Professional Domination: Not as fun as it sounds
I'm going to make this public, so that if any woman stumbles upon this she can get a more multifacted view of what it is like to dominate men for cash. The dominant narrative (how puntastic) is that Pro-Domination is fun, it's not like other sex work, infact it's not sex work at all!
I want to challenge this, I want to challenge it because my experience was profoundly different to this narrative. I know other people find it to be fun, I however...did not. It was nothing like playing with my partner because the satisfaction and fulfilment was just not there.
I want to believe I did it out of choice...I don't think I did. This semester of University was particularly long, meaning that I was quickly running out of money. Not through living a luxury lifestyle of drunken debauchary as the media would have you see student life; it was the expense of the electricity meter, bus fare, food etc
Due to the death of my mother last year, my family is also struggling to keep afloat...so...I had nowhere to turn to. No job, no time to look for a job (they push us HARD! and I push myself harder), coupled with how disgustingly difficult it is to find employment; my material conditions where as such...I could only fall back on one skill-the fact that I am damn good at domination.
So, I posted an ad on Craigslist offering my services in exchange for cash then let the emails roll in.
I only recieved emails from men, I also recieved so many photographs of penises, I can assure you that I could have printed them all out and made a cock collage and hung it in the Tate Modern. Most of these emails consisted of wanting "pussy worship" or "arse worship"...which is just fancy language for licking my vagina or arsehole. Which I told them outright I would not do but, because they're giving me cash they did their very best to coerce me and keep pushing for it. This alone completely reinforces for me, the notion that this "power exchange" is complete and utter fantasy. These men are still within the social context of patriarchy...they do not respect me more just because they play at being submissive. To them I am a fetish dispensary machine that they just feed as little money as they possibly can into to get as much as they want. If the cash doesn't work, emotional manipulation is their fall back.
They do not give a shit about my comfort or my limits, everything is geared towards them. Their privacy, their limits, their fantasies...I was just a different kind of vessel. Even when I outright stated that they are not entitled to my body, to them it meant nothing...it just meant pushing that little bit harder hoping that I'd give in.
These men don't give one shit about "power exchange"; like in every other situation...they hoarde the power in their overinflated sense of entitlement and as a woman, my power is reduced to the ability I have to give them their sexual kicks.
I was not "empowered" for one second, I was just given a means to eat and get to Uni another day.
What surprised me the most was just how emotionally draining it was. The surface appearance is that they're submissive and service the "dominant" partner during play. This is not the case, I was the service provider and I provided them with pleasure. I did not fancy any of them but every single time, I had to summon up the emotional energy to pretend that I was enjoying dominating them. I was being paid to embody this fantasy woman, tailored specifically to their tastes...I had to pretend that I wanted to dominate them. Which sounds easy but it isn't. I find it quite hard to articulate but I will attempt to do so because it's important.
I think what is inherent to the exchange of money for sexual services, is that by it's very nature...it is exploitation. I would not have dominated any of these men by choice. I had to sublimate my very self and act the role of dominatrix; I had to detach myself from my own needs and desires, whilst at the same time channeling all of my emotional energy into the man...in those moments I made an object of myself, an object that channels energy from it's own life source. The money doesn't bring that emotional energy back, being told I'm "beautiful" or "sexy" doesn't either. The emotional energy is still depleted, he has had his release through siphoning the energies from me. He's happy...I am not happy and I still have fuck all. That's the crux of it, I didn't want any emotion from them; they paid and I made them pay specifically for the emotional detatchment..I am a fantasy, I am not human to them or to myself. Yet, in the same moment...any sexual play without love, acknowledgment of a shared humanity and mutual pleasure is nothing. It means nothing and it feels like a void.
This was the objectification and dehumanisation of my very being, seeing myself through an alien, male gaze. I was being for an other, not being-in-and-for-itself; it was hideous and is not conducive to fulfilment or empowerment.
