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Findom is transactional.

It’s a common refrain from those in BDSM when it comes to findom. You’ll even hear it from some people within the findom community itself.

Because there’s money involved, this is a baseline assumption. Money = transaction. No money = no transaction.

And boy oh boy how wrong this is.

So let’s unpack it. Because for me, findom is the one space within BDSM that often does—in its purest form—lack transaction. It is transgressive precisely because it’s about money and it’s not transactional.

So first, let’s talk about what transaction means. Because it has been reduced to this idea of “anything involving money.”

The reality is that transaction is this: exchanging one thing for another.

That’s it.

If you give a sales clerk money and get a watermelon: transaction. If you help someone move in exchange for them helping you move: transaction. If you buy someone dinner and expect sex: non-consensual attempt at transaction.

Helping your friend move because you want to: not a transaction. Donating money to a cat rescue: not a transaction. Sharing your watermelon expecting nothing in return: not a transaction.

We live in a world where most men approach women in a transactional way. They want something from a woman and they try to figure out what the minimum they can offer is to get that thing.

This is where we get conversations about the “nice guys” who seem think if they put enough kindness coins into the hot girl vending machine then sex and relationships pop out.

This is also where we get men who rage when they “give a compliment” to a woman and she doesn’t perform gratitude for them.

It’s why many women reject gifts from men, knowing that there are invisible strings attached.

And it’s one of the reasons so many dommes are so exhausted. Because male subs come to us saying they are ready to serve, they will do anything, they want to give, to sacrifice…

But far too many actually mean they want us to enact a specific fantasy. They want to be “forced” to do something they actually already want to do. They did not come to serve when service requires real sacrifices—of ego, of actual power, of time, of money.

So, here’s the thing I get off on: actual submission. The kind that is generous and willing to sacrifice. With time. With money. With opening up parts of yourself that feel scary to open up. Letting me break apart bad habits, squash ego, and smash apart societal power structures that actually keep you from accessing the best parts of yourself.

I want submission that craves my pleasure. I want submissives who give with no expectation.

I want—in short—no transaction.

Only then do I feel a desire to give anything back.

And this is where findom—in its purest form—speaks to me.

Because it asks submissive men to unlearn transactional thinking. It asks them to go against all societal conditioning and give. Give the things society tells you make you a man, the things you’re told to cling to.

Your ego. Your time. Your energy. Your money.

Give them to the very people that our society taught you to extract from.

Unlearn entitlement to women’s time, energy, emotional labor, sexual labor, educational labor, care.

Yes, it’s sexy. Yes, it turns you on. Yes, you get something out of it. But not because you have demanded a transaction. Precisely because you have not.

Because you felt the euphoria of giving.

Because you felt the euphoria of breaking free of a societal cage.

Because you experienced genuine power exchange by laying your power down.

Because I chose to talk to you, play with you, go deeper with you because I wanted to. Not because a transaction bound me to do so.

Findom is and can be many things. Not every dynamic gets here. Not every submissive lays down power for the same reasons or in the same ways. Not every play follows this path.

But some do.

And it is one of the reasons findom can feel so freeing and sexy and powerful to women, many of whom have never experienced anything approaching a non-transactional connection with a man.

Plenty of submissives come to findommes asking what they get for their money. And some of us are happy to play that way, depending what the asks are.

But this isn’t actually findom.

It’s a form of paid femdom. Or femdom with some findom sprinkled in, perhaps.

Nothing wrong with that, but it’s time for us to start understanding the difference—and the power in that difference.

Pure findom is non-transactional. Full-stop.

The money is the point. The sacrifice is the point. The submission of your wallet is the point.

The point is not what you get out of a domme during, before, or after that submission. “What you get” exists based on her pleasure. Not your transaction.

So, here’s the thing:

I started in femdom in my personal life. I still live that way. I still love it. D/s changed my life and continues to do so.

I still love the things I used to love. And I still incorporate femdom elements into nearly all of my findom connections. I tease and I cuck and I humiliate and I play.

And the reason I feel so free to do those things, is because of findom.

