Life is truly miraculous. The world that swirls around us is a testament to human ingenuity. Flawed, yes, but still rather incredible. Chaotic, maddening, diverse, rich, and at times grindingly cruel, there are a handful of universal truths which bind humanity.
We are all capable of love. We all seem to recognise beauty. We mostly find greatest comfort in one another’s company, socially, intimately. Fear of the “other” is another universal trope, when “strangers” are thought to be scary.
Fear of the “Power of Women” is another quasi-universal trope that stretches back to antiquity. In German this is known as Weibermacht (yes, that’s me using a big German word—good boy/girl!). Throughout Western culture stretching back to the Middle Ages, authors and artists have exercised themselves over this concept, defined as “heroic or wise men dominated by women.”
One of the prolific dominatrixes on Twitter posted an image on her Twitter feed recently about just this very subject, and it got me thinking. The Weibermacht (why can’t we come up with great words like that?!) art form is expressing the ultimate male fear, that even a strong or heroic man, even an intelligent man can be seduced by the “wiles” of a woman. Samson and Delilah, Edith and Holofernes, Phyllis and Aristotle, Jael and Sisera, Salome and Herodias, Bathsheba and David, Tomyris and Cyrus, Joseph and Potiphar, Jezebel and Ahab, Herod and Herodias, Hercules and Omphale, Adam and Eve are all great examples of this. And gosh, it’s not like there’s just one example either.
Why were men so afraid? I’ll tell you why. Because male power is founded on a very fragile notion that physical strength is enough to dominate. Most men know that women are at least as smart, book smart, as men, most smarter, but when combined with emotional intelligence, most women run circles around men. Yes, and you know it’s true. And if you don’t, well denial doesn’t make it so! Further, intelligence and physical power are no match for beauty and eroticism. Yup. Female power will forever eclipse male power or whatever type of power is accessible to men because men do not have the power to mother, and there is no greater power than a mother’s ability to comfort, approve, and provide warmth. Period.
Men like to go off and feel important, to convince everyone that what they are doing is important, to fight wars, to talk big stuff, to tell women that they don’t know what they are talking about, to put women down, because female power unleashed is just too scary. At least for most men. Imagine worse for them if women were universally on top and the rules of female power dictated the structure of society. Male terror.
Some of us not so secretly want this to come about. Shout out to Podepheleus. Some of us are not afraid of this kind of female power but embrace it. We choose it. The irony is that a supposed 80% of all men are excited by the concept of dominant women, of S&M, of being tied up and whipped, but how many actually do it? Less than 10%. Clearly male fantasy for dominant women is a huge facet of our lives. What holds us back from actually living it out?
I can speculate from my own life. I have never had the courage to submit utterly and truly to any of my partners, at least not in the way that we would mean it in a D/s context. With my SO there is an uneasy truth that she denies and which I flirt with which has the effect of leaving me in a very equal, but also subservient position—for example, we are moving house, and I have been given the “baby room” as my bedroom while she takes the master bedroom. [Don’t go down the cuckold path folks, because if you do, I’ll meet you at the other end ready to scuffle. Hah! I get it. Lot’s of people are turned on by that. Turned on is different than real life. I try to align the two as much as possible, because when there is a separation between real life and fantasy life, shame can easily slip in through the back door. And I am interested in shaking shame loose].
The implication of the aside in the previous paragraph is that what I don’t want in real life, I try not to want in fantasy life either. But in D/s, there is something else going on. I know that I need it. I know that I need it on a deep, existential level. I need to belong to a woman who “owns me” and makes me feel her power, even if just for a little while, because it keeps me grounded. And funnily enough, the more comfortable and satisfied I become with my vanilla life, the more desperately my psyche needs to feel the collar on my neck, on my body, to feel the yoke of ownership. I am beginning to wonder if it is symbolic of the approval of a Mother.
But if so many men secretly want women to be on top, why is it still so stigmatized and so uncommon? What is going on here is that society still can’t handle female power. We have been afraid of it on a very deep and visceral level for at least 1,000 years. What are we so afraid of? I don’t get it. But what I do get is that a small number of women discover that they are born to dominate. Some of them feel it so strongly they end up becoming “lifestyle” Dommes and finding a partner or partners and living this way. Would I have been capable of pairing up with such a woman? It shall have to remain a theoretical question as the choices I made in life have taken me down a different path. But I love lifestyle Dommes. There is nothing more beautiful than a Woman who has discovered her true worth, embraced it, and made the world conform to it.
