You know all those articles for jobseekers about what employers look for in a resume? I get the feeling that submissive guys are just as confused about what dominant women want to see in a message or on a profile as people looking for work are about what employers want to see on a resume/coverletter. This post is the pervy version of those “10 resume mistakes you can avoid today!” posts.

I want to admit right up front that my metaphor is flawed. Dominant women are not heartless gatekeepers who gleefully throw your application in the trash while you worry about losing your home if you can’t find another job. We want awesome submissive partners just as much as you want awesome dominant partners. Another issue with my metaphor is that employers basically want one thing: competence + basic social skills. Dominant women, being people (see Stabbity foreshadow. Foreshadow, Stabbity, foreshadow), all want different things and want to be treated in different ways.

All that said, I think submissive guys may still get some value out of hearing how one dominant woman judges messages and profiles. I’m going to try to explain my reasoning in enough detail that a person could probably generalize my points to another woman, assuming you can be bothered to read her profile and any writing she might have, but you should keep in mind that this is just my opinion and other women are going to want very different things.

 

The very first and most important thing I look for in a message from a potential sub is interest in me as a person. Talk to me about something I said in my profile, a comment I made in a thread or a writing I posted or something I wrote right here on this blog, just give me some sense of why you decided to message me out of the millions of people on Fetlife. Yes, this does require you to have an actual reason to message me in particular beyond “local, chose Dom from the role dropdown, has tits.” If that’s the only reason you message someone, just fuck off, you’re wasting everyone’s time. To torture the jobseeker metaphor a bit, messaging a dom just because she’s local, female, and dominant is like showing up to an interview and saying that you’re looking for work because you need money. No shit you need money, nobody thinks you’re looking for work because you’re independently wealthy. Tell both your potential dom and your interviewer something they don’t know: why you chose them in particular.

If a woman’s profile is as close to blank as mine is, you probably want to use something else as a starting point for a message. You should also ask yourself whether this person wants to be messaged at all. Many people’s profiles say very clearly that they are not looking for a partner and are just on Fetlife for the discussions or to keep up with friends. Do not hit on these people! Honestly, what do you think you’re going to accomplish by annoying someone who actively does not want what you want?

Another point I judge people on is how they address me in that first message. If you’ve read my profile, my blog, or anything else I have to say, it should be pretty clear that I’m a very low protocol person who will not react well to people who don’t know me using honorifics. For me personally, just use my screen name. For everyone else, read her fucking profile. Read it some more. Read it again. If you’re still not sure how she likes to be addressed, just use her screen name. This is another way to show that you are interested in who this woman is as a person. And no, I will not spell out in my profile exactly what I want you to call me. If you’re the kind of person who thinks it’s okay to call a stranger “Mistress,” I want to know right away so I can stop talking to you. Contacting someone is not about making a good impression no matter how much you have to lie, it’s about figuring out whether the two of you are compatible. If you’ve been fantasizing about having a Mistress of your own for years, wouldn’t you rather know right up front that the woman you’re messaging will never tolerate being called Mistress?

You should be seeing a theme here: act as if the woman you’re messaging is an interesting person who is worth learning about. If you can’t be bothered to read my profile or my comments on discussions or a couple of my blog posts, why the fuck would you message me?

On that note, for fucks sake do not lead with your kink. I do not care what you want me to do you until I care about you as a person, and treating me like I only have value to you if I’m willing to dispense your favourite kink like a fucking vending machine guarantees I will never care about you as a person. You can tell me how you just don’t want to waste some poor woman’s time if you turn out to have totally incompatible kinks until you’re blue in the face, but what you’re really saying is that I’m only worth talking to if I’m willing to do stuff that gets you off. If you can’t see how acting like that will kill every potential relationship before it gets off the ground, you might as well close your browser and go play legos because there is nothing I can do to help you.

Something that gets judged very similarly by both dominant women and potential employers is your spelling and grammar. If you can’t be bothered to spell correctly and use good grammar, what you’re telling us is that you don’t care how you present yourself. I understand if you’re dyslexic or English isn’t your first language, but you’ve got to at least try to get it right. The problem with not spellchecking or proofreading your message isn’t so much that it makes you difficult to understand as it shows that you don’t care about the person you’re messaging. When you respect someone, you make an effort to get it right.

