A Meta on Professional Dominatrices
Title: A Meta on Professional Dominatrices by a former Pro Dominatrix
Warnings: Frank discussion of BDSM and all that can entail
Spoilers: for ASIB perhaps...
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4500
A/N: This is meant to help writers with their post ASIB fic. It is by no means a complete guide, and it is based upon personal observation and experiences. Other Doms may have had different experiences.
A Pro Dom on Pro Doms
I practiced in the US, but I have been to BDSM and Fetish events in Europe, and I’ve known many International Doms. Most of this is pretty universal. Doms do have crazy networking, and will give referrals to others, etc.
I’m afraid that this is a subject that is difficult to keep totally non-biased. The breadth of BDSM practice is so great that it is impossible to know everything, or, indeed, like everything that people get up to. There is some stuff that makes me go ick. There is some stuff that I adore that makes other people go ick. I do generalize quite a bit, but it can give you a ballpark idea.
The first draft that I tried to post was called too inflammatory, provocative and likely to cause wank. It’s in the nature of a Dominatrix to be inflammatory and provocative, so I hope this version is improved. I’m a bit like the scorpion, I can’t change my nature.
What is a Pro Dom?
A Pro Dom practices BDSM as a Dominant for money. While the acts may be erotic and sexualized, no actual sex takes place. Pro Doms are not prostitutes. Dominatrix is a pop culture term for Pro Dom.
There are different types of Pros. I specialized in corporal punishment, which is physical punishment like spanking, beating, caning, whipping, etc. I also specialized in medical play, mummification, electrical play (which requires expensive specialized equipment and is considered edge play), interrogation, humiliation, blood play, scarification and psychodrama. (Psychodrama is scaring the beejeezus out of people.) There was other stuff that I had equipment for that I could provide as a service, but it wasn’t my focus. These included things like forced feminization, bondage, pony play, boot worship, etc.
Most pros have involvement in the local or national scene because it is good advertising, but it usually is business. Involvement usually means public scenes, exhibitions, panel discussions, or participation in a fashion show. Some do have a separate social BDSM life within their local scene, but this is something that I’ve been told about rather than experienced.
I will go into my own personal story later.
What makes a GOOD Dom?
The best Doms are good at cold reading of the client, and giving them what they want and not just what they ask for. Most of the highly paid Doms have backgrounds in psychology, so they can craft around a client, and not just do things by rote. Anyone can wield a whip. A good Dom deals with the mind, not the body, and this is where I find a lot of BDSM fic falls short. There should be more focus on thought and emotion instead of the trappings, because the head is where the action happens. In my own fic I have very little in the way of accoutrements, and much in the way of human interaction and the give and take of two people.
Who becomes a pro?
There are generally a few types.
1) The girl who was kind of kinky and awfully pretty who realized that she could get paid to do what she would do for free.
2) The girl who had an interest in psychology who was kind of kinky and realized she could get paid for experimenting on men.
3) The girl with a degree in psychology who was kind of kinky and realized she could get paid for experimenting on men.
4) Prostitutes who want to supplement their income. There is probably quite a bit of difference here between the US and Europe. In the US, where prostitution is heavily prosecuted and there are very few safe brothels, etc, this is more of a way for an untrained prostitute to enter a niche market and charge more. These doms are usually not very well trained and can be dangerous, or unable to provide skilled domination. (There are some exceptions, especially in big metro areas that aren’t as harsh on prostitution.) In many areas of Europe where the sex trade is regulated there are places where the prostitutes are talented and well trained in BDSM.
You will note that there is a commonality here: Men. I’ve never known a woman to pay for a Dom unless it was part of a couple’s fantasy scene. Period. Not in many years of working, and not from anyone else I‘ve worked with. I have a friend in Germany who has said that she knows a few women who have used a Pro, but it is still a very uncommon thing. I’ve only ever seen one advertisement for a male Pro-Dom, and he was working out of San Francisco.
All of my female clients were there with husbands or boyfriends to act out a “Story of O” type kidnapping scene. Most clients are not very creative in what they want. I heard the same fantasies over and over again. Some are so ubiquitous that they have become archetypal. It’s like being a tattoo artist: you occasionally get to tattoo something really creative and awesome, but more often than not you are doing the same tribal scorpion flash over and over and over.
Men Who Pay For Pain:
There is such a vast underground scene everywhere that it is difficult to imagine a man not being able to find a free partner -- even ugly men (though most of my clients were not ugly.) I’ve been in extremely religious communities, and they all had a scene. Men usually outnumber women in a community, but that is what the internet is for.
I’m sure that there are men from very rural areas who travel to a city to have a session with a pro, but for the most part, why pay for what is essentially a free buffet? There are several reasons.
Paying is often part of a humiliation fantasy.
Sometimes it indicates a type of submission.
Some want the sensation without inviting emotional attachment, which proves that they are missing the entire point.
Some want anonymity because of a job or a spouse. I can’t tell you the number of men who asked me for no marks because their wife wouldn’t understand. Being able to leave no marks is a must-have talent for any Pro-vert. I understood and sympathized with these men. They could not trust an indiscreet amateur who might turn out to be batshit crazy. These men fall into the category of smart and powerful.
