If It Sucked, They Wouldn’t Do It
May 5th,Back posts continued…
One of my coworkers told a story about her fiancee. All her boyfriends, she said, started skeptical about dominant women, but ended up playing with her sooner or later. And as soon as they tried it, they enjoyed it. “If it sucked, they wouldn’t do it!” she concluded, hands spread in a shrug.
Why not? It’s just sex — weird, sadomasochistic, kinky sex, but sex nonetheless. It won’t ruin you as a man (or a woman.) And sex generally doesn’t suck.
I’ve never understood the idea that submitting or bottoming or what-have-you is so indescribably unpleasant you’d only do it for a sadist. Fuck that shit. I know a ton of people who just do it “for their master/for Jesus/to uphold traditional marriage” and they’re all liars. I also know a ton of clients who do it because they just want to please me, and unless they can acknowledge the fantasy, they’re all liars, too.
(ooh! shit! I am temporarily out of pro-domming, but man, I don’t need to burn all my bridges.)
Clients come to me; I do not collar them forcibly off the street. Perhaps the desire-to-suffer-for-a-sadist (submission?) is different than the desire to suffer (masochism?) but they are both selfish at their root.
And no one suggests that topping is so unpleasant you’d only do it for a masochist! (Oh wait, they do, but lest I lose my already protuberant nose, I’ll keep it out of Bitchy’s territory.)
I think I should know. I play both sides, personally and professionally. I am a switch.
My advice to a new sex worker would be: You will always fall short of perfection; and it is not your fault. Or, rephrased more kindly, you have the right to offer whatever services you do, in whatever form they come. Unless you claim to be all things to all people and then you’re just a delusional jerk.
My clients always want a “really dominant” mistress. (Unless they want a “really submissive” mistress for a switch session, which I find laughable, since that assumes we’re pulling one over on all the men who want a “really dominant” mistress. And would confess that deep, dark secret right then and there.) They don’t mean “really dominant”; they mean “lacking in all other capacities”. They mean “reduced to the shell of my fantasy”. What they mean, in short, is one who never bottoms. Not just to them, but to anyone. Ever.
Maybe they think it’s contagious? You might have one strain of sexual submissiveness, but God forbid, you could still catch the other 99. Then you’d break out in bumps and everyone would know your shame!
I wish I could tell them that sexuality is fluid and personal and sometimes, just doesn’t fit under a pair of panties. I mean… What if reality is not sexy? I can’t fix my reality. I don’t want to feel compelled to try.
When I was new at the dungeon, I would come in with occasional bruises and bitemarks. I have an unfortunate habit of biting nearby objects when I come: pillows, partners, my arms. Seeing them, my boss would cluck at me and say, Alena, you’ve got to take it easy. That’s not good.
My clients have had a lot to say about my bruises. You’re such a beautiful girl, no one should treat you like that. That’s not healthy, you shouldn’t do that. Did you know it was going to be like that?
Maybe it’s because I’m female. In our culture, henpecked husbands are funny; abused women aren’t. But I always think it’s hypocritical when people in the industry get concerned that I bottom. They hurt men for a living, yet when I go down, it must be pathological.
My boss means well; she is running a business. And my clients meant — well, I don’t know what they mean. But would my boss tell her clients to knock off a sexual compulsion that already costs them hundreds of dollars and jeopardizes marriages and careers? Would my clients volunteer to just stop seeing providers if I thought their kink was unnecessary or inconvenient? Hardly.
For fuck’s sake, let’s try to leave my kinks alone. I am not going to stop topping. Hello? It’s called being a switch.
Switching is not a new concept. Gay leather, for example. From what I know about the Old Guard, men started as submissives and only later became dominant. I like the theory because it includes some form of switching, but it implies that submission/masochism is a) lesser; b) a phase from which to graduate; and c) not an independent sexual kink.
Who knows, maybe folks do think I should grow out of it. I do too, sometimes. It’s inconvenient.
But nowhere are narrowminded attitudes so prevalent as among clients. They are terrified. They legitimize their own desires by villifying everyone else’s. It’s about as useful as pro-dommes playing each other against strippers and prostitutes.
Always, my clients: “I’m not into any of that freaky stuff.” I came to work at a dungeon so I could be the freak, all right.
I go through phases with it: I’m going to stop switching, I say. I’m done with it. No more videos, no more boys: I’ll just not. I’ll go a month, or two, or four and when I do, it’s like a fucking relapse. I start to think I’m an addict craving a fix. How did I get shut out from the same kink I enable every day? I respect my clients mightily. Clearly, they do not all feel the same, either about me or themselves.
