The Ultimate Guide to Kink (32 page)

Remember, this is your scene, your play, your desires. Make human animal role play the best for everyone involved. Let it feel silly, let it feel profoundly intimate and connecting—it’s all okay. And if your play has just gone crazy, be willing to do what good pet owners have always done since time immemorial: curse, swear, laugh, spit, cuddle up with your pet, and be in the moment. Tomorrow, maybe you’ll switch roles and be Lord Eduardo, King of the Goats.

CHAPTER 13

FORTEFEMME: THE ART AND PHILOSOPHY OF FEMININE DOMINANCE

MIDORI

Do you want to explore your dominant female side? Want to be that take-charge, fierce woman of danger and mystery, who gets what she wants while putting her partners through their paces? Do you want to feel confident in your sensual power, but are uncertain where to start? Or maybe you’re having urges of erotic power but are turned off by the tacky clichés of bad bitches? Perhaps your lover has requested you to take control and you find yourself wrestling with confusion and conflict. You’re not alone in any of this.

A word about terminology here: In this chapter I use the term
femme
often. I prefer not to define it too narrowly, but rather let it elicit your subjective impression of what is feminine or female. It applies to your inner experience of the feminine, beyond gender and orientation. We all harbor feminine, masculine, and androgyne aspects in ourselves. Here I am addressing the individual expression of the feminine in the state of play and pleasure.

Media and SM fiction would make it seem that the archetypal leather-clad dominant woman springs fully formed from the dark recesses of society, ready to scream like a banshee with whip in hand. The truth is that the real sexually dominant woman walks among us. She’s at your workplace. She’s on the commute with you. She’s strolling past you with a latte in hand. To understand the dominant woman, or to become her, step away from the common kinky expectations and consider who she really is. Strip away the corny SM stereotype, and what you have is a femme in possession of power, sensuality, and most importantly, herself. I’m certain you’ve met her.

There are the classic icons of sexy dominant women: Dietrich, Cleopatra, Mata Hari, Scheherazade, Lady Murasaki, and Madame Du Barry. There are pop icons of femme power, such as Catwoman, Madonna, Wonder Woman, Lara Croft, and the like. But don’t forget the power femme in the everyday woman. She gracefully faces the obstacles and challenges of life with humor and determination, and creates her own success and destiny. That’s most certainly a woman of potency and substance. Consider all the challenges you’ve faced and the confidence you’ve gained from them. There is a power femme within you, waiting to be unleashed in the bedroom.

The heart of feminine potency and feminine dominance is simple, but far from easy or formulaic. It’s confidence. No step-by-step instructional on female domination can teach the confidence that leads to the uniquely sexy allure of the femme. No technical classes on flogging, bondage, or kink skills can create the powerful femme. No collection of leather, corsetry, latex, shoes, or other fetish accessories will make a woman sexually self-actualized. The essence of femme allure is simple, but it is certainly not easy to come by.

HOW TO FIND YOUR POWER SOURCE: THE ARCHETYPE

One of the most effective ways to begin identifying your power femme within is the Archetype Exercise. It’ll take a while to do this, so take your time. You will need a piece of paper and a pen.

Consider this question: Who personifies the alluring powerful femme for me?

The question is trickier than it looks. Don’t just start writing down names; think carefully about your life, about which women have influenced you with their charisma, their confidence, their sensuality. The answers may be different than you expect. Although the names you write down will be those of other women, this exercise is all about you.

Give answers in as many of the following categories as you can:

Myth and religion
Folktales
History
Politics
Popular culture
TV/movie characters
Family history
Literary characters
Media personalities
Comics/manga/games
Professions
People in your past and present

What names do you come up with? For me, women such as Catherine Deneuve, Mae West, Catwoman, Cleopatra, Amaterasu Omikami (the Japanese sun goddess), Brunnhilde, and my grandmother come to mind. These are but a few in a long list of women I admire for their allure as power femme icons.

Now write those names in a column on the left side of the paper. Write as many as you can think of—the more, the better! You can do it in one sitting, or put down the list and go back to it from time to time. You may also want to bounce the question around with your partner or friends. Other icons for me are the Oiran (the highest-ranking courtesans of Japan), RuPaul, Emma Peel, prison wardens, Lauren Bacall, Borg Queen, or Drill Sergeant Rainey from my own basic training days.

ARCHETYPE EXERCISE WORKSHEET

Once you feel that you’ve done a pretty thorough job of listing your icons of powerful femininity, focus on each one individually and write down what makes her a power femme for you. You can use words, phrases, or thought fragments. Just brainstorm and let the words flow—don’t worry about whether the attributes you’re noting are historically accurate. Write down your impressions of these women and what you feel makes them iconically femme and powerful. It’s purely subjective.

Take Catherine Deneuve, for example. I can say with confidence that she has a great sense of style. I cannot say with any certainty, however, that she feels vulnerable or that she understands her vulnerability to be part of her power. But I believe Deneuve does just that as an actress, so I would write that down. Some of the traits may not seem complimentary or flattering. Amaterasu Omikami was said to be fickle; Dietrich may have been selfish. Remember that the femme is not always about sweetness and light, or sugar and spice and everything nice. Sometimes the darker qualities of these femmes are exactly what make them so alluring—it is what makes them femmes fatales. Light cannot exist without shadow. Make sure to list the dark attributes as well as the light ones. Do this for all the names you’ve listed.

