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findom

The real luxury is time—and that’s what you’re funding

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When you picture me, picture me in my garden—muscat grapevines twining up trellises, flowers spilling over the tiny fences that keep them in their beds, and me, bare feet propped on the table, coffee infused with spices in hand, breathing it all in. Sunshine-soaked, eyes closed, time-rich.

Picture me…

…at my favorite sushi place, savoring every bite of the leisurely lunch you funded.

…at the vintage store, silk and leather and lace against skin as I search for the things that make me feel best.

…in my cozy reading nook, feet tucked up beside me in my sunset-orange-red chair, low light through the lampshade I drew trees on last summer. I burn scented wax, sip rich red wine, and read. History. Philosophy. Novels.

Picture me, in other words, luxuriating. Time-rich. Living the life I want to live.

This is the real luxury. The real truth of the kingdom your money builds for me. Pedicures and comfy sandals, sexy robes and cardamom-infused coffee on my tongue. It is hours of reading time. Lunches with nowhere else to be. Dance events I didn’t pay for. Vintage lingerie you reimbursed.

There is a tendency in this space for dommes to brag about working hard in their jobs, feeling they have to prove that in order to be worthy of your money, they must be doing this as a second job. Well, fuck that. My success in my vanilla career, of entrepreneurship, of so many years working for myself, taking only clients I wanted to take, charging premium prices because I’m damn good at what do—all that allowed me the luxury of time before I appeared in your feed.

And now I want more.

More naps in the shade in the swinging garden chair you’ll buy me. More homemade matcha granola for breakfast. More hours sifting through the treasures at flea markets and sending you the bill, leisurely manicures, weekend trips.

More time on passion projects, activism that lights me up, art for art’s sake. More time not slaving away for money—because you do that for me, don’t you?

Me? I’m here sitting in a sun spot with my dog at 3pm on a Friday. Taking photos of myself because I love to tease you. Inviting my partner to meet me at the cafe for an hour just because.

This is the life I build with your money. This is what you bring to the table. Your offerings at my altar to build the dream.

findom

A sexy tale of financial control

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Findom can be a lot of things.

Weak wallets. Fly-by drainings. Long term devotion with the money flowing toward the D. And also—strangely lesser talked about in these online spaces—true financial control.

The type that hands over budgets and bank statements, collaborates to pay down debt, improve job prospects, and build skills. The type that sometimes (not always) ends in total power exchange. Living off allowances. Handing over paychecks. Letting go of both the power and the anxiety of your own financials. The deep eroticism of putting yourself that fully in someone else’s power.

And in some cases, finding that being under that power changes everything.

When a new sub came to me about two months ago, I asked him—as I do with any that I’m considering playing with longer-term—to tell me his goals.

One of them: to pay off a series of debts.

I asked for a list. Not just the debts, but the interest rates. The real numbers. The current pay-down rates. We talked budgets. We played a little along the way. And then I suggested possibly the hottest thing I’ve done in findom so far:

For every dollar he sent me, he was to send an equal amount to pay down debt. He was going to do his debt paydown in the same form as his findom sends. Not saving up and sending one big debt payment each month, but sending small amounts and then sending me the screenshots.

Which means that every time he sends for coffee, for lunch, for a book, for a manicure, a few hours later or at the end of the day, a second heady rush hits my DMs: a screenshot of debt paydown. Another token of my power in this dynamic. A reminder of our connection. A spike of adrenaline.

And every time we hit a milestone in how much he’s sent to me, we also hit a milestone with his interest debt. In two months: paid down in four figures.

Another sub who came to me recently said he’d never thought about findommes making sure their subs thrive.

And I’m not going to kink-shame anyone who wants to stay in that space—the ruin one, the weak wallet one. I have played those games (consensually, of course) and I am sure I will play them again. But to that sub, looking for long-time connection, I replied, honest and matter-o-fact: when you thrive, I thrive.

