March 27, 2008...10:18 pm

Dominatrixing: Fail

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You Think I’m ‘not really dominant’? You’re right

This is one of those posts where I just whine at you for a thousand words. It doesn’t help or achieve anything. All it does is show you my soft woundable insides. Or, really my soft woundable outsides – seeing as how I don’t wear an outer coating of shiny manmade fibres. Maybe that’s the trouble. I don’t wear the femdom armour. So I get far too battle scarred.

I tried to do that thing. With two chopsticks and two elastic bands over Jack’s tongue. Behind his tongue stud so his tongue was forced out of his mouth. But I was too hand-over-hand clumsy. And he was squawking in pain. It didn’t work. He’s a big man. He has a big tongue. I’d seen so many pretty pictures of this done - but only on women. And when I tried it on myself it worked fine. But failing to do it on him I just felt clumsy, lumpen and slow. No use. With short fat fingers that will never let me be a concert pianist or a brain surgeon.

Or a dominatrix.

I can’t do this. I’m so bad at it. You don’t even know. Anyone can make themselves sound hot and dominant on a blog. Or in fanstasy. God, in my fantasies you should see me, hading out the punishments to the cowering hunks of butch in bruises and chains.

However, in real life, I fucking suck to fuck.

We have this dog bowl from IKEA. Silver shiny with a black rubber base. I tell Jack he’s going to drink everything I put in the bowl. I start by spitting water into the bowl. Then there’s wine. Then salt water. Then vinegar. But I stand in the kitchen tasting the vinegar first. Wondering if it is really possible for him to drink it. It seems too much. Why should he have to do this just because I like to see it?

Who the fuck do I think I am? I can’t find a place where I can express why this should be. Why these events should happen. Why Jack should be kneeling on the floor with his face in the dog bowl waiting for me to fill it with the next vileness.

Why should this event happen? Why am I the conduit for something so unpleasant taking place?

I crumble to dust. And I cut the vinegar with half tap water. I don’t think he even knows that now.

The level of confidence, self-belief and selfishness required to be dominant eludes me. I find it impossible to understand how anyone can elevate their desires (faux-for-money or real) to such importance that they can create these miserable scenes just to service it.,

I think that’s what prodoms are. They are just women with the confidence to do dominance.

I guess there is some overlap between the confident-enough-to-do-it pros and the feeling its. Hence the pros who complain about me. Say, that, hey, I am turned on by it thanks very much so fuck you very much Bitchy ‘bitter’ Jones. I love it! I live my life in a permanent state of labial engorgement 9 to 5. And to them I say, great. Lovely. That’s nice for you. Ever thought about the fact that this might not be about you?

But I know what they want me to say. And I’ll say that too. I’ll say anything. Tell you any truth. No matter how deep it goes. I’ll rip right into the soul of me because what’ the point unless I show you everything

I’m jealous.

Jealous of the pros.

Jealous ’cause you can do it. I can’t. You can do it without your soul withering. I can’t. I’m not enough of an arrogant dick. (Shut up – in real life, I mean).

I can in moments. Here and there. So rare. I bought this belt from Hennes. It was studded with silver metal hearts. It hurts Jack more than anything I’ve done to him. And he’s locked into metal at his ankles and his wrists. I find a space just for a moment where I tell him that there’s nothing he can do. That he really can’t get free. I hardly ever get Jack properly secure. The places where he isn’t able to get free but isn’t actually in too much pain are hard to find with him.

Later I talk about how brutal I was. Revelling. And ask him if it still hurts. He says, of course it does. You beat me with a metal studded belt. He sounds pissed off with me. And it’s like my cunt hears him. Not me. I’m wet and smooshy at his words. But I’m also mortified. I just need him to hold me and tell me it’s okay. I am turned on by his suffering, but also soft and lost.

The only thing that turns me on is something I can barely even fucking do. And there you are - prodoms - doing it like you just don’t care.

