I saw quite an on-line attack on a professional Domina recently. The claim was made that what she did could not be SM because the slave was paying for it and this meant there could be NO REAL EMOTIONAL EXCHANGE. Please bear in mind that this was said, in the ignorance of chat-rooms, by someone with no knowledge of, or personal familiarity with, the professional side of SM relationships. Several in the chat-room went on to say that professional SM was little more than prostitution. I only add that to indicate the mindset of this particular group, so let’s just ignore the slam of the worlds oldest, and perhaps most needed profession, and let’s also ignore the prejudice displayed by people towards working women. This is not about moralistic viewpoints. Rather, I simply (hah!) want to look at the relationship between a Master and a slave, compared with the relationship between a professional Master and his slave/client.

I have been a Master for some time. A slave started calling me that in 1978. I have had many non-professional Master/slave relationships in all these years, and each one had a different emotional component. With some, the emotional exchange was as intense as could be imagined...not even spoken. I have also known some slaves, mostly masochists, who placed no value on the emotional aspect. They knew of my Mastery and came to me to be used. Simple as that. Sometimes emotional bonds would grow, sometimes they would not. A few actually became lovers in the larger sense.

Recall the quote from Santayana; “Love is a physical drive with an ideal intent.” SM is often a purely physical drive. It can be totally, and quite successfully, separated from the ideal intent of love. Particularly in many popular arenas of this emerging life-style, you see people playing with people for whom they have little or no love, i.e., they have plenty of physical drive, but no real considered or ideal intent. However, you also do find Masters who prefer to add the ideal intent. These are Masters who feel that all SM is about relationships, even if they are fleeting, and any relationship has the capacity to shape a life, for better or for worse. As a professional Master, it is easy to see that I deal with physical drives in virtually every situation, with every client, female or male. However, I want to explore something on the other side; the ideal intent and what that means to me as a professional Master.

Every time a client comes into Esemar, I must consider what their intent is, and what mine, in turn, needs to be. I must have a serious concept of what I hope to accomplish. That governing concept must create a session where the very best, the ideal exchange, is accomplished between Master and slave.

This is not as simple and one-dimensional as it sounds. I have had men and women come to see me who have had serious personal issues that they were working out through SM. They came to see a good professional because they could find no one else that could see them through their intense levels of need. Before every one of these challenging sessions, I think about who this slave is as a person with needs, what I’ve accomplished with the slave in the past, and just what I can hope to accomplish that day. These are deep emotional explorations. I often must tread carefully. I must know my slaves’ emotional place and balance. I am entrusted with a very great gift, a person’s psyche. Of course I get emotionally involved. I am dominating a person, not riding a horse.

Think of the social courage it takes for a woman to go to a professional male Dominant. Beyond that, think of the needs she must be experiencing for her to decide to take this course and turn to a professional. It is an enormous accomplishment for a woman to free herself enough to walk through these doors. How about the man who finds himself completely compelled to be tied by another male? He has no “gay” tendencies. He does not yet know that his sexuality is not gay or straight, rather it is SM. He is petrified that his visit will be taking him to a place where he will dislike the man he finds inside himself. Yet he must deal with these drives, he must explore this part of his sexual persona. It is of crucial importance that I give him a healthy and sexy experience. Or how about the couples who come where SM is loved by one and feared by the other as a disease? Think that’s an easy piece of work, to help them find a sexual balance that benefits them both? These examples barely scratch the surface reflecting what every person brings. Every client has a soul. Some have issues and situations far more complex than what I just outlined.

People who come to La Domaine feel that going to a professional, to someone highly competent, with years of insights, is a goddess sent solution to their needs, their desires and their dilemmas. Of course they pay the professional for his competence, but does that mean that the exchange of dollars negates an emotional exchange? Or does it actually mean that the Master is at more of a demand to be emotionally involved? These people are not going to the titty titty lounge to buy a stripper whipper. They are looking for a person who has some Mastery of the SM psyche. That mastery of the SM psyche compels emotional involvement. When I look at my professional peers, I see people who give an enormous amount of ideal intent to their slaves. That giving is precisely what determines a great Dominatrix. Well, that coupled with skill, skill and more skill.

I do have clients who become personal slaves. I also have ones, and it is the majority, who stay as clients. They prefer that. Unless there are very personal sparks flying between us, I prefer that also. They feel they should pay their dentist, their doctor, their plumber, whomever they use for professional services. I agree. They even bring gifts in addition to “the tribute.”

I see a lot of non-professional Masters out there who put a great deal of physical drive into their Master/slave relationships. I see that most add ideal intent to their relationships. My intent when I am in a private relationship is precisely the same as my intent in a professional one: to make the SM the finest experience possible. To me, personally, SM is a physical drive with an ideal intent. It makes no difference if capitalism has once again raised its ugly head and one more person has been paid for his years of hard work and study. The only difference to me, between the private and the professional play, is how I may act if I want to make love with a slave who is a professional client. I cannot do that legally. If those sexual sparks fly with a client, I will ask the slave to join me in a private relationship. Aside from that, I care for all my slaves. Whether they are professional or private, they have entrusted me with a great personal trust, a place in their sexual growth, and an opportunity to guide them to the sexual heights they have dreamed of attaining, in their wildest dreams. Every great professional Dom or Domina I have met shares these feelings. The emotional exchange could not be more real. It is just exchanged under the conditions that professionalism demands.

And don't miss the chapter about torture...