One of mine was this:

Months and months ago, when I was getting to know a sub I particularly enjoy for the first time, he asked me if I dated submission men.

I thought he was one of those guys who got off on the idea of dommes dating dominant men, so I assumed my answer would end our conversation:

I only date submissive men.

My primary partner—the love of my life, the person who I explored kink with in the first place—is also the first person who collared himself for me. My worshipper.

To my surprise, that sub received my answer as relief. As validation. As being seen.

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“Cuck me”

“Punish me”

“Break me”

“I’m edging”

“I’m gooning”

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“I’m sorry I deleted last time, Goddess”

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I understand that angle on the fantasy—the full abdication of responsibility, of control. Permission to step beyond your boundaries because it’s no longer you doing the stepping. It’s a way to cockblock shame when the dust settles.

Because you didn’t wear those panties because you wanted to. You didn’t send because you wanted to. You aren’t the person who wants to. You were forced, hypnotized, bamboozled, outside your own power.

I get the appeal. And there are many dommes who want to take that journey with you.

But I am not one of them.

I am not here so you can pretend you don’t want to wear the panties, to send, to bow, to submit. I am here to hold space for the part of you that does want those things. I am here to witness your authenticity. All the things society doesn’t make space for, shames you for, makes you question about yourself.

In my life, BDSM has been healing. And I demand nothing less for my subs.

Here, you are allowed to want.

You are allowed to be.

You are allowed to rest.

To stop performing dominance, to stop operating on vanilla scripts, to stop pretending you don’t want things some part of you craves.

The death of shame isn’t pretending you didn’t mean to. The death of shame is finding a way to stand in your truth. To be able to say to yourself: I did mean to. And to find that that truth doesn’t actually make you less. Doesn’t harm your masculinity, your power in other areas of your life, your other truths.

That you contain multitudes. And one of those multitudes wants to be on your knees before me. Collared. Petted. Teased. Humiliated. Controlled.

In this space, I do not want you to abdicate responsibility; I want you to embrace it.

You say manipulation; I say invitation. To something bigger, better, freer. To a version of yourself that scares you—and that you long for.

I do not want you to cycle through pleasure and shame and back again; I want you to burn that shame even in times when you choose to focus on the vanilla.

You are not here because I make you. You are not here because I put a spell on you (though I am spellbinding, I know).

You are here because you choose to be here.

You choose to explore.

You choose to expose.

You choose to peel back the masks society makes you wear, fast or slow as you need to, and find the authenticity beneath.

I am here to hold space for you. To hold truths for you. To nudge you. Push you. Tease you. Prompt you. But not because I’m forcing anything. I’m simply holding open doors you’ve been longing to walk through.

Because there’s money involved, this is a baseline assumption. Money = transaction. No money = no transaction.

And boy oh boy how wrong this is.

So let’s unpack it. Because for me, findom is the one space within BDSM that often does—in its purest form—lack transaction. It is transgressive precisely because it’s about money and it’s not transactional.

So first, let’s talk about what transaction means. Because it has been reduced to this idea of “anything involving money.”

The reality is that transaction is this: exchanging one thing for another.

That’s it.

If you give a sales clerk money and get a watermelon: transaction. If you help someone move in exchange for them helping you move: transaction. If you buy someone dinner and expect sex: non-consensual attempt at transaction.

Helping your friend move because you want to: not a transaction. Donating money to a cat rescue: not a transaction. Sharing your watermelon expecting nothing in return: not a transaction.

We live in a world where most men approach women in a transactional way. They want something from a woman and they try to figure out what the minimum they can offer is to get that thing.

This is where we get conversations about the “nice guys” who seem think if they put enough kindness coins into the hot girl vending machine then sex and relationships pop out.

This is also where we get men who rage when they “give a compliment” to a woman and she doesn’t perform gratitude for them.

It’s why many women reject gifts from men, knowing that there are invisible strings attached.

And it’s one of the reasons so many dommes are so exhausted. Because male subs come to us saying they are ready to serve, they will do anything, they want to give, to sacrifice…

But far too many actually mean they want us to enact a specific fantasy. They want to be “forced” to do something they actually already want to do. They did not come to serve when service requires real sacrifices—of ego, of actual power, of time, of money.

So, here’s the thing I get off on: actual submission. The kind that is generous and willing to sacrifice. With time. With money. With opening up parts of yourself that feel scary to open up. Letting me break apart bad habits, squash ego, and smash apart societal power structures that actually keep you from accessing the best parts of yourself.

I want submission that craves my pleasure. I want submissives who give with no expectation.

I want—in short—no transaction.

Only then do I feel a desire to give anything back.

And this is where findom—in its purest form—speaks to me.