I tell Jack I want him to lick washing up liquid up off my tits. He looks at me like I’m insane. I say, okay then, liquid soap?

But I think that was enough reticence on his part for me to feel uncomfortable with what I want.

Am I expressing this right? I don’t know. Basically, seeing as how the stuff I want to do is essentially horrible for everyone involved in it but me – I can’t quite find enough reason for it to exist. Just me. Not enough. I know one answer is the part where the submissive partner actually likes it – but I’ve never understood that enough to believe in it.

And I don’t believe any submissive man would really want submission from me anyway. I’m no breathtaking goddess. I don’t have the stunningness to bring a man to his knees. (Maybe that’s why I like the idea of paying the guy so much.)

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had ever been pretty. If I could be sitting here writing you sensitive wistful blog posts about the time I was in my early twenties and turned every head. But there never was such a time. Trust me, this happens sometimes. Sometimes women aren’t ever hot. Their whole lives. You might not know this because hot women count. Stories about women are always about hot women. So much so that I think people forget that most women didn’t actually ever have a time in their life where they thought they were super hot and were so confident about how they looked that people stared at them like they could blow smoke rings out of their arseholes.

Would I have become a prodom if I were prettier? More confident about my looks? About myself? Don’t laugh. I do wonder. Are all us lamecore amdoms just women who aren’t pretty enough to get paid for existing if we dressed like the place where slut and clown intersect?

I’m pretty sure that’s waht the pros who complain about me think. They think ugly useless Beej, she’s just jealous of the fact we look good in the clothes she pretend to hate so much.

Perhaps they’re right.

(And everyone knows amdoms are ugly bitches. Just pretending to be dominant so they can get a man who’s totally desperate.)

Because I don’t know. I don’t know that your road isn’t one I would have chosen if I had been able to see the sign.

But a version of me that had that kind of self belief, that kind of securing in her desirability, that kind of confidence… that’s so not me. That’s not a version of me at all. It’s someone else.

Submission is a desire for someone else to take charge. For that confidence. For that safety. I can’t give that. Whatever you might think as you wank off to my words there is no safe place with me. No real dominance. No release into subspace. No knowing you have given control of yourself over to a copilot who is equally competant with the controls.

I hate the surrender. I hate the altered states where he goes away from me. I rip the masks away, take the gag off after moments, can’t bear the silence where I have to listen to my own heart beat.

Don’t leave me here alone with my desires. I am not strong enough to bear it.

34 Comments

  • I really do understand these feelings. I deal with this shit a lot. But it helps that I have a submissive boyfriend who is The Supreme Overlord of Reassurance. Plus, so convincingly submissive that I can’t help but feel and recognize it.

    Then again, I was never a dom before him. I think by your standards I’m a deluded abused victim of some kind of brainwashing. So who the fuck knows?

    The one pro dom I know is definitely into it. She’s not supremely confident but fakes it for clients, at least. That’s what we all do when we go to work, right? Fake a level of confidence we don’t really have? Boyfriends are different from customers.

  • “And I don’t believe any submissive man would really want submission from me anyway..”

    Sounds like you have two submissive men that would disagree.

  • I think you’re right. If you had those different attributes, you wouldn’t be a different version of you, you’d be someone else. This was open and raw, and you are so bloody hard on yourself. We all think we’re failures much of the time, you know… but you exposing your insecurities reminds us that we’re not alone in feeling that way.

  • Dear bitchy jones,

    I think you’re hot like applesauce.

    Sincerely,

    Zonk

  • This was a thought-provoking post. I don’t often struggle with summoning the necessary confidence to treat consenting people cruelly–I did at first, but I decided that either I had to get over it or I had to stop hurting people. And, I am pretty, and I recognize that my genetic luck has probably helped me in more situations than I know. I hadn’t seen a causal relationship between beauty and sadist-confidence, and you’ve prompted me to do so. Thank you.

  • What’s the difference between washing up liquid and liquid soap?

