Notes from a tired domme

I started this activity, the so-called professional domination, simply because I like to be dominant and I'm good at it. It's something that excites me and gives me pleasure. Like my submissives, I myself have paraphilias too, especially fetishes, to tell the truth. Like my submissives, I don't have to force myself and it's something that came naturally to me.

Besides, I like the domination-submission bond because it stimulates me intellectually, and finds a particular echo in me, much more than the so-called normal relationships. I am what is called a brainy woman.

I love what I do, because what I do is just like me.

I say "hell!" to the self-proclaimed purists.

"Hell", just to stay polite. I'm more than fed up with being constantly pointed at, including by women, for my "venality", the most schizophrenic of criticisms in a society that is more capitalist and materialistic than ever.

Domination, my domination, requires mastery, talent and work. I had never blamed a painter or a sculptor for its venality. Nor had I ever thought that the money they took from their clients was a barrier to any passion, to any legitimacy. Where is the difference with my activity? I don't see it. Then, even so, let's say I'm just a money-robot: so what? Would you blame the ordinary office worker for doing his job without passion? Sometimes I wonder if all this is not simply a form of jealousy for some, and frustration for others. My job is exciting, electrifying, and is perceived as easy and very rewarding. Well, you still need to have the courage to do it, and take on all the responsibilities.

Before being a professional domme, one is not. I have always liked different things with my partners, whether they are men or women. I was a bit like the Sunday painter, the one who will never exhibits in a gallery but still is proud of her work. I wasn't "for the money", so I was a real domme, I guess.

One day, on the internet, I came across a submissive, a nice and rather charming man. We set a date. I was pretty happy at the idea of finding a guy with inclinations compatible with mine and who didn't seem to consider me as a freed-up object, any more than a domination machine. In fact, I hadn't even bothered to open the nineteen other messages received by submissives that week. This man chosen among so many others, once our respective presentations and agreements had been exchanged, finally asked me, "How much is it? ». The birth of a professional domme: the fake domme.

Like maybe 70% of people, I didn't like my job any more than that. I worked in human resources. When I was younger, I was attracted by the social and human aspects of the job, and it took me ten years to realise that the truth of that job is quite different, if not the opposite of these values. Having to choose your orientation at an age where you are anything but the person you will end up becoming does not help either. Once the "busy life" has begun, it is difficult to go back. I worked because I had to live, and there aren't many people who earn their living with their passion. For most of them, it's actually more surviving than living.

So, crime I confess, I accepted the money from this man. He was fantasising about my leather gloves, and about me spitting in his face. Blimey, I would have been happy to do it for nothing! He wouldn't even have had to buy me a coffee. Getting paid for something I love to do, I couldn't see where the bad idea was in that. It's even very positive for your self-image. It also allowed me to complete what I needed to buy the new Sony lens that I had been eyeing for several months.

I became a professional domme.

Am I a whore? I don't know, and to tell you the truth, I don't care.

Firstly, I don't see what's wrong with being a whore, even if I prefer to say sex worker, thus showing that I am interested in new social issues and that I have mastered its jargon. At first, the idea of being equated with a prostitute was repugnant to me. Myself, I was affected by society's views, I was taught to vomit the cliché of the bleached blonde in her van, if only on principle. Then, what I propose is much more refined, much deeper!

However, I ended up no longer be concerned about this assimilation.

First of all, because indicating in bold red on my website that I don't offer any sexual services has never spared me the multiple insults and reproaches of all those frustrated men in private messages, and even women, on some forums. "Dirty whore", like the insult dropped by the man of value, of pure soul, to the woman corrupted by money, which however teases him with the picture of her leather skirt, that slut.

That man, upset by my refusal to grant his request for an session without compensation, does not seem to understand that, in any case, I would never have been interested in him in normal circumstances. It's a reality. Because his values are not as irresistible as he seems to think, and because if he was able to please and find a partner due to his own qualities, he wouldn't have clicked on my profile on a Saturday at three o'clock in the morning. Of course, the reasons for this are various, I admit. Lack of time for the dynamic corporate slave, lack of self-confidence and self-esteem for this thirty year old with slumped shoulders, lack of social ease for the one who only goes out to do his groceries, lack of physical qualities for the one who was born without much luck, lack of intelligence for this other man, lack of education, lack of self-care, and sometimes even all these lacks at the same time. I don't forget, of course, the everlasting man married to a person who was perhaps not the right one, so that he allows himself to be so little honest with her.

