I thought about dominas I have served over the decades, their specialties, etc. and in thinking about them I think they fall into four distinct types. One or two of the types might not even be considered dominas at all. My question is does my list cover all the possible groupings?

Here are my four, from most traditional & strict to most vanilla:
1. Traditional dominatrix in her own dungeon/studio who will accommodate certain requests (role play, fetishes) and respect boundaries, corporal discipline but little or no body worship.

2. Traditional dominatrix, sessions in dungeons or her home/apartment, corporal discipline, open to suggestions on role play, fetishes and change of wardrobe and more open to body worship.

3. Dominant who offers fetish, some tantric play, role play, wrestling (non-competitive), scissors, far more sensual than the other two types. (I would put in this category the female bodybuilders or fitness ladies I have met who are dominant. Many are far more willing to exhibit all of their physiques to a sub. But be warned, as I often say, they are so physically strong they don't need equipment. They ARE the equipment. LOL!) Sessions take place in hotels or their apartments.

4. Dominant escorts. (No, not some who I heard over the years who don't know what they are doing, wear black leather, and yell and threaten you with a whip.) These are ladies that are in complete control, do role play, fetish but end with some type of more conventional vanilla climax. Sessions are at hotels or their apartments.

Pretty comprehensive, but I would add one to the list and recommend most everyone stay away from them.

FINDOM: these are the new group of women who just create Onlyfans accounts and expect men to do cashmeets or send money. Focus is mainly on having men buy them stuff or give money. They mainly operate on Twitter and do not have a website or any reviews. Be weary of sending deposits or even trying an in person session. Good rule of thumb Mistress Ayn pointed out: If they don't have a website, it's usually a bad sign and you must be very cautious.

Excellent addition! I never thought of that.

Maybe those dominas who do Skype/cam sessions and phone sessions exclusively are a category. On that I'm not sure.

An important point, and an addition:

1. Important point: these are not "types of dominas and dominant women". This is a list of women who offer domination as a service, in return for payment. Most women who are engaged in femdom are not professionals, just like most people who play baseball are not professional baseball players. Seems like "lifestyle femdoms, from novice to light & informal, to 24/7 lifestyle" is a the major category.

2. There are many sexworkers, besides pro dommes and escorts, who offer domination-for-pay. In my local area, there was about an 8 year stretch where my perception is that FBSM providers of femdom easily outnumbered both the number of pro dommes, and the number of escorts offering femdom. I've also had fantastic femdom with strippers. Perhaps this should all bundled up with #4: traditional sexworkers offering femdom services.

3. Another addition: sugar arrangements are sort of in a gray area between the non-pro femdom I mentioned in #1 above, and the various types of for-payment femdom in all the rest. Again, I've had some amazing femdom experiences with sugarbabies and suggest it as a fun way to go. One thing that this and the "femdom sexworkers who are not pro dommes" bullet above, is that there some form of explicit sex act as part of the femdom.


Ironically, perhaps in the "eskimos have 30 words for snow" category, it wouldn't have even occurred to me to separate out your list numbers 1-3. To me, they are all minor variations on "professional domination that does not include sex". The important distinctions -- at least for me -- are among "professional domination with FBSM/strippers/etc that includes sex" and "Domination as part of a sugar arrangement". Those are the three big categories that are waaaaaay different from each other. Probably illustrates what my personal interpretation of femdom lies lol

jb,

I have to agree with swordfish about the first two categories because those seem to be the same to me with the difference just being location for sessioning. I also think that we need to be clear that you are talking about Pros only and not all Dominant women.

You also do not break out traveling Dommes... which is totally fine... except that you put so much emphasis on where sessions take place and most traveling Dommes play in hotel rooms in the cities they are at even if they are "Traditional" in their ways.

Where there is a difference that I feel you really missed is actually between House Dommes vs Independent (who may use commercial dungeon space). In my definition, a House Domme is someone who works for the dungeon using their menu of services and performs sessions based on bookings created/managed by the House. In a lot of cases, these are women who are not actually dominant but like the money they earn (they also tend to be very short-lived). I believe an example of this would be Pandora's Box (that is only my impression of how that place works though so I apologize if that is a bad example).

An Independent Domme, even if they use a commercial space for sessions, works extremely differently and handles all of their own bookings and determines how they interact with clients in and out of sessions. An example of this would be any totally independent Domme with their own private space, but also those we think of as Atlanta Dungeon Dommes.