  • Washing up liquid is what’s called in the U.S. “dishwashing liquid.” Instead of saying “I’ll do the dishes,” British people say “I’ll do the washing up.” Liquid soap is hand soap.

    And I think I’ll avoid everything commenting on everything else Bitchy posted today. This is the first time I’ve seen her not come out on top, not turn everything around so that she’s sitting on top of the femdom pile, and I’m shaken by it.

  • I don’t see that fumbling sometimes or having the mercy to cut vinegar with water before he drinks it makes you a bad dom.

    And besides, Jack keeps coming back, doesn’t he?

  • Bitchy, no one is “on” 100 per cent of the time and sometimes we reflect and end up questioning our motives and actions.

    You’re not a bad or weak dominant; you’re human, and you’re a smart woman with high expectations of yourself. Sometimes you’ll crack. These feelings will pass in good time — until then, try to be kind to yourself and get one of your lovely men to give you a massage or some other treat where you don’t have to be “on”. *hugs*

  • Oh, Beej. Hugs. Frankly, I think the fact that you feel this way is one of your strengths, not a flaw. I know a ds couple where the dom (a guy) is just as confident as you talk about above, takes responsibility for all aspects of their…um… play? No idea what to call it… and has no doubts about his ability or qualification to do so. And the sub hands over everything to him, with complete trust. He genuinely believes he knows best, and so does she. This extends to their non sexual lives; she considers him to be a god, infallible, and genuinely wants him to have responsibility for her life. He considers her a child, and genuinely considers he knows better than she does. Now, if you ask me, *that’s* fucked up. You’re the healthy one, because you question this stuff, because you’re not so arrogant that you believe you know it all. You and your men have a real relationship, and real respect, and you recognise the difficulties and the concerns and the dangers associated with your inclination.

    These feelings you describe are the thing that scare me most about the whole domming business. (Un-business. You know what I mean.) I think it very likely that if I actually tried it I would feel the same way. But I’d still much rather be built like this than like either of my aforementioned friends, even if it does mean I may never have proper, simple, happy sex.

    Speaking for my tribe, I feel obliged to add that prettiness doesn’t make you immune from insecurity. I’m one of the pretty ones. In college so many of my friends were in love with me that it was actively inconvenient and depressing (yeah, I know, poor me, boo hoo - but really, this is no fun). But nonetheless, I have real confidence problems. My self esteem is fragile. Any time I actually like a guy I feel as though I’m in some sense inferior to him. And most of the very pretty girls I knew in my youth were far more fucked up than me. We all have emotional shit. But you also have clear sight, and that’s the most important thing, because it means you can navigate through it.

  • And if only poor Aunt Mary had been born with balls, she could have been Uncle Fred. You are who you are, and that’s what makes you, you. That’s why we like you.

    There’s an American comedian, Ron White, who has a rant about being picky about your spouse. Poor looks are basically just about how much money you have and want to spend on vanity. Crooked teeth, saggy breasts, physical imperfection can be fixed, if that is what you are about.

    But you can’t fix stupid, according to Mr. White.

    And you, dear woman, are anything but stupid. You are clever with words, you are in touch with your emotions even when you don’t understand them, and you know what makes you tick. You are a hell of a writer, and not just words to wank off to. I feel like I know a part of who you are, just from you being able to open the gates to your soul and let everything flow out. And I want to know more. Your feelings of inadequacy, shame, lust, power, they cry out to me, because we’re all like that. Pretty, ugly, fat, skinny, tall, short, rich, poor, male, female, smart and stupid. We’re all fucked up inside and lonely and hurting and hurtful and shamed, but wanting to be loved and understood. You just say it better than most.

  • I love how you open yourself up and show us yourself, warts and all. Understanding yourself and admitting to your insecurities demonstrates an incredible strength of mind and character.

    I was never one of the pretty ones either. The first time I ever felt sexually powerful was when I went to a femdom club.

