femdom

3 Tips for Newbie Femdoms

Kate Sloan

I’m certainly no expert at domination, being a mostly-submissive switch – but I’ve done more domming in the last few years than I’d done in my entire life before that, and so I’ve gotten a lot better at it.

I think being a “femdom” – loosely defined here as a dominant who is female (cis or trans) and/or femme – involves some complexity that isn’t always there for male and masc doms. For one thing, male dominance paired with female submission is the most common heterosexual view of what a D/s dynamic should be (this effect was highlighted in a recent Natalie Wynn video, where she referred to it as “default heterosexual sadomasochism”). As a result, feminine dominants can be seen as disrupting the sexual status quo – because they are! – and may struggle with shame or other difficult feelings around that, whether those judgments are internalized and self-inflicted, or based moreso on feedback you’re getting from the outside world.

Femdom dating sites can help with this to some extent, but it’s hard to unlearn deeply ingrained societal narratives. For this reason and many others, exploring your dommy side as a woman or feminine-leaning person can be intimidating – but here are some tricks I’ve learned that help.

 

1. Create your own persona

Another hurdle facing femdoms is that there’s still not as much variety as one would hope in media depictions of feminine dominance. For a long time, I thought I couldn’t possibly be a femdom, because every professional dominatrix I knew was hyper-confident (at least externally), wielded a whip or paddle with panache, and looked dynamite in black leather. I didn’t feel like I fit the mold, and I only started feeling comfortable in my dominance once I cobbled together my own femdom persona from other sources.

When you picture yourself feeling powerful, hot, and in control, what are you wearing? How are you speaking to people? How do you walk and gesture and move? These are good starting points for building a persona, which will hopefully feel like accessing a new facet of yourself, rather than like playing a character (although it may take you some practice and time to get there).

 

2. Tap into what you really, really want

Despite having had sexual desires and fantasies for as long as I can remember, it can be hard for me to actually pursue those desires. As a submissive with people-pleaser tendencies, I’ll often default to asking what the other person wants, or I’ll just give them what I think they want. While this isn’t the most empowering or satisfying way to submit to someone (IMO), it can definitely be done, even for the course of an entire relationship, and an unattuned dom might not even notice you’re doing it.

On the flipside, when you’re in a dominant role, your desires are central (or at least, they’ll usually appear to be, within the narrative of the scene). It sucks to fall into the trap of asking each other over and over, “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” so it’s important to figure out what actually turns you on and makes you happy, and then get comfortable asking for that.

I’ll often ask my partner, before a scene, if I can take a minute to just think and feel. I’ll close my eyes and pay attention to the places in my body that are craving touch, or the fantasies that come up in my mind’s eye. Or I’ll think through some possibilities and see which one creates a visceral response in my body. (This is also incidentally how I decide what I want for dinner, lol!) The more that I practice this, the easier it gets.

I’d also recommend keeping a record of the fantasies that arise for you during masturbation, or any porn clips or erotica stories you stumble across that get you especially turned on. I always appreciate having this type of list to pull from, when I want to do a scene with my partner but am feeling uninspired.

 

3. Delegate

This one depends on your sub and what they’re into, but I’ve found it soooo helpful to delegate certain tasks to my partner which enable me to be a better domme, especially since I have energy limitations due to my fibromyalgia. These tasks include stuff like:

  • Putting together a curated list of porn clips for us to watch together before sex/a scene, so I don’t have to run the whole arousal-building process myself for both of us
  • Keeping an ongoing list, in a shared digital note, of their fantasies and wishes, etc. that I can pull from as needed
  • Handling certain household tasks for me (or making/sending me dinner), so I have more time/energy to plan scenes and build my own desire level
  • Self-monitoring their adherence to our protocols, using an app like Streaks, so that I can confirm that they’ve done the tasks I assigned them, without needing to proactively enforce all the rules myself

 

I think it’s really important, overall, to understand that dominance looks different for everyone, and so does submission. Each D/s dynamic is unique and should be customized to the individuals within it. You don’t have to hold yourself to unreasonable standards, and your partner(s) shouldn’t, either. Find your way of being dominant, little by little, through trial and error, and you’ll build up those muscles (figuratively and perhaps literally!).

Fellow femdoms of all stripes, what other tips do you wish you’d gotten when you started?

 

This post contains sponsored links. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 5 Sex-Savvy Superheroes

Kate Sloan
tfw you’re stuck inside most of the year because of COVID but you still wanna stay up-to-date on the latest sex news

Each December I write about 5 people whose teachings on sexuality were significant to me throughout the year. Since in-person workshops and conferences weren’t available to us for most of the year, sex education looked different for me in 2020 – most of it happened while reading books or blogs. However, I still feel like I learned a lot more about sexuality this year, including deepening my understanding of my own sexuality. Here are the 5 people whose expertise most impressed and uplifted me in 2020…

Angela Chen

I already wrote about Angela Chen’s brilliant book Ace in a previous 12DoGJ instalment, but it bears repeating: this is one of the best books in existence about asexuality. I know it will change many lives. In fact, I’m sure it already has.

