0po------------i8 in The Devil Beneath My Feet

Darby decided to walk across my keyboard because he is a brat.

Poll Question: Is strength really strength if someone is giving it to you solely for their sexual gratification?

I recently joined a book club that my friend Jessica started, and was hoping that the club would stick true to what she described, all the while knowing it wouldn't. We wanted a book club that was NOT cucumber sandwiches and tea, no romance novels, no shitty young adult fiction, real literature that actually made you think and question your morals.

So we had our first meeting, which started out great, and everybody seemed pretty open to different types of books. And then lo and behold, someone suggested Whip Smart, by Melissa Febos.

Just fuckin shoot me now. It's the memoir of a dominatrix in the early 2000's. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING.

"Hey Sam, if a bunch of women and "feminists" got together in a book club, what kind of book do you think the majority would request?"

"I dunno, Sam, either something really interesting and weird, like "Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death" or something painfully predictable and insanely boring like the memoirs of a 34 year old Dominatrix."

The deal was to make it to page 132 by June 19th. I started it last night and made it to page 132 because i literally forced myself to just so i wouldn't have to pick it up again until after the 19th.

It's exactly what i knew it was going to be before i even started it. Page 132 is roughly about halfway into it, and the first quarter of the book is basically

"I think i'm different from other people." "o0o0o0o0o sex industry.." "oh noes maybe im not so different i dont wanna be mean..." "lol jk this is fun."

And the second quarter is

"you guys heroin is srsly super fun." "ermagerd speedballs are teh best." "nah im not addicted! you're addicted! go away!" "u guys i think im an addict." "wahhh im an addict and now idk if i like bein a dominatrix.."

Page 132 leaves off right after she meets her sponsor in AA.

God it's like the two most boring possible personality traits in one book, a junkie and a dominatrix, seriously S&M is probably the most boring fetish out there.

And i know how this next meeting is going to go, too. Everybody's gonna rave about it, and i'm gonna be like the only one who doesn't like it.

I can't help it, i don't see anything empowering about being a dominatrix, at least not to the tune that all these dumb bitches play. Everyone wants to turn it into this feminist statement, and i can't help but feel it's actually the opposite of that. 99% of the clientele Dominatrices get are men and women, who want to be spanked and flogged and catheterized and belittled, and some just want you to fuckin tickle em'. So you oblige them, and do precisely what they want you to do, precisely what they PAID YOU TO DO to them, for THEIR gratification. You're not empowered, this is pretend, and it's not even interesting. You don't have the high paying corporate gig to where you can afford 1k/hr slave to whip purely for your OWN pleasure, you're just a fucking wage slave yourself! The only difference is that you're LYING to yourself about your own significance and you don't even realize it, because you're SO FAR GONE into delusion that you're letting other people tell you how to think about your profession without even NOTICING because you're a fucking idiot. You're not an empowered woman, you're a 5'5" 130lb sex toy, and when your client is done with you, he slips you a couple hundred bucks if you're LUCKY and leaves without even knowing, or caring at all, what your actual name is.

I'm not saying that to be a Domme isn't a valid profession, it absolutely is. We need more of them, actually, people wanna try weird shit but they're afraid to! They've never done it before, and they don't know how to do it, and they're afraid to ask someone they know. So you provide them a service, you do things to them for a fee, and they leave happy.

You provide a service. Say it with me now. You provide. A service. For money. This is your job. This is not something you do purely because you get some sort of gratification from it, if that were the case you would just hire your own slave to whip (a profession that also should not go unnoticed) SO JUST SAY THAT'S YOUR JOB. It doesn't make you a fucking pioneer in women's rights, if anything you're a living dildo, FOR A LIVING. Ghaad.