Because it asks submissive men to unlearn transactional thinking. It asks them to go against all societal conditioning and give. Give the things society tells you make you a man, the things you’re told to cling to.

Your ego. Your time. Your energy. Your money.

Give them to the very people that our society taught you to extract from.

Unlearn entitlement to women’s time, energy, emotional labor, sexual labor, educational labor, care.

Yes, it’s sexy. Yes, it turns you on. Yes, you get something out of it. But not because you have demanded a transaction. Precisely because you have not.

Because you felt the euphoria of giving.

Because you felt the euphoria of breaking free of a societal cage.

Because you experienced genuine power exchange by laying your power down.

Because I chose to talk to you, play with you, go deeper with you because I wanted to. Not because a transaction bound me to do so.

Findom is and can be many things. Not every dynamic gets here. Not every submissive lays down power for the same reasons or in the same ways. Not every play follows this path.

But some do.

And it is one of the reasons findom can feel so freeing and sexy and powerful to women, many of whom have never experienced anything approaching a non-transactional connection with a man.

Plenty of submissives come to findommes asking what they get for their money. And some of us are happy to play that way, depending what the asks are.

But this isn’t actually findom.

It’s a form of paid femdom. Or femdom with some findom sprinkled in, perhaps.

Nothing wrong with that, but it’s time for us to start understanding the difference—and the power in that difference.

Pure findom is non-transactional. Full-stop.

The money is the point. The sacrifice is the point. The submission of your wallet is the point.

The point is not what you get out of a domme during, before, or after that submission. “What you get” exists based on her pleasure. Not your transaction.

Because we need to have a talk—about submission.

I see you there, feeling nervous about tribute, about giving. Not just your money, but your submission. Your truths. Your hope.

Because that’s what tribute is in the end, isn’t it?

Hope.

What if you tribute and she’s the wrong one? What if you tribute and nothing happens? What if you tribute and you’re not enough?

Here’s the truth, kitten: Sometimes she will be the wrong one for you. Sometimes nothing will happen. You are enough, but sometimes she will still say no or walk away or ghost.

That is the risk of any human connection, any vulnerability.

And the important truth is this: Holding back won’t save you. It only holds you back.

If you’re too scared to approach, you will never know if the answer was yes. If you are clinging too tight to your power to tribute, you will never know if that act of submission would have laid a foundation for you to go deep into that part of yourself over time.

Holding back in other words, ruins the fantasy you are here to find. The feeling every part of you is reaching toward.

The submission.

Because this is a power exchange. And every time you choose to demand more time, more energy, more test runs from dommes, you hang onto your power.

I’m not saying you should run into the arms of the first domme your heart sparks for, throw caution to the wind, and send her anything she asks for. It’s wise to go slow. It’s wise to research. It’s wise to take your time going deeper, to sink slowly into your submission, to get to know her, to even be willing to walk away if the fit isn’t right for you.

But when you demand her time and hard-won energy without exchanging so much as a coffee, you prioritize your comfort over hers. You prioritize your power over hers. You hang on when this should be the first step of a journey of letting go.

You are, in short and perhaps harsh terms, the same as the rest of the men she’s seen today. The ones who demand she smile or answer them on the street. The ones who demand attention. Who whistle. Who lick their lips. Who touch her. Who stand too close.

All of those are demands for time, energy, and attention. So is demanding she get to know you before you give.

This doesn’t mean you should ask for nothing or that submission should be full and instant. But it does mean recognizing that even an initial conversation is a request for her energy, her time, her hard-won power. And tribute is how you honor that time, that energy, that power.

Without it, you are trying to dominate her in some small way. Ruining your own fantasy before it’s even begun.

Pandora, I hear you whisper, what if it doesn’t work?

And, kitten, sometimes it won’t. That’s life. That’s connection. That’s part of the quest. The call to adventure. Bilbo begins before he knows he will succeed.

Unlike Bilbo, this adventure isn’t a mortal danger to you. If it doesn’t work, you bid a goddess farewell and you slip into another temple. And while you were in the first temple, you left a little gift at the altar.

That’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s worth it, even if you don’t come away with an invitation to become a monk.

And I’ll ask you this as well: what if it works? What if you surrender bit by bit? What if you find you can go deeper with her? What if by starting with that handful of flowers on an altar, you alter the course of your adventure?

In that case, you’ve started things with vulnerability, with submission, with care. And that foundation matters for all that comes next—for both of you.

Whatever you’re thinking, think smaller than that.

Think: tiny. Think: invisible.

Think: the woman in the background of the scene serving the tea to our main characters. No, the woman you don’t even see who already placed the tea on the table for them to drink. Extra #35 in the movie. No name. No lines. No role in the plot, not really.

