Language Part 2: The Modifiers

This is actually the list I had in mind when I wrote part one, which can be found here. These are the words I think many newcomers misunderstand. Personally, at least once a week, I receive an email from someone who misunderstood one or more of these terms. This wouldn't be a big deal. I enjoy sharing the scene with newcomers, and I am patient and polite when I point out what they missed. But about 50% of the time, the newbie becomes aggressive and rude. As if it is my fault that they are mistaken or that I owe them some accommodation that matches what they expected.  These are some of the words that modify any of the titles from the previous list.

• Lifestyle:  This is an often misunderstood word.  It seems many assume a lifestyle player lives their chosen role at all times. Some do, in my experience, the majority do not. (as an aside, Total Power Exchange or 24/7 are two terms that are more appropriate for someone living the lifestyle full time.) The term lifestyle more accurately means a person who is experiencing or participating in something Scene related in a personal, as opposed to professional, capacity. Just like any relationship, there may be gifts given, but it is not primarily a service being provided for compensation. 
• Professional, Pro-Dom/me, Pro-sub, Pro-Switch: A professional is a person who is financially compensated for their specialized service. Now as a professional dominatrix I believe I have a responsibility to maintain standards one would expect from any professional. Such as; returning calls in a timely manner, starting appointments on time, using quality tools, maintaining a clean workspace, and staying abreast of current standards in my profession. But none of those qualities are promised simply because one states that they are a professional. Have you ever seen a doctor who has horrific bedside manner? You may opt not to use their services again, but their poor business practices does not negate that they are a professional and that they provide their service for a fee. It is the same for a professional dominant, they provide their service for a fee. 
Fem-Dom, Femdom, Femdomme: These terms or variations of them, are occasionally used to simply imply a female dominant; but more commonly they mean a specific style of domination, that is female supremacy domination. Femdom, or female supremacy, is a subset of the scene. The players may enjoy any or all of the other fetishes within the scene, but they do so from a point of view of serving or being a superior female. 

• Fin-Domme, Financial Domination: It seems many newcomers, or at least the newcomers that contact me, believe this term to be interchangeable with 'professional". It is not.Financial domination is a specific fetish where the submissive wishes to be financially controlled by the dominant. They may fantasize about being financially ruined, about being blackmailed, they may fancy themselves a benefactor to their dominant or any one of an infinite variety of fantasies. Even though by definition the submissive is giving the dominant cash and/or gifts, it is not necessarily professional domination. The monetary aspect is the fetish, it is not compensation for a service. Many financial submissives do not want any 'service' for their gifts, and many financial dominants do not provide any service beyond a link to their wishlist. It is as valid a fetish as any other, and I assign no judgment to those that engage in it. At this time it is not a primary interest of mine nor do I offer financial domination as a stand-alone fetish. In other words, I will see a sub who lists fin domme as one of many scene interests, and I will decline those who only seek to be financially dominated. 
• Hooker with a Whip: I really do not care for this term, as there is an inherent component of judgment in it. The term has been around for as long as I have been in the scene and I assume much longer than that. It persists, I guess because it easily conveys the type of provider it refers to. As the name implies it is a provider who offers the services one typically expects from a prostitute and also some fetish component. There seems to be an assumption that escorts who offer fetish services may have unsafe practices that they may be scamming subs or setting them up for some nefarious act. Perhaps some also feel that their existence leads to newbies expecting professional dominants to offer services that on a whole Pro Dominants do not provide.  They may very well be, I do not feel that is any of my business. When I get inquiries for services I do not provide, whether that is a request for sex or a request for fetish I do not engage in, I simply tell the inquirer they would be best served by looking elsewhere. While I feel compassion for anyone who has been taken advantage of or harmed while engaged in BDSM play, each player in the scene is responsible for mitigating the potential for harm to themselves. Being inclined to be submissive does not excuse one from being responsible for their own safety. 

