Working at a dungeon vs. being an independent Domina (part 1) by Claudia Typhoon

when I first became a Dominatrix it was at Mistress Jasmine's in midtown Manhattan. a few years later I became an independent Domina. there are certainly benefits and drawbacks to both. now, these are based upon specific details to the Dungeon of Mistress Jasmine's and my being independent so I'm sure some variations will arise.

the drawbacks to working at the dungeon was that I could not advertise for myself. I was not allowed to have a website, to put up ads or otherwise market myself. the dungeon has a website with all the house Dominatrices schedule and a gallery of their image listed. the owner was.......special (just like all dungeon owners that are male.) he would only put up ads sporadically and not advertise/market all the Dommes that were in employ there. I am more than aware being a Dominatrix is not a get rich career, but I still would like to make an income from it. it also arouses me to take a man's money and then his submission. how am I to do this when I'm not being marketed? also, you are required to work a certain amount of hours per week. usually 3 or 4,  6-8 hours shifts per week. and if you don't have any sessions that week? no new experience gained + no money in your pocket = time wasted and money lost (transportation and food cost). I loved hanging out with the other Dommes and never have I felt more connected to a group of women until I met Dommes, but still.....NYC is an expensive place. but the the things I learned were an investment and well worth the cost of my time.

on the plus side, Jasmine's has a beautiful facility, its very secure and well equipped. I was always grateful for the room to play, the thought out play-rooms and the cleanliness of the place. I did not have to screen my clients or filter through phone calls. I did not have to book sessions for myself. there were managers there to take care of all this for you. I met one of my favorite people in the BDSM world at Jasmine's, one of the manager's there. I could always trust her insight and advice when it came to either skills, following my intuition, and dealing with all other aspects of BDSM and clientele. having someone you can trust and rely upon in any industry is very important. also, because so many different types of people come into a dungeon, you really get a crash course in BDSM. you will learn and experience more things than you thought possible in a short amount of time.

I neither am against either working or visiting at Jasmine's nor do I endorse it, those decisions are up to your discretion. 

a marine as a human ashtray. by Claudia Typhoon

I had a marine approach me with the desire to serve as personal slave. I make my potentials work for my attentions, test them, and push them before I accept them as my own. I am not for the impatient or for those that just play at being submissive. only a true submissive will past my test and endure my humiliations and boundary-pushing behaviours long enough to become my personal slave, a relationship I hold in reverence and once you have earned a position as my slave, you must do something incredibly stupid or disrespectful to loose this place, so vigorous my testing. I find that those that have served in military branches, are strongly influenced by the Asian culture they come from or follow old school BDSM protocols are the best fits for me.

as soon as I laid eyes upon the marine I knew what his first test would be for me. cigarettes I'm not partial too, but other forms of recreational smoking I rather enjoy. I love cloves directly from thailand and a fine cigar is a joy. there is a place in particular on hudson on the edge of the meatpacking district and the west village in manhattan that I adore. the padded leather chairs, the wood paneling, the old world ambiance, a respect for the cigar-smoking ritual coupled with one of the best selections of whiskey and scotch make this a place to savour and enjoy. I'm not informing him of what our meeting entails, but he knows the location and time. I'm seated in the deep, dark corner of this dimly lit sanctuary and start to puff on my neatly trimmed, cedar-lit cigar. my timing is perfect. as he walks up to me, I already have my drink order in mind. I lift my hand to give him pause and after a moment of examining him, I lower my hand and direct him to fetch orangerie scotch, served straight. I give a sensuous puff on my cigar as he does as he is bid and upon his return I direct him to kneel next to my seat. with both hands held open in front of him, I use one to hold my scotch and the other to roll the ash off of my cigar. he is not at an angle to observe me, but I can easily admire him. he is resting on his haunches and does not flinch from the heat from the cigar as it brushes against the callouses of his palm. I like his discipline. I enjoy my scotch and cigar as long as it pleases me and leave enough of my drink in the glass for him to enjoy a taste of it. as I look directly in his eyes and part his lips with my long red nail, I slide the cigar in his mouth, a little forcefully and suggestively. I stare at him a moment longer, inches from his face until he becomes visually uncomfortable. I give him my lovely devilish grin, and sashay away, my hips swaying beautifully. he did well, he will get to see me another day.

The forbidden feet of Egypt by Claudia Typhoon

I had a session week ago I found particular interesting. Not that I find foot fetish to be the most obscure, nor wild of fetishes, but it was the conversation I had during this session that I found engaging. My fetishist under foot was from Egypt. he grew up there and told me about the evolution of his fetish. as with most foot fetishist, he was exposed to intimacy with a woman via her feet. he had an aunt allow/encourage him to massage his feet to relax her until she went to sleep. he found he really enjoyed this activity and would continue to massage her sore soles while she was asleep. his love of feet grew from this and as he became a man he would try to pursue this with others and find that woman thought him strange and he would be given a critical eye from his male peers. he couldn't mention this fetish of his to anyone. I feel as though I've down-played how people would react because he was sure that pain or punishment would follow anyone finding out. for all the things I've been able to experience sexually I was astonished that something that I would consider simple and playful would be risqué or taboo. I inquired further about sexuality in Egypt. if foot fetishism was taboo, what was "normal sex" there? sex it seems was not too difficult to achieve, but it was what most would consider "normal", heterosexual intercourse. penis in vagina thrusting in a variety of positions mostly missionary and doggie-style. it gave me food for thought. this was one individual telling me an entire population of people were not exploring their sexuality. I was in disbelief. surely this wasn't true? I was assured that it was a sad reality. was this true for all Arabic cultures? the center for Arabic media is in Egypt, and thus the "normal" or standards to which Arabic peoples as a whole would be determined or represented there and then send out on waves for the rest of Arabic culture to see. was all of Arabic culture so repressed? historically Arabic cultures were not sexually conservative peoples, when did all this change? am I thousands of years behind the times?