Because the joy isn’t really there for me when it’s a straightforward exchange of money and services. When you pay for a session and I deliver it.

The joy is there because I feel abundant. Worshipped. Because you’ve poured your wallet and yourself into pleasing me. Because you are generous without expectation.

And that is makes me want to surprise you. Tease you. Play with you.

If you have sessioned with me more than once, you’re grandfathered in. I only session twice with people I genuinely enjoy. But the only inquiries I want moving forward are findom ones.

In short: If you don’t want to pour yourself (wallet included) into my service, it’s a no.

If you are wondering what you get in return for serving, it’s a no.

If you need to be chased, it’s a no.

If you come entitled, it’s a no.

I crave worship. I crave service. I crave sacrifice.

The two things I want you to release your iron grip on are your money and your ideas about masculinity. Only then will you truly be able to take this journey with me.

So here’s where it starts.

When I first stepped into findom after years of lifestyle femdom, I didn’t have high expectations.

I was excited, curious, intrigued. And I slipped into Reddit and shifted my FetLife profile with a question hanging on my lips:

Is this for me?

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t come in hell-bent on making it work.

I just knew that something about this space resonated for me. I knew a domme had told me, unprompted, a few years before that I would be good at pro domming. I knew that I loved the D/s dynamic that had unfolded in my personal life. I knew I was a dominant person and that people even outside of kink look to me to hold space, control situations, and be in charge.

So I took a curious step, then another. Another. I took from my personal experiences and I took from the new ones. I played with subs who came and went (both proverbially and otherwise) and those who stayed, who were the right connections for me.

And here I am, nearly a year in.

What a delight to find that I could carve out the space I wanted to within findom, that my curiosity led me to something that feels so right, that my lifestyle experience translated so seamlessly into what I’ve built online.

This week I’m thinking about how grateful I am.

That I found this space, this slice of my people.

For moments that feel powerful and sexy and also life-affirming.

For my long-term boys and my short-term ones.

For a space where I can authentically be. A space to laugh at you and tease you and toy with you. To push you and also for you to know I’ll catch you when you fall. To sometimes be the mean girl and sometimes be the nice one and always be the one holding space and standing in my power.

There’s a common idea of D/s as a sort of Puppetmaster/puppet pairing. The domme holding the strings on the marionette. The sub the dancing bear, moved by her every twitch.

And perhaps there is some validity to this. Perhaps some D/s connections feel that way.

But for me, the dead weight of the dancing bear twitching under my fingers has never been the goal. And those who come to me in the way of hollowed-out puppets don’t get far.

Because the truth about my experience of D/s is this:

It’s a dance.

One person makes a move and the other responds, which fuels the creativity of the first.

If you’ve ever done any partner dancing, this is how it goes: there are typically two defined roles. Lead. Follow.

From the outside, it looks as though the lead is directing the dance. Controlling the movements. Simply sweeping the follow along for the ride. And with beginners, this is often the case.

But go deeper and you realize what is really happening is a complex interplay between two parties. Both with agency and creativity, despite having different roles.

A good lead is suggesting (not commanding) movements. They are paying attention to everything that’s going on around them so they don’t steer their follow into another couple or send them spinning too far away. They are paying deep attention to their follow and adjusting their lead to match the follow’s skill and comfort levels. And they are reacting to their follow’s creativity.

A good lead doesn’t have a map in their head that must be followed at all costs. They are paying deep attention to the specific follow they are dancing with.

And the follow?

This person isn’t simply following commands.

They are paying deep, focused attention to their lead’s every move. Following where the slightest shift in a shoulder, hip, or wrist leads them. They are reacting to the lead’s suggestions—often with an enthusiastic yes but sometimes with their own creativity and re-direction.

The best follows sometimes choose to transform the suggestion of a single turn to a double, the suggestion of a turn to the right with a playful turn to the left instead. The follow can add or subtract energy to the dance. They can make movements smoother or sharper. And a good lead will be paying attention and reacting to those shifts too.

Perhaps most of all: with an excellent, safe, thoughtful lead, the follow is practicing deep trust.