Gay men really don’t pay for Doms. If they need to remain anonymous they wear a hood and go to a club. Maybe a little in Europe. I'm sure there is a market for gay men who need extraordinary discretion, but I haven't encountered it because my business was heterosexual in nature.
Who were my clients?
1) Accountants. Overwhelmingly so. Seriously, about 60-75% of my clients were accountants. There were a few CFOs in there, so they were often powerful men in business, but there is something about chartered accountancy that makes submission and/or pain sound like a cold beer on a hot day.
2) Other businessmen. Highly paid, very stressed, usually married to women who would not understand their need to let go of that kind of pressure by surrendering to a more powerful person. They married people who needed to be taken care of, so there was nobody to take care of them.
3) Politicians. I mostly had prosecutors and other lower tier politicos because of the type of Dom I am (cute, perky, obviously creepy and scary as all hell instead of the elegant, remote type), and I didn’t want the hassle of the more powerful politicians. Once again, these are men who are so in charge in their normal life that they need to let go. I understand why these men pay.
4) Younger guys, often very attractive, with embarrassing fetishes. These are the infantilists, the plushies, the guys who want to be spanked by Momma after some forced feminization, etc. Guys in college who can’t even begin to find a girlfriend who would be willing to act this shit out because they are afraid or shy. A few were smoking hot, but to be honest I would never want to be in a relationship with someone who needed to be diapered and told he was a pretty little girl. Not that there is anything wrong with it…it just isn’t my thing, and I think a relationship based on compatible kinks is best.
5) Cops. I had quite a few police clients, including beat cops, detectives, and a guy on the SWAT team. There was one fireman, but I assume that most of them get a big enough kick from running into burning buildings and showering together, so consider him a statistical outlier.
6)A few really sick fucks. Run away. Run far away.
What did they ask for?
To answer this you have to understand the differences between Tops, Doms, Bottoms and Submissives.
A Top/Bottom relationship indicates a focus on sensation, and not power. This is the Sadism/Masochism dynamic, or the sensation play dynamic without the control of one person over another that is inherent in a Dom/Sub relationship. It can focus on pain, but it can easily focus on non-pain stimuli, like ice versus heat, or sensory deprivation.
Dom/Sub relations focus’ on POWER. Note the capitals. There are reams of books written on power exchange, but I’ve come to understand that very, very few people actually understand it. This power can take on many forms. Many of these relationships have no SM component at all. It is all about control and willing submission to another’s will. The Sub actually holds the power in the relationship. I’m not going to delve into this here because wtf, look it up there is so much written on it oh god and I don‘t need to write a dissertation on it.
And sometimes the lines between them all can blur, because real life is messy.
Most of my customers were submissive to some degree. The strictly bottom clients were usually a one-off who wanted to try something new.
Almost all of them wanted to be told what to do.
The most common request was to be tied up and whipped, etc. This is meat and potatoes stuff. There might be some variation, like a request to be slapped in the face and called a dirty pig.
Interrogation was something I was very good at. I had uniforms, and a cell, or alternately a room with blank concrete walls, a lamp I could aim, electricity, etc. This was all play acting, some pain. A Dom must be an excellent actress. So this was a common request for me.
Medical. I’m very, very good at this, and since this is one of those types of skills with safety issues inherent, it was popular as a service because many other Doms could not offer it. Safety issues include things like sounding. A sound cannot be reinserted in the urethra without proper cleansing with a bio cleanser. Things like that.
Ditto for electrocution. If someone has a medical implant or a heart condition it is a no go. If you are using a tens unit you need to make sure that you are not arcing electricity between two contact points that connects straight through the heart. If you use a lightning hands unit with something that concentrates the electricity to a fine point, like a wartenberg wheel or fine tinsel, you can scar on high settings.
CBT. This is not Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, this means Cock and Ball Torture. Look up the gates of Hell. Cringe. I had one guy who only wanted me to wear stilettos and grind the heel of the shoe into his cock.
Forced Fem/Crossdressing/Infantilism. Dress up role play. They get tired of being what passes for manly in our society. I’m friends with many transvestites, I even went to prom with a transvestite, but forced fem is different from merely dressing up…there is a shame component. All of the men who approached me for this wanted me to call them things like “dirty slut.” They were getting off on the humiliation. I never focused on this because I generally don’t like humiliation, and I never understood why wearing women’s clothes would be humiliating.
But what did they really want?
Some did just want some submission. They work high stress jobs, or have high stress families. They want to let go and have someone else make the decisions.
Some just want someone to pay attention to them. As a Pro Dom, all of my attention was focused on them for the amount of time they bought.
Some just wanted touch.
Some were lonely.
Some thought that I’d actually fuck them.
There were multiple levels to the why. What they told themselves wasn’t always the truth.
What would I turn down?
Just when I thought I had heard it all, someone would ask for something that made me go hell no -- the fuck? Subs have limits…well, Doms have limits too. This is one of those areas where I will be very opinionated and biased.
