As a follow up to my other reply about my experiences, I think the difference in my relationships is that my approach is one where both the Domme and myself are totally equal as people even though we have agreed to have different and well defined roles within our relationship. That the D/s is about control rather than "worth" and the BDSM is the equivalent of sex in a vanilla relationship. In my own mind, I have always viewed Pro Dommes as real women with real lives and problems that provide a very personal service to me rather than some idealized and untouchable "thing".

I understand the emotional context that can occur during these types of very intimate encounters and how it mostly, but not entirely, occurs on the client side. I also understand how the idea of transference can occur on the client side. But, I also recognize that other professions such as lawyers, doctors and personal trainers can have the same kinds of things occur and these are also intimate in different ways. However, in any of these cases when someone who is providing you with a service for a fee breaks from their professionalism and decides to open up to you as a normal person, it is possible to move into a romantic relationship regardless of the type of professional one you started with. When the professional shows themselves to be a real person with regular interests outside of their job or emotional needs, it is up to the client to either accept that normal person or to reject moving to a more real and romantic one. If my plumber starts telling me about their personal problems, I may not have any interest and find some excuse to get away... or, I may have a long talk as just two people and support them as a normal person and this connection may blossom into something else. If they are a truly hot woman playing with my pipes while crawling around in tight leather, then that is just a bonus.

My point is that, I do not see where a male client dating a female lawyer, doctor or personal trainer that provides them with their services is truly an issue if the attraction is mutual; the communication is open; and the professional part of the relationship is put aside in favor of just being two very real people. I just see that beginning as another layer of complication to a romantic relationship between two people (which are generally messy and complicated enough already). Since most romantic relationships fail (especially D/s based ones which are even more complicated than vanilla), the chance that one that starts from a Pro Domme/client framework will succeed is still not very good and will make you lose a good client you enjoy.

However, in my opinion, it is no more unlikely to succeed as a romantic relationship than one that starts on eHarmony or CollarSpace. It even may be more likely to succeed on the Pro Domme side because you never have to worry about your boyfriend finding out about what you do for a living and you have less chance of them getting hung up on it (although you do have to deal with constant judging from other Pro Dommes). Those things are a constant issue with Pro Domme friends of mine who wish to have "normal" romantic relationships with people who are not part of the D/s community in general and/or specifically the world of Professional Domination (every one I know who hasn't been a real client thinks it is just kinky prostitution and no matter how you try to explain the difference, guys who are not clients generally don't believe the truth of it).

One last point just because I brought it up, although I do think that romantic relationships that start professionally are a little more complicated at the beginning, getting with your plumber never works because that is just wrong no matter how much you are into brown.

Asp