In addition to being an outstanding author, Angela is a reporter who covers asexuality, technology, and health. Her essays on subjects like “curing” desire, discovering one’s own asexuality, and the overrepresentation of alloromanticism in fiction are full of ideas that challenge the status quo, both out in the world and within your own mind. She is consistently brave enough to question societal norms and eloquent enough to make me shout, “How can anyone write this well?!” I love everything I’ve seen from her body of work and can’t wait to see what she does next.

Velvet Veronica

2020 was the year that I discovered possibly the best handjob-giver on the planet, Velvet Veronica. Granted, I don’t have a penis so it’s hard to assess that for certain, but my partner does, and attests that Veronica’s skills are unmatched (or at least, they appear to be!).

Though she bills herself as a “soft femdom” porn creator, her style of dominance can actually be wonderfully strict and mean. Her videos show her “torturing” her submissive (whom she calls “pet”) with vibrators, chastity, edging, denial, post-orgasmic overstimulation, and much more. Though I enjoy her work very much on a purely entertainment-based level (what can I say, I appreciate a great HJ!), I also think her videos are remarkably educational for anyone looking to explore dominance. She never shows her face – or the mysterious thigh tattoo she covers up with a garter in every scene for anonymity reasons – but she doesn’t need to, because her power is all about her voice, her presence, and those magic hands.

Ana Valens

I don’t remember how I first became Twitter mutuals with Ana Valens, but I’m so glad I did. She’s the NSFW reporter for the Daily Dot, where she covers everything from gender-affirming sex toys to the healing power of BDSM to transphobia in video games. She’s also a delight to listen to on podcasts, whether she’s talking about social etiquette on my show Question Box or sex work stigma on Canadaland.

The more that internet discourse becomes a tug of war between the right and the left, between “cancel culture” and “free speech,” between “fake news” and true facts, the more I respect and admire journalists of marginalized identities who manage to do brilliant work despite all the pressures they face. Ana’s reporting is always incisive, with a side of humor and whimsy. Her writing makes me feel optimistic about sex journalism again in a way I don’t often feel anymore. She’s a must-read, in 2020 and beyond. (Oh, and she also makes porn.)

Denying Thumper

One thing my spouse Matt and I have in common: when we become interested in a new kink, we research the hell out of it. That’s how they stumbled upon Denying Thumper, who’s been blogging about his adventures in long-term chastity for several years.

As a sex educator, I often tell people who want to introduce their partner to a new kink of theirs that it’s important to be specific. Just because you’ve seen 800 videos about your fetish doesn’t mean that your partner has the slightest clue how to put it into action in a way you’ll enjoy. This is why I’ve found chastity blogs like Denying Thumper so useful as Matt and I have been exploring chastity together: they give me a model of what to do, what not to do, and even how to think about the kink in question. It helps enormously that Thumper is a cogent, witty writer with a clearly bottomless passion for chastity. Sex bloggers fucking rule, man.

My therapist

As I told you earlier in the year, I was lucky enough in mid-2020 to find a therapist who was not only accepting new clients (only over the phone – this is a pandemic year, after all!) but who also happened to be clued-in about kink, non-monogamy, LGBTQ+ issues, and trauma – all important puzzle pieces of my psyche. My therapist herself (who uses both she/her and they/them pronouns) has experience in these areas both personally and professionally, and they have been a total godsend for me this year.

Good therapists, who don’t stigmatize their clients’ natural and healthy inclinations but instead push them to explore their desires free from self-judgment or self-hatred, are so necessary in this world. I end every call with my therapist breathing a sigh of relief, feeling less frazzled, less broken, and less alone. I doubt they’ll ever read this (that would probably be ethically weird), but they helped me get through 2020, and I’m so grateful.

 

Who were your sex-savvy superheroes this year?

Porn Review: Crash Pad Series #100

Kate Sloan

Crash Pad Series is a staple of the feminist porn scene. If you ask a hip-and-happenin’ queer gal about what kind of porn she likes to watch, she’ll probably mention the Crash Pad. The website currently has well over a hundred extremely hot queer sex scenes available for members to watch, and more clips get filmed on a regular basis.

Still, though, despite all the hotties and heartthrobs to be found all over Crash Pad, the main reason I wanted a membership was so I could see Jiz Lee and Nina Hartley’s scene. I’d just finished reviewing their first fuck and I wanted more.

Crash Pad chose to feature Jiz and Nina’s scene as their special 100th episode, and with good reason: these are two titans of porn. Nina’s background is more mainstream, whereas most of Jiz’s work has been feminist and queer (i.e. not mainstream), so this is an interesting and unexpected pairing in many ways.

The scene starts with Nina admonishing Jiz for being late and wearing a hat indoors. This immediately sets up the dom/sub dynamic that will continue through the rest of the scene. Jiz will call Nina “Sir” for the entire duration of their fuck, a nice touch of strange but sexy queerness that’s lovably typical for feminist queer porn. Both performers seem very comfortable in their roles, and it makes for some very convincing domination and submission.