No Dom knows everything about everything. I got a call from a guy who asked me if I could do queening. I said I would call him back. I looked it up in the Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices and called him back with a big fat NO. Queening is smothering using the crotch.
I wouldn’t have anything to do with coprophilia (scat), or watersports. Nothing that involved me naked. Nothing that made me uncomfortable.
No eyeball licking. (oculolinctus) Yes! It was a request.
I did turn down these requests. I had one guy who wanted me to defecate in his mouth. When I said no he tried to get me to shit on a glass topped table with him under it. I said no. He offered me several thousand dollars. I said no. Because…yuck.
There are Pro Doms who do this, but they are very few and far between. I think that is fine, but I personally would not be able to do it. I do wonder how they deal with transmission of sickness. I would worry about getting sued.
I did get some cool requests though. One guy just wanted an audience to watch him suck himself off. He paid me $300 bucks when I probably would have paid him. It was sweet.
How does the business operate?
A Dom can have all of her own equipment, or she can work for a dungeon that supplies most of it. Some do house calls, but I think this is dangerous and suspect. If you work for a dungeon it is usually a fifty/fifty pay split with the house.
The pay scale depends on skill, equipment, name recognition, and specialization. I was damn highly paid, but not as much as some of the famous Doms like Mistress Midori. I would not want that level of fame and did not seek it out because I like my privacy and it can be dangerous. Like anything, it is mostly a marketing strategy. I have nothing but the highest respect for Midori, because she is just that awesome.
My rate fluctuated based on difficulty, consumables, time, whether it was boring, and if I liked or despised the client. An hour averaged anywhere from $300 to $900. Most sessions were only an hour to an hour and a half, but there would occasionally be longer sessions for elaborate fantasies. These would sometimes be 6 hours or more. I was very in demand so I could schedule as many or as few clients as I wanted. I never did more than four a day. I usually only worked 4-5 days a week. Doms with lesser training or name recognition would charge in the $150-$250 an hour range. I have no idea how often they worked because I was, and am, a snob.
A Dom or a Dungeon advertises online, or in specialized publications like DDI, Domination Directory International. Clients also come from word of mouth and referrals.
When a client contacts you it is just like any other business -- professional. You have a small initial meeting. I had a questionnaire that they could fill out that detailed what they wanted, what sounded interesting, what was a no, and what their medical condition was. They had to sign a waver.
I liked a live first meeting so I could size the guy up and make sure he didn’t set off alarm bells. If it felt wrong that was the end of it. I did not keep up the harsh Dom persona during this meeting. Some Doms do, but I always felt that I needed to create a line that showed them firmly where reality and fantasy diverged. Some Doms are pretty 24/7, and that creates a mystique that is good for the career, but pretty wearing when it comes to the personal life. If that is who they are all the time, more power to them, but I need down time in sweat pants and fuzzy slippers.
If a client had a fantasy that requires multiple Doms I would call a few Pro friends and charge the client through the nose. This is more common in a dungeon where you have multiple Doms working at once.
A dungeon usually has several rooms for corporal punishment, a cell or concrete walled room for interrogation (mine had a drain in the floor and a hose I could turn on them, it was awesome), a surgery, a schoolroom, a room for dressing up (pony play, fetish play like latex, crossdressing, etc.) and sometimes specialized rooms like a pony facility.
Some Doms have their dungeons in an addition to their own home, but I think that is inviting crazies to stalk you. Some have discreet converted warehouse space which can be anywhere. The first dungeon I worked in was in a modest looking brick building in a business, restaurant and club district. A few own bed and breakfasts which cater to kink. It takes all kinds.
Professional Dress: Up to the Dom, unless they are acting out a scene that requires uniform, or have a client who requests a particular type of outfit and the Dom can provide it. I turned down a guy that wanted me to top him wearing a Hooters uniform. Some Doms collect shoes or boots and cater to fetishists. Ditto for latex, etc. I’m androgyne but very feminine-looking all the same, so I wore men’s suits with ties quite often. This was very popular, mostly because I was co-opting a masculine uniform and turning it against my clients. I had Nazi uniforms for interrogation, which is ironic because my people were targeted by Hitler. (I can’t help it if Hugo Boss designed badass looking uniforms.)
Stopping a scene gone wrong:
It does happen. A client bit off more than he could chew, or something assumed to be okay freaked him out. All clients are given safe words. I always used the basics, red, yellow, green, because they are universal and I don’t want to have to remember everyone’s different safe words. Call me lazy. Red for stop, yellow for slow down and green for oh god yes.
Then there are things that go wrong that are more oops than freak out worthy. When I first started out at a communal dungeon I had a client that got…stuck. In rope bondage. I couldn’t get him down from the wall he was tied to. I saved the scene by pretending nothing was wrong. His paperwork didn’t say that he had a fear of knives, so I grabbed one and sawed him out of it while playing up the drama. Problem solved. Rope ruined.
Law Enforcement:
This is another area in which I am biased, because all of my dealings with vice have been laugh worthy. I think that if you want to penetrate a subculture you have to understand the subculture. Vice cops, in my experience, do not understand the culture.
