A dominatrix’s meditation on power, desire, and what it means for men to surrender with strength.
Introduction
In my work as a dominatrix and tantrica, I meet men at their most exposed. Beneath the performance of power lies something deeper — shame, longing, the hunger to be seen. This piece is about that space: where touch becomes language, and where the Divine Masculine begins to awaken.
The Dark Corners of Man
As a dominatrix I spend a lot of time wading through the darker corners of man. Male sexuality is perhaps the most obvious and is also the ground on which much of the rest of what I will discuss is the medium on which the rest grows on, feeds on, but it is not always the most discussed.
I also get to enjoy the company of my sisters and professional colleagues in this world of D/s, BDSM, and kink. But as a tantrica, sex witch, and a GFE (girlfriend experience) escort, I also live in a world filled with male desire of the more “vanilla” kind. You may read that as you wish, but it isn’t always sexual. There is an affectionate quality to my listening and touch that infuses what I do which is most embodied by the acronym GFE. It is about my energy and approach.
On Touch, Trust, and Emotional Bandwidth
One of the first realsations that I had as a Sex Worker is that I don’t like to session with people I don’t like. Should be obvious. “Like”, in this case also refers to “care”. As in, do I care about my clients? It also refers to emotional bandwidth. Do I have the desire to feel you. And also touch. It is one thing for me to touch you, which comes easy to me. But more specifically, your touch of me.
In conversation with a domme I have had the hots for for years, we talked about our different approaches to touch. She never let’s her clients touch her. She shared that only a handful of clients over her near 20-year career has she allowed to touch her. And even this, not with their hands, but rather that she may “smother” them with her body. I shared that this would be difficult for me. I want to touch my clients, and if I find a client that I don’t welcome touching me, we won’t be sessioning again.
This doesn’t mean I want to be groped or felt up. On the contrary. Touch is still invited. And it must be laced with respect and devotion, and come from a genuine place inside my subs. What it does more is to speak to my practice.
I know that what we do is called play. And I live to play. I love play. But this is not child play. It is adult play. Adult play with intent. It is sophisticated. It is Shakespearean in its approach, rhythmic, measured, poetic, profound. I have written about being a misandrist, a woman who ‘hates men’. And yet, I find myself not just ‘doing my job’ but loving my job. Loving an ability and the feeling of finding space in my heart for men. I don’t just see men of course, but this post is about men, and how I meet women is so different anyway. Gentler, more complex, more exploratory, and with very little to do about desire.
Not All Men—But All Men Are Responsible
We have all heard the expression “not all men”. Meaning not all men are toxic in the various ways it is discussed. That might be ways of thinking, vulgarity, energy, politesse, attitudes, an unquestioning approach to privilege. But all men are responsible for men. Not speaking up, not learning, not questioning or speaking up puts you in the deplorable box. All men own the problem of “some men”…which should really be stated as “most men”.
You might wonder how with views like mine how I might not just have it in my heart to make space for men, but to have chosen a career that puts male desire and male energy, so often the seat of their toxicity, right at its heart. To be sure, the ones who approach and don’t get through my booking process are far more numerous than those who do…for my compassion and girlfriend’s heart is saved for the good ones, the ones who want to do something about it.
Exploring Male Vulnerability
When a boy is born he comes from his mother with a profound sense of loss. The medicalisation of birth compounds this. He has gone from inside her, literally at her heart, attached to it in the most physical way. We call this attachment. At both its healthiest and most toxic, it is attachment that sits at the core of male love and desire for the female. Sometimes this comes laced with sadness, or entitlement, as with the incel. Other times it becomes sexualised or fetishized, aestheticized. And it can manifest itself as submission.
The Uniform and Stepping Past Fetish
It is hard not to look at the leather or latex-clad dominatrix, whip in hand, wearing her stilettos, as an icon of hot. Even those who are not inclined to play in this world often find such imagery to be profoundly sexy. And why not? It is. And while I readily don this uniform, I also recognise that it plays into a trope that exists not as object, but as subject. It is a metaphor, a sign, a symbol, a form of fetish. But what it also represents is a portal.