  • I think the uncertainty you speak of is fundamentally the difference between the reality of women doing domination with their partners and pros doing it for a client. I don’t think pros necessarily have the liberty of breaking kayfabe and being uncertain — I mean, I don’t know anything about that business, so I could be wrong. But really real women (and real sub men) are uncertain about their sexuality and have hangups and doubts and pull back into themselves. Just because we don’t often see those voices portrayed — well, that’s kind of the point of your blog, isn’t it?

    And for the record, you can’t be that bad at this, because your description of one of your days with Jack inspired my wife to do all sorts of nasty things to me, and she’s quite good. I have graphs and charts and polling data to prove it.

  • Beautifully and honestly expressed.

    The only criteria I know of for passing Dominance 101, is whether you and the people submitting to you feel positively enough about it for them. All the evidence seems to indicate that you’ve passed.

    You’re a clear, expressive writer who has a lot to say, and you have the courage to say it.

    I feel like this post of yours is one of the crowning glories of your blog. I really mean that. I wish I could award you a prize of your choosing for my budget of under £10.

    You totally earnt it.

    Thank you.

    Lubyanka.

    ps: If you offer me a realistic suggestion for that prize within that budget, I promise I will do my best to realise your wish.

  • ps: I’ve been thinking of you over the last couple of weeks as I wrote my latest post, which went up today.

    I don’t know if you’ll consider that insulting or complimentary, but I was thinking positively of you as I worked on it.

    I thought it was really interesting that this post of yours seems to fit so well with the one I wrote, but maybe you won’t agree?

    Anyhow, I hope that soon you’ll be able to feel how good you are, instead of just knowing that intellectually.

    Best regards,

    Lubyanka.

    ps: I really meant it about that £10 prize. :)

  • Sometimes when I write something and lots of people pet me I feel sort of shabby like I went out fishing for petting. Maybe I did, I just don’t know.

    But anyway, thanks. Jack’s away right now and I feel somewhat blue without him.

    L, you’re too kind. But I feel I must decline. The things I need can’t be bought for £10

  • Another ugly girl
    March 28, 2008 at 2:39 pm

    This is when I like you best, otherwise I often find your rantings and bitchings annoying. I agree with a few of your points, but you get this broken record thing going and it makes me not want to read. You’re far more interesting when you write this sort of thing. Oh, and I also like when you actually write about hurting your boys and/or having sex with them. I’m very submissive with some dominant tendencies that I rarely get to play with, but when I read those particular posts of yours, I think to myself… I want what she has.

  • Beej,

    You’re totally allowed to fish for petting request validation, everybody is, we all need it. :)

    I hear you regarding Jack being away. I’m away from my kvetch right now and I’m feeling blue too.

    And I know £10 can’t buy what you need, that would just be silly. But I did think that £10 might provide something frivolous you could enjoy, and what’s wrong with that?

    Of course you may decline if you like.

    But declining just because it can’t sort out all your blueness, and possibly also because you feel that you don’t deserve even a little something nice, seems kind of unfortunate.

    Please accept, I would so much enjoy being able to provide even a small pleasant diversion for you. It’s a shame there isn’t a service where I can ring them up and have somebody turn up at your house with a fresh cup of tea and a bun.

    I mean, even a few minutes of enjoyment would do, that’s all I’m thinking of. It’s not like I think a tenner can buy World Peace(tm) or some such, that would be silly. :)

    I hope you feel less blue and more other colours soon.

    Best regards,

    L.

  • Oh Beej, I so wish I could give you a hug right now! Dear, dear lady, you are far too hard on yourself. No one is perfect, no one always gets it right, no one is always confident and on.

    I know what that’s like, the internal expectation for perfection that you just can’t turn off. I beat myself up over my own failings all the time, thankfully I have a man that loves me and calls me on it when I do.