When you listen to me and ask for that raise, I win. When you get out of debt and stop paying my money as interest to the bankers, I win. When you stop paying parking tickets: I win. When you become a better, more centered human being: I win.

Even just from a place of self interest, when you hitch our futures together, why would I drive yours off the road?

I tell this story because it’s hot as fuck. I tell it because I don’t hear enough of this kind of story. And I tell it because this is one possible path for what financial power exchange can be. A sexy, mutual thriving.

When I say give your money, silly little guy, I mean more than one thing by that. In his case, I also mean: next month, you are going to pay my rent—and pay down four figures on that stupid debt.

teases

Everything is lingerie (if you’re paying attention)

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Take a stroll through my photos, try to ignore the twitch in your pants, and think about what you see.

Teases: yes. Denial: everywhere. Hints and peeks and almost glimpses.

And yet I don’t own that much lingerie. The sexiest shoots are a vest without a bra underneath. A button-up with just one button keeping you from the full monty. Hard nipples under a tank top. Converse shoes blocking your view.

There is lingerie in the mix, of course. But there is so much more here.

And that is part of what I love and part of why teasing gives me a euphoric high.

It’s the creativity.

It’s looking at a scarf and seeing lingerie. Looking at boots and seeing sex. Centering a shoot around a favorite top, a slightly sheer sweater, a cute skirt. Not just a teddy or a bra or a pair of panties.

My entire wardrobe sex. The high-waisted pants. The red boustier. And the giant raincoat. Even in that, I could have you drooling with the single flash of an ankle, or a single sentence that lets you imagination loose:

I’m not wearing anything underneath.

Everything around me is part of the tease, because I will it so.

Pressing myself to the floor makes even the floor my accomplice. My lingerie. My partner in teasing crime. I press my lips to a coffee cup and make it my ally in reminding you to think about those lips, think about what it feels like when I press them against something.

The rim of the margarita glass where I licked off the salt.

The soft blanket I press my body against for the boudoir shoot.

Leg warmers over perfect calves.

This is the rule I live by, the thrill that drives. And then that second thrill: denial. Knowing that you’re going crazy with longing.

Before I turned pro, I used to delete every message I got with relish. You would not even get a single word from me. Just the occasional photo to unmoor yourself over.

Now, the lucky ones get a word. A few words.

The luckiest: the chance to worship. The chance to give something back.

Because all of this isn’t for you. And yet it gives something to you.

We both know it. And you are fucking welcome.

findom, kink philosophy

Do you crave my cruelty—or simply my authenticity?

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First, a truth:

Sometimes it surprises me what you consider mean.

When I tell you a hard truth, even gently: mean. When I say you should embarassed (because you should be): mean. When I laugh at a shenanigan: mean. Teasing is mean. Directness is mean. Taking men off the pedastle that society pretends we’re all supposed to keep you on: mean, mean, mean.

In my day-to-day life, this is the truth I live. In a world that doesn’t expect or reward directness, confidence, or truth-telling in women. And now even in this world, in D/s, where my meanness is craved, requested, begged for, even—the definition of meanness didn’t shift as much as I expected it to.

That’s not to say I’ve never had requests for real cruelty. I have.

But that’s not most of them. Most of the requests are for something else.

Not meanness.

Simply…authenticity.

Simply: mask off. Tell us what you really think.

Maybe the allure is the gift of knowing that if I praise you, I mean it. That I am not interested in babying you or kissing your ass. That I am not here to infantalize you the way our society loves to. That you don’t get the free pass the world too often gives you. The one that feels wrong. Feels inauthentic.

Because it is.

Women smile at you sometimes because they’re afraid of you. They pacify you because they don’t want to deal with your bullshit. They excuse your bad behavior or stupidity because they don’t expect any more from a man.

Babying you has never been a sign of respect. It’s a sign of not wanting to handle another toddler-level temper tantrum—of seeing you as less capable of self-control, care, intelligence, and so on.