Just as a doctor wears a uniform, a stethoscope around her neck, scrubs, these are signifiers. They say the profession, but also speak of competence, and provide reassurance. It is not different with what we wear. My choice of clothing is intended to draw you in, to symbolise the things which you seek.
And this is good. Because getting you into the mood is the whole point. But the mood for what? And this is where client selection comes in. My mood is for the explorers. The ones who are looking to explore these deep feelings inside themselves, to open the curtains on their own vulnerability, their tender softness.
Misandry, Mercy, and the Divine Feminine
If you have sessioned with me, or seen me work, you know that I am not a cruel dominatrix. Sometimes we call it a soft domme, or a mommy domme. I bring this caregiving energy to all I do. This comes from the source energy of the Divine Feminine. Where the highest expression of woman is her capacity for Mercy and the warmth with which she delivers it. I see you, I accept you, and I will touch you intimately through all senses and planes: emotional, spiritual, physical. And you will do the same to me. And all the while we will be exploring your expression with submission.
You want to know why I love working with age players, puppies and kittens, adult babies so much? It’s right there. The vulnerability that sits within these clients makes me want to get up in the morning, to be there, to receive them, to receive you.
On set the other day I asked a new (to me) sub if he “liked pussy”. Yes, we do speak frankly at times. He said ‘yes,’ but both I and another domme who played and filmed with him came away with a very different impression. He said ‘yes’, because any red-blooded straight male is supposed to say that. But every woman knows that many men are afraid of pussy, or simply don’t like it. For these, ‘forced bi’ should come easy, but it often doesn’t. It may be even harder for such a man to come to terms with. The fear is deeper than just that sacred space between our legs. It is about misogyny.
My colleague and I both agreed that we would work with him, but with an understanding that he is not genuinely submissive, and that he has deeper issues which need to be dealt with. And this changed our approach to him.
What do you do when the heart is good, but “submission” is still not understood? I contrast this behaviour with another man who we also played with who was genuinely interested in pleasing us. He was less conventionally attractive, though his energy was very clear. He met us in submission, not as a wall flower or someone weak, but someone who understood that submission is about pleasing, about supporting, about making our lives easier and better. And this attitude of his saw him sought out by women, and I suspect that he got more action than any many present, for he served for the love of service itself.
Sometimes I talk about my tantric experiences, though not much out of respect for the others and the teachers and our collective process. There was, however, one young man, rather attractive physically, perhaps one of the most conventionally attractive men there. But whenever there was an exercise where the women had a choice of who to work with, he was always chosen last, or not at all [let this be a lesson to all of you hunky guys in my DMs who think being hot gives you a bye—it doesn’t…women don’t think like that, and Sex Workers really don’t. All we really are about is hygiene, respect, and kindness]. He lamented this to me bitterly over tea one day.
The hypocrisy of his lament fell on deaf ears for he had declined to do a vanilla exercise with me. I don’t need to say why. I laid into him. Not in a mean way, but a truthful way. All of the women had noticed that he only wanted to touch and play with the 3-4 prettiest women out of 20. Every other man was playing indiscriminately, irrespective of age, looks, and some even of sex. I told him that it was obvious, and that it was a colossal turn off for all of us and had been discussed extensively amongst the women [boys, lesson two, women talk, and we share quickly, sometimes our lives depend on it]. In the end, he was given a nickname which he hated, and which I won’t repeat, but was a rather “unfortunate” name—but a truthful one. In our community, the only way to change your name is to outgrow it. Good luck buddy. The naming is intended to either inspire to overcome or become. He has a lot of work to do on himself.