 

Aside from showing whether you care or not, spellchecking your message also shows attention to detail. It’s not exactly unusual for doms to want you to do what they actually said, not what you thought they said or what you thought would be easier or close enough. If you send me a message full of spelling mistakes, I’m going to assume you can’t be bothered to get the details right. That may be fine for some women but I’m very picky about the few things I can be bothered to care about.

Yet another reason you should actually read a person’s profile before you message them is that they will often have instructions for contacting them at the end of it. Using myself as an example again, at the end of my Fetlife profile I have a link to an interactive personal ad I built a couple years ago, and at the end of that ad I put the best way to contact me. If you message me the wrong way, I know you couldn’t be bothered to read the entire ad and I’ll write you off. Again, learning about someone you want to submit to should not be a chore. If it feels like one, you’re looking at the wrong person’s profile and you need to go talk to someone else.

In case you’re wondering, if I came across a submissive man who built something similar and the best way to contact him was at the end of his personal ad, I’d damned well read to the end and contact him the right way. If he’s not interesting enough for me to read to the end of his ad, he’s not interesting enough for me to contact him at all. Problem solved! Plus, if I’m going to ask someone to pay attention to details when he messages me, it’s only fair for him to ask the same in return.

Now let’s talk about your profile. I look at people’s profiles all the time. I look at them every time someone messages me, I look at them when someone posts an interesting comment or starts an interesting thread. I even look at them out of morbid curiosity when someone posts an unusually bad comment. You should always, always assume that when you message someone she will look at your profile. Even if you sent a really good first message, having a terrible profile can still ruin your first impression, so let’s talk about how to not fuck it up.

The very simplest thing you can do to improve your profile is to set your avatar/profile pic to literally anything that is not your penis or anus. Guys, you only have about a bazillion choices that are vastly less likely to offend someone than showing her your dick whether she wanted to see it or not. If you act like it’s news that women very very frequently hate dick pics, you’re just too stupid for me to talk to.

If you’re super into CBT, then fine, put a few interesting, well lit, and above all well groomed pictures on your profile. If you are going to put any pictures of your dick whatsoever on your profile, take a look at critiquemydickpic.tumblr.com. In particular, look at the differences between a pic that gets an A (this one is particularly good) and one that gets a D (this one is especially bad). Unless you’re going to put an A level of effort into your dick pic, do not put it on your profile. A half-assed dick pic will only hurt your chances of actually making a connection with a dominant woman. Even if your dick pic or pics are extraordinarily good, your profile still needs to be anything but a shrine to your dick. For every dick pic that you feel you need to include, add a bunch of pictures of literally anything else (except your anus, do not show me your anus, put your anus away. Even if you are an adorable kitty, I do not want to see your anus). I’ve beaten that point into ground, right? Right.

A picture can be used to show me so much about who you are, don’t waste it on stupid bullshit that will only annoy potential doms. You could show people a place you love, a favourite hobby, pictures you took, things you made, something you found funny, or a thousand other things that actually tell me something about who you are as a person. There are also lots of non-identifying body parts that are still not your dick or your butthole. Show me your arms, your shoulders, your back, your legs, your hands, your abs (or your cute cuddly tummy), hell, show me your knees or your elbows. Just don’t show me your dick or your butthole and we’re cool.

On the “don’ts” list, skip the photos of dominant women, drawings of dominant women, the femdom porn, and stupid memes about how submissive men are worthless or exist only to entertain dominant women or whatever bullshit the kids are up to these days. You’re looking for a dominant woman who actually likes submissive men, right? So don’t include stuff that would only attract someone who actively dislikes and disrespects submissive men. If you show me that you think submissive men are the worst, you make yourself look like a mess I have no interest in cleaning up. I know that’s cold-hearted, but guys, I’m not a therapist and I can’t fix you. If I could wave a magic wand and take away your self-loathing I would but I can’t.

 

Another don’t, at least for me, is laundry lists of fetishes. I know you have kinks, that’s why you’re here on Fetlife. But if your fetish list is longer than the rest of your profile, that makes me think that you care more about what I can do for your penis than about telling me who you are as a person. Other women like it if they can skim your fetish list and get a feel for whether you’re remotely compatible, and I’ll admit I don’t hate hearing about a few (a very, very few) of your major kinks, but personally I don’t care about your kinks unless I like you as a person. If I do like you as a person, odds are good that we’ll be able to find something fun to do together, so it doesn’t really matter to me whether I hear about every last one of your kinks right away or not.