One of the greatest and most appreciated side benefits of blogging about D/s issues and relationships has been finding a couple of “pen pals” who have reached out to me to answer questions posed here or on Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, or Twitter, and then taken up a lively chat on email or some other forum. Ditto for those who write about D/s or host events to help us understand what is happening in the dynamic. I have learned a lot from them, am touched by their willingness to teach me and guide me, and deeply grateful for it. Without their support I would have never figured out what makes me tick in D/s. I would have not figured out what kind of D/s relationship I was looking for. What kind of Domme. In truth, my learning has only just begun, and I have a very patient and accommodating teacher.
In my case, I could only go to a pro-Domme. The terms of my “freedom-pass” from my SO are that I must pay for what I do. The logic? Paying means client-service provider relationship, no danger of falling for each other in an inappropriate way. She would most certainly not accept me going to an escort, or someone where sexual services were dispensed…but a Dominatrix? Getting tied up and whipped? Heck, there are times when I am sure she wished she was the one holding the whip! That’s okay to her as long as I don’t bring it home. That’s a part of why I blog about all this, because after feeling something so intense as just sitting next to a Domme, I get a burning urge to talk. This is the next best thing.
Our relationship ground rules, but also my fear of lifestyle Dommes, my deep appreciation for Pro-Dommes, my need for D/s is all tied together. The fear of pairing up with a lifestyle Domme over the years was that I would be cast aside once I had submitted…this was and is an almost irrational fear. I felt it already even the first time I sessioned with the only Domme I have ever been with. We’ve discussed it, and once out in the open, it is a fear that can be managed and dealt with. The other scary thing about a lifestyle Domme is that she might play for keeps, or expect more. I can’t afford that or run that risk. I have one SO, and with my strength and hers, it shall always remain so. Enter the pro-Domme.
I can’t help but absolutely love the idea of a pro-Domme. I know that some of them are just attracted to the money—and frankly, that wouldn’t bother me (because I love the idea that a Woman can make a living from so totally exerting her power)—and I know that a lot of them are just as much objectified as “normal” women, and that many of them are also dispensers of kink. I get that, and that doesn’t bother me either. But what is really, really special is the rarefied number of pro-Dommes who are genuinely kinky, genuinely dominant, genuinely intoxicated by a submissive who let’s go and surrenders totally and utterly to her power, and who also finds arousal in that moment when a sub crosses a threshold in her hands.
What is sad is how many barriers our society puts in their way. I should think a lot more women would choose this as a career because it is both potentially lucrative and fulfilling—and how many jobs can you say that about? But society is freaked. Society is freaked by female power just as it was in Puritan America, with the fears about witches. How else to explain female power right? They cast a spell. The man couldn’t help it, she cast a spell on him. What a cop out!
A man can’t even own up to being weak?! Give me a break. Mistress told me tongue in cheek that she had cast a spell on me. Bring it on. I hope so. It sure feels like it. I love witches. I love it if she casts a spell on me. This is personal. I have always loved potions and lotions and witches and druids, and have always believed in spirits and nature…not too long ago we burned people at the stake for this. Including one of g-g-g-g-grandparents.
No mistaking, I am so utterly and completely new at D/s and experience with a Dominatrix, that I don’t have much to go on. All I can relate is what I am feeling. And the first and most powerful thing I feel is just how grateful and happy I am that there are some really, really amazing Women out there who do this for a living. I know they call it sex work, but to me, it is a disservice to what they do to put it in a box. A Woman who chooses this path, as with anything you want to be good at, has to enjoy it. To enjoy it, to step into it, to really develop your skill at it, requires a pretty extraordinary combination of skills, passions, interests, and energy.
