Last year the success of EL James’ BDSM love story Fifty Shades Of Grey gave rise to numerous magazine and newspaper articles asking if what women secretly desired was to be dominated – at least sexually – by controlling alpha males. But what about the other side of the story – what of the men who desire to be sexually subjugated?

Conventional wisdom tells us that these men too are alpha males – hard working, driven, successful and rich. Peter is not like that, although he is university educated and works in a professional field. He is in his late twenties, soft-spoken, polite and reserved.
For years he felt guilty about the masochist aspects of his sexuality, and felt that this was not something he could or wanted to explore with a girlfriend or sexual partner. He is, in his own words, “a very private person” so the exhibitionist nature of public play that takes place at BDSM clubs did not appeal to him either. After much thought he decided to visit a professional dominatrix. This is his story, in his own words…
"I wanted a dominatrix who specialised in sensuality as well as sadism. Pain isn’t the overriding concern for me. I wanted someone who seemed like she had a warm personality and I wanted someone who was committed to the lifestyle.

I went on a lot of fem dom forums, and a lot of mistresses on the forums wrote quite eloquently about their lives. There were lots of people like me, who were novices who would ask about choosing a mistress. They said not to go to the first one you found, or the cheapest, or visit a mistress because she was touring your city. The advice was to go to the websites and learn about them first. With doms, you can tell a lot from their websites – you get an inkling of the person behind it, of what they are like. Someone who has put a lot of love into their website shows that they value what they do.
It is important to make sure that you are visiting a dominatrix who genuinely enjoys what she’s doing, and not someone who is doing it because she thinks she can make money out of it.
It’s not prostitution – not that I have a problem with women choosing to prostitute themselves if they really, really want to do it. I believe the vast majority of women wouldn’t want to do it if they had the choice. You’re not paying for sex and that’s part of the appeal. But it is sex work in a way because you are handing over money to someone who is going to be with you in an erotically charged situation. It’s more than just eroticism – it’s deeply psychological and about exploring personal frontiers.
I did wrestle with my conscience about the money aspect. I am handing over money and getting erotic gratification or sexual gratification out of it in some way. However, I am not getting sex out of it or putting this woman in danger. There is no risk to the dominatrix, either physical or mental. This is something she wants to do, something she enjoys if she is a genuine dom. That was important to me – I didn’t want to exploit somebody.
When you initially make contact with a mistress she’ll tell you to have a look at the activities she enjoys doing and to see if there is anything compatible. They ask you to be honest about what you want to do. If there is stuff you want to do that she doesn’t, you can either work around it or if she thinks you’re not compatible, she’ll refer you to someone else.
When I went to the mistress’s website, she said a lot of the right things; she said it didn’t have to be about pain, it could be about sensuality, and that she liked to build rapport with people and she wanted people to enjoy themselves. I wasn’t into all of her activities. But there were ones I was interested in. All of my interests lay within her much larger array of interests.
I wanted to explore teasing, sensual teasing. I wanted to explore mistress worship or goddess worship – that’s basically kissing the mistress’s body or parts of it that she orders you to. That’s where the power and erotic charge comes from, when she says, ‘Lick my boots’ or ‘Kiss my legs’. I wanted to see how much pain I would enjoy. Knife play sounded dangerous, but not so dangerous that I wanted to rule it out.
When I met her and we were chatting before the session, she told me that she didn’t do some of the more extreme things during a first session, like cutting and knife play or extreme pain. Because I had never done anything like this before she said it was to be an introductory session.
She told me to undress and kneel in front of her throne to await her arrival. It was at this point that I was most nervous about the experience but I reminded myself that I was going to treasure these next few moments – the sound of her slow, deliberate footsteps approaching from behind, the feelings that were coursing through me – for as long as I live. When she placed the collars and cuffs on me we started the session with foot, leg and thigh worship.
It wasn’t a perfect session. There was some building work going on next door to the dungeon. While I was worshipping her boots she was using her mobile, and I couldn’t really determine if that was part of the act to make me feel that she was being dismissive or if she was really texting somebody. But although it wasn’t perfect, I still loved doing it and I’d do it again. I was happy to make a connection with her – she was a very warm person and after the session she was very frank with me about some of her personal problems. I would like to try another mistress. But again it would have to be somebody I felt a connection with.
I couldn’t explore these things with someone I knew because there was always the possibility or the inevitability of sexual release afterwards, or the power dynamic equalises. Because that is never going to happen with a mistress, it amps up the erotic charge, for me at least. It is like having a fantasy acted out and that your power over your sexuality is handed over to somebody who is never going to reciprocate.
I find that very powerful. Every nerve ending is coursing but you are never able to resolve it. It’s like having a sexual fantasy with a