First, a perhaps-surprising (or perhaps deeply unsurprising) truth: I was raised in extreme religion.
I grew up in a sub-culture where I wasn’t allowed to show my shoulders. Skirt length was policed. Romance was verboten, and forget about sex.
I didn’t kiss anyone until I was twenty-one.
I didn’t have sex until that same year.
I didn’t realize I was into women for another decade.
And I (obviously) didn’t explore kink until I’d already unraveled years of indocrinization just to get to vanilla.
Before I got to kink, though, before I advanced from whatever-the-hell-comes-before-vanilla, what I did do was volunteer at a church during my university years. And when I graduated, I was told there was good news: they were making my volunteer position into a full-time position. They wanted me to officially apply.
I was over the moon at the time. Still deeply indoctrinated and entrenched, I applied.
And I waited.
And waited.
And I kept doing the job pro-bono, kept putting in the labor, the time, the emotional work, with no news, no call, no interview.
Finally, I broke and asked: was I supposed to get a call? Have they put the position on hold?
The pastor was sheepish. Then honest: The board had thrown all the women’s resumes in the trash without looking at them.
Pause and take that in.
A woman was good enough to do the job for free. But how dare she want a job title and salary. How dare she want to be paid for what she did. Wasn’t the internal satisfaction of my volunteer role enough?
They even had the audacity to ask me to keep filling in until they found a man to take the job.
As you might guess, I left.
Left the position. Left the church. Eventually left religion altogether.
It was a journey to freedom, but with a heartbreaking gender lesson early on its path.
But Pandora, you might be asking…why are we talking about this in your kink journal?
The answer is that those same boring old men and their same boring old attitudes are alive and well here in kink. And we need to talk about it.
Ever since I started taking pro-domme engagements, they’ve been showing up in increasing numbers to try and put me in my place. Men I don’t know, have never met, have no connection with whatsoever. They are enraged that I dare to not only be kinky, not only be domme, but get paid for doing it.
Quelle horror!
“GET A JOB!” they all-caps in my comments before I block them.
“SCAM,” one man took the time to write on every single thing I posted. Literally coming back to hate-read my content daily.
They are outraged. It is gendered.
And like the church decision-makers, this outrage is not because I am doing the thing. It is that I am not giving it (all) away to them for free.
Plain and simple: entitlement.
Never mind that I do provide them with free content that they probably jerked off to right to before screaming at me in my comments. Never mind the years of lifestyle femdom. Never mind that the journal entries they are screaming at have nothing to do with payment and everything to do with my kink philosophy, also shared for free.
They are enraged that I have the audacity to put anything behind a paywall. To do anything for money. All of it should be free! All of it should be theirs!
(And much like my conservative uncle who rails against social security and collects his check every month anyway, I guarantee you every one of them would happily accept money for kink if they had the power to do so. They’re not mad because they wouldn’t take money for kink; they’re mad because they think women owe them kink for free.)
The funny part, is they think they’re different. They think they’re liberated. They think kink saved them from narrow mindsets of church and society.
Look at us, broken free of society’s limited viewpoints!
[Insert snort-laugh here.]
Sorry to break it to you, baby, but you’re not different.
You’re just those same boring church deacons, this time with your dicks out. Which is kind of worse.
Even more hilarious is how you think it’s dominant to follow me around like a puppy and comment on every one of my posts. You’re that hard up, dog? You don’t have anything better to do? Tell me no women are in your DMs without telling me no women are in your DMs.
Wasting your time reading posts you hate and commenting on them every day? Omg soooo dominant. So confident. Well done, alpha sigma whatever-the-fuck new title y’all made up for yourselves this week, bro! High five! I bet all your fellow incel bros are so impressed by your quest to get blocked by all the hot women on this site.
In short, if you’re enraged by women minding their own business and doing work they love: work on your misogyny. Examine yourself. Do it QUIETLY. Those women don’t need to hear from you about your quest for basic human decency.
Let women get paid for their labor (of ANY kind). Because, good news! Ignoring things that aren’t for you is free.
And in case you need me to say it meaner to get it through that concrete skull: move along, sad, lonely boy. Time to go jerk your micro-penis while wishing you could afford me. 😘