To be fair, if you have kinks that are absolute deal-breakers if you can’t get them met, by all means mention them in general terms in your profile. To use myself as an example again, in my personal ad I’m very up front about being a sadist. If you want to play with me and you don’t want to be hurt, you need to be otherwise extraordinary because I really, really like hurting people who like getting hurt. I will not, however, go into detail about my exact kinks. Partially because they’re pretty flexible and partially because I don’t want to hear from you if all you care about is that I’m into face-slapping.

Do talk about who you are as a person. I want to know what you love, what you can’t stand, what you do for fun, what you think is interesting, what you never want to do again, etc, etc. Hell, tell me what you like to eat, just tell me something that’s not about making your dick happy.

Do talk about what kind of dom you’re looking for in your profile. By “kind of dom” I mean, are you looking for a play partner or a dominant girlfriend? Are you interested in high, low, or no protocol? Do you like being given orders or do you feel you’ve failed to anticipate your dom’s needs if she has to give you an order? Do you need domestic discipline or is that a hard limit? All of those things help me figure out whether we’re compatible.

All you really need to do when you’re messaging a potential dom is to have a bit of self-awareness, be honest about who you are, and put a bit of effort into thinking about what she might want. Just like interviewers, doms want you to be awesome. We want to be able to stop looking for a sub, it’s a pain in the ass and we’d rather be having fun than hunting for someone to have fun with.

One last point: just like how you’re interviewing the company just as much as the company is interviewing you when you’re looking for a job, you’re judging a dom just as much as she’s judging you when you message her. You have the right to decide that you don’t like how she treats you or that she’s a lovely person but just not right for you or that she bores you to tears or takes the whole kink thing way too seriously or not seriously enough or what have you. Never forget that you get a say too.

With Christmas coming up there’s this expectation that everyone celebrates Christmas, everyone is delighted about Christmas and delighted to visit their families and no one could possibly be stressed out or unhappy about anything for any reason this time of year. For the record, that is BULLSHIT.

First of all, not everyone celebrates Christmas. Jews, Muslims, and dozens if not hundreds of other religions that don’t celebrate Christmas exist. If you don’t celebrate Christmas and live in a place where it feels like literally everyone else does that must suck a whole lot. I’m not going to pretend I truly understand because while I’m not Christian I do celebrate Christmas, but I have to imagine that the annual Christmas barrage is exasperating at best and profoundly isolating and alienating at worst.

Even if you do celebrate Christmas, that doesn’t mean the whole season is uncomplicated joy and togetherness. Seasonal affective disorder is a thing. Depression is a thing. Anxiety disorders are a thing. I have the sheer dumb luck not to suffer from a mental illness, but I hear that the immense pressure society puts on all of us to be happy no happier why aren’t you HAPPY Christmas is ruined and it’s all your fault!!11!! can really do a number on even well controlled illnesses.

For that matter, physical illnesses are a thing, and not a thing everyone, even family, always understands. If you tire easily or can’t handle too much stimulation or can’t safely eat everything you’re offered, Christmas can be a minefield. Imagine having Crohn’s disease and trying to explain to family members who express love with food that you can’t eat the delicious thing they made for you. Or having any chronic illness and having to tell your family that you’d love to do x family tradition with them but you absolutely have to lie down right now. Or that you would love to visit but cannot physically handle spending hours travelling.

The idea of Christmas being about family togetherness is nice and all, but some of us have shitty and/or complicated relationships with some or all of our relatives. I’m very sad to say that it’s not uncommon for people to be disowned by their families for coming out as gay or trans. In my case, even the relatives I get along with, I continue to get along with because I don’t trap myself in a house with them for too many days in a row. It’s also sadly common to have some lovely relatives and that one racist/sexist/otherwise bigoted douchebag who you dread being in the same room with, or well-meaning relatives who keep asking when you’re going to get married/buy a house/have children/get a real job/graduate/etc.