We movie-goers don’t remember a thing about her. We never saw her. She barely saw herself. She was just a vessel to deliver the tea.

**

Part of the problem was the usual: all the ways women are taught to be small in a society made for and run by men. All the ways young women especially are meant to be seen and not heard—and really not even seen.

My boobs were too big. My body too sexual. My voice too loud. My needs too present. I was too bossy. Too giggly. Too argumentative.

Cover yourself. Don’t talk so much. Stop being so bossy.

But even more than patriarchy, the problem was that I was raised evangelical. And the message was always more of Jesus, less of me.

The goal: to replace yourself entirely with the church-sanctioned version of Jesus (patriarchy Jesus, capitalism Jesus). To be, as it were, body-snatched by the holy spirit.

Hallelujah, hosanna, shout to the lord. More of you, lord. Less of me.

Less.

Less.

Less of me.

And here’s the real tragedy: I was good at it. Marvelous. Proficient. At subjecting myself to what I believed was the will of god.

(Which just so happened to match up neatly with the will of capitalism –funny how that works—and the will of patriarchy and the will of pretty much any other system of power.)

I was good at making myself smaller. I was good at taking up my cross. A phrase straight out of the Bible which meant: suffer. Take up the heaviest burden ever handed to a human. Give up everything, including your life.

And so I did. I made myself small and invisible and sick. If someone was ill, I volunteered to sit with them all night. I did free labor for the church. For the youth groups. For any person who had a need.

I learned the world was full of needs. But never mine.

**

I still remember a phone call with my father where I agonized over what to do because my roommate was moving out and the woman who wanted to move in made me deeply uncomfortable. She had stories of men she’d dated showing up and throwing bricks through her windows. She had a very young grandchild who’d stay over multiple nights per week—and likely cry and wake us both.

I was afraid of the men she’d bring home. I was afraid of the lack of sleep a child in the house represented during a time when I had the most demanding job of my life and I was (very secretly) having some of my earliest suicidal thoughts. But I also knew that what I wanted or needed wasn’t supposed to matter.

Because What Would Jesus Do? He’d take her in even if it put him in danger. Even if it killed him.

Take up your cross.

More of Jesus. Less of me.

My father—ever disappointed—told me I didn’t even sound like his daughter. His daughter knew better than to want anything for herself. Even a good night’s sleep. Even if her bedroom window was on the ground floor, perfect brick-breaking height.

**

It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I did the revolutionary thing.

I had already left the church by then. I’d already untangled (some of) the purity culture. I had my first kiss at twenty or twenty-one (I no longer recall). I moved to New York, then Colorado. I used words like goddamn and fuck and every time they were a relief.

But I had not untangled the compulsion to serve—hadn’t found where my natural impulse to help people had gotten tangled up with the toxic idea that I was nothing and others were everything and I should help until I had nothing left.

I was so incapable of saying no that I simply froze up when a man pushed a make-out session into sex without asking. Once, then twice. I was so incapable of no that I kept finding myself in danger, letting people into my life who took and took and took some more and left me thinking that it would be nice to be dead because I wouldn’t be so exhausted anymore.

And then, in my mid-twenties, depressed and suicidal and desperate, I did a revolutionary thing that probably didn’t look revolutionary from the outside.

I let my lease expire, and I packed a bag, and I left.

I left the people who needed me. I left the demands. I left all the ways I’d gotten tangled up in other people’s needs while stomping on my own. I boarded a plane on a one-way ticket to Europe.

I did it to save myself.

And save myself, I did.

**

The reasons it saved me are complicated. The first is this: I let the distance do the thing I couldn’t do for myself—say no.

No, I can’t come to every single event everyone ever asks me to attend. No, I cannot work those extra long hours. No, I don’t want to kiss you. No, I can’t be your entire emotional support universe.

My distance made it impossible to ask as much from me. And in the space where other people’s needs had been, I found answers to the questions of what I wanted, who I was.

**

What I discovered on the road was this: me.

Pandora without anyone else’s demands on her time, her emotions, her life.

I discovered she was luminous.

I discovered she was powerful.

I discovered that I loved her.

It was something I’d been working on in therapy for years. Self-love. It never made sense. It never clicked. I could bend my will so easily to love others, but I never could find my way to it for myself.

Until a bright, hot day on a beachfront vacation when I walked into the bathroom and glimpsed myself in the mirror—and I didn’t realize it was me. I just saw a girl that I loved, and my heart leapt with it. As if I’d seen my best friend walk through the door. My crush. My lover. My life.

That’s the truth beneath the truth: I had.