First, you have to have courage. Society still throws plenty of negativity this way. I wrote a post about how I feel Sex Work should be a profession like the Priesthood, and you can read it here. It also requires an active and enquiring mind. Being good with people, understanding psychology, having empathy, all of these things are critical factors. Being able to see past a person’s physical or other barriers to the warm beating heart inside, also takes empathy. Creativity, a kind of kinky mind, and a delicious sense of fun. Gosh, all these things. What an extraordinary person it takes. Wouldn’t you want to meet someone like that? Wouldn’t you want to be friends with someone like that? If you wanted to get beaten for some strange reason, wouldn’t you want it to be a woman like that, who might also laugh while she’s doing it, or perhaps wear leather or some other sexy getup? In other words, try to make it fun? I mean, doesn’t that just amplify everything? What a gift!
In my case, I don’t need all the accessories, all the trappings. And indeed though Mistress is uncommonly gorgeous, and makes an incredible effort with the visual stimulus she creates, just being in the same room with her is enough to feel how powerful she is. And that is because she is a Woman whose mind stimulates mine, a woman I respect, because she is just an incredible, grounded, interesting person. How can that not be attractive? And when her life choices say, “I don’t give two cents about what society thinks, I don’t care about shame, I want to take control of my life and live it on my terms,” I’ll crawl across cut glass for her. If I were a woman, if my dream came true, there is only one profession I would choose, and that would be Dominatrix. You surely know already what I think about patriarchy. I may love feminists, but the people who really live feminism on the front lines are pro-Dommes. There is nobody I can think of as a profession who lives a life that by its very actions says, “respect me, look at what I do.” And it is a shame that we can’t be more evolved as a society and put out more positive images of who Dommes are and what they do, so that more young women see this as a viable career path.
Respect. Total and utter respect.
It took me almost a year of looking at various Dominatrix profiles to find someone that I was willing to approach. I’ve “watched” a very small number of them up close by reading their websites and their feeds, and seeing what they were like, and only ever found about 3 or 4 that I would have considered approaching. Not because I don’t find many of them extremely titillating, or specialised in things that would really turn me on sexually, but because what I am seeking is not something that exists in the realm of the visual, of the fetish, of the erotic. What I am seeking is spiritual, quasi-religious, and altogether serious. In the end, the one Domme whose application I filled in was one who I felt I could see…I mean actually see. I could hear her voice on the page through her words, I could imagine her sitting in a room in her house writing those words, and I just thought, what an interesting person. I thought it would be nice to meet her and just chit chat about life and D/s and what it meant, and see if we liked each other enough to meet again. In other words, I was curious about her not for BDSM, but for everything else. The BDSM stuff was more like a reassurance—that she wouldn’t make me feel shame or judge me. And in meeting her over a really lovely meal, where BDSM topics barely came up, I found in her one of the most scintillating people I have ever had the privilege to sit near.
I’m not ready to write about what we say or do together, because I cherish it so much, and it is all over me like a second skin…and everything is just so fresh and new and I want to savour that for as long as possible. But what I do know is that I am a very fortunate man on so many levels. To be able to play safely within some healthy bounds with such a divine person is a joy that is hard to express. To be able to discover what submission means without fear of what might happen is pure bliss. To contemplate the word “slave” without fear for either one of us, is a delight impossible to express, in part because it is also one I don’t understand. But explore, yes, discover, yes, accept myself, yes. And be a good client, yes, absolutely. The work She does is so important, not just to me, but to lot’s of other people too, and that just adds to her beauty. I know how precious she is, her time is, and it makes it that much more tender and divine to be with her when our diaries and travels permit.
I have had a great life. I no longer have anything to prove. Other than perhaps to myself. But the things I wish to prove to myself are a different kind of challenge:
- Can I become a slave?
- What does that mean?
- What would it look like?
- How can I balance my life as it is with a life as a slave?
- Can I serve Mistress for the rest of my life? I wonder.
I don’t enter into relationships lightly or commit myself to things without intent. I also do not wish sexual thrills to cloud my judgement. I find a strange attraction to the word “slave”. I still don’t know what that means. But I am curious and interested and committed enough to find out how far we can take things, how deeply I can be open to her, how permanently we can tattoo our interactions into our respective psyches.
And while we are doing that, I will sure try to please her, to give to her, to learn to receive from her and also to invest like crazy in my own personal growth, because the more I become, the more I have to give. Hard work is also what it takes to earn the right to kneel before Her, and I am sure of that. For the rest, I wish for nothing more than we both have fun. No matter what. Well, because, without laughter, life is a lonely place.
Beyond Non-Binary 
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