Road to Prostitution (fiction) by Claudia Typhoon

I know that when my nostrils fill with the noxious and powerful odor of cat piss that this is death. you may think that I had a poor relationship with my father, I did for a while, but Im pretty sure that my male parent loves me, as uncomfortable as it makes me to think about. I know what you are thinking, 'he loved you a little too much?', no you fucking perv, this about the death of a soul made up of many small deaths. the paper cuts and slip of knives that leads to the hemorrhaging of self. it took a day that started with a bleach load in the back of my throat and ended with a different cock squeezing out its elements onto my face and mucus up my snot-producing olfactory face-holes to realize that the sort of soul death that I was exchanging to deaden my emotions and avoid their consequences was not worth its cost. if I was to feel such shit after becoming a slip & slide, then I should start charging, my rent would have been paid ages ago. $250 hand-jobs seemed to wax the wheels before and laughter ensued, I'd rather make that again than sell my tears in exchange for guilt to soften my fears. this giving up of myself is all I have left. the hollow is easier to fill to the brim than to feel. emote he says, emote because you should, I want you to feel and I inspire you to love passionately, you will fear to feel. I always fear. I know that a woman made when the rivers flow to mounds below. my hills and pillow-loves. to caress, to possess. these are me and not for you. but I am tricked into giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and nothing. I have nothing to give and will eat not a thread to ask to be good, to ask to be well, to ask to be. the floor inspires me to caress it but I cannot allow myself to touch an unknown filth, the filth is me and I desire not to touch myself. when I do I think of you, your soft lips, your fingertips. I bargain for a sale and I give dignity for free. please inspire me to be more than me. I've started to play the day away. I will save my smiles for you. the lips I possess, bearded or make-up applied will wait to kiss your lips. you pay the price at which I want to sell. let me bargain for your kind, let me earn your pride. my back will not suffice as a vehicle of this, so stand shall I.

Sapiosexuals by Claudia Typhoon

this is a strange neologism that i've seen pop up a great deal lately. it seems to be a clever catch word. a sexual "identity" that separates those that get the inside joke from those that don't. a sapioxual is an individual that is aroused/attracted to intelligence. I find that my cock gets soft when I cannot have a stimulating discourse with another individual. but those that self-label as sapiosexuals apply it their attraction to those that are considered geeks, nerds, et cetera. as someone who is attracted to nerds and have a great many friend geek, these individuals are not necessarily brilliant. being within a geek culture means that you have a very specific knowledge about cult entertainment or advancements in technology. it does not mean that they are the be all, end all. I'm sure I will get hateful comments about it, but please consider yourself or your geeks friends objectively when comparing their intelligence to those that are not "geeks". in the way in which people use the word sapiosexual, they seem to just mean "geek love". 

I'm inclined to  side with this comment: "It's an arousal trigger of course, for some an extremely strong one, but I do not think it is a sexuality. Not unless you are attracted to intelligent people entirely irrespective of sex, gender, etc."

in finding references to sapiosexual (outside the context of journals) I found this blog entry to only be the most enlightening, but surely side with his opinion of the topic. 

http://inurashii.tumblr.com/post/29689787701/oh-sapiosexuality-i-have-been-holding-onto-a

To porn or not to porn by Claudia Typhoon

I think that women should consider two important things in their life: whether or not they want to have children and whether or not they would consider sex work. how a woman feels about these decisions will influence the course in which her life will unfold. Having children or not will determine career paths, what you desire in a partner to start. I really want to have children and I am a sex worker, I'm a Dominatrix. of course I could have children anytime, but I think that children should have a loving supportive environment and until I can give children the stable home they desire, I will not have them. Sex work is an amazing thing when a woman pursues it for her own interest, not through desperation, coercion, abuse or other outside influences. I have learned to value myself and am very confident of my worth. I know that no amount of money will let me compromise myself or my values. I can always make my rent in other ways; I am a Domina because it excites me, satisfies me, stimulates me. I am not a woman that is content with a normal job. this does not mean I have no marketable skills, it fact, I have many. now that I have been a Domina for years the next thing to consider in my BDSM career is whether or not to do porn/erotica. pornography doesn't interest me. the quality of a lot of it is poor and does not depict any sex act accurately. what does interest me is creating something worthwhile. something that stimulates that senses, elaborates upon fantasy. I feel I owe it to my film school education to do so. that is, if I decide to do so. it seems that the trend is that if I Domina wants to make money and expand upon her reputation, that films are the way to go. I have seen a few of the Dommes that I have grown up with do so. I admire their success and a part of me wants the world to see my skill and beauty, and pay for the pleasure.

we shall see.

Happy Birthday by Claudia Typhoon

at 9am tomorrow I will be turning 29, I'm very excited about this year and love getting older. I still have several lifetimes to live. to be ridiculous, I'm re-posting a letter I wrote to my lady-parts last week:

Dear Uterus, 

I just want to start off this letter by saying that I love you & respect your work; but a few days of pms rage followed by pms depression isn't very nice. And why do my back & breast have to be in such intense pain the whole time? I ask you, as a friend, to cut-it with the empty-nest thing you got going on. I know you love your eggs & spend a lot of energy in making them great, but you have let others go before it & surely more will follow. Don't worry, I think about using them and how awesome it is that your egg cells will become people, but it's not time. I promise, if you save a couple of good ones, I will be sure to use them. Just please stop torturing me. 


love,

Claudia