I would like to imagine that UK vice cops are just as funny and obvious as US vice, because that tickles something inside me that delights in the perverse, but the truth is that I know very little about UK vice and their approach to BDSM activities.
They would approach me pretending to be a regular client, have me tie them up, then ask me when I was getting naked. My response? “I’m not a whore.” SMACK! “Now apologize for implying that I am.”
I did a full scene with one guy who did not safe word and they never bothered me again. He probably thought a safe word would sound suspicious. I like to think he just enjoyed it.
I know people who manage sex shops and fetish stores that tell me awfully funny stories about equally stupid attempted busts. They would come in the store with nothing but catalog serial numbers for things that were illegal and try to get them to order it for them.
That said, there have been cases that I know of in the US and Canada where a legitimate Dom was prosecuted for prostitution, despite turning down sex offers from vice. The judges in several cases said that they did not believe that someone would pay unless the Dom was putting out. This is like Queen Victoria refusing to outlaw lesbianism because she refused to believe it existed.
Do Doms become attracted to their clients or enter a relationship?
Doms are human. And it isn’t like we are doctors, so the ethics of sleeping with a former client, which are already a bit hazy as far as most of the world is concerned, don’t really enter here. Most Doms won’t start a sexual relationship while being paid, but after the transaction is finished…it happens. It never happened to me, because I didn’t personally mesh with most of my clients, and the hot ones all wanted to be treated like babies in a nursery.
And, oh man, one was smoking hot. Pyroclastic flow hot.
I did know one very well paid, gorgeous Dom with a master’s in Psychology that left her husband for an attractive, wealthy European client. (Don’t feel bad for her husband, he was a complete jackass.)
If Sherlock, Mycroft or Lestrade were my clients, I’d be all over that.
How did I become a Dom?
This will be totally biased, because I’m talking about me, me, me! I’m a pretty unique story, so I don’t know how much help it will be. I’ve discussed all of this on my LJ well before Sherlock, so older friends list people can confirm that I’m not full of shit.
I’m a genius, an Aspie on the autism scale, an abused child, a former self-medicating drug enthusiast, a mostly demisexual androgyne, a professional observational researcher, a boxer, a tattoo collector, a masochist, an apiarist, and an asshole that wears a big flappy coat, has creepy grey eyes and shoots things when bored. I’m also short, from the southern US, biologically female, violinless, ginger, and I never deleted heliocentrism.
Can’t have everything I suppose.
When I was a kid I was moved up grades and put into gifted classes, but by the time I made it to high school I was mind-numbingly bored and acting out against that boredom and an abusive home life. I also had autism related sensory issues that led me to interpret pain as pleasure, so that led to my interest in masochism when I hit puberty. I also had a huge interest in what made me tick, and that led to interest in what made everyone else tick. I started Domming on an amateur level and realized I was good. I got specialized training from people in the scene and went to work for a dungeon before branching off on my own.
Why did I quit?
I go into some of the reasons in my Sherlock BDSM fics, but this breaks it down.
1) I like people for the most part, and many clients use Doms as a substitute for mental health help. Self medicating in a way. But it is a type of avoidance and they don’t get any better, so that can be difficult to watch and I didn’t like to think that I was participating in that endless cycle.
2) I’m fucking brilliant and I felt wasted on this type of job. I went to university and got a hideously difficult degree and now I’m working for a place that is hideously difficult to get employment in, doing work that is completely badass. I am modest. I was a great Dom, now I’m a great something else.
3) It can limit your social interaction. “What do you do for a living?” -- “Um…err…” Not that I’m embarrassed (I don‘t embarrass), but when someone finds out about it, suddenly that is all you are. And misconceptions abound.
4) Old and wrinkled does not (usually) a popular Dom make. I’m still pretty young, but it isn’t something you can do forever. There are older Doms. There are ugly Doms and fat Doms and all sorts of Doms in between. Skill is what matters most, but it would be naïve to think that looks don’t matter in this business. (Though I will say that the most knowledgeable, talented Dom I’ve ever known was in her 50’s, not very svelte, and had poor skin. She had mad skills and was very much in demand as a pro.
5) Looks funny on tax forms.
6) Personally, I don’t much like a lot of submissives who get off on paying for it. Something in their manner turns me off. If you hold someone in even a small amount of contempt, you should not have that sort of power over them. I made an ethical decision. I’m not saying that everyone who pays annoys me, or makes me dislike them, but it was enough of a percentage that it became wearing.
7) I met a man and got married. He is wonderful, and cool with the scene, but it felt wrong to me. I kept working for several years after we got together, but he was a contributing factor to quitting.
8) I learned everything I needed or wanted to, so it became boring. Honestly, that should be number one, because I don’t do anything that bores me except clean the house, and that is only because I don’t like living in filth.
--- --- ---
Thank you for reading. I hope this helps people. I know there are probably plenty of things that I haven’t addressed here, but please leave questions in the comment area and I will do my best to answer them.
