In a post from the lobby I mentioned a slave sitting outside my dungeon to get a glance of my personal life and was disappointed in my pretty normal life.

If you follow anything I write for any amount of time, you might have figured out I am not a 24/7 Domina, sleeping in latex PJs with a stable of slaves tending to my needs from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep. (Barf. I could never have a live in slave. I REALLY value my alone time.) While I am lifestyle--I play in my personal life--I am not a constant dominant diva. I turn up the intensity in play and swell with the high of being the dominant in session, but after, I am a pretty boring nerd-chick.

I have seen other dommes obsessed with their image and protocol. From never wearing a choker necklace (Collars are for slaves!) to never letting a slave see you clean. (Seriously, screw that. After play you WILL see me scrub all the toys and no you can't help me, you won't do it right. You WILL know that everything is immaculately clean and how hard I work.) Of course social media plays heavily into that and I have seen domina's go our of their ways to pretend they are living the super life.

How do you view the life of dominas? Has it changed over the years? Have you been disappointed? Have you gotten to see behind the curtain?

I’m old and have been doing sessions for a long time. I realised a long time ago that Dommes have a normal life outside of session and that the fantasy of the Domme living 24/7 in leather with slaves sleeping at their feet is just that - a fantasy.

I’ve been lucky enough to get to know a few Dommes really well. They were normal women with money and relationship issues just like everyone else. They could seamlessly transition from vanilla personality to dominant Mistress and back. They were among the best I ever sessioned with.

On a few occasions I’ve either picked Dommes up from the airport or dropped them off. The thing that struck me was how normal and under the radar they dressed and looked. There are times when I fly now where I look at a woman and think she could be a travelling domme although I realise the odds are against it.

Oh very much so. No one ever would clock me as a dominatrix. The last thing I want when I am traveling, running errands, just doing life things, is extra attention.

I met a colleague for lunch once and she wore a see through mesh top and hold up stockings hoovering under her very short skirt. I was very uncomfortable to speak candidly about work when the whole cafe was staring at us.

i only know some private aspects of my mistress, as we very often have a nice chat after session. As She trusts me, i'm told some stories about other dommes, houses etc. I have the Impression She's doing very well, has a good boyfriend and a supportive family / friends. Does lots of travelling/vacations - but stays grounded. I am very lucky having found her and being allowed seeing her on a regulare base. Through her insights / background story, i know that domming is a hard business.

I most definitely would have been staring or sneaking glances at your friend as well. Short skirt and nylons is my fetish especially if you add in high heel shoes.

One of the Dommes I was lucky enough to get close to was very athletic. I don’t remember the circumstances of why we’d meet out of session but I do remember her always in some type of athletic wear. She had great muscle tone and a lot of tattoos and a funky hairstyle and definitely looked like a badass but I don’t think anyone would have taken her for a Domme.

As I've gotten older I am not really interested in fetishizing the dominant herself outside of session, if that makes any sense. Respect, always. But the play feels more grounded if it's done without any kind of fantasy pretext. I'm like, "You're a domme, I'm a sub, I'm completely under your control while we play, and then we're regular people." Which is not say that during an outside-of-play interaction the domme couldn't instantly snap into domme mode and I wouldn't obey, and snap into sub mode myself, because I would.

I always appreciate knowing something more about the domme -- whatever she is comfortable sharing -- and the social media domme feeds I appreciate the most are ones where you sense the domme's personality and interests, whether that's great restaurants, gallery shows, politics, or just how the domme approaches the day by day.

Once after a session a domme asked me a little bit about myself, and asked whether I was a reader. I said I was, and listed a couple of books I was reading. The next session she said that she had actually picked up one of them on my recommendation and talked a bit about it. I loved that little interaction.

That's good. I would think that, for some people having (even a professional) D/s relationship with a three dimensional person would be more satisfying.

Oh that is great to share some good books.

Almost everyone wants to know about my personal life, but I think most would be disappointed in how mundane it is.

In regards to dominatrixes, I personally prefer the "Girl-next-door" style than the usual "BDSM-stereotype with latex and strict protocol" style.
And thus there is not a lot of difference between my idea of what her life is and what it really is, so I'm rarely disappointed about it. In fact, learning more about her private life makes her more lifelike and humane, and I prefer to feel that I'm dominated by a human being with a true life, true personality and full identity than someone who is like an inflatable doll or a robot in my mind.

On the other hand, I don't like to know about her marital status and children. A dominatrix has of course every right to have a family life, but as a client I prefer to ignore this part of her life because imagining her as a perfect housewife and beloved mother may considerably affect the "dominant woman/femme fatale" image I have of her, and thus decrease my session pleasure and my will to be dominated by her again.

I know I am unique in that I spend most of my life behind the curtain at this point with many different Dommes. In just about all cases, I act in a way that would be considered "gentlemanly” when I am with a Domme.. meaning, I am attentive to her needs in the way she prefers (for example, some Dommes want me to open theur car door every time while others are like "I am capable of opening my own door, thank you”) but for the most part I act like a normal person rather than some fawning sub. There is never any doubt who is in charge so there is no need to constantly play at the roles and in some cases we act more like friends than anything.

For me, that makes the relationship between me and a particular Domme even more special than if we were in that constant roleplay. I enjoy knowing these women as people who I truly like and admire that have fully functional lives, worries, joys and disappointments. The only downside for me is that sometimes there is just a transition into play from doing something normal rather than having the anticipation and headspace of being fully submissive leading up to a session. But, that is a small price to pay for the honor of knowing these amazing women as they really are.

Asp