Dominatrix Next Door

Here’s to prodommes, and their lack of Real And True Dominance.

Maymay got me thinking when I revisited this post of his. You’ve all heard it before: dommes are the real submissives because they do it for money. Dommes are just service tops. Dommes are just whores (well, yes, thanks, I am). Maymay says, quite prettily, that he thinks the clients are whores too: both participants cheapen themselves.

I happen to think my style of sex work is a fantastic deal for all involved, the best bargain (marked down from Invaluable! and Priceless!) there is, but I am biased.

Bitchy Jones has talked about prodommes several times, with similar passion and love.

(Does all this passion get tiresome? Don’t you just wanna read some smut? I’ll try later, really I will. In the meantime you can go look at the pretty pictures, from which I had scabs on my nipples for a week.)

I do not know if prodommes are really Dominant-With-A-Capital-D. But I can tell you what it is that I do, as best I know. It might not be dominant, and it might not be smart or correct, but it is certainly sincere.

As far as definitions go, I am twenty-one years old and I don’t know many people my age who can do their taxes without help, let alone be sure they’re straight. For that matter I’m still scared my breasts aren’t here to stay! I was seventeen when I had sex the first time; nineteen when I went to a munch in Cambridge for the first time. Where does that leave us? C-o-n-f-u-s-e-d. Yup.

I have a particular bone to pick with the dominant men (and some women) of the world, who tend to pat me on the head and assure me I’ll find my true pleasure (yes, true pleasure!) in kneeling to them. (Perhaps it’s the fake pleasure that I dislike?) Maybe they’ve all got it figured out, these wise Lord Master Sir Daddies of the world and their slavepetslut sidekicks, and when I grow up I will understand.

But until that day, when I discuss “real” submission or “real” domination, I refer to the people who are speaking with penis firmly in hand.

Where do you set the bar, anyway? On how much you submit, or how honestly? I keep coming back to this list of the “9 Levels of Submission“, by Diana Vera, from the Lesbian S/M Safety Manual (a book I wholeheartedly recommend, whatever your gender or orientation). Go read!

No, go. Seriously.

Read it? Good. Welcome back.

I’ll freely admit that when it comes to power exchange, I play. Submission, domination: I make no pretentions. Nor do I rub shoulders much with the Master/slave folks, the type who talk about power exchange as more serious than marriage. Too bad: they seem interesting. I would love to understand them. (Hell, I would also love to understand marriage.)

D/s is not what I do as a “prodomme”. I wouldn’t consider taking on a pay-for-play relationship, period. As a whore of any sort I’m hourly. Sorry, a girl’s gotta have boundaries! The only homework I want is the stuff, like this, that I inflict on myself.

As such I doubt I’m a “proper” prodomme, and I have said as much. Not all my sessions are BDSM — they’re fetish, they’re fantasy facilitation, they’re sex work for crying out loud. I don’t make my foot fetish clients call me Mistress, and I don’t kick anyone in the balls without permission. If they want BDSM they will ask, and I’m happy that plenty do. In an ideal world I’d see my favorites alone, but as a girl working for a house, I don’t have the luxury of hand-selecting my clientele — just the right of refusal, which I do exercise. For now I’m trying on a whole bunch of sexualities (not an objectionable process) and I’ll leave the dressing room in a couple of years with an armful that fit.

Hopefully a whole lot of masochists. Yum.

If there’s anything I know a little about, it’s masochism. I like to be hurt: it gets me off. This tendency can be embarrassing I assure you. I am not an exhibitionist and I do not like the wankers or wanna-be-doms who like me. I’d rather keep my clothes on if it’s all the same to you.

But let’s not be coy. When it comes to unDomly things, I do ‘em — and I have to wear the bruises to work. Of course none of this can be mine for the next couple weeks: I’m shooting for Hardtied (or maybe Infernal Restraints?) on Wednesday, and then Ultimate Surrender the Wednesday after that. So no rough sex. Nope. The Ultimate folks might get a kick out of whip marks, but major bruising would be rude.

Not even rude. Unprofessional.

Don’t tell me it adds authenticity.

So, with my dirty not-so-secret out again, I won’t stand up and tell you I’m a dominant woman. I haven’t got a line of proof to show you. And I know for most people — my clients included — all of this disqualifies me as a domme, three times, a million times over I am not a dominant woman and never will be.

But I know that when I grab a man by the handcuffs and slam him up against the wall, the startled grunt of air he gives is like the sweetest of moans. When I grab him by the throat with one leathergloved hand and punch his chest with the other, the look of surprise curdling to she’s-honestly-hurting-me panic, something curls in my abdomen like lust hatching messy and raw. When I throw him into the chair and plant the undomly rubber sole of my Doc Martens in his balls, he screams — and I drink it in.

And I get a fucking rush, red and heady and pounding in my ears, like I’m cheating on the test of life.

You see, I don’t have thigh muscles that bulge and shake as I am bound in place and forced to hold a squat. I don’t have balls that can be tied to my ankles in said squat. It doesn’t hurt me to come, or not come. The veins in my upper arms don’t stand out when I struggle, nor can I heave a 300-pound bondage bed half a painful inch when something I want more than anything in the world is put in front of me. I do not want inflatable gags shoved between my teeth, or hair ripped off me with wax, or anything electrical ever used on me anywhere, or enemas up my ass, or sounds in my urethra. I do not want to be made to feel stupid or foolish or tricked or little or used.

But I can do this to you.

If I didn’t know what it was like for you, I wouldn’t like it so much.

It’s your pain I feed off, after all.

I like to say that when you see me, as Mistress Alena, you are paying for the time and not the inclination. I do these things recreationally. I wouldn’t do them with you, at 2pm on a Wednesday, but I would happily do them — and because you are paying at 2pm on a Wednesday, I will happily do them to you now.

That means (and the anti-pro folks lean hungrily in) that sometimes I am just not in the mood at 2pm on a Wednesday. Maybe I’m sick or tired or engrossed in my book. What happens then? I do it anyway, and I do it with the same enthusiasm and skill. You know… like a job.

It all boils down to the same thing to me: that, as Dossie Easton says, sex is nice and pleasure is good for you.

So much fuss! I don’t know, folks… I don’t fucking know.

I want to talk about the intersection of sex work and feminism, because I think a lot of the prodomme hatred is more general than people admit, but that’s for another day.

Posted in Uncategorized, switching, porn, young and confused, kink dot com, pro domination, submission (or the lack thereof), masochism, sex work, whores, fantasy facilitation, service topping, shameless self-promotion