Imagine with me, for a moment, that you have just been hired, straight out of graduate school, to run the library of former president William Jefferson Clinton. A whole new wing is being opened and you are responsible for choosing the titles and ordering the new books. As you walk into the planning meeting you’ve called you see, sitting at the head of the table, Bill Clinton.
He is very warm, and welcoming, and you sit down to his right and start the meeting. He explains he has some ideas for the new wing and he is really excited to help you. He has a list of titles he would love to see included in the new collection and the staff really love some of his decorating ideas.
Guess what? In some very key ways, regardless of what reassurances are given to the librarian, the fact of the matter is, the name on the library is the name of the man at the head of the table and he has most of the power in this situation.
I cannot begin to properly address the entirety of the topic of power exchange with anything approaching thoroughness. However, I recently said something about prodommes that inspired some questions so I thought I would touch on the matter, and explain how I see it.
–The following is the opinion of one person and stated from a personal point of view. You don’t have to agree but if you decide to respond don’t be an ass.–
It has been suggested to me, more than once, that since I like dominating men I should do it professionally. I am almost invariably annoyed by the suggestion, because, really,
the fact that I like to make an eager, obedient man (who appeals to me personally for any number of reasons) do what I want done, when I want it done, for as long as I want to make him do it*
does not meant that I will, as a matter of course, be interested in
being paid to provide a quasi-sexual, submissive-esque experience for a client within clearly agreed upon parameters, for a predetermined length of time in a space insured for liability and a tax ID number.
In my clearly not very humble opinion, a pro domme is not really the person with the power in an exchange with her client. When I play, I do something TO my eager fucktoy. If I am being paid to perform that act though, I am now doing it FOR him.
It is my opinion that while a woman who dominates men for money may very well be providing an important and valuable service to the community at large, and to kinksters in particular, she is not actually in the same position as I am in the power exchange between domme and sub. I don’t need to trade away my power in exchange for money, thanks, nor do I want to do so.
There are some interesting implications about the fact that if a woman likes to be in charge of men, some terribly clever man (it is invariably a man) will promptly suggest she should do so in a way that will shift the power dynamic back toward men. What the hell is that about?
Oh and it is not the same as,
“You like to cook? You should become a chef!”
which is, I know, the sort of comparisons people would like to use to defend the suggestion, but it is actually much more like this,
“Oh, you like to do native South American Indian cooking? You should go get a job at Taco Bell!”
Uhhh, because it’s really NOT the same…at all!
BEING PAID TO DO TO SOMEONE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT DONE IS PRETTY MUCH THE FUCKING REVERSE OF DOING TO SOMEONE WHATEVER I WANT TO DO*!!!
Now that I have thoroughly offended any prodommes who might read this
(it’s not about you, really, I’m sure you are really amazing women, and I completely respect your right to make whatever lifestyle and work-related choices appeal to you, or best serve your needs and desires. I just have some really deep-seated, core issues about not being willing to be controlled, especially sexually, and there is no way in freaking hell I could ever participate in your job field, also, I occasionally worry that some of you are completely ruining submissive men for ever being in a real world femdom relationship, but I don’t have any data on that so we’ll just chalk it up to idle speculation and I won’t hold it against you if you don’t hold it against me),
it’s time to start in on the sub-esque men, right?
Guys, if your wife/girlfriend/roommate/landlady/boss/secretary/nurse/teacher, etc. etc. etc. is not dominating you the way you’ve seen it done in all those delightfully realistic porn movies, and then, one glorious day, you manage to talk her into dousing herself in baby powder and fighting her way into a tube of latex, or some other equally hideous getup that you’ve been fantasizing about, and then you have her spank you, assfuck you, and generally get you off exactly the way you pictured it, well, ya know what?
You have all the power, and you are running the fuck. She is not dominating you.
Now, the experience you create might be an incredibly fun thing, and it may be a good starting point for some games that could lead her to explore any dominant tendencies she has, but make no mistake; the one scripting, setting the stage, approving the costumes, and generally running the show… THAT is the director. What are you doing there is called role playing, and it can be awesome, but it is not femdom.
Now, I am not trying to say that unless you do femdom the way I do femdom yer doin’ it wrong. It’s just that sometimes I wonder if anyone else ever pays attention to the underlying power exchange. I can’t be the only person in the world who thinks this way, can I? Am I taking crazy pills??
