It took me a little while to realise that what was missing in my life was a D/s relationship. I needed a Domme. My few dabbling online with fellow kinksters had instilled a fear of people who were not professionals–they always wanted something, had some ulterior motive.
It seems that everyone fantasises about meeting a compatible kink partner, one with whom you could have a mutually fulfilling D/s relationship. I sort of tried way back when, but never found it to click. Enter the Pro-Domme. Without the financial exchange, there is a danger of a real expectation coming towards you, sexual, emotional, whatever. And since my SO is by far the most important person in my life, those kinds of hidden agendas wouldn’t work.
Finding a Pro-Domme was a lot harder that I thought it would be. There are tons of them out there, right? They advertise, right? That should make it easy? Wrong. They all try to cater to a market, and I began to realise that I didn’t neatly fit the market advertised. I also realised I didn’t really know what to do if and when I found someone. I started by googling “how to approach a Domme” and found some very helpful advice.
But actually finding a Pro-Domme you want to approach, that mirrors your needs, is hard. First, almost all of them advertise themselves as dispensers of fetish services. They list the kinks they are willing to work with and present a gallery of images designed to titillate and entice. Many of them have photosets and videos available for purchase, which serve to echo more deeply that they are catering in a client service model to male whim. Some of them are absolutely amazing at it, like movie stars, but that wasn’t for me. It was typecasting of sorts.
Seeing all these different Dommes made me realise what I was not looking for, but also what I knew I needed. I don’t judge. Many of the kinks advertised are ones that I share. But to go to a Domme to satisfy a kink seems like the wrong motivation. How can you submit if you are the one saying “I want you to do this to me“? Even though my searches for “how to approach a domme” told me that I needed to approach with a clear idea of what I wanted, and to be able to spell that out, I found myself unable to do that. Specifically, going to a Domme and saying “I’ll do anything” is meant to be all wrong. But in truth, that’s a goal for me. To be that supple, to follow her lead.
My epiphany came when I realised that the goal for me was submission itself. Any kink could take me there, her kinks too, not just mine, including ones I don’t know I have, or ones I think I don’t have. Sublimation. Bending to her will. What mattered is that She would take me there, ask it of me. Yes, of course there are limits, turnoffs, but submission isn’t necessarily sexual. If anything, it isn’t sexual at all. I realise that what I was looking for is what is known as power exchange, to simply surrender and submit.
Boy oh boy did it take a long time for me to find someone I felt comfortable approaching. Six months. The Twittersphere and every other social platform is filled with Dominatrixes and plenty of them are fakes. Some of the fakes are really good too; I know, I had my fair share of fun with the catfish. But having found the fakes, I was desperate to find a real one.
Out of perhaps 100’s of legitimate Pro-Dommes, only a few seemed like a possible fit. I approached one and never heard back. That killed me. Several weeks were gobbled up in the approach. I sent her a few items from her wish list but didn’t hear anything. I felt horrible, because I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to keep sending or approaching or if that was creepy—and if you have any flavour of me from these posts you can understand how awful that felt. I began to despair.
I had no interest in approaching a bunch of different people. That isn’t me. I found one I liked but couldn’t quite bring myself to write to her. She was local to me, and I was sure I would approach. I liked her an awful lot, but she was “sexier” than what I was looking for…too much about the gear and the clothes, and kink, and not enough about the intellectual, mental aspects of D/s. So I hesitated and did nothing.
One day, one of her Domme friends advertised that she would be travelling to my home town. I looked at her profile. It was much less sexual, much more girl-next-door, than any I had come across. Yes, very attractive, yes sexy, but not in the same way. Not as objectified. She came across as both human and deeply, fundamentally confident. Regal without the kink. She was also experienced, having trained at a professional establishment, something which gave comfort. She interacted online with a regular bunch of respectful subs who wrote respectful comments on her posts–and who seemed to be people she session with. On her Fetlife page I found one of her subs whose profile could have been written by me. This was hugely comforting and reassuring.
I read her website and what I found there was a human with many, many vanilla interests aligned with mine. Same hobbies, same passions. And her online posts were not salacious. It took me a week to find the courage to approach, but with her upcoming visit, I realised I had to take that first step.
I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of taking the step. I was afraid of her. I was afraid of myself. I was just afraid.
Asking for fetish fulfilment is like asking for sex. It feels all wrong to me. Apart from it being tonally off, a D/s relationship is built on trust, which is built on chemistry. Finding someone who will be comfortable with me is just as important as I with them. Being asked to provide references was a reminder of just how dangerous the world of intimacy with strangers can be. It is tragic, but also completely understandable. Finding someone with whom a level of mutual trust can be constructed is perhaps the hardest part. And that’s something almost impossible to tell by looking at a website or reading someone’s twitter feed. Finding a stranger with whom the goal is total power exchange is terrifying. But I decided to fill out her application and give it a try.
There was ample space in her application for me to tell her about my kinks and kinky desires. But instead I wrote to her about why I didn’t feel I should write to her those things. I told her that I would tell her anything like that she wanted to know (anything at all she wanted to know about me), and that I was plenty kinky, but that my goal in sharing them would not be that I was asking her to do them to me, only giving her the broadest range of tools possible to control me, to play me. I told her that I was looking for someone to guide me into this world of D/s, that I wanted an education, and a leader…and as such, while I had kinks, I wanted to come to this process with an open mind and a. willingness to submit to her will, and that overcoming any internal resistance I might have in doing so, was a big part of why I was coming to her in the first place.
I filled out her application, and knew that I failed already at the first hurdle. I could not give her references from other Dommes–as I was completely new to this; I could not give her an employment reference where she could call me at the office and check up on me, to make sure I wasn’t snowing her. All I could do was give her my identity and write her as openly and naturally as I could about why my motivation in seeking her out.
In filling out her application I told her that I had never done any of this before, that I didn’t want to ask for wish fulfilment, and that all I really wanted to do was explore these feelings with someone who could be a firm, but gentle guide into this world of D/s. I asked if we could take it slower than she might be used to. I asked if we could just meet and be non-kink, just to talk and see what it was like. Maybe over a meal.
I pressed ‘send’ on my application, and worried that I would never hear back. After all, she asked for references which I could not give. I didn’t hesitate, however, to give her my ID. I know and appreciate the risks a Domme takes meeting an unknown person, and while I believe I am safe, how could she be? Going on gut is important, and I suspect Dommes are better at this than most people, but still. I feel for the profession. It did occur to me that in theory a sub should also be worried about what could happen with a stranger, but I had found in reading her socials that she was connected to lot’s of supportive people on both sides of the slash and seemed very human.
In truth, I was also not comfortable having a “session” with her until I had met her and until we both knew that we would be comfortable together. I needed to know that she could respond to me and trust me as much as I needed to feel comfortable with her. I needed to know that we could converse comfortably about vanilla things, and that we could just be natural together.
I didn’t know whether this would be a turnoff too. After all, she is a Dominatrix, so meeting someone over lunch might be just the opposite of what she wanted. I waited a few days, and then a reply came.
To my great joy she agreed to meet. We settled on lunch. She let me suggest a few places and then she chose which one. To say I was nervous was an understatement. I couldn’t think about much else for weeks leading up to our meeting. I spent a week thinking about what I should wear. I spent a week thinking about her.
I even almost pulled out. In the end, sitting down in that restaurant, arriving so early that I couldn’t possibly be late, I was so filled with a mix of downright terror and excitement it is quite hard to explain. What happened? I’ll share that soon. But what happened this first time has set a pattern for the future: great food, great conversation, and a time for exploration.
Beyond Non-Binary 
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