On Being a Gentle FemDomme
And the Art of Sensual Domination
My first submissive was also my very first girlfriend.
I’d slept with women before her, I had been in an open marriage for about 6 years when we met, but everything with her was new, an adventure, and an awakening.
Before our meeting, I had dabbled in domination and BDSM play in the strip club. I had one regular specifically who would come in and buy thirty or sixty-minute champagne rooms and specifically requested D/s, kinky play. (During the Pandemic, he become a virtual sub for many months before I had to end the dynamic—more on this and holding to your boundaries in a future post). But other than that and a few random one-off club clients here and there over the years who wanted CBT and choking, face smothering, small cock humiliation, degradation and impact play (typically with their own belts), I hadn’t done any other ‘pro-domme’ work let alone really explored my Dominant, Dominatrix side.
That was until I started dating her.
Suddenly, I wanted to bend her to my will, tie her up and pleasure her as I saw fit, blindfold and gag her, and instruct her in Service to me—and she ate it up willingly. It became our inside joke that she was like my kinky ‘service dog’. And we found out later, that this type of sensual surrender and submission was helping her to heal trauma she had from a prior relationship around BDSM and being forced into a Dominant role within an undesired and toxic D/s dynamic. It actually helped her to be able to feel confident and happy to step into more Dominant roles in and out of the bedroom once more.
I had really held myself back from diving more fully into BDSM and ProDomme work in the past even though I was intrigued by it and had even done a little training in it many years prior, because of the stereotypical Dominatrix image. I wasn’t a black latex-clad Disciplinarian Sadist, so ProDomme work wasn’t for me, right? Wrong.
After a few years together and the re-opening of the world at what was (incorrectly, and unfortunately) dubbed the “end of the Pandemic” I decided to shift gears professionally and dedicate my effort to real ProDomme work and building it up as my main ‘job’. Part of the shift came when I realized that I could be *my* style of Domme, and that I didn’t actually have to participate in kink play that I didn’t enjoy (wild concept, I know). After about a year I, and we as a D/s couple, got involved in the local BDSM Scene and started attending community events and parties. There we began public play for the first time, and I was amazed at the difference between how we played and how most others played. And our audience was enraptured.
I am a service top, and a sensual Domme. Some call it Soft or Gentle FemDomme. I am not an overtly Sadistic person, I get very little joy out of witnessing let alone causing someone else’s pain and torture, and am rather caring and attentive naturally. (I have always been a, ‘words can hurt you’ person). I do what I do for the enjoyment of my Bottom, of my Submissive, not just for me. And as Sapphics, well, we were already a sight for sore eyes in a nauseatingly predominantly cishetero-space (more on this in a future post). But, I think our Sapphic nature and our personal dynamic and energy together as a queer sapphic couple outside of BDSM/kink further enhances the sensual nature of my own domination style and how we play together both privately and publicly.
And then, I found Shibari. And it opened up an entirely new way to create art, to create art from surrender, and to explore sensual domination and submission. I also discovered that I am a rope switch (happy to Rig/Top and bottom) and got to have my first real personal experiences navigating Subspace—which I agree with Mistress Damiana Chi who teaches that all Dominants, especially Pros, should have experience submitting and being in Subspace...
As time has gone on, I’ve had inquiries and requests from others—particularly women, either typically submissives/bottoms or switches curious about their Dominant side—wanting to learn more, to explore this style of kink, domination and submission.
It’s important to me because it helps to break the mold of the stereotypical expectation of what a Dominatrix is like, and I regularly break the mold on that image—I am gender-fluid and often androgynous in my dress and expression, one event I will arrive in high-femme attire that you might see at an upscale dinner event, the next event I am happily Butch in a button up longsleeve black shirt and black denim jeans. My favorite ‘dominatrix’ colors are not the typical black and fire-engine red, but maroon, plum, white, browns, navy blue, gold and rose pinks. I love patent leather as much as the next Domme, but my preference is for silk or satin, fur, and real leather.
I do not need to beat you into submission—I can use the gentlest touch, the slightest whisper, the sultriest look to make you crave me and desire nothing more in the world than to submit yourself body and soul. And then give you a good whipping as a reward. But I am quick to reprimand, to correct and discipline when my wishes are not followed and sorry mistakes are made. I like to keep you on your toes.
And part of it too perhaps is in my capacity to hold Space. In my ‘vanilla’ life and career, I am a healer, bodyworker, and naturopathic wellness practitioner. My modalities range from energywork techniques to Ayurvedic medicine, and the number one thing I have been told over and over again by friends, clients, and Submissives is that I am a safe space, able to hold Container for their vulnerability and healing. I’m that girl in the dressing room that other dancers would approach for help with their period, their shitty boyfriend, or to confess some deep ‘dark’ secret no one else knew even though they didn’t know me. I was the dancer who could get a young man to cry for his mother in my lap, soothing him against my breast, and quietly guide an older serviceman down out of a PTSD flashback. And that skill is transferable from wellness practice to strip club champagne room to Dungeon.
This style of power dynamic, space holding and play became particularly apparent to me as important (and right for me), and reinforced my idea that this work can be inherently Healing when that is the intention and the right container is held when I had a young man come to me for his first ever professional BDSM session. He was new to BDSM and kink, but he was drawn to me because he was looking for a safe space and gentle Mistress for him to fully surrender to. See, he had been disregarded at best, and ridiculed at worst, by past romantic partners for his desire to explore his Submissive side as a man. He wanted to, needed it, but had never been allowed a safe space to do so. And his reaching out to me to have that need met, to hold space for that healing and reclamation, to explore an unknown and shamed part of himself, was what initiated our Mistress-sub client relationship.
I will likely expand on this topic in later posts, and I am working on a deeper exploration of this form of D/s play for a class, so keep an eye out for that~
In the meantime, be good Pets.
Lovingly,
Lady Leah