Hey! Look! Ms Slide has written a piece for Bad Feminist UK!
Original article here.
‘…Bashing the patriarchy, one scrotum at a time?
Pro-Domme Ms Slide gives her unique insight into being a feminist Dominatrix.
“What do your clients make you do?” asks yet another curious woman, when told what I do for a living.
Of course, I have never been made to do anything. On the contrary. I get to do exactly what I choose, and I get to choose exactly who I do it with. Being a Pro-Domme is all about being in control. If it were any other way, the dynamic would be completely skewed. Yet when a woman embraces her own desires, whether sexually, socially or otherwise, it is assumed that she must only be doing it for the sole benefit of a man.
Yes, I’m a Dominatrix. It’s a job and lifestyle full of contradictions, and over the past decade it’s given me many reasons to pause, scratch my head and philosophise about gender, power and the nature of desire. Granted, this may sound a bit pompous coming from someone who smacks people around for a living.
There’s a widely-held assumption that any woman in this industry must have been mindlessly cajoled into a career like this, that she has probably been trafficked or pumped to the gills with heroin by some shadowy male Svengali and can’t possibly be in control of her own ambitions or sexuality. However, this simply isn’t so.
Much as a lot of what I do is a titillation of sorts, there is no actual sex involved. For me, as for many people, BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism) is more complex than something exclusively genital. For me, BDSM is the tumbling thrill that topples the mind, the tingle down the spine and the glorious lurch of excitement in the stomach. It’s the same urge we get to ride roller-coasters, watch horror films or turn a favourite song up to full volume. There’s something deeply primal about it.
I like to be worshipped, both as myself and as someone representing an archetype that I think is missing in many areas of society. I like to play the role of a Goddess. Of course, girls are brought up not to have these delusions of grandeur, and obviously I don’t consider myself any more divine than any other mortal woman, yet I find play-acting the role thrilling. The majority of my clients, especially those brought up within the most strictly patriarchal versions of Christianity and Islam, come to me through an overwhelming urge to serve a powerful female. The world is uncomfortably masculine, especially when it comes to sex and spirituality. There’s a woman-shaped gap in many people’s perception of power.
At Femdom events such as Club Pedestal and Luxe, both men and women can live, albeit temporarily, in a world where the female is adored. Even in the contrived setting of a BDSM scene event, I feel it addresses the imbalances that we’ve been conditioned to ignore in our normal lives. Dommes are treated with the kind of deference and respect that men normally only reserve for one another. I feel that society would be a far fairer place if gents outside the world of fetish and fantasy I inhabit could grant their womenfolk the same level of admiration.
I certainly consider myself a feminist. People often misconstrue what I do as a hatred of men – as if I’m bashing the patriarchy, one scrotum at a time. This isn’t the case. I have a deep affection for the men (and occasionally women) I play with and it’s important that we both get something out of our time
together.
I may have spent this afternoon punching a gentleman’s testicles for my own amusement, and – to a lesser extent – his, but I don’t think a woman has to be sexually dominant to be a feminist. A sexually submissive woman isn’t betraying the sisterhood at all, if that’s what she’s into, whether she’s bottoming to a man or to another woman. If a woman has the courage to embrace her own fantasies, whether dominant, submissive or anywhere in between, I would deem her feminist principles to be firmly intact…’
Original article here.