In some ways, you live in a world that treats you like a child. And I suspect that for many of you, you feel the wrongness of that.

You feel the inathenticity of how women must interact with you in day-to-day life.

And you feel how it keeps you separate from us. From our power. Our care. Our truth.

Whether you were able to articulate it to yourself or not before this moment, that wrongness lodges in your throat and chokes out the feeling of real connection.

Which is why you tell me you love a mean girl.

It’s why when I don’t pretend to be impressed, it feels so right.

It’s why “that’s stupid” or “do better” or audio of me laughing at you don’t hit as barbs. They hit as euphoria.

Kittens, I suspect that some of you are tired of the lies. Tired of how those lies keep you from real, authentic connection with women.

And you don’t know how to ask to tear those walls down, so you ask me to be mean.

That’s also why some meanness doesn’t hit. Doesn’t scratch the itch. Because if this is you—if you are the one I am talking to—you didn’t want to cosplay mean. You wanted truth. You wanted truth so badly that you hoped it would sting.

There’s more than one type of request for meanness. There’s more than one type of sub who loves a mean girl. There is more than one layer to this onion to peel back.

But this is one of them.

One layer. One type of sub. One request for “meanness.”

A request not even for meanness, but simply for straightforwardness, a type of truth serum, a holding of boundaries that feels real.

And if this is you, I want to hear from you. I want to give you the gift of that authenticity. I want to show you what it feels like to be truly respected—expected to live up to a higher standard.

And don’t worry. I will laugh at you plenty along the way.

kink philosophy

Submission isn’t inherently humiliating

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“I feel humiliated,” he said.

And your first thought on reading that might be: duh.

Consensual humiliation is a frequent part of D/s play. It’s definitely part of what I do. It’s not a surprising sentence in the online spaces we inhabit.

But here’s the thing. This time was different. This time I had to pause.

Because, kittens, I wasn’t humiliating that man.

This wasn’t a humiliation session. I had not said or asked for anything humiliating. There was no SPH. No insults. Not even a hint of gentle teasing.

Just me asking, “how does that make you feel?”

And him: “I feel humiliated.”

I paused. I recalibrated.

Because the thing he was describing as humiliating was this:

Simply being himself.

Simply being a submissive man.

It was the act of submission. It was the fact that he wasn’t trying to dominate me—a woman. This is what was making him feel less.

In a world that demands men perform dominance at all costs—especially toward women—this man felt humiliated simply by the fact that he was not trying (in what would have been an extremely non-consensual act) to dominate me.

Kittens, I want to talk about the rage I felt.

Not toward him, but toward the way society beat into him this message—that his submission was weakness, not gift.

And what the actual fuck.

What has the world done to you, telling you that your desire to serve, to care, to rest, to admire and follow and worship women, is somehow inherently humiliating?

What is humiliating about care?

What is humiliating about putting your pleasure after another person’s?

What is humiliating about the simple act of not trying to enforce your will on another person?

Of admiring someone else and striving to be more like them, serve them, show up for them, show up like them in the world?

Nothing. The answer is nothing.

This is not humiliation. It is a kind of hero’s journey.

One that requires death of ego, sacrifice, and the ability to grow, change, live in your authenticity, and rest.

To stop pretending to be the smartest person in every room (“smartest person” doesn’t exist anyway, because there are a thousand different types of smarts).

To stop having to perform confidence and hardness and stoicism you don’t feel.

To stop playing at the specific version of masculinity you’ve had shoved down your throat your whole life until you feel so suffocated that you might just crawl into a corner and cry (out of sight, of course, because performance).

The only reason these things are seen as humiliating is because society has deemed all things feminine humiliating. Which means bowing down to them is humiliating too. And performing anything society has (wrongly, it should go without saying) deemed feminine (including submission itself) has been deemed humiliating.

Shall we say it louder for those in the back: fuck society.

Fuck all the scripts they force us into based on fake rules that benefit the few while many suffer.

