Finally made it to Wicked Grounds, a unique coffee shop here in San Francisco that caters to the openly kinky. Even my marginally perverted acquaintances had already made it there, so it was about time! The opportunity arose when my friend Mistress Victoria gave me a call today. She told me she was there with her personal sub P, who was visiting from out of town, and that they were planning on doing a public scene.
The cafe was a quaint little space tucked in the South of Market area, conveniently located just down the street from Mister S Leather & Fetters. I found Victoria in the back, looking smashing in her mix of rocker and vintage pin-up looks. P soon made an appearance decked out in black rubber, his arms restrained against his torso and a breathing/sucking tube attached to his face mask. He was gleefully teetering on edge, having already spent a fortnight in a metal chastity device with 70+ metal teeth pressing against even the thought of an erection. Part of his humiliation was having to explain to airport security why he was setting off the metal detectors!
It was such a fun and relaxing afternoon, drinking tea and snacking as we chatted and casually tormented P with even the slightest touch, he was that sensitized. We zipped up his mask so that he could no longer see, and then he sat back and really went into subspace. I especially liked his gold-coated stiletto boots, which really made him look like a nasty rubber slut!
Victoria ran into another gentleman friend at the cafe. While they caught up, I got to tease and torture her sub 'til he squealed and yipped like a little dog. Then I looked at my watch and realized I'd be late for my personal training session - when I get my butt kicked by a sadistic Vietnamese exercise buff who could be a dominatrix in her own right. I quickly said my good-byes, which gave them all a chuckle after my wham-bam mini-scene. Well, P wasn't chuckling - more like whimpering and cooing, sweet thing!
Before we got into play mode, we had been chatting about how strangely unwelcome switches can feel in the scene. Even though people give lip service to the idea of creating more balance in one's life, when it comes to BDSM, one often feels forced to "choose sides." Even more than that, one's attractiveness as a domme does not necessarily carry over when representing oneself as a switch player. There is less glamour there for some because one is no longer the unyielding, unattainable Venus in Furs.
Yet in most cases, being "strictly domme" is more a delusion than reality. At The Gates, I remember how tiring it was to have to watch my own actions and demeanor like a hawk because certain so-called slaves would become unhinged at any perceived sign of weakness on my part. From making sure I didn't get on my knees when rigging bondage, to abhorring the color pink, to stating that I was being "served" even as I was presented with an exhaustive list of activity requests - the ridiculous symbolism was all that mattered because it was more about fantasy than authentic power exchange, with me as fill-in-the-blank dream domme. Talk about the making of burn out: passive aggressive men who insisted that they were submissive and looking for truly dominant women, yet exacting in their specifications of things like scene details, the mannerisms of the domme, and the kind of attention showered upon them. Like most people, they were skating on the surface, going through the motions, focusing on the materials and goal-acquisition rather than the moment or the journey. Mindlessly grasping, thinking that doing equals being; as if to say you are one way and then to pay for others to treat you as such can make it so.
When it comes to pro dommes, by pushing this misguided fantasy of individuals who are "born to rule", we may actually be encouraging the continued disempowerment of women. Because being 100% dominant is typically a fallacy, the pro BDSM industry makes a joke out of genuine femme power by insisting on an untenable position of "perfection", thereby creating a sense of constant insecurity in the women who practice the craft. By overstretching the truth, we make imposters out of our own powerful selves, placating the existing male-dominated authority with the trifling level of our bold assertions, especially confined as they are to the sexual realm.
I am struck time and time again by how, on a fundamental level, we can all see that women hold the keys to power and that most of what men do as individuals is to attract and bewitch women. Yet on the level of societal structures, we are still dealing with male politicians attempting to take away reproductive and sexual freedoms, dictating not only how we as women should live, work, play, and breed, but also how and if we are allowed to mix any of these things together. What happened to the Goddess? She was pimped out.