The last man I dominated before I came back home to recover from life, wanted to relieve himself infront of me. I joked that I would watch on in disgust, I lit my cigarrette and looked on. I don't know if he knew that my disgust was real.
I want to challenge this, I want to challenge it because my experience was profoundly different to this narrative. I know other people find it to be fun, I however...did not. It was nothing like playing with my partner because the satisfaction and fulfilment was just not there.
I want to believe I did it out of choice...I don't think I did. This semester of University was particularly long, meaning that I was quickly running out of money. Not through living a luxury lifestyle of drunken debauchary as the media would have you see student life; it was the expense of the electricity meter, bus fare, food etc
Due to the death of my mother last year, my family is also struggling to keep afloat...so...I had nowhere to turn to. No job, no time to look for a job (they push us HARD! and I push myself harder), coupled with how disgustingly difficult it is to find employment; my material conditions where as such...I could only fall back on one skill-the fact that I am damn good at domination.
So, I posted an ad on Craigslist offering my services in exchange for cash then let the emails roll in.
I only recieved emails from men, I also recieved so many photographs of penises, I can assure you that I could have printed them all out and made a cock collage and hung it in the Tate Modern. Most of these emails consisted of wanting "pussy worship" or "arse worship"...which is just fancy language for licking my vagina or arsehole. Which I told them outright I would not do but, because they're giving me cash they did their very best to coerce me and keep pushing for it. This alone completely reinforces for me, the notion that this "power exchange" is complete and utter fantasy. These men are still within the social context of patriarchy...they do not respect me more just because they play at being submissive. To them I am a fetish dispensary machine that they just feed as little money as they possibly can into to get as much as they want. If the cash doesn't work, emotional manipulation is their fall back.
They do not give a shit about my comfort or my limits, everything is geared towards them. Their privacy, their limits, their fantasies...I was just a different kind of vessel. Even when I outright stated that they are not entitled to my body, to them it meant nothing...it just meant pushing that little bit harder hoping that I'd give in.
These men don't give one shit about "power exchange"; like in every other situation...they hoarde the power in their overinflated sense of entitlement and as a woman, my power is reduced to the ability I have to give them their sexual kicks.
I was not "empowered" for one second, I was just given a means to eat and get to Uni another day.
What surprised me the most was just how emotionally draining it was. The surface appearance is that they're submissive and service the "dominant" partner during play. This is not the case, I was the service provider and I provided them with pleasure. I did not fancy any of them but every single time, I had to summon up the emotional energy to pretend that I was enjoying dominating them. I was being paid to embody this fantasy woman, tailored specifically to their tastes...I had to pretend that I wanted to dominate them. Which sounds easy but it isn't. I find it quite hard to articulate but I will attempt to do so because it's important.
I think what is inherent to the exchange of money for sexual services, is that by it's very nature...it is exploitation. I would not have dominated any of these men by choice. I had to sublimate my very self and act the role of dominatrix; I had to detach myself from my own needs and desires, whilst at the same time channeling all of my emotional energy into the man...in those moments I made an object of myself, an object that channels energy from it's own life source. The money doesn't bring that emotional energy back, being told I'm "beautiful" or "sexy" doesn't either. The emotional energy is still depleted, he has had his release through siphoning the energies from me. He's happy...I am not happy and I still have fuck all. That's the crux of it, I didn't want any emotion from them; they paid and I made them pay specifically for the emotional detatchment..I am a fantasy, I am not human to them or to myself. Yet, in the same moment...any sexual play without love, acknowledgment of a shared humanity and mutual pleasure is nothing. It means nothing and it feels like a void.
This was the objectification and dehumanisation of my very being, seeing myself through an alien, male gaze. I was being for an other, not being-in-and-for-itself; it was hideous and is not conducive to fulfilment or empowerment.
The last man I dominated before I came back home to recover from life, wanted to relieve himself infront of me. I joked that I would watch on in disgust, I lit my cigarrette and looked on. I don't know if he knew that my disgust was real.