If you would like to read my BDSM based Sherlock fic, go HERE, but please note the warnings for each fic in the series. The first story is character study only.
Warnings: Frank discussion of BDSM and all that can entail
Spoilers: for ASIB perhaps...
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4500
A/N: This is meant to help writers with their post ASIB fic. It is by no means a complete guide, and it is based upon personal observation and experiences. Other Doms may have had different experiences.
A Pro Dom on Pro Doms
I practiced in the US, but I have been to BDSM and Fetish events in Europe, and I’ve known many International Doms. Most of this is pretty universal. Doms do have crazy networking, and will give referrals to others, etc.
I’m afraid that this is a subject that is difficult to keep totally non-biased. The breadth of BDSM practice is so great that it is impossible to know everything, or, indeed, like everything that people get up to. There is some stuff that makes me go ick. There is some stuff that I adore that makes other people go ick. I do generalize quite a bit, but it can give you a ballpark idea.
The first draft that I tried to post was called too inflammatory, provocative and likely to cause wank. It’s in the nature of a Dominatrix to be inflammatory and provocative, so I hope this version is improved. I’m a bit like the scorpion, I can’t change my nature.
What is a Pro Dom?
A Pro Dom practices BDSM as a Dominant for money. While the acts may be erotic and sexualized, no actual sex takes place. Pro Doms are not prostitutes. Dominatrix is a pop culture term for Pro Dom.
There are different types of Pros. I specialized in corporal punishment, which is physical punishment like spanking, beating, caning, whipping, etc. I also specialized in medical play, mummification, electrical play (which requires expensive specialized equipment and is considered edge play), interrogation, humiliation, blood play, scarification and psychodrama. (Psychodrama is scaring the beejeezus out of people.) There was other stuff that I had equipment for that I could provide as a service, but it wasn’t my focus. These included things like forced feminization, bondage, pony play, boot worship, etc.
Most pros have involvement in the local or national scene because it is good advertising, but it usually is business. Involvement usually means public scenes, exhibitions, panel discussions, or participation in a fashion show. Some do have a separate social BDSM life within their local scene, but this is something that I’ve been told about rather than experienced.
I will go into my own personal story later.
What makes a GOOD Dom?
The best Doms are good at cold reading of the client, and giving them what they want and not just what they ask for. Most of the highly paid Doms have backgrounds in psychology, so they can craft around a client, and not just do things by rote. Anyone can wield a whip. A good Dom deals with the mind, not the body, and this is where I find a lot of BDSM fic falls short. There should be more focus on thought and emotion instead of the trappings, because the head is where the action happens. In my own fic I have very little in the way of accoutrements, and much in the way of human interaction and the give and take of two people.
Who becomes a pro?
There are generally a few types.
1) The girl who was kind of kinky and awfully pretty who realized that she could get paid to do what she would do for free.
2) The girl who had an interest in psychology who was kind of kinky and realized she could get paid for experimenting on men.
3) The girl with a degree in psychology who was kind of kinky and realized she could get paid for experimenting on men.
4) Prostitutes who want to supplement their income. There is probably quite a bit of difference here between the US and Europe. In the US, where prostitution is heavily prosecuted and there are very few safe brothels, etc, this is more of a way for an untrained prostitute to enter a niche market and charge more. These doms are usually not very well trained and can be dangerous, or unable to provide skilled domination. (There are some exceptions, especially in big metro areas that aren’t as harsh on prostitution.) In many areas of Europe where the sex trade is regulated there are places where the prostitutes are talented and well trained in BDSM.
You will note that there is a commonality here: Men. I’ve never known a woman to pay for a Dom unless it was part of a couple’s fantasy scene. Period. Not in many years of working, and not from anyone else I‘ve worked with. I have a friend in Germany who has said that she knows a few women who have used a Pro, but it is still a very uncommon thing. I’ve only ever seen one advertisement for a male Pro-Dom, and he was working out of San Francisco.
All of my female clients were there with husbands or boyfriends to act out a “Story of O” type kidnapping scene. Most clients are not very creative in what they want. I heard the same fantasies over and over again. Some are so ubiquitous that they have become archetypal. It’s like being a tattoo artist: you occasionally get to tattoo something really creative and awesome, but more often than not you are doing the same tribal scorpion flash over and over and over.
Men Who Pay For Pain:
There is such a vast underground scene everywhere that it is difficult to imagine a man not being able to find a free partner -- even ugly men (though most of my clients were not ugly.) I’ve been in extremely religious communities, and they all had a scene. Men usually outnumber women in a community, but that is what the internet is for.
I’m sure that there are men from very rural areas who travel to a city to have a session with a pro, but for the most part, why pay for what is essentially a free buffet? There are several reasons.
Paying is often part of a humiliation fantasy.
Sometimes it indicates a type of submission.
Some want the sensation without inviting emotional attachment, which proves that they are missing the entire point.
Some want anonymity because of a job or a spouse. I can’t tell you the number of men who asked me for no marks because their wife wouldn’t understand. Being able to leave no marks is a must-have talent for any Pro-vert. I understood and sympathized with these men. They could not trust an indiscreet amateur who might turn out to be batshit crazy. These men fall into the category of smart and powerful.
