Fetlife and Profile Creation

February 15, 2015  

My friend recently posted a BDSM flavored commercial on FB.  I don’t normally peruse FB but I was trying to get some work done and inevitably was sucked into reading update statuses.  I am glad I did.  The commercial depicted a woman who we inferred was a stay at home wife.  Her husband was leaving for the day and she let him know that she would clean the place up for when he got home.  Promptly after he left, she got online.  You see her run through the following situation a few times.  She gets changed into a domme outfit, at the door is an anxious looking gentlemen, followed by her ordering the guy around in some housekeeping fashion from scrubbing the floors, to laundry, to cooking.

I have a whip –  I could do that. …. How much more fun to order the cleaning ?

How?

My first thought was craigslist.  While I appreciate the anonymity – I have had a few disappointing experiences there and wasn’t sure about posting as a female domme.   My next thought was fetlife.  I know of the site but haven’t really done it much exploration.  I decided to give it a whirl and went to sign up.

First question – Gender – that is easy enough. I am a woman. Or at least I thought that was where I fit – I didn’t realize I had so many choices – I could be male or female, a crossdresser, trans, transgender, gender fluid, gender queer, intersex, butch, femme or not applicable.  I associate strongly with being a woman – which leaves me to one of two choices – while I enjoy playing butch – I am definitely enjoy the trappings of femininity so to choice female or femme?  Undecided unfortunately is not an option – move on.

Second question – sexual identity, for this one I had to look up a couple, which was enlightening.  I like some of these terms.  They throw current definitions out and leave a lot more room for fluid pairing.  Many of the options I had seen before – straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, and asexual.  I was curious why someone with little to no interest in sex would be on the site but left that for future curiosity. A few I was familiar with but not entirely sure what they meant – from the flexible to the queer.  Heteroflexible is someone predominately hetero but may stray and homoflexible is the opposite. We have all met those people with a few drinks, their inhibitions are down and they become a bit more curious and bold.

Queer is an umbrella term for anyone not heterosexual, or gender-binary (ascribing to a gender system of only two opposite classes – masculine & feminine).  The last four were thought provoking – pansexual, evolving, unsure and not applicable.  While not applicable was up there with asexual in appropriateness for the site, I understand unsure at least.    I had never heard of pansexual before. The Oxford dictionary defines pansexual as not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity.  Score!  A word that transcends fluctuating and evolving and basically is all inclusive.  I like it!  And the winner is – pansexual!

I misjudged the one page, seemingly simple FetLife application.  Having finally figured out my sexual orientation, although wondering if that then changed my gender, I moved on to one of the last questions – my role.  This proved to be an even larger list of options I had only an inkling knowledge of!

Dominant and submissive are pretty self-explanatory, with a Domme being a female dominant and a switch being able to play either role.  These roles typically include set times of play and may be more focused on sexual submission.  Master and Mistress are also terms for a dominant with the submissive term slave, meant to imply ownership rights of the master or mistress over the slave.  This level of involvement is typically a 24/7 lifestyle as opposed to a set role play time. A submissive has control over who and what they engage in, a slave gives up that control.  A pet is similar to a slave except that sex may not be a part of the scenario.  It is more about enjoying the control.  Kajira is another term for slave girl and kajirus a term for slave boy based on terms in John Norman’s Gor novels.  Top is a dominant partner in play while bottom is a submissive partner in play.  A switch is someone who can be either and moves between the roles.

I imagined myself bent over, on my knees being spanked for being naughty and it just didn’t do it for me.  I wanted to be the one standing above, my hand alternating between swift strikes and soft caresses, murmuring encouragement to my sub.  The only confusion I had was how that desire interacted with my desire to be fucked against the wall, being held up with a strong muscular man.  Can Domme’s enjoy being fucked?

Pondering my question, I went back to my research, heading now into more specialized areas of kink. A sadist is someone who experiences pleasure inflicting pain, humiliation, or degradation to others. A masochist derives sexual gratification from being physically or emotionally abused, typically by a sadist in this circumstance.   A Sadomasochist describes participants who may be a switch in the lifestyle between causing (Sadist) or receiving (Masochist) pain, in order to gain sexual gratification.  I enjoy engaging in pain related activities but wouldn’t consider myself a sadomasochist – I don’t enjoy humiliation or degradation and like pain that borders pleasure.  For me the pain is about controlling the situation – not the pain itself.  I continued my research.

An age player likes to engage in sexualized play relating to being older or younger than they really are.  A daddy is a dominant who engages in ageplay, assuming the dominant role, in a fatherly protective way.  A little girl is an adult who embraces childlike tendencies as an adult.  A Brat is a submissive that exhibits mildly disobedient behavior which may be enjoyed by some Dominants.

I could see how getting dressed up in a short skirt and putting pigtails in my hair could be fun.  I can’t imagine being a good little girl but could see myself as a brat – being naughty just to get a rise out of a Daddy or Mommy.  It would be fun role play but not something that I would consider for more than just that – a scene.

Primal is a type of interaction more animalistic in nature where the dominant and submissive engage in a fight.  It is more hands on and can include martial arts, wrestling or animal like behavior such as sniffing and growling. This sounds fun but just for a scene.  I wouldn’t want to be overpowered and don’t have the physical strength to win in that type of battle.

A fetishist is someone who has a strong liking or need for a specific object or activity (the fetish) to experience sexual pleasure or excitement.  I like toys and activities but don’t *need* any to get off.

A kinkster is someone who enjoys kinky sexual activities.  It may refer to someone else within the BDSM community.  I could be a kinkster – that seems a more all-encompassing category. Also I like the sound of hedonist – someone devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification.

And lastly, Vanilla – the opposite of all the terms I discussed before and typically is interpreted as sex which does not involve BDSM, kink, or fetish activities.

Having finally finished my profile investigation, I finished signing up and left exploring FetLife to another day…