As an intersex woman, a transgender woman, I come across this energy rather often. What it is that is inside of me that unsettles people is also my power. When a man is threatened by me for seeing the masculine in me, or feeling overpowered by my size and energy, he is operating from a place of shame and fear. I usually rush right towards it.
The person I mentioned at the beginning of this interlude was a case in point. I could tell that he was suffering from this same pretty-obsessed syndrome. That’s why I asked if he liked pussy. And now I know he doesn’t. And if he is unable to deal with his fear of women, or his fear of same-sex attraction, he will never achieve his potential as a man, as a human.
You think this is far-fetched. That forced bi is just some random thing we do to get our jollies? Nope, we actually talk about it. And while we might like it, or think it’s hot, it’s also sometimes what people need.
There is no shame with me. My goal and desire is to help my clients not just learn about and explore their desires, no matter how dark, but to understand them, to slough off the shame that keeps them from them, and to discover what lies beneath. How can they turn that life force energy into a force for positive change in their own lives.
Therapy is a very positive sign for me with a client—that they are seeing a therapist regularly. It means that you are already disposed to do the work, to face hard truths. That isn’t my role, but it is a happy travel companion. My role is to bring lightness into your darkness, play into the heaviness, laughter into shame and fear and hiding. To own yourself is the greatest act of self-love possible. That is what I do.
What is all this really about? Men have lost control. Men are like dogs. If you leave them alone with a bowl full of food they will eat at all to the point of overstuffing. Some will even overeat themselves to death. Women as cats is understood—and the cat displays the self-control to self-manage and regulate this most basic of needs.
Society today is a mirror of this. Men have ruled the world for so long and it is a toxic and messed up place that we have gotten to. And there is only men to blame for it. A man run wild is a man who has lost his potential. Men should not be in control.
Submission as Strength
I don’t want a submissive man to mean that he is brainless, spineless, and intones ‘yes Mistress’ to me when I ask him to do something. I want a strong man. One with purpose. One I can be proud of. Submission in this sense is measured in accepting a container, being managed, run, trimmed and pruned like the topiary bushes in my garden. Becoming something that we can both see is better.
All men need this. It is in their nature. We call it surrender. Surrender to something bigger. That may be to some faceless God, but that is too often an abstraction and really just a rule system imposed by others with a real agenda—and no organised religion is free from taint. No, surrender instead to a person, preferably a woman, one you respect and love. Let your desire for her remake you.
It takes a strong man to submit, to surrender. It is usually the “alpha” male who is the weakest in the room—no peacocks for me. I want a man with quiet confidence, or willing to develop it, wanting to find himself at the centre of everything. And so, when I say I am a misandrist, it is for “all men”, but in my arms, you are that one single man who is striving to better yourself. I will always make time for such a man…no matter how kinky things get.
Show me what you’re made of.
From Toxic Masculinity to the Divine Masculine
And what exactly is the Divine Masculine? Justice. Not judgement. Judgement is the toxic masculine, whether directed to others or to the self. Just how out of kilter a society run by men for men can be is evident before our eyes, from the Taliban to Trump Tower, there is a straight line which runs from the narcissism of the insecure man to the incel to the sexual predator. The toxic triplets.
A man who sits within the Divine Masculine, for Justice, speaks the truth, speaks up, defends the downtrodden, is a protector, a steward, caring for the world and society we live in. Is that you? Better speak up.
An Invitation
If you are here, something in you has already responded.
This is not casual booking, and it is not for everyone. I work with people who are curious, intelligent, and willing to take responsibility for what they want.
Those who wish to work with me do not request. They present themselves.
Begin here.
About Me
Mx Valentina is a feminist dominatrix, a trans and intersex woman, whose practice centres on ethical power exchange and the conditions under which lives reorganise themselves around purpose rather than shame. Her work is selective and relational, grounded in the belief that submission is not a role to be played but an orientation that must already be present. She works only with those who understand that access is conditional and authority is not negotiated. You can find my scholarly feminist writing on Substack and lighter pieces on Medium.