Even if you do get along with your family, it’s just not possible for everyone to visit them. Lots of people work shitty retail jobs that don’t give time off in late December, or can’t afford to travel all the way home, or live in an area where affordable travel isn’t safe. Immigrants in particular can be forced to choose between financially supporting family back home and spending that money on a plane ticket to see them in person. Even if your family is within driving distance and you have a car and the time to travel doesn’t mean the roads are safe or that driving all night while worrying about being trapped in a storm is worth it. Or that the risk of being trapped by bad road conditions on the way back and missing hours of work that you desperately need is worth it. Or that the possibility of getting into an accident and having to pay money you don’t have to repair your car is worth it.

I wish there was a gentler way to say this, but that’s all assuming your family is alive. Some people have no living relatives or they’ve lost a loved one and now have to face the holidays without them. People who used to love Christmas can come to dread it because it’s just another reminder that their loved one isn’t there and never will be again.

Even if you do have living family and can visit them, that doesn’t mean that getting gifts and travelling and decorating and doing special baking and making a huge special meal isn’t stressful as hell. Even under the best conditions, that’s a lot of work. And let’s not forget that it’s work that generally falls on women’s shoulders.

If you love Christmas, that’s great and I’m happy for you. All I ask is that if you talk with a friend/coworker/acquaintance about what their plans are for the holidays and they change the subject, let them. If you hassle people about their plans or lack thereof, you are being an asshole and all awkwardness that you cause is your own damned fault. On the other hand, if you don’t go out of your way to make things awkward, things won’t be awkward no matter how much the person you’re talking with hates Christmas. Just don’t be a dick about it and we’re cool.

If you have a hard time with Christmas you’re not weird, you’re not wrong, and you’re not broken. Holidays can be really hard for lots of different reasons. And if you hate Christmas carols, I am so very here for you. It’s been years since I worked in a mall and I still won’t voluntarily listen to any Christmas music besides the Crystal Method remix of Carol of the Bells.

In which someone is wrong on the internet and Stabbity yells about it.

This post’s inspiration was some random jerk on Fetlife who decided he’s the arbiter of what is BDSM and what is not. In a discussion about whether kinky people are obsessed with pain, this guy decided the way to make friends and influence people was to declare everything not physically or mentally painful “not BDSM.” And then of course he got all butthurt when people told him that his rude behaviour was rude and he was straight up wrong, because that’s totally going to make people change their minds about whether you’re a dick.

Not only is it tremendously rude to tell people that their kink doesn’t count, it’s also factually incorrect to say that BDSM must involve pain. While it’s often used as a simple catch-all term for “kinky” what BDSM actually stands for is bondage & discipline, domination & submission, and sadism & masochism. In the context of “bondage & discipline”, discipline does imply pain and of course sadism and masochism are generally understood to be about pain (although some definitions of sadomasochism are just about any intense sensation), but domination and submission are not fundamentally about pain. You can certainly mix pain in if that’s what you’re into, but domination and submission are about control and who has it and how much, not about whacking people with stuff. I’ve yelled about this before, but hey, it’s worth repeating.

People who love having d/s relationships but have no interest in pain exist. Look up sensual domination, the term exists for a reason. Inflicting pain is certainly one way to to show how much control you have, but so is deciding what your partner wears or whether they get to orgasm or what they have for dinner. If you prefer pain then by all means stick with that, but if you can’t conceive of d/s without pain that’s a failure of imagination on your part, not a lack of kinkiness on the part of the people you’re shitting on. I personally do like inflicting pain and wouldn’t be happy in a d/s relationship where I didn’t get to beat on anyone, but because I’m not a hugely self-centered asshole I can deal with the idea that other people have their own wants and needs. If somebody else doesn’t play the way I do, who gives a shit? It doesn’t hurt or even affect me in any way if other people just like pet play or slave positions or sensual domination or eye contact restrictions or what have you instead of pain.

Painful scenes are intense and showy and easy to tell stories about and you still count as kinky if you don’t like any pain at all. You still count as kinky if you only like a little bit of pain or only want to play with pain some of the time. You still count as kinky if you don’t play or run your relationships the way some random dickbag thinks you should.

Just because other people have different tastes doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Even *gasp* not liking your favourite kinks doesn’t make them wrong. People just like different things and you’re going to need to learn to cope with that if you want to make any friends in the scene.

