the prevalence of the internet, with all it’s multifaceted and easily accessible media, has something to do with that. Twenty years ago you’d have had to go to considerably effort to see anything more than soft core pornography. Now any random friend can email you a link to two girls one cup.

While the not-guilty verdict was welcome, there were a couple of observations about the coverage of the case that were less positive. The first was from Quiet Riot Girl on the media coverage in the Guardian of the case. For those that don’t know it, the Guardian is the largest left-of-center newspaper in the UK. Quiet Riot Girl correctly pointed out that the paper normally takes a very puritanical line on porn, with contributors like Julie Bindel arguing for much stronger censorship and legislation against sex workers (for example idiotic articles like this or like this). In this case it trumpeted the result as a victory for sexual freedom. So obviously porn is degrading when it features any women, but liberating when it features only men. I like the Guardian, I read it most days, but that’s a spectacularly patronizing and inconsistent point of view.

The other observation was from Brooke herself, and picked up on something that always been a bugbear of mine.

Is there an unwritten rule that when the topic is sex, even supportive and liberal commentators who identify as sex-positive must make it clear exactly where in this case their personal kinky line has been crossed? I lost count of the number of times either on blogs or on Twitter I read some variation of “Of course, I don’t go in for these disgusting practices at all, but I fully support…” etc.

What’s the problem here, you might ask? That of solidarity. You wouldn’t begin a discussion on same-sex marriage with the sentence, “Of course, I am disgusted at the thought of being attracted to the same sex, but I fully support…”, would you? You wouldn’t start an article about trans people with “I am appalled at the idea of changing your born sex, but I fully support…” and so on.
……
Sexuality is not a hierarchy of extremity, with fisting, urine, and blood at its apex. Sexuality is not a linear progression from missionary-position, procreative, within-marriage, monogamous mating at one end and goatse at the other.
Brooke Magnanti

I completely understand why people do this when it comes to porn. They’re seeking the intellectual higher ground. They don’t want people to think the material might excite them, because that would appear to weaken their argument. Their motives can no longer be trusted because their baser instincts have been aroused. Better to be a champion of intellectual freedom than a horny person looking for something to get off on.

However, as Brooke argues, sexual acts aren’t graded on some linear curve. The idea of a sexual line in the sand makes no sense. Either you’re in favor of sexual freedom and adults retaining their own power of consent, or you’re not. It shouldn’t be necessary to layout or justify your own personal sexual kinks in order to defend freedom of speech. The pressure should always be on the people trying to censor a particular point of view. Not on the people who enjoy it and want to share their sexual preferences with others. We shouldn’t be simultaneously defending someone while ghettoizing their sexuality.

For an illustrative image I thought I’d run with the fisting theme, since that was apparently one of the triggers for the original prosecution. Here’s a rather attractive young lady wearing some decorative pearls and a slightly more functional latex glove.

I found this on the Women Supremacy tumblr. It’s originally from the Tyrannized site.

Getting all emotional

I’ve written a lot in the past about the physical sensations of play sessions, but I don’t think I’ve written much about the emotional side of things. This doesn’t seem to be unusual. When I look around blogs and forums I see a lot of talk about the physical (appearance, activities, etc.) and the sensations (pain, pleasure, etc.) but not much about the emotions in a session. What talk there is of emotions tends to focus on the longer term issues, such as the emotional relationship with the domme, dealing with any feelings of guilt or shame, the anticipation or excitement of a upcoming play date, etc. For actual sessions people tend to talk about subspace and leave it at that.

This is probably because these kind of in-the-moment emotions feel very personal. It’s easy to talk about and share common reference points for a particular activity or type of costume. Transitory emotions are both harder to describe and likely to be more unique to the individual. However, I think they’re worth discussing, as they remain a constant source of fascination for me. I should note that I’m talking about emotions in a pro-domme session context. That’s obviously a very different emotional starting point than a non-professional context.