The truth is that submission takes strength. Especially in a world that doesn’t understand it.

It takes strength to take off the mask in the face of that societal scorn.

It takes strength to let go.

It takes strength to trust yourself into the hands of another person.

It takes strength to live in your authenticity.

It takes strength to tell society that it can go fuck it’s stupid gender rules and the ways they hurt us all.

It takes strength to tell society that it’s wrong. The person you want to admire and serve is a woman. That the characteristics you want to adopt, the way you want to live your life, is led by a woman. And even if your dom is a man, it takes strength to submit there, too. To reveal that there is a part (or the whole) of your soul that longs to not be the one in charge.

There is plenty of space to explore humiliation in these dynamics. It is BDSM, after all. But I need us to stop pressing subscribe on the boring, unexamined opinions society has tried to enforce on us all.

Submissive men aren’t lesser. Submission isn’t inherently humiliating.

It’s simply another way of being. Another type of strength. Another way a human can feel deeply themselves and deeply connected to another person.

If you’re reading this, consider it my love letter to male submission. My fist in the face of the idea that submission is inherently inferior or less than. My righteous anger.

There are plenty of things I will humiliate you over and laugh at you about. (Laughing at men is, in fact, one of my favorite sports.) But this is not one of them, kitten.

Your submission is fucking beautiful. And any laugh it inspires in me is one of delight.

kink philosophy

What do you really mean when you ask for ownership?

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Who will own me?

Seeking ownership!

Long-term only.

Own me. Devour me. Collar me. Keep me.

Who will own me?

Who will own me?

Do you hear the longing in it? The way these words slip into my inbox full of weight, full of truths just simmering under the surface. Questions under the question. Longing that has attached itself to a single word.

Ownership.

When subs ask about it early in conversation, there is almost always something else behind the words.

It’s not simply: will you own me? Not really.

It’s this: am I safe?

Am I safe to surrender? Will you still be here when I show you the messy parts, the scary parts, the shameful parts? Will you stay when I let go?

Ownership doesn’t really promise those things, just like marriage or commitments in the vanilla world don’t and can’t either. At the end of the day it’s trust and connection that create that safety.

But.

But the request for ownership tells me something about the asker. Tells me something about what they need. What they fear. And what makes them feel safe.

Will you still be here when I show you my whole, real, messy self? This is usually the real question they’re asking and the one I try to focus on instead of ownership itself.

The reverse is also true.

When a sub comes to me and says “I never want ownership.” When they skitter at the mention of it. There’s something behind that too. It’s often the same question but with a different anxiety at its helm:

Am I safe?

This time: Am I safe to leave? Will you promise not to trap me? Will you promise not to hold me down? If I get up the courage to say that I’m quitting, will you let me go?

These are usually the subs who have been manipulated, blackmailed, or otherwise non-consentually harmed in dynamics before. And so what they need to know is this: will you let me leave without a fight?

Of course, these are not the only reasons that people ask these questions. There are those who fetishize ownership itself. There are those who want to use lack of commitment as an excuse for lack of care. There are more than two ways to feel about this.

But for most of the people in my DMs, these two requests for psychological safety ring deeply true.

They are often there because my words made them feel seen. And before we take another step they need a slice of reassurance:

Am I safe?

To stay. To go. To be authentic.

The label is nearly never the point this early on in a connection. The connection itself is.

teases

Here, little bunny, come closer

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When I was young, on a camping trip near a clay cliff-ringed lake, I stumbled upon a field of wild grasses full of wild bunnies. And after a moment of awe and thrill, I knew what I wanted:

I was going to coax one of these wild rabbits into my arms.

Some real Snow White shit, as one sub told me.

First, I made my way back to the campsite for a box of cereal. Then, I retraced my steps. And I settled in on my belly in that bug-buzzing field with my box of cereal and my plan.

I tossed some cereal to the nearest bunny, and I waited.

It took it.

