Be Careful What You Wish For

Here’s a follow-up thought to my previous post on pro-domme names and some client’s desire to discover their ‘real’ one: Be careful what you wish for, because there’s really only downside to this knowledge.

The first downside is you could now accidentally let it slip in front of another pro-domme. Or, even more stupidly, name drop it deliberately. Only badness can come from this. Best case scenario is you’ll be considered untrustworthy and that anything done with you in private will inevitably become public knowledge. Worst case is the domme will assume you’re a creepy boundary pusher on a power trip. Good luck getting a great session in either case.

The other major downside is that the name might not be one you associate with hot sexy fun times. What if the leather clad mistress of your dreams happens to share a name with your least favorite elderly Aunt? One minute your quivering before Mistress Cruella. The next you’re trying desperately not to picture Aunt Cheryl, your chain-smoking relative with the annoying laugh, hairy mole and slightly racist views. No matter how kinky you are, that erection isn’t coming back anytime soon.

Pictured is an actual shot of a client shortly after nagging a sex worker for her non-professional names.

Name of the Game

Do you know the names Margaret Hyra, Neta-Lee Hershlag or Demetria Guynes? Any ideas? How about Julie Smith or Robyn Fenty? You might know them better by their stage names of, respectively, Meg Ryan, Natalie Portman, Demi Moore, Julianne Moore and Rihanna. Does knowing their original names change the perception of their work? Outside of idle curiosity, I’m guessing the answer is no.

I’m writing about names because of this NYT article on sex work and working names. It’s written by a pro-domme named Mistress Natalie and details all the aggressive boundary pushing clients did to try and find her ‘real’ name. I’m sure its contents are no surprise to other sex workers. Clients who pay attention shouldn’t be too surprised either. It’s a common complaint on sex workers social media feeds.

It always struck me as a weird thing for clients to care about. I get why creepy boundary pushers do it, but what’s everyone else’s excuse? We’re accepting of professional names in all sorts of other situations. Isn’t the name that someone chose for themselves more interesting and meaningful than the one picked by their parents a few decades back? Nobody accuses Helen Mirren of being inauthentic just because she doesn’t go around calling herself Ilyena Lydia Mironoff. Although, frankly she probably should use that, because it’s an awesome name.

This is the great Dame Helen herself, shooting for US Vogue in 2013.

Splash of Color

Surveys tell us that January and February are considered people’s least favorite month. That means we’re currently deep in the heart of gloom town. As a minor pick-me-up I therefore bring you this splash of color. It’s a nice reminder of happier, warmer and kinkier days to come.

There’s a subtle twitter handler woven into the image, but unfortunately it’s a suspended account. Poking around makes me think the image creator is Princess Honey now operating from this twitter feed.

Don’t Go Dark

I’ve one final comment on the topic of ending a relationship with a pro-domme: If you’re of advancing years and/or have health issues, then I’d say always try and let a domme know if you decide to stop or take a break from regular sessions with her.

I say this because I’ve lost count of the number of worried tweets and comments I’ve seen from dommes with regulars who fitted this profile and who suddenly stopped showing up. As Simon commented previously on this exact topic, dommes when outside the dungeon and when they’re not hitting people with sticks, are typically very compassionate people. If you’ve any doubt about that I’d point you to this very moving post by Dana Kane.

If some random middle aged guy ghosts then they’ll put it down to one of those things. If an older regular suddenly vanishes then they’re likely to be a lot more concerned. You don’t want to leave them fearing the worst, no matter how good they might look in black.

I believe this is an image created by the photographer Lado Alexi.

Dealing with Ambiguity

I’m returning here to my prior post on the question of what is owed when ending a relationship between a pro-domme and a client. What’s a respectful way to navigate that transition?

The obvious response is that it depends on the history. If you’ve played together intermittently and just a handful of times, then the answer is likely nothing. It’d be ruder to reach out to announce you’ll not be requesting another session than silently moving on. If you’ve developed a deep and personal relationship, where the financial aspect is only part of the arrangement, then the answer will be very context dependent and impossible to generalize about here. But how about the middle ground? What about an ongoing relationship, with regular encounters over an extended period? The sessions wouldn’t happen if the client wasn’t paying, yet there’s also a shared understanding and familiarity that has developed over time. What then?

I think this situation can be awkward for clients to navigate for a number of reasons. Firstly, pro-dommes all have very different ways they approach things. That’s not just in style of domination, but also protocols, approach to sessions, communication, expectations, etc. For some, reaching out to explain would be a form of time wasting. For others, it’d be common courtesy. It might be hard to judge which scenario applies to your case. It’s not exactly a question you can easily ask!

