*see 2013 note at the foot of the page – my 2010 self was a dickhead
** also 2019 note after the first, both after this disaster. Seriously, 2010 Me was such a flaming pile of medical waste in a lay-by when it came to sex worker rights and solidarity. Read and disregard all of the post, and learn from my past mistakes.
Dominatrices aren’t prostitutes*. We can’t say this enough**. On message boards, on our personal websites and in face-to-face conversation, we go to great lengths to distance ourselves from the stereotype of “THE HOOKER WITH A WHIP”.
The most puritanical of female Tops will speak with religious fervour about just how non-sexual her brand of BDSM is. From her impenetrable tower, she will sigh loudly about all the pseudo-Dommes out there who sell their bodies to the masses. She damns the Hookers With Whips and their shameful sexual shenanigans, and repeatedly insists that she is not paid a fee for services rendered but is instead offered a “tribute” – which is completely different, of course!
I admit that I’ve been guilty of this sort of dogma in the past. In interviews I’ve been at pains to explain exactly how far from prostitution my role is, and how BDSM is all about the cerebral aspect of power exchange. And, in many ways, that’s true. Yet we Pro-Dommes overcompensate with our denials. We may not have sex with our clients, but there’s certainly a sexual subtext to what we do, no matter how vehemently we deny it. So why are Dommes – myself included – so afraid of being mistaken for prostitutes?
What is it that we’re so keen to disassociate ourselves from? After all, I’m yet to meet a Dominatrix who doesn’t respect the career choices of women like Dr Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle de Jour, and sex-positive Feminism is celebrated almost universally by the Pro-Domme community. We don’t judge the women in the sex industry until we’re mistaken for them. Why do we then get so defensive?
For me, it’s about the assumptions that men make. Often, they see no difference whatsoever between the motivation of a terrified, trafficked, heroin-addled streetwalker and – well – any other woman who is paid for escorting, modelling, hitting him with sticks or simply listening to his problems. It’s presumed that because we do something for money, we’ll do anything for money. It’s a ridiculous misconception, but a very common one.
I’m not implying that it’s the provision of sexual services that makes a Pro-Domme different from the much-derided “Hooker With A Whip” stereotype. Some Dommes choose to have sex, and it doesn’t make them any less dominant than those who don’t. The difference is that whatever we do, we do it on our own terms, not the client’s, just as many sex workers of different persuasions have the privilege of doing. I think there is a market for women who dress like Dommes but will take orders for cash. I’m just not it.
* 2013 footnote – this sounds a bit whorephobic, and it’s not meant to. I think I was just being defensive because of chaps assuming I’d be obliged to do whatever they wanted in exchange for money and “prostitute” was lazy slang for that. Bad wording and rubbish sex worker solidarity from a-few-years-ago-me. Thought I’d leave it in and call my younger self out on it retrospectively instead of changing it.
** 2019 footnote – this post is trash, so I’m leaving it up, unedited, to show just how much of a mess we’ve all been conditioned to be by a society that kicks sex workers at every opportunity, myself included. Show support to ECP, SWARM and please donate some money to National Ugly Mugs. Respect sex workers. All sex workers.
