Chi
Time is money, said Ben Franklin. With this in mind, I remain steadfast in my opinion.

If a potential client has taken his time to read the web site, fill out the application, provide referrals and pretty much play by the rules set forth by the Domme, it seems fair to me that any up front fee(s) should be credited toward the session cost.

If a poser is not really a potential client and is really a "time wasting cheapskate"..... chances are he will balk at paying anything....... Thus alleviating any time being taken from the Domme without remuneration.

At my advanced age maybe I'm still living in an old school world. But I would not send an application fee.

TD

That's an interesting statement, since there seem to be an unlimited number of kinks and variations out there...the human mind is a wondrous thing. I wouldn't be interested in seeing a Mistress who feels that there are a set number of kinks that she is able to list in an online menu.

Bottom line for me is that I'm not committing to $750 to $1000 with a dom who won't take 45 seconds to address my inquiry. And if she just deletes my email because she thinks that I am a wanker then I have my answer and can move on to another provider.

Everything evolves. Guys of my generation remember looking in magazines for ads and contact info. This was pre internet and email. Tbh I don’t remember how I contacted Dommes in the beginning. Phone which would’ve been a land line or snail mail to a P.O. Box I’d guess. It is so much easier now to find Dommes but in other ways more difficult and complicated to book , at least for me in my personal circumstances.

I wonder about AI and scams too. I like Tryst for finding people but I do wonder about some of the listings. I’d like to say I am only going to session with well established Dommes where there’s no doubt they are real but my limited opportunities don’t always make that possible.

It's the "some information" and "possible session" that makes sense to you but for some of us we know very well that most of the guys who use those phrases are very unlikely to book.



Right, cool. That's what I explained: I require a gift to show sincerity because 90% of the application submissions I received were not sincere.

And it's not "probably" it's "definitely" in my experience. I have not had one person send a gift and then fuck around. I've had about 7 people send a gift and then not ended up filling out the form. In 5 of those cases, I had no reply from them at all and I suspect they just wanted to see my form. In the other 2 they seemed a little disorganized and asked to be given a new password after the initial one I gave them expired. I did this and then they never followed through. I think they were serious, though. Bottom line is that I got *something* for the time I went back and forth with them, trying to get them on board.

If I may, Lady: every *serious* Domme. There are a lot of Dommes who actually do not have an abundance of info on their sites. Sometimes a somewhat baffling lack of info, actually. But this, in my opinion, is something I would use to determine the kind of professional I'd want to see.

For those of us who provide a good amount of info, and then have some ways of getting to know us (social media, fan sites, blogs), it becomes less clear what "little information" is needed.



I very much agree.



I think for some guys they consciously tell themselves that they really innocently want to just ask a few questions but it's really a subconscious game.

I had a guy who contacted me on FetLife, "Mistress, I read your website but I didn't see an answer to my question. How often in advance can I book a session?"

I knew this guy wasn't asking because he actually wanted to book a session. It was because he found a little chink in my armor and wanted to get in.

I answered, knowing he'd never book. I was right. Never heard from him again. (I did put that question on my site, though!)

"1,800 Dommes"

Impressive numbers but I'd be more interested in if they were any good.



Oh, I'm sure there are some great Dommes out there who don't have the internet. I always encourage a website, for Domme and sub, because it greatly reduces the chance you're dealing with a scammer -- and they are everywhere.



Yeah, that's not safe. There are a lot of people out there who don't understand legal risks. If you are discussing a session on someone else's platform -- Twitter/X, FetLife, BlueSky, etc -- you aren't assured privacy. "Private" means from the public, not from the site owners. That means it's very easy for that platform, and any LE that might happen to subpoena that platform (very easy to do, ya know), to get your exchanges. *cringey face*



I'm glad you started it, too, Chi. Thank you. And I'm glad you expanded your views because of it.

It's guaranteed that Dommes from previous eras all had their gripes. There have always been and always will be guys who want to fuck around and aren't serious about a session or whatever else they're pretending to be interested in.

As technology evolves it helps us to do some things more efficiently (find each other) but, as you said, may make it seem more difficult to book. The truth is that it's not really more difficult to book for those of us on the doing-the-actual-work side. We have tools to ensure that we are actually spending our time doing the things we actually would like to do with people. I promise you that if there was a way for a Domme in the 70s to have some kind of Carnac predictive skill when she received a letter in the mail she would use it to save herself some eyerolls. And it's very likely she did. "This envelope is too thick. It's another multi-page fantasy." *drops in trash*



Scamming will blow up. AI can make photos of beautiful women from thin air and write an entire website. Men are going to lose lots and lots of money if they don't (FINALLY) learn to do their research.