This week, I'm continuing my dive into the strange world of bdsm, money and Twitter, with up-close and personal reporting from the front lines. While dealing with a relapse of health issues, I struggled to edit. With my nervous energy and doglike work drive still intact, I decided to push my investigations deeper. I've been undercover in the world of financial domination, and I have more news about what it really is and how it really works.
Buckle up, kids, because we're going deeper than Buzzfeed and Vice.
As I scrolled through the findom Twitter feed, there was plenty of talk about bankruptcy, wrecking marriages, and that sort of thing. As to whether or not the dommes actually planned to shatter someone's life, or whether it was "kayfabe" - a manufactured persona - is honestly unclear. Most of the time, I think it's probably playing to the fantasies, and many dommes were firm about taking either a nurturing or at least a responsible role - but other dommes don't break from their "mean, greedy bitch" personas. (That's not a slur, that's just the style, and many women wear those words as badges of pride.)
However, talking to a couple of my submissives revealed that sometimes, dommes will display abusive behaviours. From using a slave's tongue as toilet paper to teach other slaves a lesson (!) to manipulating a slave and blackmailing him for money after he didn't complete a Goddess's essay (!!!), I was pretty disgusted by the irresponsible stories I heard. But they were far and away in the minority - dommes I ran into who strayed from their kayfabe were pretty much unanimous in trying to be responsible.
But whether the dommes are careful or not, the gambling side of financial domination has a dangerous lure.
Most of the rhetoric I saw from men who mentioned that findom had wrecked them followed the usual prohibition-style rhetoric - Reddit and Twitter had a plethora of anti-sex work rhetoric, chasing the same tired courses about no-good hoes. Misogyny is as tiresome as it is inevitable. One particularly weird sub - who turned out to be a domme - kept attacking and baiting men who were tweeting about trying to recover, and trying to get them to submit to "his" domme, and to relapse. He was trying to play mind games, and it probably was effective for other people - but when I contacted "him", he couldn't get a nickel out of me. I even noticed that he was surprisingly dominant for a sub, which seemed to scare him off - perhaps luckily for me, as shown with the AB Wolfpack debacle.
He was far from the only one - a few other accounts, including the execrable "@findomphilosophy", happily jeer at the anti-findom tweeters and try to take them down or make them relapse. Dommes will occasionally join in on the shark-like feeding frenzy as well.
When I spoke in a private thread to a number of dommes, they unanimously agreed that they didn't want to ruin anyone - but one of the most successful said that "$100 a session was fine" and "pocket change" for most subs. Given the large numbers of substantially less affluent men I encountered, I would have to disagree - but of course, I didn't say so in the thread.
Normally, I'd fall hard in line with the sex workers on this one - but there's just so many allusions to findom relapsing and addictive behaviour mentioned by findoms themselves. One of the men who acted as my submissive tearfully admitted that he couldn't stop sending money to various dommes when he felt weak. I did the only responsible thing a person can do in such a situation - I made him change his Paypal password, close his Twitter account entirely (giving him an alternate method to contact me without revealing my real name, of course), and offered a bunch of useful tips for dealing with the urge to spend. I'll detail my techniques in another post to come, but he was in tears of gratitude for the fact that I not only refused to exploit him, but that I was concerned about his wellbeing.
One of the things about mainstream and niche media coverage of findom is that journalists tend to lean hard on the uncomfortable capitalist commodification thing that happens in findom - men say they're submissive to women, but they're still the ones holding the wallets, and looking for pretty young women to feed their needs.
Ultimately, it's hard to tell how much of the dark side of findom is sensationalised or fantasy play, but the risk is there.
I'll update these stories as I go along, but for now, we'll leave it here. I still have more sugar daddy convo clips and information to come, so stick around!
And finally, if anyone feels like actually gracing my account with a tip after reading this series, here is my real Paypal.me and my Ko-fi.
Buckle up, kids, because we're going deeper than Buzzfeed and Vice.
You're a what?
Because I'm as curious as I am determined, I decided to take my undercover work a step further and try my hand at the world of financial domination. The sugar daddy scammers had gotten repetitive. Even though I knew better and could recognise their pattern, I almost handed over a hundred dollars' worth of point cards to a scammer...almost. I realised what I was doing before the transaction took place and cancelled it. (And yes, I kept the money and it was refunded. We're safe!) And considering that I've been immersed in these scams for a few weeks now, what does that say?
It was hard enough trying to find a real sugar daddy amongst the piles of scammers and con-artists, and when my interviews with fake accounts began to follow the same patterns, I realised I'd hit a dead end. Unless I could somehow book a flight to Lagos, Nigeria and storm into the mysterious company's headquarters, I was hooped. But there was still a whole world of this peculiar and highly specialised group of fetishes to explore.
Being a findom or femdom is way harder than it seems. What seems like an easy way to simply demand money from men in exchange for psychological work and bdsm-focused interactions is actually a tremendously tiring stream of work.
It was hard enough trying to find a real sugar daddy amongst the piles of scammers and con-artists, and when my interviews with fake accounts began to follow the same patterns, I realised I'd hit a dead end. Unless I could somehow book a flight to Lagos, Nigeria and storm into the mysterious company's headquarters, I was hooped. But there was still a whole world of this peculiar and highly specialised group of fetishes to explore.
Being a findom or femdom is way harder than it seems. What seems like an easy way to simply demand money from men in exchange for psychological work and bdsm-focused interactions is actually a tremendously tiring stream of work.
What's it like?
Sex work is a commitment. Teasing people or taking lewd pictures is one thing; setting up multiple site profiles, researching business techniques and practices, and recording video clips - then selling them - is a ton of work.
