Sex, Money, Power - The Secular Holy Trinity

Recently received a letter from a submissive male, who was attracted by my being asexual because that meant, to him, that this D/s thing I do is natural and innate and somehow more "pure" because it's separate from the need for sex.

I'm sure that does a disservice to the many fully sexual Dominant women who also have a natural and innate need for D/s but who also need sex. However I guess in my case it's easier to see where the one leaves off and the other begins.

The ways of power and control are to have: desirability or money or knowledge that others want. Using these three concepts to gain what the Dominant one wants and desires.

I struggle with expressing Dominance because a lot of the ways to express that are about sexual Dominance. These are the scenarios I've seen:

• I get sexual pleasure, you are denied, until I feel like it.
• I tease you, and deny you, and eventually when you are really good I may decide to grace you with a fulfilment of your desires.
• I am clothed but you are naked, you yearn for what is underneath the clothes and hope to someday be found worthy to see that. (The expectation is that someday the clothes DO come off? I think? And there is wild hot sex?)
• I see MY sexual needs met while yours are unfulfilled except as I see fit,  in a hot little dance of "will she let me come today? What about tomorrow?"
• I take and use you for my pleasure, not caring if you get pleasure from it also even though I'm aware that you do. You are just a dildo, a robot toy to please me.
• I don't get sexual pleasure from you, so I tease and deny you while gaining sexual pleasure from other men who please me more than you ever could. But it turns you on to see me pleased even if someone else does the pleasing, so we are both fulfilled even though the relationship may look odd from the outside.

But with me, tomorrow never comes. I can't be pleased. I don't want other men to please me because none of them do either. I was given a dildo once as a gift and it was sitting in a box for 10 years. No joke. I didn't need it and completely forgot I even had it.

To be sexually desirable is a source of power, but only when you use it. I think. Denial in the short term increases power but in the long term can cause unstable frustrations that can turn against the Dominant.

If you have money, you can use that to gain power over other people by manipulation of their desires for good things, or even for necessary things. But in a relationship dynamic of Domination, one partner having and possibly withholding resources could very easily be abused. Also, if I were to demand that a man give me all his money so that I have that power over him also, it brings up the archetype of the Greedy FinDomme - and his friends and family are more likely to be concerned about my fingers in his wallet than about my beating him!

If you have knowledge, you can use that to impress or influence, or to outright control a situation. Here, the tools of pain count as a way to achieve control, because of the knowledge of how to use the tools to achieve states of being in the submissive.

So here I am, desirable but not desiring, sensual rather than sadistic, and unwilling to take the step of demanding money because that's a whole HUGE can of worms I don't even want to deal with. Maybe I should deal with it instead of being scared of social backlash.

So what can I do in these three main concepts to gain the upper hand of power exchange in a relationship?

Desirability and Denial - this type of play seems to require occasional release for the man. His longing to actually have sex with me will be intensified by chastity. I could allow him to relieve his needs occasionally by masturbation, perhaps a specific vagina-like toy. Plus, that he would not be pleasing me sexually would mean he has less of an intimate surrender to MY pleasure than in a relationship with a sexual Dominant. Here, the relationship will be seen as less valid than a sexual one however. My fear in a teasing, chastity relationship would be that he couldn't be trusted to not push to have sex with me, especially if I'm doing everything I can to drive him wild. I don't even like kissing, how weird is that? Where is the line for control, when men have crossed that line so many times? Would it be harder or easier in chastity, if I could lock away the penis as a punishment if he tried to push me at all? Can I as an asexual being, have a relationship with a sexual being and have my partner happy in my inactivity? Michael Taylor said something on Good Men Project which gives me hope that's possible:

True love is a function of the heart and mind and has absolutely nothing to do with your penis. If you really want to make love, leave your penis in your pants and learn to take out your heart and share it with your mate.