And so began a long, slow dance. Cereal tossed to the nearest bunnies as they took each piece, considered each hop toward me, got used to me as part of the landscape and as a source of something delicious.

I don’t remember how long it took, only that I was committed.

To bringing that bunny ever closer. Until it let me pet it. So soft, so sweet. And then let me lift it into my arms.

However long it took, I reached that goal. I lifted that little fuzzbucket into my arms and fed it as much cereal as it could handle. And it was happy to rest there with me. To be warm and safe and full bellied until I released it back into the field with its fellows.

I told a sub this story and asked him how it made him feel.

Hunted, he said.

In a good way, he said.

And now I tell you.

When you see me say here kitty, kitty, kitty, or here, little bunny, know that I am patient. That I am waiting. That there are treats here and a warm pair of arms. That you are hunted, but that being caught feels oh so very good.

And when I say caught, I mean that you will willingly take the tossed treat, then the next one, then the next one, until you are sleepy and have a full belly and slip lightly into my arms.

And oh how it feels better here, safe and held and caught.

Take whatever time you need, bunny. The truth is you’re already mine. And all it takes to feel the relief of it is the barest hint of a step. The simple words, I’m yours.

Don’t be surprised when I answer: I know.

findom, kink philosophy

Let’s talk about self-sabotage in findom

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It starts with a spark, a twitch, a catch in your breath. She’s beautiful. She’s powerful. She’s already got you figured out and you just know it.

That’s the domme you want to serve, the domme you want to wrap you tight around her perfectly manicured finger.

And so you reach out. You hope. You send a message. You send age verification. But when it comes to your money, you hold back. It’s a pastry or a coffee and then—nothing more.

Then you wait.

I’ll send more when she impresses me, when she seduces me, when she takes over my mind, you tell yourself.

Inevitably, she never does.

Because what you don’t realize is that you’ve already put a wall between yourself and that hope.

By asking her to give and prove and invest in you without you investing in her, you’ve clung to your power instead of releasing it.

You’ve set her up to chase, to work, to beg (ew). And either she won’t because most dommes won’t. That’s not what we do. It’s not the power structure we crave, the kinds of connections we’re seeking here.

Or she will chase and beg and it doesn’t work. Because that’s not actually what you want, kitten—to turn her into someone courting your favor. You haven’t set yourself up for surrender. You have asked her to submit to you instead of the other way around.

And so you ruin your fantasy before it begins. Because of that pesky little asshole:

Fear.

One of the disservices culture offers to every person raised as a man is this: it plants in you a fear of being taken advantage of by women.

(Now, depending who you are, you might be in the findom or femdom space because you want to be taken advantage of – and hi cuties, adore you, not talking to you in this one. Y’all are already on board. But for the others, the skittish little kittens stepping into the space scared…)

You are scared of the scams, of the ripoffs, but way more than that scared of the vulnerability. Scared that if you open up, give freely of your time, your energy, your care, your truths, you will end up rejected.

That’s really what you’re scared of, isn’t it? Not even being scammed. Being rejected by a real person you admire and want.

And so you enter spaces holding back, being stingy with your money, your time, your care, your emotions—and you’re shocked when that inspires stinginess in the person you’re interacting with. When it never works.

The reality is that when you are generous—truly generous—it frees up the women in your life (be that personal connections or dommes) to be generous with you.

In other words: how you enter a dynamic either creates an atmosphere of generosity or one of stinginess. Either your domme knows from the start that she is treasured, you see her time and presence as valuable and she can trust that you will keep showing up with generosity and care—or she knows that she will have to draw every coffee send from you painstakingly.

And kittens, nobody wants the latter when they can have the former. Dommes who are successful in this space and in their vanilla careers aren’t going to chase you around for scraps. We aren’t going to trade in our power for the day just because maybe you’ll turn out to be better than this later.

For those interested in feminization or simply deconstructing the ways that society has limited you as a man, this is me ushering you into the sisterhood by telling you our secret:

Generosity is how women relate to each other.