They are trusting that if the lead suggests they step backward, they will not lead them into another couple or a wall. They are trusting that the lead will catch them if they lift them off the ground. That the lead knows where they are leading and how to get the follow safely there.

This doesn’t mean the follow isn’t aware of their surroundings. But it does mean a certain type of surrender, trust, and submission.

Not because the follow is lesser. Not because the lead is the authoritarian dictator. But because social (not choreographed) partner dancing in its most beautiful form requires both of these roles to thrive.

My best D/s connections resonate so deeply with my best dances. The lead/domme suggests, the follow/sub responds, adds creativity, sparks new ideas for the lead/domme. The lead/domme responds to those new ideas with another suggestion, and so on.

I use the word suggestion because a good lead is not a stiff, inescapable cage (which would make for a stiff, uncomfortable, inescapable dance). They are sturdy and confident and capable. They inspire trust. When they move the follow, the follow goes because they want to, because they trust, because of the power and presence and confidence and experience of the lead allow that follow to drop the daily baggage of overthinking, pushing back, second-guessing.

The follow can drop the lead’s hand at any time. They can leave the dance. They can stop it. This is not prison; it’s art.

But in a truly good pairing, they don’t drop the hand, leave the dance, stop the flow. Because both have entered their perfect flow state—a state of co-creating a dance that is perfectly, exactly theirs. Not scripted, choreographed, practiced—but connected to and created by each other in that exact moment.

I talk a lot about co-creation between domme and sub because that has been my journey. That is the type of dynamic that lights me up. It’s why I ask my subs to communicate clearly, to hand me their ideas, their buttons, their fantasies, to participate in the co-creation of a dynamic that is distinctly ours.

Just like a dance, we are working with a lot of pre-existing components. In the dance, these are steps and moves, turns and kicks, etc. In a dynamic, perhaps it’s kinks and norms. And in both cases, the outcome isn’t formula—it’s creative freedom.

Some subs worry about sharing their kinks, afraid that dommes will cater to them instead of doing what we love. But I am not your puppetmaster, forcing every puppet into the same script. I am a dancer, your lead, inviting you to a space of co-creation, connection, and evolution.

Hi there, kitten–

I see you over there, poking your whiskers out of hiding, simultaneously longing to be seen and terrified of it.

Because you’re a submissive man. And your whole life, society has told you that one of those things negates the other. That submission isn’t masculine. That masculinity isn’t submissive.

Come out of hiding, crawl up here in my lap while I tell you the truth:

Vanilla world has been lying to you.

Nobody can steal your masculinity if you want it. It’s yours. Inherently. Un-stealably. Being submissive has never put it at risk.

Even more important: playing at dominance doesn’t make you brave. It actually does the opposite. It’s caving to peer pressure. It’s hiding. It’s sacrificing your authentic self on the altar of societal expectations.

I’m not here to tell you those expectations don’t exist. They do. It’s part of what people mean when they use the word patriarchy—a world where you’ve been told that by virtue of being a man you are also required to be 35 other things you never agreed to.

Dominant. Violent. Anything but feminine.

But following the crowd has never been the brave move. Living your truth is. Loving yourself when the world tries to tell you you’re not lovable is. Letting go of their opinions to trust what you already know deep in your gut is.

Buried as it might be, I know what’s deep in that gut if you’re brave enough to find it:

Authenticity.

Courage.

Self-love.

Submission.

I don’t mean that you have to be out and proud with every person you meet. I don’t mean that you put a SUBMISSIVE stamp on your business cards. I understand that society doesn’t understand.

What I want for you is this: to understand, deep in your soul, that you being yourself is courage.

I never hear a man describe himself as dominant and think he’s brave. Embracing societal expectations may or may not be a positive in some cases—but it’s never an act of courage.

But you? YOU, kitten? Living your truth? That’s fucking brave. That’s fucking strong. That’s something to pay attention to.

In case you needed the reminder today: every time you decide you like the submissive part of yourself, you’re doing something brave. Something unusual. Something interesting.

And even if I don’t know you yet, I’m pretty fucking proud.