When I session I don’t role-play and I don’t target a specific emotional response. Humiliation and emotional masochism aren’t big button pushers for me. Yet, in the two or three hours of a normal session, I’ll go through a big emotional swing. I can’t think of another situation that’ll manipulate my emotions quite so quickly and effectively.

The starting point, the moment I get naked, is always smiles and jokes, with a little edge of anticipation. There’ll be some prodding of old marks. A little pinching and laughter as I react. I’m certainly not a smart ass masochist, but if there’s ever a time I’ll tease the domme a little, it’s at this point. I’m happy and a little cocky. I know some people find CFNM to be erotically charged and excitingly humiliating, but it just tends to make me smile. There’s something inherently funny about the naked male body (mine anyway), particularly when put next to a beautiful and sensually dressed female one.

As we get deeper into the session the next emotional state for me is normally one of peace and calmness. Obviously it depends on exactly what we’re doing, but typically as bondage is applied and my options shrink, I feel contentment. There’s a sense that all is right with the world. I can relax and let my body and senses belong to someone else.

At the heart of the session is the strangest emotion of all. I don’t have a word for it, but the closest comparison I can make is to an intense feeling of love. It’s clearly not love, as it doesn’t exist prior to the session and it fades the instant we transition out of D/s mode. But in the deepest moments of the best sessions I feel this strong wave of something like love for the domme. It reminds me of the feelings from the first few months of an exciting new relationship. That up-swelling of emotion when you see the person, that sense that they’re the center of your world, and that you want to protect them and care for them.

Along with the love-like emotion there’s also often a strong sense of gratitude. A feeling that I’m deeply in debt to the domme. The domme will do something particularly vicious to me, and I’ll feel a powerful urge to thank her. This isn’t the kind of rote thank-you that some domme’s demand as part of a beating, but a genuine need to acknowledge how I feel inside. In hindsight it seems quite extraordinary. Why suddenly (and temporarily) feel ‘love’ for someone who just deliberately hurt you? Why thank them? The psychology behind this fascinates me, as it seems so very counter-intuitive.

Finally, at the end of the session, the emotional transition is a return to laughter. The tension and intensity seeps out of the scene and is replaced by smiles. The endorphins are swirling around my brain and I’m buzzed, with an innate sense of well-being. That feeling will last for hours, and for the next few days I’ll feel more positive and energized.

I’d be interested to hear from others as to how their emotional cycle unfolds over a play period. Feel free to leave a comment. I’m also curious as to the difference playing in a relationship makes, as that’s something operating over very different emotional territory.

When it comes to illustrating images for the post, I thought these 3 shots seemed appropriate. They’re from the ‘Men are Slaves‘ site and show an intense whipping followed by a nice emotional moment of care and connection.

What to think…

The first image below is floating around on a number of femdom tumblr’s, having started life (AFAIK) on maymay’s Submissive Secrets. I can’t argue with the surface level sentiment *. The left image is far more aesthetically and erotically pleasing, and I’d definitely prefer it as a representation of femdom than the one on the right. However, contrarian that I am, I can’t help feeling the urge to dig a little below the surface and maybe quibble with some of the subtext.

In picking that particular right hand image I feel the creator ‘cheated’ somewhat. I’m sure Lady Joanne is a wonderful woman (you can see her site here) but that photograph certainly doesn’t do her any favors. That costume is a horrible cliche, her makeup extreme and the activity depicted lacks any chemistry. However, I’m sure the creators goal wasn’t simply to highlight a single bad photograph. After all, there is an endless supply of bad porn photographs of all types. The contrast being made here is something more that qualitative. The left shot very obviously lacks any traditional fetishwear or kinky props. There’s no clearly defined activity, just a sexy shot of woman pushing the man back in a forceful way. So surely you could change the right shot for a ‘better’ kink heavy photograph, without changing the basic message?

Lets say, for example, we changed the right photograph for one of those I’ve included below (click to enlarge). I picked these fairly randomly from a large collection of similar ‘men in pain‘ shots. They all show various fetish outfits, traditional BDSM props and more extreme activities. They’re certainly not my favorite femdom shots, but there’s at least a few elements in all of them I find appealing. I like the intensity, the drama and the physical manifestation of the control.