    I don’t know you more than what you show us here, but I’m calling you on it darling. You aren’t a failure! You are a dominant woman - you’re human, and as such you fail from time to time. It’s okay! No one is looking for you to be perfect, that’s just the twisted expectation that so many of us women seem to put on ourselves.

    And as so many have pointed out, if you really were so bad at it, would Jack really keep coming back? Answer: no, no he wouldn’t darling.

  • I do think that you’re right when you say “most women didn’t actually ever have a time in their life where they thought they were super hot and were so confident about how they looked that people stared at them like they could blow smoke rings out of their arseholes.” But I think it’s largely because very few women feel confident in their looks, not because they were never attractive. I’ve known women with lovely faces and figures who felt that they were unattractive. Women have much higher standards of beauty for themselves than men have for them. It’s partially that there’s whole industries whose business model consists of convincing women that buying their product is a prerequisite to even having a chance at being attractive.

    So by this point, when I hear you, or any woman, proclaim their non-attractiveness, I tend to just ignore it. I spent a lot of my life feeling not very attractive, and once I was finally able to get past it, things went a lot better for me.

    On an unrelated note, I ran across this column from Mistress Matisse in the Stranger, an indy paper from Seattle. She’s a prodom and a good writer. Really, in this one, she mostly seems to be laying out why being a prodom isn’t much fun, even for people who like being a dominatrix. I thought that you might appreciate it.
    http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=303628

  • Yay. She wrote more about America Next New Top Prodom! God, I hope she gets that show made.

    Of course her whole concept does have this wholly fucking offensive blinkered fucking prodom premise that amateur dominant women and vanilla sex workers will compete to be prodoms. Vanilla sex workers, maybe would - what do I know? But the idea that the move from amdom to prodom is a desirable fucking promotion - desireable enough to compete in a reality show!

    I know it’s a joke but that is seriously like suggesting that ordinary women might compete to be good enough at sex to sell it. We don’t all dream of a step up to sex worker. To providing men with the sex they want instead of asking them for the sex we want

    That’s really fucking offensive. Women having sex because they like it can actually be a perfectly satisfactory state of being.

    Also, why have a comp. Anyone can set up as a prodom. I pretended to explain how here

    But I love the idea of that show. So. Much. Material.

  • Yes. I know that feeling, the one where you step back and think “oh my god, why is this making me wet?” Exercising your beast. Or something.

    I’ve felt that.

    What I like about you is that you’re so raw. You’re real. I feel this… I don’t know, tenderness and heartfulness (is that even a word?) for what you write, because it just feels like my own brain weasels have spent time with yours and I don’t feel so fucked up or alone.

    I will say- there are stunning people who don’t have the sexual power to bring anyone down to their knees, and there are ugly people who have been so seductive they’re destroyed kingdoms. Pretty is not equal to powerful.

  • Bitchy:

    What a wonderful post. I don’t care what you look like, you’re beautiful on the inside.

    Brian

  • Ever notice how similar the Master Bator and cult leader stereotypes are? They both need an aura of infallibility, worship, devotees, full-time obedience and adherence to their One True Way. For comparison:

    Cult leader with supreme self-confidence in his own authority. (How many prominent female cult leaders have there been, really?)

    Lord Bator of Bondage with supreme self-confidence in his own authority. (”That’s Lord! LORD! Not Master!” ;)

    Self doubt is healthy. It keeps you from going to a very bad place. As well, your blog helps everybody who’s wondered the same thing, and similarly (to everybody in the world) isn’t going to live up to the perfection-in-latex sales fantasy.

    (How exactly did I end up here? Can I still be a decent human being if I enjoy doing this? And where did I put those ice lollies?)

  • You don’t have to be strong all the time.We would all love to get what your two men get and are going to get.

  • Hey - it turns out they have the internets ‘away’ too.

    You do it great - I love what we do.
    I wouldn’t have you any other way.

    The metal heart belt was fine, it really was. You can do that any time.

    I recoiled from the washing up liquid and such because I am afraid of poisonings.