 

Bafflingly enough, some people say they “don’t believe in” blocking or banning people. I don’t understand that even a little bit. Why on earth would any random person have a right to my time and attention?

My time belongs to me, not you. I am not a charity for poorly socialized assholes, and even if you’re not a jerk, I still don’t owe you shit. Not an argument (even I occasionally remember that being invited to an argument doesn’t mean I’m obligated to attend), not an explanation, not a slowly and painfully spoonfed lesson on why no dominant woman seems to want to give your sorry ass the time of day.

I do enjoy feeling helpful and I think it’s important to encourage submissive men who don’t act like complete assclowns, so it’s not that I’m not willing to deal with people at all. If I didn’t want to interact with anyone, I’d close comments on my blog. What I want, and what I have any absolutely inalienable right to, is to choose who can contact me. If we’re not going to have any sort of give and take, if we’re not going to have an interesting discussion, if you’re not going to ask interesting questions that would make good blog posts, or if I don’t even get to feel helpful because you’re a lost cause, then you don’t get any (more) of my time. And no, there’s not going to be a “debate” about who is a lost cause. The only person whose opinion matters there is me. Try to keep up with the tour 🙂

That’s also why I ban people from the comments here if I goddamn well feel like it. If you have something worthwhile to add, great. If you’re racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, or whatever other variety of asshole, then you don’t get free storage on my site for your worthless drivel. If you’re just in completely the wrong place and are too stupid to know it (protip: don’t come to a female dom’s blog looking for a male dom. Sure, it could happen, but you could also, say, look for a male dom where male doms hang out) but not actively hateful then you get to leave maybe one or two comments before you get blocked. If you want to post what you want, when you want, get your own fucking blog. On my blog, you add something either pleasant or interesting or you fuck off.

If you get blocked, chill the fuck out. I often block people not because I’m angry at them but because I’d rather watch paint dry than talk with them ever again. I’ve seen people on twitter assume that the person who blocked them felt attacked, which is often not the case. Blocking doesn’t always mean “jesus fuck you’re an asshole,” it can also mean “that was boring. Let’s not do it again. Ever.” It might also mean “I saw how you behave online and I’m going to save us both some time by blocking you now.” Dude who cross posted the same desperate personal ad in a dozen groups, I’m looking at you. Just because we’ve never directly interacted doesn’t mean you can’t still convince me that you’re a total waste of my time.

If you don’t believe in blocking or banning people, then what you’re saying is that everyone has a right to your time and attention. My time has a value, it is not available to every random asshole who comes across my profile. If you don’t value your own time that’s a shame but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong to value mine. Go right ahead and think I’m a big mean poopyhead, I’ll be over here doing something I actually enjoy instead of wasting my time on people who have nothing to offer me.

I’ve heard over and over again how “women can get laid any time they want” and therefore can’t possibly know how men suffer when some uppity bitch won’t hand over the sex he clearly deserves for sending her a shitty form letter. If you’ve been paying attention, you won’t be at all surprised to hear how much that annoys me.

First of all, not all women can just snap their fingers and have a guy show up ready to fuck them. Second, even if you are the kind of (young, skinny, conventionally attractive) woman who can get laid whenever she wants, who says the sex is going to be any good?

Saying that women can get laid any time they want can technically be sort of true depending on how you define “woman.” To quote Cliff Pervocracy’s brilliantly sarcastic post The Beta Male:

The word “woman” refers exclusively to slender, outgoing, fashionable, conventionally beautiful heterosexual white women under 30 who aren’t too slutty. Other types of woman aren’t undesirable so much as nonexistent.

If that’s the definition of woman you’re working from when you say women can get laid any time they want, then you’re not saying anything remotely interesting. Yep, young, white, thin, conventionally attractive men and women do in fact have an easier time getting laid than people who’ve had the unbelievable gall to age or not be skinny. In related news, water is still wet and the sun still rises in the east.

On the other hand, if you actually mean literally all adult female humans when you say women can get laid any time you want, you’re an ignorant and deluded asshole. Fat women exist. Women over the age of 30 exist. Women with wrinkles and stretch marks exist. Women who don’t shave exist. Women who don’t dress in a way that turns you on exist. So do women who don’t wear makeup. Trans women exist too. How many of the men who whine and cry about how desperate they are for just one woman to give them a chaaaaaance are willing to even consider possibly thinking about fucking a woman who isn’t a goddamn supermodel? Guess you’re not actually that desperate to get your dick wet now are you. It’s like men are people who have standards or something.