As I stated in part one, the definitions offered are my understanding of these terms as a professional dominatrix and lifestyle player. Some may have other meanings in subsets within the BDSM scene or in different regions. If you hear a term being used in a context that you don't understand, politely ask for clarity. 

Is there a term I missed? One you think is especially important for newcomers? Please leave a comment and I may address it in a future entry.

Online Training

I am pretty sure this is from one of my very first sessions. It's not labeled, but that simple dog collar & those leashes have long been replaced with quality & durable gear. Still, there is something nice about revisiting The Scene from a simple & fresh point of view.

I've recently decided to expand my domination offerings to include online/distance training. While I have been offering professional, real time, domination since 1999; I was never particularly interested in online domination. I enjoy sessioning. I love first sessions; I savor my own anticipation about how my plans for the scene will play out in reality. I love watching a new submissive conquer whatever fear or nervousness he's bringing to the scene. There is a moment in almost every first session where you can feel the sub's mindset shift from, 'what have I gotten myself into?', to a resolve of embracing whatever is about to happen. I love the sessions with submissives who have committed to ongoing training. The subs I see weekly, or monthly.The familiarity of a returning submissive allows limits to be explored more fully, and for scenes to be more fully realized. I love the smell of my playspace, the smoky mix of candles, leather, cosmetics,and perfume. I love the soothing, hypnotic rhythm of double flogging a willing bottom with my full, deceptively soft, red & black suede floggers while a favorite song plays and the scene transports my sub and myself to some place far outside of the mundane. With all of these real & tangible sensations to be had in a real time session, there simply wasn't any appeal to me in an online arrangement.

One of my most endearing qualities, I think, is my ability to just change my mind, completely. Someone contacted me on Fetlife with an interest in erotic hypnosis. I am a trained, clinical hypnotherapist and I list hypnosis among my interests on Fetlife. He had a few, intelligent questions about how hypnosis works, and what one could expect from an erotic hypnosis session. A key word in that sentence would be intelligent. He was clearly new to Fetlife, his profile said as much. It seemed likely that he was new to the scene in general also.But he didn't try to compensate for his lack of experience with false bravado nor did he make ridiculous assumptions about the scene. Sadly both is something I often see with brand new visitors to the BDSM scene. I agreed to a hypnosis session, by phone, but then several complications prevented that phone session from happening in a timely manner. To move the story along, we spent a couple weeks chatting while trying to arrange this phone session and an interesting dynamic developed. I found myself enjoying what was essentially online training. I enjoyed sharing my expertise with an appreciative newbie. There is a thrill in knowing that there is someone 100s of miles away, who will jump to do my bidding. That my directions, insight, guidance, even from far away, are allowing a submissive to more fully explore his interests. And here I am now, realizing that I have been missing out on facet of domination, that is proving to be quite enjoyable. 

I am still sorting out the technical component of offering this new service through my website. I see a couple different options I would like to offer. One would be single task acts of submission. A sub would receive directions for a task to be completed within a time limit, including directions for verifying that he has completed the task. I'd like to create a photo gallery where those that have satisfied me in their successful completion can be praised and those subs who have failed can be publicly humiliated. The other idea is for an online, ongoing, commitment much like I have arranged with my hypnosis subbie turned secretary slave mentioned before, A sub might request a training period of 30, 60 or 90 days, and upon accepting the submissives application,we would begin their training. Again, perhaps utilizing a photo gallery on my site to reward or punish the trainee subbies. 

Again, it's a new area I'm exploring. I think a tribute of $20 seems reasonable for the single task acts of submission and perhaps 100 per month for ongoing training. 

My statistics here show that my first post was read by many people, and yet only one person left a comment. Consider this a first task if you're a submissive who has found yourself reading my blog. Leave a comment. If you have experienced online training, share your opinions about the experience. If you have had real time training, share a little bit of what that experience was like. If you're shy subbie and would prefer not to share your comment publicly, send me an email Dear Cassidy-