Monetary Control - this would immensely help me to achieve the dynamic I'm looking for. The man with a good job coming home, handing over his paycheck and stripping down to an apron to make us both dinner, then cleaning up and bringing me a hot cup of chocolate as I watch my favorite show. The man as a barrier for me keeping Patriarchy's ugliness out of my home. However, this is an area of self-identity almost MORE touchy than sex. Plus well, it seems greedy doesn't it? I'm not doing anything to deserve that, or am I? He would not have choice of what to buy, what to wear, because I would be doing the buying and choosing, with his money. I find this hot, however the stigma against Financial Domination (and the language used on the sites when I looked it up) just isn't the dynamic I'm looking for. How do I get this dynamic without stumbling on the money pigs and humiliation fetish that I'm just not into? My advantage here is that yes I do really enjoy dressing up and buying shoes, all those typical Plastic Fetish Barbie activities. So his family might understand that he enjoys me looking pretty and enjoys spending money on me. Do they need to know that his cheque goes into MY account and he has only access to a small amount for lunches and errands? Perhaps the right submissive would be worth that kind of trouble.

Knowledge is Power - here, the willingness to inflict pain helps place the submissive more easily into subspace. When they endure pain for you, it makes you more valuable because they have already sacrificed comfort and achieved a state of bliss through the pain they suffered for you. I'm fairly confident that a more sensual journey can be equally intense, however that is playtime of a scene, not the daily intense intimacy of a quickie before bed (but he can't have an orgasm). The best use for knowledge is daily training, things to drop the man quickly into a peaceful, relaxed-yet-excited, submissive mindset. This is possible, but again more difficult without the tools of pain, sex or monetary control.

Logistics. Are. A. Bitch.

Then again, none of this is worth even trying if the man doesn't engage my respect and admiration, and interest in his mind.

I'm too used to being alone. Too much reliance on keeping myself entertained in my own company. I want to be loved, but do I even have love to give? Would I be able to take the time to maintain intimacy on a daily basis with one who serves me well? Even one I found interesting initially?

Would serving me be too boring and vanilla without the "standard" tools of the Dominatrix, pain and sex?

Disrespecting the Submissive Male

As tomio points out in the beautiful comments on my first post, here I am perpetuating the stereotype of the weak submissive man.

So why is that?

I'm a Dominant woman and I love submissive males. They complete who I am. Right? But here I am, being disrespectful, even as I become sick at the fantasy of total disrespect. (Which I can sort of appreciate as a performance piece but even then... I kind of want to puke.)

Attitudes are such insidious things, aren't they. You can pick one up at a party like an unwelcome virus, go home, and never even realize it's not yours.

Part of this is that I just don't understand how anyone could submit and enjoy it, even as I enjoy that they enjoy it. I'm reassured that I'm not an abusive freak (like the people who tried to do things to me without my consent or awareness of what they were doing) by their enjoyment of it. It comforts me even as it gives me a rush. I got away with something that should have been bad but instead was amazing, and it's all because of a submissive man allowing me to be that controlling, beating, domineering bitch that I would never be able to be in polite company. I'm the weak one here, the wuss, the control freak because somehow deep down I'm insecure, maybe? But you turn your power over to me and trust me with it and I get to trust that you're strong enough I won't break you, and trust myself that I will be responsible with that power even as it goes to my head.

So even as I think you're amazing, strong, incredible... I can't fathom how you enjoy it. It's completely ALIEN.

Again, that I've never NEEDED any of this, rears up and I can't understand how people might NEED it, need that release and that escape and that subspace, to the point they reach for it despite other commitments that may make reaching for it dangerous. In a way I need it, but I've often been more okay with myself out of a relationship than in one, so needing a particular type of relationship that's tough to find the right match for is bearable. If I don't get it, I'm alone. So? I've always been alone, even in relationships.

This one's tough. I can't understand, therefore it's too easy to think of someone as weak for needing it, for taking risks that might kill their relationships among family or prevent access to their children unless they hide it from the world while struggling with who they are. When they're not weak, they're being fully honest to who they are, and trying to sort it out as best they can, which is all any of us can do.

I am a Twoo Domme! Rawr!

As a woman, who identifies as dominant in the DS sense - that I prefer to be in charge in relationships, that I wish for mastery of self and mastery of others, I've been very frustrated in my experience of the bdsm community.

Aside from a few rare events solely orchestrated by women FOR women, the male-centric worldview keeps ticking along without any challenge.