Gay men really don’t pay for Doms. If they need to remain anonymous they wear a hood and go to a club. Maybe a little in Europe. I'm sure there is a market for gay men who need extraordinary discretion, but I haven't encountered it because my business was heterosexual in nature.
Who were my clients?
1) Accountants. Overwhelmingly so. Seriously, about 60-75% of my clients were accountants. There were a few CFOs in there, so they were often powerful men in business, but there is something about chartered accountancy that makes submission and/or pain sound like a cold beer on a hot day.
2) Other businessmen. Highly paid, very stressed, usually married to women who would not understand their need to let go of that kind of pressure by surrendering to a more powerful person. They married people who needed to be taken care of, so there was nobody to take care of them.
3) Politicians. I mostly had prosecutors and other lower tier politicos because of the type of Dom I am (cute, perky, obviously creepy and scary as all hell instead of the elegant, remote type), and I didn’t want the hassle of the more powerful politicians. Once again, these are men who are so in charge in their normal life that they need to let go. I understand why these men pay.
4) Younger guys, often very attractive, with embarrassing fetishes. These are the infantilists, the plushies, the guys who want to be spanked by Momma after some forced feminization, etc. Guys in college who can’t even begin to find a girlfriend who would be willing to act this shit out because they are afraid or shy. A few were smoking hot, but to be honest I would never want to be in a relationship with someone who needed to be diapered and told he was a pretty little girl. Not that there is anything wrong with it…it just isn’t my thing, and I think a relationship based on compatible kinks is best.
5) Cops. I had quite a few police clients, including beat cops, detectives, and a guy on the SWAT team. There was one fireman, but I assume that most of them get a big enough kick from running into burning buildings and showering together, so consider him a statistical outlier.
6)A few really sick fucks. Run away. Run far away.
What did they ask for?
To answer this you have to understand the differences between Tops, Doms, Bottoms and Submissives.
A Top/Bottom relationship indicates a focus on sensation, and not power. This is the Sadism/Masochism dynamic, or the sensation play dynamic without the control of one person over another that is inherent in a Dom/Sub relationship. It can focus on pain, but it can easily focus on non-pain stimuli, like ice versus heat, or sensory deprivation.
Dom/Sub relations focus’ on POWER. Note the capitals. There are reams of books written on power exchange, but I’ve come to understand that very, very few people actually understand it. This power can take on many forms. Many of these relationships have no SM component at all. It is all about control and willing submission to another’s will. The Sub actually holds the power in the relationship. I’m not going to delve into this here because wtf, look it up there is so much written on it oh god and I don‘t need to write a dissertation on it.
And sometimes the lines between them all can blur, because real life is messy.
Most of my customers were submissive to some degree. The strictly bottom clients were usually a one-off who wanted to try something new.
Almost all of them wanted to be told what to do.
The most common request was to be tied up and whipped, etc. This is meat and potatoes stuff. There might be some variation, like a request to be slapped in the face and called a dirty pig.
Interrogation was something I was very good at. I had uniforms, and a cell, or alternately a room with blank concrete walls, a lamp I could aim, electricity, etc. This was all play acting, some pain. A Dom must be an excellent actress. So this was a common request for me.
Medical. I’m very, very good at this, and since this is one of those types of skills with safety issues inherent, it was popular as a service because many other Doms could not offer it. Safety issues include things like sounding. A sound cannot be reinserted in the urethra without proper cleansing with a bio cleanser. Things like that.
Ditto for electrocution. If someone has a medical implant or a heart condition it is a no go. If you are using a tens unit you need to make sure that you are not arcing electricity between two contact points that connects straight through the heart. If you use a lightning hands unit with something that concentrates the electricity to a fine point, like a wartenberg wheel or fine tinsel, you can scar on high settings.
CBT. This is not Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, this means Cock and Ball Torture. Look up the gates of Hell. Cringe. I had one guy who only wanted me to wear stilettos and grind the heel of the shoe into his cock.
Forced Fem/Crossdressing/Infantilism. Dress up role play. They get tired of being what passes for manly in our society. I’m friends with many transvestites, I even went to prom with a transvestite, but forced fem is different from merely dressing up…there is a shame component. All of the men who approached me for this wanted me to call them things like “dirty slut.” They were getting off on the humiliation. I never focused on this because I generally don’t like humiliation, and I never understood why wearing women’s clothes would be humiliating.
But what did they really want?
Some did just want some submission. They work high stress jobs, or have high stress families. They want to let go and have someone else make the decisions.
Some just want someone to pay attention to them. As a Pro Dom, all of my attention was focused on them for the amount of time they bought.
Some just wanted touch.
Some were lonely.
Some thought that I’d actually fuck them.
There were multiple levels to the why. What they told themselves wasn’t always the truth.
What would I turn down?
Just when I thought I had heard it all, someone would ask for something that made me go hell no -- the fuck? Subs have limits…well, Doms have limits too. This is one of those areas where I will be very opinionated and biased.