You will now have two columns on a piece of paper: your icon names on the left and their attributes on the right. Now put the list aside and go do something fun. Maybe you suddenly feel a need to find a lipstick in the most perfect shade of red. Good. Go and do something that pleases you. With a refreshed mind, revisit the list. Fold the paper so you can only see the attributes column on the right.

This right column is the index of your inner power femme attributes. Are you surprised? What words reappear? What theme is constant? What traits are you uneasy or uncomfortable with? It’s difficult to see our own powerful qualities—we look at others and project upon them what we value as femininity and power. They are our mirrors; they do what we wish we could. Sometimes our admiration of these women feels like a guilty pleasure. Why else would the great villain-esses be so attractive? Unfortunately, even in the most progressive Western cultures, women are often discouraged from being self-congratulatory. Many women never fully develop their own image of power or honestly acknowledge their own strengths. It’s safer and more comfortable to admire the power in others than to recognize and cherish it within us. A residual effect of having been historically the “second sex” is the inability to see the strength within.

Your personal power femme icons are mirrors of your own potential. Recognize this and it will help you reevaluate your concept of feminine power. How does it feel that these iconic women are part of you? What do you value in your own power, the light as well as the dark? To put it another way, if you were your power femme icon, what would give you great pleasure? What would you do? What would you have someone do for you?

When It Doesn’t Feel Right

Do you feel blocked about going full tilt using your power and enjoying your dominance? Maybe you’re suffering from mismatched expectations. Do you feel put upon by your partner’s demands? Do elements of your power femme attributes conflict with your partner’s fantasy? Where desires and expectations conflict, discontent arises. Let’s say that your lover thinks a sexually dominant woman should dress, act, talk, and play a certain way. You act on that and it feels odd and awkward. Why? It’s because your traits and desires are in conflict with your lover’s vision of your part in their fantasy. Drop the expectations and engage in sweet selfishness in the bedroom! This is the arena for asking for what you want and what would please you. If a sexually dominant woman can’t be true to her desires, then she’s nothing but a puppet acting her way to certain dissatisfaction and burnout.

Your attribute lists should be pretty long. Would you manifest all of these personae or aspects of your power at any given point during play? No. But it would serve you well to find which of these traits best describe you for that night’s play. Do you feel demanding, neutering, coy, bitchy, precise, vulnerable, or delicate? Let the elements that ring truest to you in that moment rule your dominant femme space. Call them your moods or appetites, if you wish. You’ll be conducting yourself in a manner that is true to your core, not merely playacting someone else’s idea of a sexually dominant woman.

Return to your worksheet and take a look at the left column of power femme icon names. Many of the names that you listed are potential sources of roles for you and your partner to play. If Cleopatra made your list, consider the role of the imperious ancient queen. This gives you plenty of opportunity for dress-up. Dressing up as characters other than your everyday self may feel a bit silly at first, but it’s all in the name of fun and pleasure. Read Chapter 11, Stop, Drop, and Role! Erotic Role Playing, and incorporate those skills into your dominant appetites and attributes. Dressing up for SM role-play games can free you from your accustomed good manners and limitations. Maybe you would never order your partner around, but the Queen of the Nile certainly would!

Are you worried that your dominant femme traits in the bedroom might take over your everyday life in negative ways? The act of putting on and taking off role-play costumes provides a clear demarcation of when imperious behavior is appropriate and when it ends. It also gives your partner a clear delineation of when a certain type of relationship starts and ends. It’s a healthy way to create boundaries and keep playtime special and distinct.

WHAT REALLY TURNS ON A SUBMISSIVE PARTNER

Here’s a dirty little truth: what deeply arouses your partner isn’t the long list of activities they listed in their negotiations. There’s no doubt that those activities are important and enjoyable; however, it’s your presence and delivery that makes or breaks the experience. It’s about attitude! If the submissive senses that your heart isn’t in it and you’re just faking it as you deliver the spankings or other ministrations, it kills the thrill. It’s 10 times worse than faking orgasms—which is pretty criminal in itself. The submissive may go along with it just to have an “itch” scratched, while you perform to their expectations—creating a vicious cycle of destructive noncommunication. This can only end in ugly resentments.

In the same way that you now have your personal list of power femme attributes and personae that are authentic to you, every submissive has their list of Dream Domme attributes. Most bottoms and submissives haven’t thought about this, as standard SM negotiations tend to focus exclusively on activities at the cost of intention, mood, and emotional needs. Find out what dominant demeanor makes them weak in the knees. If that matches your styles of dominance, you have the golden key to inspiring deep submission and unparalleled joy in them. Now add technically delightful play and you’ve just created magic for them.

To find out what dominant style your partner is keyed in to, put them through a stealthy version of the Archetype Exercise. You could hand them the form, but since that wouldn’t be sexy or fun for many people, disguise it as an ordinary conversation. Perhaps after a movie with a particularly strong female character, or sharing a book with power femme leads, tease out a conversation about who they believe embodies powerful femininity. Ask what makes these women so fantastic. Keep the conversation going, perhaps over several different occasions, and the pattern will emerge clearly. Did they mention words and phrases similar to your own power femme attribute list? If so, you’re set for success!

Some of your partner’s favorite power femme attributes may not match yours. Don’t force them to match—don’t try to act like something you’re not. For example, you’ll never find “ice queen” on my list—I’m just too goofy for that. If I attempted to be the Ice Queen domme, even my best rope bondage scene would feel stiff, staged, and boring. So what to do? I would find another key phrase or attribute that the submissive mentioned that is more my style. Maybe it was “clever,” “cruel,” “creative,” or “controlling.” Now, those I can do. They’re in my light and dark lists.