Even a quick glance at the porn available for female domination reveals very little actual female domination. It's all about the hot plastic staged pro-domme, more interested in the camera, and much more interested in the money than anything else, being ordered around by the so-called submissive in the scene. It's still all about what the man wants, and a "true" domme is one who delivers the pain and sex that the man desires, in exchange for his money. All the pictures of this, are made for male bottoms, but labelled as female domination - NOT as female topping!

In the scene, a curious dichotomy of opinion on Pro-Dommes arises because of this fact. Some hate them for catering to men, and say they're nothing more than whores with whips. Some of them are nothing more than whores with whips, and do escort services as well. Others provide a service of pain that these men crave, but are too craven to ask their girlfriends or wives to provide and have a high level of professional quality in their work. (EDIT - Please read comment below by Galiana Chance about other aspects of Pro-Domination, expressed MUCH better than I could say!)

But there's another dichotomy around Lifestyle Dominants. Rarely do you see male so-called dominants telling another male dominant that all they really need is a true male dom to reveal their submissive side for them. Conventionally (and sometimes unconventially) attractive females, of any orientation, are constantly harrassed in local community events, until they prove they deserve their place.

Me? I'm young, beautiful, and completely asexual. I don't want or need sex to feel fulfilled. I've rarely ever felt sexual attraction to anyone. Because of that, I feel completely marginalized in the bdsm community. As a female dominant, I'm expected to want to have sex with my submissive(s). If I take his gifts and his money, I'm an evil financial domme and, for not providing sex, I'm an evil user not a "true" domme, and I should be providing a service for the money! If I had sex, I would be nothing more than a glorified prostitute, which is even more of a turn-off. Showing up at an event, I get swarmed by men, many of whom attempt to pinch my butt, until it gets out that I'm dominant. Because, it's totally acceptable to pinch a strange woman's butt at a party! I mean, wtf?

My first introduction to bdsm was in high school. The school's token "goth" dressed in black and led her boyfriend around on a leash. They both seemed to really enjoy shocking the normals. I didn't care.

After that, repeated attempts by men to be abusive to me, or to get me to dress up in leather and whip them for their pleasure, just put me off men more and more. Women mean nothing to me sexually, so now I'm left unattracted to either sex. It wasn't until I started researching bdsm more seriously after exiting a completely abusive relationship where the man had pretended to be sweet, kind, caring, and submissive to me - until I moved in - that I realized what I'd been missing my entire life.

I am a dominant woman. Despite the attempts of people around me to "break" me and make me something other than what I am, they can't break my fantasies. I crave being in control, in charge, worshiped and adored. Although I like to give pain, it's not important to me. Nothing is important to me but knowing that my slave is obedient and intelligent in his service to me. I want to know, that my life and my happiness, is more important to him, than his life and his happiness. It has nothing to do with hot kinky sex, just pure DS. A vanilla life, with kids, where I happen to simply be in charge, and where the man works his ass off to please me. Buck stops here. I come first, always, as a matter of course, which gives me the freedom to then consider his needs and his interests.

As for the slave? Try being a man. A strong, gentle, kind, intelligent, helpful, adorable, geeky MAN. Who obeys me. Who likes getting tied up. Who doesn't need to be tied up or beaten but enjoys it when it happens. Who has a solid base of vanilla wholesomeness. Who respects himself but obeys me because he WANTS THIS.

This, isn't shown in the media. It's always some hot chick in leather or latex being ordered to fuck a guy in the ass, or to lick her pussy. Men look at this, get turned on by tits-ass-cunt, think that they want a "female dominant" and go to a local party where they try to "hook up" with a woman who will do all the nasty dirty naughty things they're ashamed of wanting, while wearing materials they find hot.

Obey me when I'm wearing a tshirt and jeans, not just when I'm wearing a leather corset. When I've been sick for a week and smell like a dumpster, not just when I'm freshly showered and coiffed and prettified. When you don't want to do what I want, but you do it anyway because I want it. Because you chose this, because you're not just a slave, but MY slave. Because you love me.

I am a Twoo Domina. Hear me rawr!