So if one of these images had been used on the right, what difference would it make? It really shouldn’t change the basic message, right? Yet somehow, I think it does. With one of these on the right I don’t think I’d care which of the images came to mind of our generic Miss X. On one hand it’s sexy fun D/s and on the other it’s intense sensation D/s. I’d definitely prefer she didn’t freak out and treat me like a weirdo, but anyone who did that probably was never going to end up on my Christmas card list anyway. I’m proud of some of the crazy stuff I’ve done. It’s not always necessary, but it is enjoyable.

All the commonly depicted BDSM accoutrements – ropes, whips, cuffs, pegs, needles, boots, corsets, buckets of soapy frogs – are just tools. Ways to mediate and amplify power exchange. They often incorrectly get put to center stage in porn. Yet this misuse doesn’t mean they’re not still useful (and fun) tools. They weren’t specially selected by a secret committee in an effort to make kinky people look silly. So lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’d like people to think of femdom and think of a women taking control and having hot forceful sex exactly the way she wants it. I’d also like people to think of it and picture a woman skillfully suspending a guy with many feet of rope and then whipping him (and her) happy with a single tail.

* Although I’m not sure what is with the ‘being young sucks’ part of it. I think I was 13 or 14 years old the last time I thought that, and at that age outing myself as submissive to women was way down my list of priorities. Back then I’d have said I was a dominant Gorean rope master with an interest in furries if it would have landed me a date.

D/s dynamics in a pro-domme session (revisited)

A few weeks ago I published a couple of posts on the subject of D/s dynamics in a pro-domme session (here and here). The second of those heavily referenced an earlier post by the Dishevelled Domina entitled ‘Power Exchange‘.

It stimulated a lengthy discussion, firstly in the comments and then secondly between the Dishevelled Domina and myself via email. That email discussion grew into a sprawling mini-epic that had a lot of interesting points but was far too enormous to easily share. We (mostly DD if I’m honest) then did some ruthless editing and produced a more digestible snack sized version of our conversation.

Even at snack size it’s still a pretty substantive discussion, and so I’ve published it on a separate page . If you were interested in my original posts, or the general topic of D/s and pro-dommes, I’d suggest taking a look. DD has also published the same discussion in a new post on her blog.

Tasting Menu

In a comment to my previous post ‘Masochist vs Fetishist vs Submissive‘ Saratoga asked an interesting question.

Do you think your feelings of submission, as distinct from masochism or fetish, are different for you, than, say, for me, because yours involved Pro Dommes with whom you don’t have a non-professional attachment, whereas all of mine, save one instance, were lifestyle, relationship- or association-based FemDom experiences?
Saratoga

In many ways this is an impossible question to answer, given I don’t know know what his feelings of submission are. I’ve also only had vanilla relationships prior to getting involved physically involved in BDSM, so I don’t even have a good comparison to make in my own life. However, it did seem an interesting thing to think about in general terms. What are some of the potential difference between professional and non-professional play?

In a follow-up comment Saratoga likened pro-play to an unhealthy snack as compared to a good balanced meal. I don’t like that analogy at all. An unhealthy snack suggests something bad for you, a guilty weakness that you’d be better off resisting. That doesn’t align at all with how I feel about my sessions. Despite that, the food analogy, always a popular one in this kind of context, does have some merit.

I’d liken a professional session to a tasting menu in a high end restaurant. It’ll probably showcases techniques and ingredients you might find it difficult to replicate at home. With the right kind of chef in the kitchen it’ll probably be designed and prepared with intensity and passion. It can deliver an out-of-the world experience for a few hours. I’ve had some restaurant meals that have almost been spiritual experiences the food was so good. But it’s a context free, self-contained experience. It stands alone as a very pure event. There’s not all the shared emotional history and deeper connection that you might get with a specially prepared home cooked meal.