The other thing I noticed is that, frankly, a lot of the men who'd try to contact the financial dominatrixes - my profile included - were happy to get teased for a while, or undertake tasks, but when it came to actually paying up, tended to block or ghost away. There's something about sex work that makes men act with even more entitlement than usual. Apparently, even having to address a woman as "goddess", "Miss," or by other honorifics isn't enough to make them value the time, energy, and work of someone on the other side of a computer screen.
Some men at least use their labour to support dommes, but when financial limitations curtail a man's ability to pay, he may turn to retweeting as compensation.
The most frustrating thing is that the work itself is risky, and often involves sensitive information or deep, difficult roleplays. And since plenty of guys just lurk and watch videos of pretty, heavily-Facetuned girls jiggling their bums or flipping the bird or "loser" signs at the camera, it's not quite as easy and independent as edgy articles make it out to be. After all, why pay for what you can find for free? At least, that's what men seem to think.
And then, of course, if you can actually find a submissive, you have to make them pay. But the rush of being commanded, belittled, and demeaned by an attractive woman in a voluntary situation still has enough appeal that a significant number of men do enjoy the scene, and do tribute. Sometimes, they tribute far too much.
Some men at least use their labour to support dommes, but when financial limitations curtail a man's ability to pay, he may turn to retweeting as compensation.
The most frustrating thing is that the work itself is risky, and often involves sensitive information or deep, difficult roleplays. And since plenty of guys just lurk and watch videos of pretty, heavily-Facetuned girls jiggling their bums or flipping the bird or "loser" signs at the camera, it's not quite as easy and independent as edgy articles make it out to be. After all, why pay for what you can find for free? At least, that's what men seem to think.
And then, of course, if you can actually find a submissive, you have to make them pay. But the rush of being commanded, belittled, and demeaned by an attractive woman in a voluntary situation still has enough appeal that a significant number of men do enjoy the scene, and do tribute. Sometimes, they tribute far too much.
The addiction
As I scrolled through the findom Twitter feed, there was plenty of talk about bankruptcy, wrecking marriages, and that sort of thing. As to whether or not the dommes actually planned to shatter someone's life, or whether it was "kayfabe" - a manufactured persona - is honestly unclear. Most of the time, I think it's probably playing to the fantasies, and many dommes were firm about taking either a nurturing or at least a responsible role - but other dommes don't break from their "mean, greedy bitch" personas. (That's not a slur, that's just the style, and many women wear those words as badges of pride.)
However, talking to a couple of my submissives revealed that sometimes, dommes will display abusive behaviours. From using a slave's tongue as toilet paper to teach other slaves a lesson (!) to manipulating a slave and blackmailing him for money after he didn't complete a Goddess's essay (!!!), I was pretty disgusted by the irresponsible stories I heard. But they were far and away in the minority - dommes I ran into who strayed from their kayfabe were pretty much unanimous in trying to be responsible.
But whether the dommes are careful or not, the gambling side of financial domination has a dangerous lure.
Anti-Findom activists
Most of the rhetoric I saw from men who mentioned that findom had wrecked them followed the usual prohibition-style rhetoric - Reddit and Twitter had a plethora of anti-sex work rhetoric, chasing the same tired courses about no-good hoes. Misogyny is as tiresome as it is inevitable. One particularly weird sub - who turned out to be a domme - kept attacking and baiting men who were tweeting about trying to recover, and trying to get them to submit to "his" domme, and to relapse. He was trying to play mind games, and it probably was effective for other people - but when I contacted "him", he couldn't get a nickel out of me. I even noticed that he was surprisingly dominant for a sub, which seemed to scare him off - perhaps luckily for me, as shown with the AB Wolfpack debacle.
He was far from the only one - a few other accounts, including the execrable "@findomphilosophy", happily jeer at the anti-findom tweeters and try to take them down or make them relapse. Dommes will occasionally join in on the shark-like feeding frenzy as well.
When I spoke in a private thread to a number of dommes, they unanimously agreed that they didn't want to ruin anyone - but one of the most successful said that "$100 a session was fine" and "pocket change" for most subs. Given the large numbers of substantially less affluent men I encountered, I would have to disagree - but of course, I didn't say so in the thread.
So - who's really getting exploited? And can findom be dangerous?
Normally, I'd fall hard in line with the sex workers on this one - but there's just so many allusions to findom relapsing and addictive behaviour mentioned by findoms themselves. One of the men who acted as my submissive tearfully admitted that he couldn't stop sending money to various dommes when he felt weak. I did the only responsible thing a person can do in such a situation - I made him change his Paypal password, close his Twitter account entirely (giving him an alternate method to contact me without revealing my real name, of course), and offered a bunch of useful tips for dealing with the urge to spend. I'll detail my techniques in another post to come, but he was in tears of gratitude for the fact that I not only refused to exploit him, but that I was concerned about his wellbeing.
One of the things about mainstream and niche media coverage of findom is that journalists tend to lean hard on the uncomfortable capitalist commodification thing that happens in findom - men say they're submissive to women, but they're still the ones holding the wallets, and looking for pretty young women to feed their needs.
Ultimately, it's hard to tell how much of the dark side of findom is sensationalised or fantasy play, but the risk is there.
I'll update these stories as I go along, but for now, we'll leave it here. I still have more sugar daddy convo clips and information to come, so stick around!
And finally, if anyone feels like actually gracing my account with a tip after reading this series, here is my real Paypal.me and my Ko-fi.
***
Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.
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As always, be excellent unto others, and don't be a dick.