Today’s post features an advice column and an inquiry about becoming a dominatrix. It’s kind of an odd letter, with what sounds like a sudden jump from BDSM newbie to professional domination, but I’m going to give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s been heavily edited. I’m feeling less forgiving about the advice which has two particularly bad statements in it.
…you won’t be good at dominating another person unless you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end. Have you ever been a partner’s true submissive, consenting to bondage, gagging, whipping and verbal abuse? …. You will understand why they do it if you’ve experienced the scope of it.
I would have thought it obvious that BDSM isn’t symmetric. Unless a person is wired to be submissive or masochistic they’re not going to get anything from being on the receiving end. If you’re not into pain and corporal play, then getting whipped isn’t going to be instructive, it’s just going to hurt. That’s not to say a top can’t experiment with sensations and try out some toys, but that’s about understanding the physics and biology of the situation. Not being someone’s ‘true submissive’ (whatever the hell that means). Oddly nobody ever tells submissives that they need to try dominating someone before they can really understand how to play.
You’re effectively creating a complete power exchange. You are stripping a human being of their autonomy, dignity and free will — and physically abusing them on top of it.
This comment annoyed me even more than the first. I certainly do not lose my autonomy or free will when I play. I might temporarily cede control and give up some power, but I always the retain the ability to make my own informed decisions. Submitting does not make someone less than human. And while some types of play deliberately mess with dignity, a lot do not. Personally I’m pretty proud of my scenes and how they’re conducted.
What I think the columnist should have said is – go learn from pro-dommes already out there. Read their blogs. Scan their forums. Go to their conferences. See if you can apprentice with one in your area. By all accounts it’s a tricky job with many pitfalls. Better to learn those from someone else than repeat them all yourself.
The image is of Mistress Absolute, a London based pro-domme. According to this article she shares my thoughts on starting out as a submissive.
There’s a school of thought that says you should start out submissive before you become dominant,” the dominatrix says as students begin to arrive. “That if you don’t know what it feels like, how can you do it to someone else? I don’t follow that thought. I don’t have a set of balls, but I torture balls.”
Feh! This kind of mindset is holdover thinking from those who believe that the “Old Guard” and/or Gorean BDSM models are still relevant. The 1960s are over – when will this paradigm finally die?
I suspect never is the answer. There’s just something compelling about it to enough people that it’ll never go away. Sadly.
-paltego
“I certainly do not lose my autonomy or free will when I play”
Perhaps to some extent you do, or at least you *pretend* that you do, which is part of the fun of power exchange.
And as feminist writer Lynne Segal has pointed out:
“Sexual pleasure…is as much about letting go and losing control for men as it is for women…As any prostitute knows, straight men are both terrified of, yet passionately attracted to, powerlessness and loss of control.”
As for becoming ‘less than human’, there can be a certain attraction for both sub and domme if the sub is, momentarily at least, dehumanised, reified, and and turned into a ‘thing’ to be used and possibly abused.
Otherwise why do some submissive men desire so ardently to become, in one way or another, the ‘slave’ of the woman they adore? And why do some dominant women get off on that?
Many of the sites to which you link talk of this kind of relationship.
What, for example, are we to make of this, written by a rational and highly intelligent domme:
“Actually, what I want to see…is sexual violence of the kind where a fabulously beautiful man is treated like a ‘thing’, helpless under the onslaught that arises out of her desire, where he is used for her pleasure. Where she uses him to get off in whatever way she wants, and his orgasm is NOT the point. Where he is the victim and object of her crazy lust and passion that is enacted in terrible ways on him. Where he hates it, where we get to see his fear and violation and helplessness, and he is broken, and he loves it.”
Perhaps doing a scene with a pro-domme gives more underlying control to the submissive and therefore a greater sense of autonomy?
That’s a comment that opens up a lot of issues, and I think deserves an actual post of it’s own :). So watch this space for a more detailed reply, hopefully in the next day or so.
-paltego
Great post!
As a domme I get approached by new doms that have been told this and they seek me out to learn what a submissive goes through. I tell them all I’m not interested and don’t believe it works that way. Now I do play with switches, but they have a true submissive way about them that works. A dom trying to learn how to be submissive leaves me cold. It’s not in him. He is missing that beautiful submissive ingredient that triggers me!
It’s like trying to get your submissive girl friend to use a strap-on on you. It just doesn’t work. Mentally, the trigger is not there.
I love this: “I don’t have a set of balls, but I torture balls.” AMEN!!!!!
Let’s just be who we are and stop trying to figure out if we are following some man made protocol.
~ Vista
Thanks Vista. And yes, you’re completely right. I do think it’s reasonable to try something just to see how it works or get a feel for the intensity. But as far as an actual scene goes, if the mindset isn’t there, it’s not going to work. The spark will be missing. Being submissive like being dominant isn’t a choice, it’s hardwired (or wired in from a very early age). Be who we are is exactly the right way to approach it.
-paltego