The purity of a professional session is a mixed blessing. On the downside it means dealing with a very disconnected world. There’s a session and there’s normal life. If you can’t deal with that kind of discontinuity then professional play probably isn’t a good idea. It also limits the evolution of the D/s dynamic. Even when you session regularly with the same pro-domme (as I do), it’s hard to create a sense of continuity between sessions. On the upside, there’s no emotional baggage to interfere with the dynamic. No residual tension, unspoken issues or unresolved arguments. There’s just a dominant woman, a bunch of equipment design to fuck someone up and a naked willing submissive.

It would be a mistake to confuse this purity with emotional simplicity. I think it’s instructive to compare a pro-domme session with a casual, just for fun, sexual encounter. To the outside observer these might look like very similar things. The activities are different, but they both involve people outside a relationship engaging each other in intense physical sensations. Neither of them feature any kind of emotional commitment or a broader context. And yet, in my experience, they are very different. The fun sexual encounter is just that, fun. It’s an emotionally light, physically pleasant way to pass the time. In contrast I’ve experienced incredibly intense emotions in sessions. I’ve been pushed into places I never knew existed, and headspaces that left me buzzed and happy for days. There’s an intensity to BDSM play that can work well even without the richer emotional context of a deep relationship.

Given a lot of this post featured pro-dommes along with a food metaphor, I thought this would be a particularly apt image to use. This is Mona Rogers, a pro-domme from NYC, feeding dinner to one of her slaves. I don’t think he’s getting a tasting menu. If you’d like to try that rather cool doggy helmet our for yourself, her contact information is here.

Masochist vs Fetishist vs Submissive

My recent couple of posts on pro-dommes and D/s dynamics (here and here) got me thinking once again about categorization. I’ve posted on this in the past, most recently here, but the pro-domme angle got me thinking about it in a slightly different way. As the post title suggests, I’m defining three basic groupings.

Masochists are internal. They’re focused on their own sensations and headspace. In an activity like a caning they enjoy the sharp impact against their flesh, the imperceptibly delayed rush of pain and the flood of endorphins that result. They find their fulfillment by looking inwards.

In contrast fetishists are external. They find satisfaction in physical objects, materials and activities. Typically people think of a fetish as targeting a material like leather or an object like high heels, but I think an activity can be equally fetishized. To continue the caning example, a fetishist might enjoy the ceremony of it. The click of the mistresses high heels as she circles behind him. The cut-off view of the her legs and feet as she takes positions. The warm-up swish. The rhythmic delivery of each strike. He find fulfillment in experiencing the external thing he fetishizes.

Submissives are all about taking the internal and making it external. They want to take things they normally control, key parts of their self-autonomy, and put them into the hands of someone else. Kinky acts or equipment are just tools to aid or emphasize this exchange. For a submissive a caning isn’t simply about the act or the pain. It’s about the dominant taking over his internal sensorium. Using pain to block even his internal thought processes. It’s that moment when the dominant pauses and then says with a smile “I think maybe 6 more.” That beautiful moment of decision about the submissive but not by the submissive.

There three groups are of course overlapping. I think a lot of non-dominant kinky males would identify to some degree with all of them. I’d typically not describe myself as a fetishist, but I still appreciate an exciting latex outfit or a striking pair of shiny leather boots. I think they key to figuring our your primary kinky wiring is to contemplate which of them you could do without. That really help crystallize the “nice bonus to have” against the “this is fundamentally who I am”. Personally, when I think about it in those terms, it’s clear that I’m primarily submissive. I could be dominated painlessly by a woman in sweatpants and still find it hot. Conversely, extreme sensations and a dungeon full of kinky gear would be no fun at all without the added element of control.

The reason I started thinking about these groupings in connection with pro-dommes is that these three categories represent three different types of client. That fact becomes self-evident when you look at posts on pro-domme discussion forums. Some people fixate on their internal sensations, some on the appearance or activities they enjoy and some on the dynamic they’re looking for.