No Dom knows everything about everything. I got a call from a guy who asked me if I could do queening. I said I would call him back. I looked it up in the Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices and called him back with a big fat NO. Queening is smothering using the crotch.
I wouldn’t have anything to do with coprophilia (scat), or watersports. Nothing that involved me naked. Nothing that made me uncomfortable.
No eyeball licking. (oculolinctus) Yes! It was a request.
I did turn down these requests. I had one guy who wanted me to defecate in his mouth. When I said no he tried to get me to shit on a glass topped table with him under it. I said no. He offered me several thousand dollars. I said no. Because…yuck.
There are Pro Doms who do this, but they are very few and far between. I think that is fine, but I personally would not be able to do it. I do wonder how they deal with transmission of sickness. I would worry about getting sued.
I did get some cool requests though. One guy just wanted an audience to watch him suck himself off. He paid me $300 bucks when I probably would have paid him. It was sweet.
How does the business operate?
A Dom can have all of her own equipment, or she can work for a dungeon that supplies most of it. Some do house calls, but I think this is dangerous and suspect. If you work for a dungeon it is usually a fifty/fifty pay split with the house.
The pay scale depends on skill, equipment, name recognition, and specialization. I was damn highly paid, but not as much as some of the famous Doms like Mistress Midori. I would not want that level of fame and did not seek it out because I like my privacy and it can be dangerous. Like anything, it is mostly a marketing strategy. I have nothing but the highest respect for Midori, because she is just that awesome.
My rate fluctuated based on difficulty, consumables, time, whether it was boring, and if I liked or despised the client. An hour averaged anywhere from $300 to $900. Most sessions were only an hour to an hour and a half, but there would occasionally be longer sessions for elaborate fantasies. These would sometimes be 6 hours or more. I was very in demand so I could schedule as many or as few clients as I wanted. I never did more than four a day. I usually only worked 4-5 days a week. Doms with lesser training or name recognition would charge in the $150-$250 an hour range. I have no idea how often they worked because I was, and am, a snob.
A Dom or a Dungeon advertises online, or in specialized publications like DDI, Domination Directory International. Clients also come from word of mouth and referrals.
When a client contacts you it is just like any other business -- professional. You have a small initial meeting. I had a questionnaire that they could fill out that detailed what they wanted, what sounded interesting, what was a no, and what their medical condition was. They had to sign a waver.
I liked a live first meeting so I could size the guy up and make sure he didn’t set off alarm bells. If it felt wrong that was the end of it. I did not keep up the harsh Dom persona during this meeting. Some Doms do, but I always felt that I needed to create a line that showed them firmly where reality and fantasy diverged. Some Doms are pretty 24/7, and that creates a mystique that is good for the career, but pretty wearing when it comes to the personal life. If that is who they are all the time, more power to them, but I need down time in sweat pants and fuzzy slippers.
If a client had a fantasy that requires multiple Doms I would call a few Pro friends and charge the client through the nose. This is more common in a dungeon where you have multiple Doms working at once.
A dungeon usually has several rooms for corporal punishment, a cell or concrete walled room for interrogation (mine had a drain in the floor and a hose I could turn on them, it was awesome), a surgery, a schoolroom, a room for dressing up (pony play, fetish play like latex, crossdressing, etc.) and sometimes specialized rooms like a pony facility.
Some Doms have their dungeons in an addition to their own home, but I think that is inviting crazies to stalk you. Some have discreet converted warehouse space which can be anywhere. The first dungeon I worked in was in a modest looking brick building in a business, restaurant and club district. A few own bed and breakfasts which cater to kink. It takes all kinds.
Professional Dress: Up to the Dom, unless they are acting out a scene that requires uniform, or have a client who requests a particular type of outfit and the Dom can provide it. I turned down a guy that wanted me to top him wearing a Hooters uniform. Some Doms collect shoes or boots and cater to fetishists. Ditto for latex, etc. I’m androgyne but very feminine-looking all the same, so I wore men’s suits with ties quite often. This was very popular, mostly because I was co-opting a masculine uniform and turning it against my clients. I had Nazi uniforms for interrogation, which is ironic because my people were targeted by Hitler. (I can’t help it if Hugo Boss designed badass looking uniforms.)
Stopping a scene gone wrong:
It does happen. A client bit off more than he could chew, or something assumed to be okay freaked him out. All clients are given safe words. I always used the basics, red, yellow, green, because they are universal and I don’t want to have to remember everyone’s different safe words. Call me lazy. Red for stop, yellow for slow down and green for oh god yes.
Then there are things that go wrong that are more oops than freak out worthy. When I first started out at a communal dungeon I had a client that got…stuck. In rope bondage. I couldn’t get him down from the wall he was tied to. I saved the scene by pretending nothing was wrong. His paperwork didn’t say that he had a fear of knives, so I grabbed one and sawed him out of it while playing up the drama. Problem solved. Rope ruined.
Law Enforcement:
This is another area in which I am biased, because all of my dealings with vice have been laugh worthy. I think that if you want to penetrate a subculture you have to understand the subculture. Vice cops, in my experience, do not understand the culture.
