…It’s a question I imagine most Professional Dommes are asked as regularly as I am. Which, in case you’re wondering, is at least every few days. At first glance it looks like a reasonable question; you’re interested in a Dominatrix but you want to know whether she’s really into it, or whether she’s just playing a role to make money.
What answer do you hope for? That I am indeed lifestyle, I bathe exclusively in the tears of my captive minions, never lift a finger in my daily life, am served by an army of dedicated servants who would never dare lift their (tearful) eyes to make contact with mine and spend all my time leather- or latex-clad in towering stiletto heels? That I operate an open house to any slave who prostrates himself at my feet and offers himself into my ownership, regardless of whether he’s actually of any worth to me?
Or perhaps you (a stranger to me) want to know all about the inner workings of my private life? Perhaps there’s an overbearing Alpha Male behind the scenes controlling proceedings? Or maybe I have a filthy rich yet minutely endowed and severely cuckolded husband locked away in the attic? Perhaps when I finish my last session of the day I slip off my Louboutins and go back to my dull vanilla housewife existence, or perhaps I keep the Louboutins on and head out to drink ridiculously expensive champagne I’m not paying for with my crazy Dominatrix girlfriends, leaving a trail of frustrated and used males in our wake.
Do I ever have “normal” sex? Am I lesbian? Do I have a husband? How much do I earn per year? Do I work another job too? How much did my house cost? Do I own or rent my dungeon? How do I keep my [presumably shameful] job secret from my family? These are just a few of the incredibly rude and utterly inappropriate questions I have been asked either over email or social media by total strangers or by somebody I have just met in person for the first time. I wonder whether you’d ask your accountant these same types of question and then attempt to call them out when they won’t do your books for free on their weekend off? “You’re not a true accountant! You’re just doing my tax return to make money from me, you mercenary bastard!”
But I digress. Back to my main point – the Lifestyle question. In my experience, more often than not it tends to be asked by people who don’t like the idea of paying a Professional Dominatrix for her time. The presumed assumption being that if I’m lifestyle, I should want to dominate any person who expresses an interest in me for free, on their terms. If I want paying, well, I’m just not lifestyle and the Pro Domme shaming begins! I’ve lost count of the number of times a supposedly “devoted long-time worthless worm admirer” has tried to shame me when I have raised the spectre of him having to actually give something back to me in return for my time spent fulfilling his every fantasy. If I was truly Lifestyle, it would all be for free, right?
So I’d like to put this to bed once and for all: am I Lifestyle? Yes I am. And that means that I choose precisely what I do, when, with whom and for what transaction. Some days I do have a man in a frilly maid’s dress do the cleaning for me, sometimes I do it myself. Sometimes I spend the weekend with a prisoner locked in my cellar whom I occasionally tease and torment before once more abandoning him in the darkness, sometimes I don’t. Either way, nobody is entitled to my time and expertise for free, just because they identify as a submissive.