Another challenge is the fact that pro-dommes can and do retire with little to no notice. Or decide to move and practice their profession elsewhere. I’ve had both happen to me and it can be quite disconcerting. Obviously, a domme can manage her career however she wants, but the possibility of a sudden departure is now always at the back of my mind.

Ultimately, I think what we owe each other should be the same thing. If I’d expect unusual consideration from a pro-domme if she moved on, then I should extend the same courtesy if I choose end the relationship. Outside of that very rare situation, I think a thoughtful email is a very reasonable approach between long term professional play partners.

In this gentleman’s case, moving on doesn’t appear to be one of his current options, although hypothermia might be. I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for the image.

Update: Thanks to my awesome readers I can now attribute this. It’s Princess Amber shooting for Brat Princess.

Taking It Literally

I was planning to post some follow-up thoughts to my last post, but the night is late and time has run short. Instead, consider this post as a humorous intermission between serious musing. It features a couple who really decided to run with the golden shower concept. I suspect that – as is always the way with makeshift outdoor showers – the warm ‘water’ will run out before he can soap off properly.

I’ve no idea where this is from. Reverse image search doesn’t link to anything useful sadly.

What do we owe each other?

I pose the question in the post’s title based on this thread by Dia Dynasty. She writes about a long term slave who abruptly ended their relationship via email. A fact which hurt and deeply disappointed her. It’s a sad situation, but one which I think raises the general question: What do we owe each other in that kind of relationship?

I’m specifically referring to a professional relationship which – thanks to its length and close nature – has developed beyond just a simple transaction. Obviously, in a non-professional context a kinky relationship is no different to breaking-up in any relationship. At least in terms of the need for compassion, understanding and respect. But how does the presence of a transactional element change things?

I don’t have a glib or easy answer. I just thought it was an interesting question to ponder. Maybe, for the little they’ll be worth, I’ll share some musings in a follow-up post.

This is Dia Dynasty, a wholistic femdom practitioner, based out of NYC. You can find her professional site here and her twitter feed here. She’s also the Matriarch of the Femdom Farm.

Eva’s Peasants

My subby fantasies were tickled by this news story on Eva Green. Apparently she had a falling out with the producers of a project she was working on and told them exactly what she thought. This included insults such as ‘peasants’, ‘arseholes’ and ‘fucking morons’. I’ve no idea if these barbs were justified or not, but I do have to agree with the article writer when he says…

She’s haughty and imperious. She knows exactly where she stands in the world, and she would rather die than hang around with the likes of us. Her contempt is tangible and, really, isn’t that exactly what we want in a movie star?

His conclusion is that we’d all like to aspire to this level of free expression. That might be true for the majority, but some of us would rather be on the receiving end of Ms Green’s acid tongue. Haughty and imperious are sexy attributes whatever someone’s profession. It also struck me that if she ever puts her face to a perfume then ‘Tangible Contempt’ would be an excellent name for it.

This is a shot of Eva from ‘A Dame To Die For‘, the follow-up to Sin City.

Why not both?

One final comment on the recent ‘Fetish or Fashion’ pop-quiz I’ve been running. Servitor posed the very reasonable question: Why not both?

That’s a fair point. As far as the resulting images go, they contain significant elements of both fetish and fashion. I guess I should frame the question around the image creators and their primary industry. Is it a pro-domme / fetish producer or a model being paid for a shoot with a (relatively) mainstream publication. Is it someone who spends more time in dungeons and playspaces than they do strutting a catwalk? What kind of animal do they usually have at the end of a leash? Petite Pomeranian or a perky puppy boy?

There’s clearly a healthy interchange between the fashion and fetish worlds. However, I’m not sure it’s always a equally balanced exchange. A lot of pro-dommes are extremely fashion aware. Unfortunately, on the flipside, fashion editors and photographers often seem confused about kink. A charitable take would be that they’re deliberately re-interpreting and re-contextualizing kink to tell their own stories. After all, their ultimate goal is different to someone creating material for a kink or fetish market. A less charitable interpretation would be they’re raiding kink for easy shock value and then haphazardly mashing its elements together without any really understanding.

I think the distinction between fashion or fetish often doesn’t come down to the clothes, styling, make-up or beauty of the subjects. It’s down to their understanding and intelligent use of the kinky elements. Or not.

This mainstream fashion shot is from Vice Serbia, features rapper Sajsi Mc and was photographed by Alek Živković.