Being a domme was fun when my phone was blowing up with bank notifications of thousands of dollars.
However, the dynamics of power and control I practiced as a domme ruined my attitude toward romance and relationships.
A domme refers to a female dominatrix, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
I was first introduced to findom, or financial domination, through an anonymous Twitter user, Jay, who messaged me and offered me money if I physically hurt him.
Financial domination is an authority fetish which includes the exchange of money from a sub, or submissive, to a domme to demonstrate obedience, according to Urban Dictionary.
Findom includes humiliation, blackmailing, stomping and more.
Before learning about what findom really was, I thought it was something along the lines of prostitution.
It’s common for people to automatically assume that, but sex work is an umbrella term with many subcategories that fall under it.
It was insane that someone was willing to hand me money, but I was on board with the idea, regardless of my safety.
For my own protection, a friend came with me to meet up with Jay at the mall. I was instantly taken aback at how young he was.
I’m not sure what I was expecting – maybe a super-old grandpa – but it definitely wasn’t a middle-aged man.
We got to know each other in the food court and he had the strangest request at the end of our conversation.
He bought me poke from the food court and asked if I was comfortable chewing up the meal and spitting it back out for him to eat – and yes, I did it.
That was probably the most disgusting thing I’ve witnessed but I was also intrigued by how his brain even thought of that idea. He later requested we go to the parking lot so he could lick the bottoms of my shoes while I verbally humiliated him.
I made $200 for 20 minutes of work.
After the successful meetup, I made a separate Twitter account with a fake persona to get my name out there.
My account gained traction the more I posted pictures of myself with hashtags.
The job got easier once I posted videos of my cashmeets which served as proof to potential clients that I was serious about my job.
My DMs were overflowing to the point where the Twitter app would close on me.
Cashmeets are short meetings between a domme and her paypigs where they give her money, according to an Aug. 21 article on Findom Income, a website that teaches how to make money with financial domination.
As my following grew on Twitter, I was able to do remote calls during the coronavirus pandemic from the comfort of my bed.
I was being paid to make demands and humiliate rich men that had nothing better to do with their money.
The pandemic was the perfect remote job experience. Nothing could beat getting Cash App notifications while laughing at someone licking a toilet and flushing their heads in Skype calls.
Now that I’m looking back at it, the pandemic wasn’t so bad for me because I didn’t have to lift a finger to make money.
I had to open up my laptop and scream horrendous things into my webcam.
I started to notice my popularity and charged a fee to new clients. It cost $25 to direct message me and $50 to unblock users who didn’t follow my orders.
My favorite client was an economics professor who paid me $300-400 every few weeks to meet him in San Francisco. He would also pay for my gas on top of the session.
Every time I visited him, I knew what the plan was going to be: I had to beat the living shit out of him for an hour and then go home as if nothing happened. And, if I was feeling greedy, I would force him to buy me dinner before heading out.
But my clientele wasn’t always consistent. I’ve had clients I only spoke to or met once and never talked to again.
I didn’t mind that at all because I knew I was going to earn money from someone else.
My friend, who was also a domme, came up with an idea to offer duo sessions to our followers to make money while doing less work.
We met up with a tech worker at an empty park and beat him up for 30 minutes for $200 each.
What was unsettling was the set of rules he told us about before the session even started. He was set on having us continue to beat him up even if he cried or told us to stop.
No matter how bad I felt or uncomfortable I was hurting an innocent man, the money was what was driving me to continue.
I often reminisce about that and hate how capable I was going against my own morals.
That moment was so out of character for me, but I became too money-hungry to even notice or care.
I was aware that I was living a double life and meeting up with men who had families.
Although I wasn’t doing anything sexual or intimate with them, I still felt guilty for satisfying a fantasy they couldn’t get from their partners.
No one really talks about the negatives of being in the industry because the money was addictive, but I also treated my partners like absolute shit.
My mind got so comfortable with always receiving “princess treatment” that I expected it from everyone.
If I didn’t have things my way or my existence praised, I would automatically assume that my partner wasn’t interested in me.
The God complex I quickly developed diminished when I wasn’t receiving what I wanted from my partners.
I now realize that applying the expectations from my job to my relationships was unfair and unrealistic.
I was reaching for something that was only feasible through a kink that wasn’t even mine.
Aside from that, it solidified the idea that people only desired me for my looks.
I have never been in a serious relationship and still believe it’s because I’m constantly being sexualized and not seen as anything else.
That is an insecurity I carry on my shoulders everyday because of how often people don’t take me seriously.
I hold myself accountable and can admit I have fed into this idea – I oversexualize myself because I think doing so will keep my partners around.
I contradict myself by not wanting to be objectified, but then I put my body on a silver platter because I’m afraid of being abandoned.
Being a domme with these insecurities didn’t distract me from them – it triggered something that I’m still working on.
I had to come to terms with the fact that all the money in the world can’t make my self doubts disappear.
I haven’t been active on my findom Twitter since October and haven’t met up with a client in over a year.
I don’t have any intentions of returning to findom, because I know I’ll lose myself again.
I’d rather not sacrifice my sanity over a quick cash grab. If I were to ever want to return to findom, I would want to overcome my insecurities in myself and my relationships.
From the outside, it looks like I’m being sent money to bully or beat people. But it’s a job that consumes you as there’s so much more that comes with being in this industry.
I recommend anyone interested in findom to proceed with caution. It may turn you “rich” overnight, but it is the farthest thing from easy.