This leads to a lot of confusion. For one thing they’re all called professional dominants, where in some specific cases professional sadist or professional fetish fantasy fulfiller might be a more appropriate title. For another thing their clients don’t typically make these kind of distinctions either. Both a pain junky and a foot fetishist might call themselves submissive, keying off the ‘domme’ part of the name. I guess it’s therefore not surprising that discussions of power, control and desire get particularly complicated in this area.

As a final comment, I will note that the key to my own understand of where I fall in the above categories has come from playing with pro-dommes. If you’d asked me five years ago about my sexual wiring I’d have never described myself as a submissive. Instead, once I’d finished blushing, I’d have described the external fetish elements – kinky clothes and activities. The things I saw in traditional BDSM images and videos. It was only when I started playing for real that I started understanding and appreciating the critical importance of the D/s dynamic. That’s something that I think is very hard to grasp when your relationships are vanilla and all your kink comes via porn.

Once again, this is yet another post where I’m somewhat at a loss to think of an appropriate illustrating image. So I’ll just go with one I happened to find recently and like.

I came across this one on the Finally & Finally tumblr site.

D/s dynamics in a pro-domme session

This post is really a continuation of the one I published yesterday. Before I started writing about attitudes towards D/s dynamics, power exchange and pro-dommes I went off to hunt for a blog post illustrating what I felt was the opposing point of view. Luckily, I didn’t have to go too far on my blogroll to find this one by the Dishevelled Domina. It’s not exactly recent (May 2011) but I think it captures a fairly common viewpoint (both Dev and Stabbity commented on it favorably). As yesterday’s post was getting a bit long and unwieldy, I decided to create a new one just to tackle DD’s original post in more depth. I’d suggest reading her thoughts before proceeding, as everything will make a lot more sense that way.

Let me start off with where we agree, as it’s always good to start on a positive note.

It has been suggested to me, more than once, that since I like dominating men I should do it professionally. I am almost invariably annoyed by the suggestion
Dishevelled Domina

No arguments here. I can see why that would be annoying. It’s a very presumptuous statement. Now setting that justifiable response aside, let’s move onto the stuff I don’t agree with….

The librarian analogy the post opens with seems very tortured, but not in the fun way. I’m not the President of the United States (with all the baggage that come with that). I don’t session in a space honoring me. I’m not putting together my memorial for the future. A domme isn’t my indirect employee. It’s very clear in that example the man has all the power. It’s not at all clear to me why anyone would think that analogy maps closely to a pro-domme dynamic.

A better analogy, if we want to try and stick to the library idea, would be something like: An expert and highly regarded librarian has assembled her private library over several years. If she likes you (based on manners, attitude, past behavior, etc.), and your interests overlap and you make a sizable donation, she’ll give you access to the library and her expertise for a limited time. She’ll also take into consideration your ideas about new books to get or particular genres the library is lacking. Now who has the power in that situation? Sure as hell doesn’t seem like it’s the guy browsing the shelves occasionally.

When I play, I do something TO my eager fucktoy. If I am being paid to perform that act though, I am now doing it FOR him.
Dishevelled Domina

Actually I’d suggest you’re doing it WITH him. No matter how great a dominant you may be, at the end of the day if the submissive doesn’t get something out of the play at some level, it’s not going to work. Whatever the circumstances, all parties are trying to fulfill mutual needs, with varying degrees alignment between them. In a consensual dynamic, no domme gets to do whatever she wants to do irrespective of any other opinion.

I’ll skip over the inflammatory Taco Bell comment (cheap, nasty, fast food is the culinary equivalent of pro-dommes apparently), and get to what I think is the crux of the matter.

…one glorious day, you manage to talk her into dousing herself in baby powder and fighting her way into a tube of latex, or some other equally hideous getup that you’ve been fantasizing about, and then you have her spank you, assfuck you, and generally get you off exactly the way you pictured it, well, ya know what?

You have all the power, and you are running the fuck. She is not dominating you.
……
What are you doing there is called role playing, and it can be awesome, but it is not femdom.
Dishevelled Domina

Absolutely agree. Sounds like fun, but doesn’t sound like femdom. It also doesn’t sound anything like the way I play. I strongly suspect I’m not unique in that.