We show up emotionally, physically, intellectually, financially. We bring each other food when we’re sick or sad. We fight over who pays for each other’s coffee. We show up planning to be generous and we are often met with generosity in return.

This takes courage. It takes a willingness to be the one who is sometimes overgenerous. It takes an acceptance that sometimes you will be generous with a person you never see again or never get anything from—and actually that’s beautiful. I’ve paid the rent of strangers on GoFundMe before just for the feeling it gives me when I think of that person checking their email and finding that stress has evaporated from their life.

This is what I personally mean when I say I don’t want findom to be transactional—not that it shouldn’t include money (lol to everyone who has suggested that; are you lost, bro?) but that you should come in with generosity, care, and admiration from the start. Show up giving. Show up sacrificing. Show up not expecting anything in return—even as you hope for connection to blossom.

That is how you set yourself up for real success in a dynamic. Any dynamic. In BDSM and in life.

This is how you make me want to surprise you with more care and play and space than you ever expected from me.

To get there, you’ll need to be brave enough to rip entitlement out by its roots, to give with only the expectation of how it will make you feel, not what you will get for it.

findom

On weaponizing kink to better yourself

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“I want to weaponize my kink against myself to become a better person.”

It was an early message from someone I’ve been playing with for a few weeks now. He knew he was into findom, feet, girls who are just a little mean to him. And in the past it’d just been another thing that he felt bad about, controlled by. But what if—what if—he could use the reward system his brain responded to to move toward his goals?

He brought his hopes to me like an offering, laid them at my feet.

He wasn’t the first and already wasn’t the last. And I fucking love it.

I love it because it’s how humans work. We seek rewards. We want to feel good. And when we can tie those rewards, that good feeling, to doing good—we do good. Be that good getting in shape, tackling challenging problems, caring for those around us, honing skills, or something else entirely.

Growing up, Pizza Hut had a program called Book It! Kids 6th grade and under could get free pizza (huge kid reward – huge me now reward, if I’m honest) for meeting reading goals. Which meant more reading. Which meant more pizza. Win, win, win, win.

I don’t know about you, but the kids in my circles did way more summer reading when there was pizza involved.

Same logic behind getting a lollypop after getting a shot, treating yourself at your favorite pastry place after doing a thing you were avoiding, promising ourselves that once we hit x milestone, we get y thing we’ve been waiting for.

Obviously, it also works with kink. I had a sub tell me it would take him three days to clear out his workout area in the basement. Alright, I said. You can’t orgasm until it’s cleaned—and once it’s clean, I’ll send you something special.

You want to know how fast that man cleaned out his workout space?

Take that three days and make it three hours. And three hours of me relentlessly teasing him and trying to slow him down.

In short: we gamified a task he needed to do. We added challenges, rewards, and a multiplayer element with me trying to slow his progress and teasing him about the pain and suffering my slow-downs were going to cause him.

And the reason we could do that was because we used his desire for kink to move him toward a goal.

I also love this approach because it gives us space to love our kinks. Instead of something taking our time, holding us back, or keeping us trapped in a shame spiral, they become an active part of bettering ourselves.

Think about how healing that is. Taking a part of your authenticity (because your kinks are part of your authenticity) and embracing it instead of trying to hide it or run from it or hate it.

In the same way that I love sweets and I could just beat myself up for that in a society that is obsessed with being anti-sugar and pro-diet culture (ew)—instead I can use sweets to motivate myself. And I can prioritize sweets that leave me feeling really satisfied and delighted (instead of hiding in a corner and stuffing mediocre candy in my mouth in shame, I take the time to make my favorite cookies or walk to the good pastry shop).

In that same way, why can’t we all use our kinks to motivate and then give ourselves real space to enjoy and revel in them? Not as something we sneak away in shame to do real quick—a hate-jerk in a dark alley—but as a treat we’ve earned, the best version of the thing, a playful moment of escape from the mundane, a pop of sugar on the tongue.