A relationship is a two-way street, and my status as a woman does not give me the duty to take an interest in all men in emotional and sexual misery simply because we are physically made to fit together. The fact of being desired does not create an automatic right to reciprocity. So, yes, cuckold83, I'll take you with your money, or I won't take you. If this idea alone inspires an unusual aggressiveness in you, then I don't know what to tell you, any more than I have to worry about it.

Also, if I now accept my assimilation to the more "traditional" sex workers, it is because I suffer from the same wrongs they do. My activity, of which I am rather proud, is rejected and blamed. Worse than that, it is illegal, at least it is where I live. Legal and social protection, I can forget about it. Yes, I can certainly use various administrative tricks, at different stages, which I will not reveal here for the sake of discretion for my colleagues. But that does not solve everything. I could almost get used to social security and pension contributions issues if I only had not to deal with the weight that society places on my shoulders.

"Oh, by the way, what do you do for a living?". The first time I was asked this question when I had been a full-time professional for four months, I didn't know what to answer. It came as a bit of a shock, I must admit. Where professional activity is seen as a person's whole, his contribution to others, I stuttered as much as a dear client of mine. I was afraid of the reaction I would get if I told the truth, and rightly so. People are tricky, you can't afford to show anything risky, anything they don't know. Their certainties are comforting, and I can't blame them. Life is difficult, and not everyone has the same ability to face it. Certainties help us, certainties are calm, stable. One of them is that being a whore is wrong. Another is that to be a professional domme is to be a whore, because I take money to see a naked man and give him pleasure. So, it's wrong, and I have failed my life. I do this activity for lack of anything better, because I'm a neurotic, or a barely clever little wretch who needs to eat. That's what three-quarters of the people I meet every day would think if they had to learn my activity. So I don't say it.

I'm tired of this discrepancy between my own perception of my job and that of society. There is no social consideration for my activity. And yet I have never felt that I have learned so much in so little time.

Psychology first of all, thanks to the great diversity of the profiles I receive, and all their projections on me before, during and after our session. Communication, because Twitter and others social medias have become almost essential for an ambitious domme. Technical skills also, for my website and SEO. Not to mention my knowledge of first aid and the physical reactions of the body in general. The many practical skills related to BDSM also required me to work hard and be very curious, this point is so obvious that I almost forgot it. I excel in my field and I am passionate about my work. How difficult it is sometimes not to be able to talk about it to that stranger on the train, or the nice old lady on that bench the other day. I am condemned to be passionate about my activity in silence; or out loud but only with people "from the scene".

By the way, let's talk about the scene. Well, I'd be happy to talk about it if I had time to waste. I think the word disappointment is far from being strong enough.

This lack of social acceptance pains me, because what I do is useful to society. People might think I'm crazy, but I do consider that I take care of people. What I do to them is necessary for their balance, and brightens their week, if not their year, for some. I don't like clichés, which is why I won't talk about applied psychotherapy though. Anyway, I can see that the degree of personal growth of the submissives I receive -and therefore the level of essential need in what I give them- is very unequal. Some come to see me out of pure curiosity or fantasy. For others, these encounters are a kind of initiatory journey, I have the impression. Lastly, for others, it is sadly for lack of anything better, for various reasons, which quickly end up appearing when they do. For me, it doesn't matter. I like to meet these men, more or less attractive, more or less brilliant, more or less aware of who they are. They don't come to me to be judged.

These men come to me, so I'm there for them, and I try to make them journey. More than in the present moment and the rope that I tie, I find my pleasure in the afterwards, when their faces are no longer the same as they were on my doorstep. When that man's jaw muscles have relaxed, when that other man's glance has calmed down. That's also all the ambiguity of my job, I was talking about it the other day with a friend of mine. Although I am a dominatrix, I am almost, in the end, at the service of my submissives. I exaggerate, of course, because I will never do anything that I don't want to do myself, or at least makes me curious! But the fact is that I am there for them and with them, to love them episodically, certainly a little more than they know how to do it themselves. You also have to realise that if I had to do things only for myself, for my pleasure alone, then my sessions would be very different. Not sure then that I would attract so many people to me. This is one of the reasons why what I offer is a job that deserves a salary.

Let's talk about the salary.

Yes, I am very far from the minimum wage. However, I'm far from rolling in gold also. SM equipment costs a small fortune, and when you accept the professional adjective labelled on your butt, you have to provide on that equipment level. Not forgetting the outfits, of course. From leather to latex to uniforms, I have to be able to satisfy all tastes. Also, I love shoes, but I've never owned so many of them before. Materials and outfits wear out, even consume themselves for certain types, so they have to be renewed. Maintenance products also have a certain place in my budget, but the most important part of course goes to the dungeon. A second rent to pay. Receiving at home allows you to save this important expense, but then you have to accept a more important emotional repercussion, when your place of living is also the one where you welcome several strangers each week for the most intense experience of their trimester.