Whereas their encounter in Live Sex Show was frank and matter-of-fact, Jiz and Nina’s Crash Pad scene feels much more sensual and sexually charged. There’s some sweet, slow kissing, and the scene is rife with impact play – Nina squeezes, slaps, punches, spanks, and bites Jiz at different times. Not once does Jiz seem to react in pain to this treatment; instead, they make pleasure sounds every time they’re hit.

I’d never seen Nina Hartley wear a strap-on before this scene, and she’s wearing a great one – it’s the meaty Maverick. She keeps her jeans and boots on the entire time, and combined with her huge dick, this adds immensely to her aura of authority.

Nina is a fantastic pussy-eater, and Jiz’s reactions definitely reflect that. Someone must have briefed Nina on Jiz’s genderqueer identity since their last meeting, when Nina kept using female pronouns instead of Jiz’s preferred “they/them,” because this time she uses terms like “front-hole” and calls Jiz “boy” a couple of times. It’s nice to see queer identities not only being respected, but being made into something sexy and natural.

There’s fisting in this scene, of course. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Jiz Lee scene that didn’t involve them being fisted. And as usual, it’s intoxicatingly dirty. Nina must have wicked strong arm muscles.

One of the sweetest and hottest parts of this scene is when Jiz is using the Hitachi on themself while being fisted by Nina. Jiz asks permission to come, and when Nina grants it, Jiz has a thunderous orgasm and says “Thank you, sir” while they are coming. In the behind-the-scenes portion of this clip, Jiz admits that they worried about their ability to act and improvise as the sub character, but you’d never know it from watching them: they totally sell their sub-ness.

After some fucking with Maverick, this scene has maybe the best ending of any I’ve ever seen: during some additional fisting, Jiz says, “Sir, will you punch my hole?” and Nina literally punches Jiz’s junk with her fist. This causes Jiz to immediately squirt all over everything. It’s honestly one of the most epic things I’ve ever seen in porn – and best of all, it’s real, unlike a lot of the squirting in mainstream porn.

The only bad thing I can say about this scene is that the audio quality isn’t as good as it could be – there are occasional weird bumping and banging noises in the background, and sometimes I can’t understand what the performers are saying.

Aside from that, though, it is fucking sexy and I’ll definitely be watching it many more times. If you don’t have a Crash Pad membership already, this scene should be great motivation for you to get on it!

Sexamples #002: Adventures in Domination

Kate Sloan

“Leave the room, close the door, wait a minute, and then come back in.”

He scrunched up his eyebrows and looked at me funny. “What?” he said, laughing a little.

“You heard me, bitch,” I asserted. “Go out in the hall, shut the door, wait a bit, and then come back in.”

He wanted me to dominate him; I had been aware of this fact for several weeks but hadn’t yet acted on it, partially because I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to be a domme. But tonight was the night. Only, now, I had to get him to leave the room and come back in, to sort of “refresh” our dynamic – start over without the context of boyfriend/girlfriend looming over our heads.

Finally, he left. I rushed around the room fluffing pillows and taking off my top. I waited several seconds, then cleared my throat and awkwardly announced, “Come in now.” He opened the door and entered.

I made him go get a makeshift blindfold from my extensive scarf collection. I tied it firmly around his head so he couldn’t see a damn thing, and then I forced him into a kneeling position on the floor. Figuring I’d start by turning myself on so I could be a better dom, I offered him one of my nipples. He licked and sucked it eagerly, and I started to melt a little into this delicious role I’d put myself in.

He reached around to my back, trying to pull my breast further into his mouth, but I snapped, “Don’t touch me.” He dropped his hands obediently, and I felt a wicked surge of pride for my little slave-boy.

I told him to lie down on the bed on his back, and spent some time biting the various sensitive spots on his chest and abdomen, just hard enough to communicate my control over him. I noted his enormous hard-on just before climbing onto him and straddling his face.

Ever the tease, I held his hair down with one hand, stopping him from licking me, and used the other hand to dip into my pussy and give him a taste on my fingers. He moaned from just the flavor of me, clearly wanting more. I laughed at his desire, and then finally lowered myself down onto his tongue.

If there’s one thing my slave-boy is extremely skilled at, it’s cunnilingus. He can do it for hours and it’s always brilliant, because he’s learned all the tricks I like best. This time was no exception – he licked and sucked as though his life depended on it.

Looking behind me and again noticing his immense erection, I told him, “I’m not going to touch you at all until you make me come.” That certainly motivated him; he sped up his motions and went at my pussy with even more enthusiasm and fervor. I held onto the bed tight to keep from shaking uncontrollably as his tongue circled and flicked my clit over and over.

Finally, I arrived at a shuddering orgasm. He stayed with me the whole way through, sucking, pressing, gently stroking me with his cute little tongue.

I told him, “Good boy,” smiling, and fetched a condom from the bedside table. He put it on while still wearing the blindfold – impressive! Then I slinked down his quivering body and lowered myself onto his cock of granite. “I’m going to ride you until you come,” I whispered, and I did.