Along with having standards, men also have all sorts of reasons not to be interested in casual sex. Sometimes those reasons are good (for example, not being comfortable getting naked with someone you barely know, not feeling safe going home with a stranger or bringing a stranger to your home, etc), sometimes they’re not so good (being afraid that the sort of dirty slut who would have sex with someone she just met (like, you know, you’re trying to) is going to give you an STI or turn out to be “crazy” (read: have emotions that are inconvenient for the guy being a dick to her)), but not all guys are into casual sex with literally any woman who offers. Yep, TV lied to you.

Also, sometimes a guy is totally into casual sex but just not into you. Guys get to have standards as detailed above (slender, outgoing, fashionable, conventionally beautiful, etc), but the idea that women can get laid any time they want presumes that women who have standards are just bitches who enjoy rejecting men. Yes, I have standards. No, I’m not sorry that I prefer to have sex with guys who have showered in the last 12 hours, dress like they give a shit what they look like, can string a coherent sentence together, and act even vaguely like they give a shit what I think of them. Sure, if I had no standards I could get some random poorly groomed asshole to put his dick in me any night of the week but honestly I’d rather slam my hand in a door.

Guys, you too can get laid any time you want if you lower your standards far enough. If you are willing to fuck literally anyone, someone will fuck you. It just won’t be anyone you would ever actually want to fuck.

So no, women as in all adult female humans cannot get laid any time they want and you’re a fucking asshole if you think the word woman means “slender, outgoing, fashionable, conventionally beautiful heterosexual white women under 30 who aren’t too slutty.”

But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that all women actually can access hot and cold running dick whenever they want to (yes I’m being super heteronormative but let’s be honest: nobody who whines about how women can supposedly get laid whenever they like is thinking of anyone but straight cis people). Now we have another definition problem. The men who say that women can get laid any time they want are assuming the sex that they enjoy is also good for the woman they’re pounding away at while completely ignoring her clitoris. Guys, there is a difference between “sex” and “good sex.”

For cis men, sex can be like pizza in that even if it’s bad it’s still pretty good. For cis women, sex can easily be much less fulfilling and far more hassle than staying home and binge-watching House of Cards on Netflix. It’s not that we don’t like sex, it’s that bad sex is really fucking boring and lots of men are bad at it. Plus it’s pretty fucking hard to tell someone how to get you off when a) you’ve been socialized from birth never to talk about what you want or have needs that might possibly inconvenience anyone, b) are worried about hurting the guy’s feelings if you tell him that the almighty penis alone is not going to get it done, and c) are worried about being considered some sort of dirty slut who *gasp* masturbates for knowing what kind of touch gets you off.

I’m not any sort of expert in the science of desire and sexuality (for that you should read Emily Nagoski’s entire blog), but for a really quick overview just read her post about the dual control model of sexuality. Oh, and this one about orgasm differences. To quote that post:

Virtually all heterosexual men are reliably orgasmic from penile-vaginal intercourse, while only about a quarter to a third of women are. Another third of women are sometimes orgasmic from penetration, and the remaining third of women are never or almost never orgasmic from penile-vaginal penetration. These results have been replicated over and over, in the lab and by self-report.

Also:

Latency is the amount of time it takes from the start of stimulation to orgasm. For women, it’s somewhere between 5-25 minutes on average (masturbating), and for men it’s more like 4-7 minutes (intravaginal).

Tell me, do you think random guy from the bar/craigslist/okcupid/whatever is going to patiently bring me to the edge of orgasm before he sticks it in and or patiently bring me off after he’s already gotten his and quite possibly fallen asleep? Sure, maybe he will, but are the odds of that good enough to justify the hassle of leaving the house (I’m a hermit, okay, this is a serious hurdle to overcome) and finding someone who might get me off?