Oh well, either way, I will maintain my own private library, staffed with scantily-clad men who will be required to move heavy things around and reach up to the top shelf a lot, and anyone who tries to tell me what books to get or how to decorate will be told to fuck the hell off.
————–
*All safe, sane, consentual caveats apply, OBVIOUSLY.
May 26th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Power exchange? Meaning there’s a transfer of power? What power is that? Do i get some power from him perhaps? No need for that. He can keep all his power as far as i’m concerned. I’ve already have surplus
Besides, if interested in my view on the subject, read this: http://ayeshafonseca.blogspot.com/2010/03/power.html
Um……no…..u r not alone. Not that there r many of us, hehe.
May 26th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Ayesha,
thanks for responding!
I read your comment and had quite a ponder about how I feel power is exchanged, etc. throughout the course of domination and submission.
I’ve read a tiny bit of your blog, and only a few comments here and there so I’m not sure how much overlap there is between your approach and mine but I’ve come to the conclusion that in the way I perceive it, there is not a transfer of power per se, but there is an exchange that occurs.
This may sound a bit woo-woo (those are ghost noises not crazy noises, though that may also apply) but I feel there is an aspect of submission that definitely energizes me. I wouldn’t say anyone else’s behavior can empower me in terms of my personhood or value, but I would say that there is a level on which submission fuels my dominant energy, and that in turn energizes him, etc. If I were simply performing faux-dominant acts it wouldn’t have that same feeling for me. It might be sexually exciting still, but that exchange, and heightening of compatibly energy (or power), would not occur in the same way.
At least that is the way I’m thinking of it today.
Glad to know I’m not the only one!
May 26th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
The way u describe it in ur response, comes close to what i’ve called the singularity, a phenomenon in which the d/s participants unite with each other, melt together so to speak, and become one Gestalt, while keeping their specific personalities intact. As is the case with so many intense feelings/emotions, it’s hard to exactly put this into words, but once i used this metaphor: It’s when an iceberg starts to burn. Or as British singer Adele so wonderfully sings: “I set fire to the rain”. In other words, embracing the paradox which isn’t a paradox at all.
Chances r we differ a lot. So what? Still i feel ur approach to femdom has not much in common with what i call vanilla, recreational, or mainstream femdom, which basically follows patriarchal thinking, norms and values. Seems to me u r closer to what i’ve baptized feminine femdom, where for instance the female of the species is her own anchor, lawyer, prosecutor, and judge.
May 26th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
I love that metaphor!
June 4th, 2011 at 7:18 am
This is a great post. I’ve been tempted to write a similar one at times. I particularly liked this:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:45 am
[...] the sexes are typically socialized. Dishevelled Domina expresses this sentiment well in her post, Power Exchange: Guys, if your wife/girlfriend/roommate/landlady/boss/secretary/nurse/teacher, etc. etc. etc. is [...]
June 12th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
It’s definitely not just you
I think wanting a man to have a good time playing with you and become a repeat customer is a much more urgent need than wanting your friend who just played with you to have a good time.
Like you, I don’t feel like I’m in control if I follow a script someone else wrote. Role-playing like that can be a lot of fun, and I’ve discovered an interest in new kinds of play by trying things that my partner was really into that I was skeptical about, but working through the list of your partner’s kinks doesn’t sound like domination to me.
What really frustrates me is when people tell me they’re submissive, but they want me to follow a script they wrote long before they met me. Being a bottom as opposed to a submissive is perfectly fine, but don’t tell me you’re one when you’re actually the other! The pecking order in the scene that drives people to say they’re submissive out of fear they’ll never find someone to play with if they admit they’re only interested in bottoming is a whole other rant, though
December 23rd, 2011 at 12:30 pm
[...] of weeks ago Paltego emailed me to let me know he had blogged a rebuttal to a post from my archive, Power Exchange. Since then we’ve discussed various aspects of my post, his post, and a host of sub-points and [...]
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:00 pm
[...] A few weeks ago I published a couple of posts on the subject of D/s dynamics in a pro-domme session (here and here). The second of those heavily referenced an earlier post by the Dishevelled Domina entitled ‘Power Exchange‘. [...]
January 25th, 2012 at 12:51 am
[...] that a woman is sexually dominant is not uncommon. It’s happened to me multiple times, and Dishevelled Domina has talked about it as well. It’s always at least somewhat irritating – not because [...]