That’s it. That’s what I’m getting at here.

A pop of sugar on the tongue.

A twitch in the pants.

The orgasm you’ve been craving.

The bright, heady feeling of being seen.

And all that on the heels of the satisfaction of a goal met, a job well done, a step toward being the human you want to be.

findom

Our cultural ideas of dominance are boring

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This summer, I rescued a kitten from the undercarriage of a car. She was screaming for her mother and it brought many of us running—people on the street, neighbors with open windows, shopkeepers with open doors.

All of us wanted to save the kitten. To coax her from her dangerous hiding spot, guide her safely off the road, and make sure she was okay.

Myself and the other women on the scene were on our bellies partway under the car, coaxing kitten with treats and chicken, kitten noises playing on our phones. Come out, little baby. It’s nice out here, with treats and friends.

The men in the group—equally well-meaning—had a distinctly different approach. Without any real discussion between them, they all began to shake the car and shout. The theory: we can scare the kitten out and into our arms.

Well-meaning as they were, I think you see where this is going: it didn’t work. The terrified kitten retreated farther into the car’s undercarriage and would not come out.

I sent everyone away and promised I would come back for kitten in a few hours when she was calm again. And I did: early the next morning with little traffic and almost no people on the streets, I played kitten noises and tempted her with chicken and eventually she came close enough for me to grab.

I tell this story because it’s a tiny example of a larger societal pattern. Women are socialized to care and collaborate and de-escalate. Men are socialized to solve problems with force. That force can be caring and well-intentioned and it is still force.

And because our culture (it should go without saying, but allow me to say it anyway: wrongly) associates masculinity with dominance and dominance with violence, even here in kink spaces, dominance is so often seen as a violent act.

Outside the bedroom, we “dominate” by making war. We “dominate” by enforcing our will. We “dominate” through physical overpowerment.

This so-called dominance is “because I said so,” and it is “don’t question me,” and it is ultimately an act of fear. Authoritarian government. Authoritarian parent. Boss dangling unemployment over your head.

Then it slips into BDSM, this violent idea of what dominance is. It’s “shut up and send, piggy,” in the first conversation. It’s the “dom” men in my DMs telling me their violent fantasies of me forcing them to submit.

And god, how boring, how narrow this vision is.

It leaves behind the reality that peaceful protests have dominated authoritarians right out of power (see: Nepal, see: Ukraine, see: the Singing Revolution). It leaves behind the utter dominance of a nurturing mother. It discards the electric power of the small to defeat the large, of good ideas to defeat violent ones, of the underdog we all are rooting for. Of the quiet power we submit to because we long to do so.

I am not interested in being your Stalin, your Napoleon, your because-I-said-so mediocre dad.

I am interested in the same thing I wanted for that kitten: to overpower her fears and take her through the hard feelings into the safer place.

I am interested in your surrender as healing, as trust, as a gift given freely.

I am interested in breaking down your ego because it’s in your fucking way.

I am interested in you surrendering because of who I am, not what you fear I’ll do if you don’t.

You put yourself in my hands because they are strong and steady. You show your vulnerable parts because you know I won’t look away. You wrap yourself around my finger because it is safe there, warm, full of purpose. You serve and send because you admire and respect and long.

I am not interested in society’s broken ideas of dominance. The way it’s been gendered and narrowed into a violent box.

(I’m not saying there is no violence in D/s. There very obviously is. But you don’t serve because you fear it. You serve because you crave it or because you want to find your limits near it or because you want me to stand with you through it.)

So come out, kitten. Come to me through the dark. Come to me because your trust is larger than your fear of me. I am interested in leaving you safer than I found you. Less fleas. Less scrawniness. Less fear of the darkness, the unknown. A knowledge that you can do the brave thing and what you find there in the scary place is rest. Authenticity.

Yourself.

What you find there is yourself.