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LadyNTrainer -> RE: Is the Female Domination Lifestyle a Failure? (8/21/2009 10:02:41 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: cloudboy
This all got started about two + years ago when I was commenting on some of the pros who participate on the forums. My post was positive about them, but Aakasha insisted she was not a pro. Arguments ensued. I actually withdrew my claim that she was a pro. Then later in 2007 she posted here about professional phone domination -- and so at that point I felt vindicated and another argument ensued.
I think it depends on your definition of pro. Andalusite gave a fairly rigid definition that works for the horse world. And if you want to go with that, if you think that a woman should be defined as a pro the moment a submissive gives her anything including flowers for her time, then that's a reasonable definition for your purposes. But does it actually change anything relevant to how she may think or feel or behave? Based on the actual topic under discussion, which was that a pro domme thinks differently about submissive men, basically views them differently, and has had her viewpoint and feelings and behaviors fundamentally shaped by the need to make her income from them, I'd say that you're looking at much more of a spectrum than a binary model.
There are pro dommes on one far side of this spectrum, who personally consider BDSM distasteful, who view submissive men as pitiful objects they need to exploit in order to pay their rent, and whose thinking is "all business" when it comes to the scene. There are pro dommes on the other far side of the spectrum who are basically being pushers to fund their personal habit. Really nice whips and leather and bondage gear is bloody expensive, and the easiest way a college student can get quick access to a dungeon full of all the goodies that fuel her fantasies is....well, it's not hard to figure that out. Been there done that myself. And what's not to like about being paid for doing the things that you want to do anyway as a lifestyle? Yes, it is possible to be technically a pro, having accepted money for sessions, but still be a lifestyler at the deepest core of yourself. Who you are at the core of you, much more than "official pro status", will be what influences how you actually think and act and feel towards others in the lifestyle.
The sheer intensity of taking a consenting submissive and making him hurt and cry and suffer for me, the power and passion that is as hot and raw as the living hearts the Aztecs once tore from the chest of a willing sacrifice, that is what feeds and fuels me. The naked vulnerability of him afterwards, when he trembles and cannot stand, and his eyes are so wide and dark and full that they look bruised. These are the things I am awed by and profoundly grateful for. And my eyes must be a mirror to his, I think, for this is the altar at which I worship. He is John Barleycorn, consort and sacrifice. He is brutally degraded and taken for the most profane of uses, and thus a god worthy of worship and reverence. It is the sacred paradox, and it is the deepest truth and the greatest beauty that I can know in this life. Dea gratias, forever and ever, amen.
And still, despite being profoundly moved by what I see as a priceless and sacred gift of submission, I am also a pro. Not all men can make me feel this way, primarily because it isn't actually what they want. The kind of transaction a client wants isn't usually a giving at all; it's just a taking, and there has to be an exchange for it to be fair. And that, in a nutshell, is why pro dommes exist.
Some dommes who identify primarily as lifestylers and who think and feel primarily like lifestylers are also willing to cater to client types and fetish laundry list types who have much more to take than they have to give. Some of them do it often, some do it occasionally. You can certainly define them as pros, going back to "the moment you take money for anything, you are officially a pro". But you're not going to be able to predict very well how they may think or feel based on the classic pro domme model. You'd be a lot more successful predicting how they are likely to think and feel and behave based on a lifestyle domme model, because that is most fundamentally what they are.
That's what I'm saying about Akasha. Regardless of whether she does indeed fit the definition of "she took money for a few sessions, now she's officially a pro", she is much more fundamentally a lifestyler, and her personal relationships define her better and encompass her viewpoint and personality better than the occasional phone client.
quote:
Aakasha's view has been that I am obsessive, bitter, angry, and envious -- but my view is that I stepped into some quicksand and could not get out. Claim - denial -rebuttal - escalation --- etc. When something like this breaks out, I feel it always helps to identify who is going ad hominem -- b/c that's always a useful red flag.
I cannot say what you are actually thinking or feeling, but your *behavior* comes off that way, even to someone who is having a hard time believing it of you. I'm guessing that your quicksand analogy and feeling trapped in an argument you'd probably prefer to just drop is the likeliest explanation. So....how about just agreeing that thinking like a pro is more of a spectrum than a black and white binary, even if the official definition may be expressed as a binary, and both of you retiring honorably from the field with that?
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