Somewhere in all that space no longer occupied by everyone else’s needs, I had become my own best friend, my lover, the human I’d fight for tooth and nail and heart and soul.

**

Another decade passed, with so many steps toward self-love, self-actualization. In my late thirties, I started joking that I was my own wife. And indeed, I had become that too. I cared for myself so fully, so tenderly. I protected my sleep and my peace and my joy and my rage. I made art. I gave myself space and time to expand into. I sang myself love songs and took myself on romantic getaways and danced with myself when I reached a milestone.

I learned to say no—and learned that I loved saying it. I learned to take up space—and learned that I loved demanding it.

I stopped hiding my power, my body, my mind, my boundaries, my needs, my demands.

**

And then, a few years ago, I met a kinky human.

Our relationship started platonic and built oh-so-slowly—a sweet and safe and languid journey toward new forms of closeness. He made art for me and painted art on me. He read books I recommended and took notes. He told me he loved me, but more than that: he showed me. He loved me in the ways I’d learned to love myself—with admiration and wonder at this powerful, sexy, luminous person I had become. With gratitude for the fighter she is. With active, intentional, consistent care.

Powerful women were his kink. And I had finally embraced my power.

We transitioned slowly from platonic to sexual—but not in the ways of the vanilla world. Elements of tease, denial, and orgasm control came long before what most people would call sex. My feet were pampered, worshipped. Pet play built from nearly day one.

And worship—the underpinning of it all was worship. The centering of my pleasure and power and self.

Once he told me that he felt like he’d never had sex before this. He’d never explored. He’d never gone so far off the expected script of romantic and sexual relationships. His world had been smaller.

I didn’t say it, but my heart’s response was this:

I felt I’d never been loved before.

I didn’t know someone could love me in the fierce and sacred way I loved myself.

Everything else had been a shadow. An imposter.

**

Nearly two years into that long, slow romance, I shared another truth:

In this journey I’d been taking with myself—of taking up space and finding my voice and being big, not small, never again small—I wanted him to come with me. Not just to equality, a place where we would neatly meet each other’s needs. But to swing the pendulum in a direction I’d never swung it: to be loved more than I loved. To be given more than I gave.

To be worshipped.

I wanted him to do the thing he’d already been naturally doing. But I wanted more.

I had been born to worship, and all I wanted now was to be worshipped. I was not Extra #35. I was the goddess at the center of the universe.

The light in his eyes told me that this was his truth too.

**

Now I am the goddess at the center of more than one universe. Every day, I step deeper into my power, I welcome others deeper into their submission, their rest, their truth.

I started this journey thinking kink was interesting. Kink was fun. Kink was centering. But I did not realize until I was in the middle of it just how healing it can be. How it can take you into the most vulnerable parts of yourself, the deepest truths, the place where you can embrace your self.

Whatever that self looks like.

Be she a goddess. A tease. A domme.

Or a submissive, worshipper, or something else altogether.

Whoever yours is, I hope your journey takes you ever-closer to them.

I (along with many neighbors) attempted to coax her out of the car undercarriage where she was hiding, terrified. But there were too many people; too many car noises.

And so I came back at 5 a.m. No people, few cars. Just me laying on the pavement with a bowl of shredded chicken and a phone loaded up with kitten noises.

She stepped gingerly down. She eventually took some chicken from my fingers. And after some patience, I caught her. Took her home. Got rid of the fleas. The car gunk. The intestinal parasites.

Each day, she attempts to suckle on the inside of my elbow, comforted by the idea that I’m her mom.

Each day, I watch her put weight onto her underfed frame and I coax her into bravery.

Each day, she borrows that courage from me, follows me to a new room, explores a new thing, and then falls asleep in my lap where she can feel safe.

I cannot help but compare our connection to my journeys into polyamory and domination.

Polyamory because just like my partners, this kitten is free. She can sleep anywhere she chooses, but she chooses my lap. And I’m happy for her when she gets the courage to choose a spot beside the dog or another lap.

I do not try to own her. I do not have to force my will. I simply offer my courage, my support, my strength, and she turns toward the comfort of it.

It’s the same way I approach D/s dynamics. I am not giving orders; my presence is the control. My courage, my strength, are what draws them in. I am an owner, a mistress, a goddess because my pets, my subs, my worshippers choose me. And they choose me daily. There are other laps. Other deities. Other mistresses. Other lovers.

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And I make no effort to keep my subs, my foster kitten, my partners from those things.

You are here because you want to be here. I am here because I want to be here.

To me, that is true connection, true power. You do not stay because you have to. Because of a contract or a commitment or having only one option.

You stay because you want. To make me proud. To make me smile. To rest in my capable hands. To become better. To connect.