I would like to imagine that UK vice cops are just as funny and obvious as US vice, because that tickles something inside me that delights in the perverse, but the truth is that I know very little about UK vice and their approach to BDSM activities.
They would approach me pretending to be a regular client, have me tie them up, then ask me when I was getting naked. My response? “I’m not a whore.” SMACK! “Now apologize for implying that I am.”
I did a full scene with one guy who did not safe word and they never bothered me again. He probably thought a safe word would sound suspicious. I like to think he just enjoyed it.
I know people who manage sex shops and fetish stores that tell me awfully funny stories about equally stupid attempted busts. They would come in the store with nothing but catalog serial numbers for things that were illegal and try to get them to order it for them.
That said, there have been cases that I know of in the US and Canada where a legitimate Dom was prosecuted for prostitution, despite turning down sex offers from vice. The judges in several cases said that they did not believe that someone would pay unless the Dom was putting out. This is like Queen Victoria refusing to outlaw lesbianism because she refused to believe it existed.
Do Doms become attracted to their clients or enter a relationship?
Doms are human. And it isn’t like we are doctors, so the ethics of sleeping with a former client, which are already a bit hazy as far as most of the world is concerned, don’t really enter here. Most Doms won’t start a sexual relationship while being paid, but after the transaction is finished…it happens. It never happened to me, because I didn’t personally mesh with most of my clients, and the hot ones all wanted to be treated like babies in a nursery.
And, oh man, one was smoking hot. Pyroclastic flow hot.
I did know one very well paid, gorgeous Dom with a master’s in Psychology that left her husband for an attractive, wealthy European client. (Don’t feel bad for her husband, he was a complete jackass.)
If Sherlock, Mycroft or Lestrade were my clients, I’d be all over that.
How did I become a Dom?
This will be totally biased, because I’m talking about me, me, me! I’m a pretty unique story, so I don’t know how much help it will be. I’ve discussed all of this on my LJ well before Sherlock, so older friends list people can confirm that I’m not full of shit.
I’m a genius, an Aspie on the autism scale, an abused child, a former self-medicating drug enthusiast, a mostly demisexual androgyne, a professional observational researcher, a boxer, a tattoo collector, a masochist, an apiarist, and an asshole that wears a big flappy coat, has creepy grey eyes and shoots things when bored. I’m also short, from the southern US, biologically female, violinless, ginger, and I never deleted heliocentrism.
Can’t have everything I suppose.
When I was a kid I was moved up grades and put into gifted classes, but by the time I made it to high school I was mind-numbingly bored and acting out against that boredom and an abusive home life. I also had autism related sensory issues that led me to interpret pain as pleasure, so that led to my interest in masochism when I hit puberty. I also had a huge interest in what made me tick, and that led to interest in what made everyone else tick. I started Domming on an amateur level and realized I was good. I got specialized training from people in the scene and went to work for a dungeon before branching off on my own.
Why did I quit?
I go into some of the reasons in my Sherlock BDSM fics, but this breaks it down.
1) I like people for the most part, and many clients use Doms as a substitute for mental health help. Self medicating in a way. But it is a type of avoidance and they don’t get any better, so that can be difficult to watch and I didn’t like to think that I was participating in that endless cycle.
2) I’m fucking brilliant and I felt wasted on this type of job. I went to university and got a hideously difficult degree and now I’m working for a place that is hideously difficult to get employment in, doing work that is completely badass. I am modest. I was a great Dom, now I’m a great something else.
3) It can limit your social interaction. “What do you do for a living?” -- “Um…err…” Not that I’m embarrassed (I don‘t embarrass), but when someone finds out about it, suddenly that is all you are. And misconceptions abound.
4) Old and wrinkled does not (usually) a popular Dom make. I’m still pretty young, but it isn’t something you can do forever. There are older Doms. There are ugly Doms and fat Doms and all sorts of Doms in between. Skill is what matters most, but it would be naïve to think that looks don’t matter in this business. (Though I will say that the most knowledgeable, talented Dom I’ve ever known was in her 50’s, not very svelte, and had poor skin. She had mad skills and was very much in demand as a pro.
5) Looks funny on tax forms.
6) Personally, I don’t much like a lot of submissives who get off on paying for it. Something in their manner turns me off. If you hold someone in even a small amount of contempt, you should not have that sort of power over them. I made an ethical decision. I’m not saying that everyone who pays annoys me, or makes me dislike them, but it was enough of a percentage that it became wearing.
7) I met a man and got married. He is wonderful, and cool with the scene, but it felt wrong to me. I kept working for several years after we got together, but he was a contributing factor to quitting.
8) I learned everything I needed or wanted to, so it became boring. Honestly, that should be number one, because I don’t do anything that bores me except clean the house, and that is only because I don’t like living in filth.
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Thank you for reading. I hope this helps people. I know there are probably plenty of things that I haven’t addressed here, but please leave questions in the comment area and I will do my best to answer them.
If you would like to read my BDSM based Sherlock fic, go HERE, but please note the warnings for each fic in the series. The first story is character study only.