    I love you and miss you.

    Jxx

  • Thank you.

    The title of this post was for you, btw.

    I miss you too.

    BJ xx

  • Dear Bitchy,

    this was such a brave post!
    You care about your partner,you don’t think you’re better than him, you don’t think he’s an object:these are all positive traits,why should you feel they’re bad or that you aren’t dominant enough?!
    Fuck that!Forget all those stupid BDSM concepts people use in order to tell they’re different from everyone else!How ridiculous it is to label your sexuality,as you once wrote?

    Looking confident and be confident are two different things.If I wear Matrix-like clothing,I’ll look confident, if I behave arrogantly,people will take me for a confident person,but it’s very probable I’m too frail to ever risk a relationship where there’s no power exchange. Even as masochist,this might happen: the more formal BDSM,the less we’re truly close.

    And stop thinking you’re not pretty,woman!

  • I don’t comment enough, really. But what I really want to say is everyone has a monster. We all want horrible things at least some of the time. The thing that makes us human is that the monster has a soft underbelly. It makes us think, makes us hesitate. That doesn’t make us faulty, it ensures that we don’t become our monster. It keeps us human.

    That’s a good thing.

  • Maybe it is your beautiful inside and not your beautiful outside that evokes such submission. I suppose that would threaten the whole construct sexuality is based on, it’s about genetics and looks and not much more besides, it would imply that ‘he’s/she’s got such a hot personality’s is more than a consolation prize statement and a truth.

    It would also explain why Pan and Jack come back for more even though there is a conspicuous lack of thigh boots and high swingy ponytails, lol. I thought of you the other day when a magazine actually advised girls to put a roller in their ponytail because a regular high ponytail was just sort of lazy and it needed bounce. Ye Gods. I feel like I put effort in if I use a hair dryer two days a week.

    I know I am not the best judge of my own physical appeal, I know from my perspective, chemistry makes the man, rather than his face or body, in the end. I have been to bed with gorgeous men who for whatever reason left me cold, and to bed with men who were no Adonis, who rocked my world.

    I sometimes feel that the *pretty* people tell me they see might mask something rotten at the core of me, which is partly my dominant desires. Like people could be fooled by some idea they have that I might be beautiful, and then the mask will slip and they will see the true person underneath, who isn’t all that deserving.

    The thing that gets me is the instant passport to success and worship that pretty gets women. It’s another form of wobbly pedestal I would rather not fall from. Safer to be loved for your beautiful insides.

  • Also, I think that posts like this made me realize the relationships I have been in where the power aspect was fucked up, and the love and the softness wasn’t there, and inspired me to leave. I remember emailing you once asking about a relationship of mine, and you not knowing the answer I was looking for, but really the blog is sort of that answer, that in real life situations, it is so much more meaningful when there is some sort of affection and equality even in the dark moments.

    I am now with someone who I do feel secure with, and totally equal with, despite the fact I can have him stand palms against the wall and flog him, or he can tie me down. We both have the moments in the post, the moments of doubt and despair, that I think keeps the humility needed to walk this line.

  • Well, I guess the pros never have this problem simply because they are being paid; they know their johns are getting something out of it, because they’re offering money for it. (That financial transactions are the only socially acceptable way of measuring someone’s worth has long been an aspect of sexism; so, notice how the mandoms don’t have this problem…?)

  • Beej:

    You’re human. We all are. We know it, you know it, your partners know it.

    It’s *all* *right*. Only people trapped in that fantasyland web you rant about don’t know it.

    I know I’m going to sound patronizing here, but I have to say it because I remember feeling exactly like you:

    Let go.

    Knowing you’re not perfect will never go away. Giving a shit? Well, whether you do that or not is up to you.

    Really.

  • Oh, now I can leave a comment. Well, as per comments page, thank you. :)

    Whilst this post was about you, it was so nice to read that someone, even if on the other side of the planet, feels those same things that I do.

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