I also think that Pro Switches are a completely different subgroup and fetishists who solely focus on one thing, such as: Rubber Dommes, Shibari/Rope Dommes, Spankers, Chastity Dommes, Smokers & Foot Dommes don't all fit into category #3 if you don't include both dungeons and public play as part of your definition of where sessions take place. Yes, these are all fetishes that Dommes play to, but there are also Dommes who only offer that specific service in a session just like session wrestlers do.

In the age of Covid, we also now have Online/Remote Dommes (which are different from FinDumbs) who use methods like Skype, NiteFlirt, etc... to interact. They may also use daily instruction / service assignments and remote play toys like chastity devices, vibrators and electrical to control a sub both during the session and on an ongoing basis (usually with a monthly fee rather than an hourly session cost) without actually meeting for a physical session. You may want to lump them in with findumbs but it is a very different thing.

These are just the ones I came up with off the top of my head, but in reality... I think doing this is a losing battle as EVERY Domme (with the exception of House Dommes) work in their own ways and cross over any boundary you can come up with.

Swordfish,

I largely agree with your first point. I would though point out that there is a Twilight Zone between professional domination and lifestyle. I have been there and I know from several of junglebeast's prior threads he has been there as well which might explain why the distinction got blurred in his mind.

As for why his first 3 categories seem to have only a small difference there is an increasing degree of sensual contact with the Domme at each level and this is very important in his eyes.

It struck me that your 4 categories have an ascending scale of physical contact with the Domme (I mentioned this is my reply to swordfish) I would therefore propose that FinDoms along with all online only Dommes be assigned category 0 on your list as they afford even less contact than type 1 on your list being essentially incorporeal.

Other meaningful categories would be most meaningful if the category tends to have an identity. I see that Aspx has brought up Switches and that is a very good example. I would add 2 more. The first is Disciplinarians. Quite a few of them do not see themselves as being dominatrices at all. This goes hand in hand with their disingenuous tendency to avoid acknowledging the eroticism of their activities as much as possible.

The other meangful category is the FTT practitioners. This is largely because many subs and more than a few Dommes tend to look down ob them as being the Untouchable caste of FemDom.

I may be splitting hairs, but not sure on #3 why the distinction on the “non competitive wrestling”. I session with someone who would clearly fall into category #3, but she does offer competitive sessions as well. She described it to me as “I like it when there’s something to push back against”. All in all though I agree with your categories. I might add the online/video Domme and also the local/semi-pro Domme to your list.

I have to say I'm not sure this is a very informative categorization. Seems to me these list are just about different interest/offerings. Such things can be affected by experience/training/comfort levels.

I think a more interesting way to categorize Dommes (not just ProDommes) is domination style/philosophy. This can be broken up in several ways. For example is she a female supremacist that believes all women are superior to men, or is her dominance not necessarily based on gender?

Another category might be default emotional vibe: Does she enjoy dominating from a place of anger or is she more nurturing?

Finally, most important to me is sadism: is pain just a way to correct behavior or is the infliction of pain something she enjoys for its own sake?

I'm sure there are many other aspects to consider. The wonderful thing with all of the multifaceted characteristics that comprise any Domme, means there is a wonderful variety of Dommes out there, and we can all hopefully find a good fit with a bit of exploration.

Happy exploring everyone,
tab

To everyone, thank you for your thoughtful replies. A few things to clarify, if I may. I'm only talking about Mistresses, Dominas, dominant women who are pros, not lifestyle. In doing the "1., 2., 3." thing I wasn't ranking the types of Mistress. Also, I didn't go into all the the fetishes, such as discipline, latex or heavy bondage. The fetishes... there are so many.

I know I dated myself, which is fine because I learned a lot. In spending time on MF if you ever even suggested that a Domina MIGHT allow some type of vanilla-ish body worship you would have been attacked, saying those women were "escorts with a whip." That's why I kind of emphasized those Dominas who didn't allow much of anything in that regard, to those who were entirely more... forthcoming. The dominas who only worked in dungeons, in the '80s and early '90s were, well, pretty mass market for my taste. Unless the lady OWNED the dungeon, then all bets were off.

About female bodybuilders who wrestle, I only experienced the one-sided variety as a bit of corporal, sensual punishment. The old expression, "I'm a lover, not a fighter," applies to me. Also my Mother's order, when I was being bullied by a girl in grammar school she told me, "Never hit a girl. Just take it and tell her to shut up." After one session with a lady my Mistress recommended when she was going to be out of town for a couple of months, we did the "Amazon" role play thing and told me that some guy wrestled her and broke her leg a year or two before in the process by accident.

Great insights. Keep them coming. Thank you all.