Sometimes with the bruises at work I feel like Trixie, showing up on her camshows with a tampon in, or menstrual blood freely flowing. She likes to challenge people with her porn, and I love to hear her talk about it. (Read her write about it?) Except I don’t do it to challenge people, I just do it because I like to get off. When I read Trixie’s stories she seems so ballsy, always up for a scrap, and I’m just defensive-to-apologetic — hey, man, I’m sorry about your perfect wank fantasy, but that’s the way my thighs come today.
Still, I can’t “should” on what turns people on. And I know I should take my own advice; I need to be at peace with my kinks for other people to follow suit.
Marks are much less of a problem now that I do little modeling, but it’s been years and still no solution. This is possibly my most enduring frustration with the sex industry. Sometimes I think it’s only my body for the 14 hours I’m not at work. My body belongs to the industry, and I am the one renting by the hour.
May 6th, at 4:50 am
This is a challenge not only for sex workers, but for actors, models, and most anyone else whose physical appearance is strongly coupled with their income. All of these professionals do, in effect, sell their body. Professional domination and/or submission is clearly not any different.
It’s not because you’re female, Calico, it’s because they think you’re selling domination and in their ignorant world view, dominants all have perfect, shiny, latex-covered skin.
To put it in perspective, what would you think of a cardiologist who put you on a diet of bacon?
Of course, I don’t think the being female bit helps this any, but that’s a distinct topic.
May 6th, at 6:14 am
Do you think you’ll do more modeling now that you’re going independent?
May 6th, at 10:06 am
This is a challenge not only for sex workers, but for actors, models, and most anyone else whose physical appearance is strongly coupled with their income. All of these professionals do, in effect, sell their body. Professional domination and/or submission is clearly not any different.
Yeaaah, I know! I would hate to be a fashion model.
But as for it being about my gender: When a guy tells me “No one should hit women like that” it is ABOUT BEING A WOMAN.
Maybe it is only about being a woman because I have stuffed myself into an elaborate consumerist gender construction and perpetuated exactly the ignorance I am so annoyed by. But dude!
May 6th, at 8:20 pm
I think it’s possible that the reason a lot of these men are coming to you to enable their kink, rather than going out and meeting dominant women is because most dom’s won’t have their biggoted asses?
May 6th, at 8:22 pm
“Maybe it is only about being a woman because I have stuffed myself into an elaborate consumerist gender construction and perpetuated exactly the ignorance I am so annoyed by. But dude!”
hahahaha. I was thinking how to put this gently… These aren’t the words i would have chosen.
May 6th, at 10:09 pm
Your right there is a double standard for men and women on what society thinks is okay on what damage you can do to yourself or let happen to yourself, especially guys raised like me. From the very young age we men were told do not hit girls, but my ma and dad qualified that unless she hits first. But even then there was assumption that I would pull my punches. It would horrified me to find out that my wife was throwing her body around like I have over the years. I mean I have come home bleeding, road rash up and down my legs and the only thing my dad said to me was go but something on it, if that was my wife her parents would be all over her trying to figure out what is wrong with her.
But I think society is also changing to see women are just as crazy as us men. In see woman trashing there bodies around in sports and getting up and dusting themselves off and getting back at it.
I hate to say this… Seen young women coming home from the war zones missing body parts is making this country see woman in different light. But what do I know this and $4.00 will get you a gallon of gas. I am getting morbid so good night.
P.s. good blog .. keep it up and thanks
May 7th, at 11:14 am
“No one should hit a woman like that.”
The world’s most perfect woman would probably disagree:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9W9luyxHw
May 9th, at 7:12 pm
That sounds like something Bitchy would have said to you. Of course, I agree with you that it’s still about gender to some degree; there’s no getting around it. I just think that in examining the whys and wherefroms you can’t divorce the expectations of these men (or any client) from their resulting behavior.
Also, Boston Boy, that video made my week!
May 11th, at 3:43 pm
In our culture, henpecked husbands are funny; abused women aren’t.
A friend of mine (ours?) was at a Flogging Molly concert with me and she got a black eye in the mosh pit. No big deal, and she was actually somewhat proud that she got a nice shiner from the concert. However, she said that it was the most interesting experience to be a petite woman walking around NYC with a black eye, because noone considered that perhaps she was simply in a mosh pit.
May 12th, at 8:46 am
Hey there. I just stumbled onto your blog, and it’s really great. I’m fascinated by the parts of “BDSM” that I’ve never personally experienced. I’ll definitely stop by again. I’ll probably add you to my link list as well.