My pre-scene negotiation normally consists of one sentence, where I suggest a general theme or direction. It might say “Let’s try piercing”, or “Maybe some rope bondage”, or “How about breathplay?” From that I leave it to the domme (Lady Lydia) to riff on that theme anyway she likes. We’ve played enough together that she knows that I’m very much the kinky omnivore, and where my hard limits lie (no scat, no drowning, no spiders). She can spin things however she wants over the 2 to 3 hours of the session. I never make clothing suggestions, I don’t have options once we start playing and I never know what she’s decided. Sometimes the theme becomes the major part of our play. Sometimes it goes in a different direction, we end up doing entirely different activities, and the suggested theme ends up as a very minor part. Sometimes she ignores it all-together. For example, the scrotal inflation scene we did was a completely out of the blue suggestion. I’ve no idea what I’d originally suggested for that session, but it certainly wasn’t that. However, Lydia had just purchased some sterile saline and was keen to inflate something with it. I was happy to oblige and a few hours later I had a sack the size of a cantaloupe.

I’ve never made suggestions during a session about what to do next or how to change an activity. It’d seem very weird to do so. The only time I’ve stepped back out of it is when I’ve had physical issues like cramps or numbness. I’d actually be happy dropping even my single sentence theme suggestion, but Lydia likes it as a jumping off point for her ideas. And who am I to tell the domme how to run her sessions?

It’s clearly true that some pro-domme sessions involve choreographed activities directed by the bottom. But exactly the same could be said for lifestyle play. After all, people want to be seen as GGG. So to try and define ‘true’ power exchange based on a pro/lifestyle divide is false dichotomy. It can work or not work in both situations. And I get a little fed up of people telling me ‘I am not trying to say that unless you do femdom the way I do femdom yer doin’ it wrong…..[but you are]‘

I wasn’t really sure what image would be suitable to highlight this post. So I thought I’d simply go with one of my favorites from the Dishevelled Domina’s tumblr site.

Tis but a scratch

Lady Annisa has an interesting new post up that prompted a little reflection and thought on my part.

I enjoyed the post for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the temporary role reversal, with the medically inclined domme ending up in the local A&E unit is an unusual ending to a session! Obviously getting gashed on the scalp isn’t exactly amusing, but the picture she paints of the scene with the fresh faced registrar certainly is. Secondly, I also appreciated it as an illustration of just how into a scene a domme, and specifically a pro-domme, can get. Here’s someone so into playing with a particular submissive they don’t even notice a suture worthy head wound. It’s not until the blood starts splattering around that they figure out what’s going on.

There is a school of thought, often expressed by lifestyle female dominants, that a pro-domme can never be a real domme. She’s just doing a job. She’s being paid, so she’s not really in control. It’s all a bunch of smoke and mirrors, and really she’s bored/submissive/exploited/powerless.

Possessors of this kind of viewpoint always bemuses me, as it seems so incredibly simple minded. It’s as if they can’t deal with multiple simultaneous concepts. It can both be a job and enjoyable. A session can involve financial exchange without precluding power exchange. She can offer a service without automatically giving up control of the situation, or how, when and who can experience it. People can be friends and have intense meaningful interactions whilst still retaining a professional relationship.

Personally if I’m doing something I don’t enjoy, then any minor issue turns into a distraction I’ll make use of. Forget blood gushing head wounds. I’ll take a stubbed toe or a tight muscle as a reason to give-up and go do something else. In contrast when I’m immersed in a situation then a small bomb blast may go unnoticed. As Lady Annisa says…

That’s what happens when you’re enjoying yourself, you just don’t notice the pain or you process it differently

Clearly, while she might have been getting paid for her time, she was also very much enjoying herself.

For an image to illustrate this post my thoughts turned to medical play and then in turn to Kami Tora. He’s always a good source for images of sadistic medical torments.