Moreover, if my hourly rate may seem so important, it is precisely because I cannot work like this for eight hours a day. You should see how much I give of myself in these sessions! I don't stop. The more fluid and smooth the experience will be for my client, the more energy I will have left there. Finally, and this is not a detail, there is all the work that these dear submissives don't see: several hours a week in total, answering, reading, sorting emails, posting ads, updating them. I must also exist on social medias. I must be able to create a showcase that makes people want to see me, or at least show that I exist. This is something that needs to be thought about and which is not done in two minutes. The hardest thing about communication is when I'm going through a difficult period, but I must not let anything show through. The submissive wants me on a pedestal, and loses interest in me if I slip off it. I have to play my part to the end, an actress without a blower, a stuntwoman without a net.

All these elements do not take into account the fact that my activity is, again, illegal, and thus drags along all the inconveniences that go with this lack of legal framework. I have to be able to plan ahead, because I have only myself to help me in case of difficulties. If the self-employed and other shopkeepers have suffered a lot from the confinement, well what about me? When the French government announces billions in aid for the independents, I am not one of them.

But hey, I earn my living, I do something I like, that's good! Well... it's not always that good.

Perhaps what shocks me most is the lack of consideration from "submissive" men.

The so-called submissive men, those for whom I do all this, those for whom I emotionally expose myself, those for whom a two-hour session seems to me to be a whole afternoon. Those for whom I am a member of various groups of pro dommes in my city, where we exchange safety advice, among other things, because some of us sometimes get attacked.

Dick pics, insults, negotiations (nothing annoys me more than that!), and so on. For a client, I have to deal with five, if not ten others, that I will never see, but don't deprive themselves to take my energy away from me. How can one claim to be submissive to women, while being so aggressive and evil. It is as if those who most want to share, love and care for others are the dominant ones, in the end.

I would almost say that the submissive man is nothing more than a dominant who cannot afford it, but I won't say it. One should not make generalisations, they say.

Even among the clients I accept to welcome, it is not always easy. There is the one who starts to grumble when giving me his envelope at the third session, thus sending me a message. This other man, a little too lonely, who thinks I am his partner and sends me many messages, drunk from finally finding acceptance from a woman. Or, the director's cut version of this client, so insecure that I have to overreact so that he hears that yes, I want to see him again, and that no, he hasn't "disappointed" me. The submissives with whom the session goes well, then will send me an e-mail even more precise than a thesis in nuclear engineering to tell me (order me?) their expectations for the next session, if not to tell me what I didn't do well enough in the last one.

For those with whom it goes well at first, not everything is easy there either. Because I have to play my role, my character as a powerful and imperturbable woman, I am hardly allowed to show my attachment to some of my clients. I am even less allowed to express my feelings -yet purely friendly- towards them. I am sometimes a little saddened not to hear anymore from this client who disappeared overnight, even though I had punished him with my whole body nine times in three months. I really liked that one. Would he have considered me a little more if I had let him know? I don't know. Maybe he thought I only liked him for his money - a very false belief - and that hearing from him would have tired me out more than anything else. The opposite inclination of those who think they could demand everything from me in exchange for their money.

Then, it has to be said, even the few irreproachable men put me under a form of pressure, certainly in spite of themselves. They know my image, but they don't really know me. I come back to the pedestal here. To open up to them and show myself as I am in the simplest way possible is to risk disappointing them, because not enough dominating, not enough in control, not enough like my website, not enough like my Twitter feed. If they only knew the state I sometimes find myself in... I'm just like everyone else. I feel, I suffer, then I move on, with more or less pain. My person is not my character, and never will be.

In sum, I give all of my energy, I receive everything they want and must evacuate, what is most vibrant in them, but I have the feeling that the payback is rarely there. All I really get from them is nothing more than their hair in my bathtub. If the passion wasn't there, it would be too difficult. Sometimes I feel like I'm carrying a world of submissive men on my shoulders and getting beaten up on all sides. Well, the blows mostly are when I connect to my social networks. I don't count the insults anymore, but it's still difficult to ignore them.

I didn't think it was possible to feel so lonely with thousands of followers.

It is not within the reach of the average woman to be a professional domme, and contrary to what one might think, it actually requires being much more sensitive than the average. This exacerbated sensitivity is a medal with a heavy flipside. Fortunately, things become easier as the years go by. But these years go by quickly. Perhaps too quickly to continue to be so involved in a profession that is booed by those who don't know it, and made complicated by those who think they know it.

I was a professional domme.

I am not anymore.