Personally, I’ve had good luck with online hookups actually giving a shit whether I’ve gotten off but I was also a picky motherfucker who spent days if not weeks looking out for an ad that actually made me want to reply. Online personals, even the most casual ones, were never an “I need to get laid tonight” solution, they were an “I would like to get laid in the not so distant future” solution. If I needed an orgasm that night and didn’t already have a friend with benefits coming over, I just jerked off. Look at that stats up there: I have terrible odds of getting off with some random. Admittedly I’m one of the lucky ones in that I can reliably orgasm with the right stimulation and it’s not that much of a hassle, for women with more elusive orgasms casual hookups are an even worse bet.

It is true that women have slightly better chances of having casual sex than men do because the vastly higher risk for women means that relatively few of us are even interested in casual sex. It is simply not true that any woman can have satisfying sex with a man she finds attractive any time she wants. Guys, you too can get laid any time you want (for free, even!) if you just lower your standards far enough and are willing to have bad sex with someone you’re not attracted to. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Or, Stabbity thought of more stuff that new submissive guys might want to know.

One of the questions I see over and over is whether it’s okay to be inexperienced or whether any dom would ever give an inexperienced sub the time of day. I also sometimes see puzzling (to put it nicely) assumptions about more experienced subs.

First of all, there’s nothing wrong with whatever level of experience you have. If you have none, great. That’s how we all started out. If you have tons, great. You have something valuable to share.

For the inexperienced subs out there, it’s not a lack of experience that can put doms off so much as the way that lack of experience and lack of self-awareness often go together. If you’ve never done anything kinky before, doms worry that you’ll abruptly realize you’re not kinky after all and abandon them or assume that kink is all about making your boner happy and irritate the shit out of them and waste their time, or act shocked that women have desires of their own that might not turn you on or even *GASP* actively turn you off.

Fortunately, there are a bunch of things you can do about that. First of all, get some information about kink that doesn’t come from porn. Ideally you should go to a munch and talk to actual kinky people face to face, but if that’s not your thing then I highly recommend reading forums and/or blogs where you can hear from actual kinky people. Just keep in mind that there is a huge amount of bullshit on the internet. If anyone asks you for money, they’re a scammer. If someone sounds like they stepped out of your favourite porno, they’re a scammer. If someone goes on and on about how they were trained by a secret European house/a true old guard mistress/how they’ve been dominant since middle school, they’re lying to make themselves look important and you should take everything they say with a gigantic grain of salt.

Many kinky people are friendly to newbies who are trying to figure themselves out, if you ask politely about something in their profile or something they said in a forum post, you have a good chance of getting a helpful answer. Don’t take it personally if you don’t get a response even if you do everything right, all sorts of things that have nothing to do with you can prevent a person from answering even the best email. Sometimes people get swamped at work. Sometimes people go on vacation. Sometimes people have a bad break up and take a little time away from the scene. Sometimes people just forget stuff and then all of a sudden that message is two months old and they’re embarrassed about saying “Hi person who messaged me weeks and weeks ago, I’m kind of a fuckup and can’t keep track of my own email.” Er, not that that’s ever happened to me or anything.

Another piece of advice for men in general: read/watch/listen to media by women. Why? Because it’ll help you understand that we’re people with unique views of the world who don’t exist to entertain you. One of the most irritating things you can possibly do as a new sub is to act all shocked and horrified that a dominant woman might have her own ideas about how a scene or a relationship should go.

If casual play is something that appeals to you at all, kink organizations will sometimes have events specifically for newbies to try stuff out. In my city we’ll have a party for newbies about once a year with a whole bunch of booths staffed by volunteers (both tops and bottoms) who might let you give/receive a spanking, or a paddling, or a couple of licks from a whip (you probably won’t get to give that one). Even if casual play is your thing, keep in mind that trying something in the context of a stranger giving you a quick demo can be very different from having a full on scene with someone you personally like and want to play with. Basically, don’t write something off as Not Your Kink just because a demo didn’t do it for you.

For people with the cash to spare, seeing a pro can also be helpful. Sometimes you just want to know whether you even like getting flogged/caned/tied up and you don’t want to lead some poor woman on just to find out that you’re only a bottom in your fantasies. Now, pros can have very similar problems with total newbies as lifestyle doms – if you’ve never done this before you’re much more likely to get cold feet, and for a pro that’s an hour (or so) where they suddenly don’t make any money. Expect to pay some kind of deposit to make an appointment and accept that not all pros are interested in seeing someone with absolutely no references (it’ll say so on her website if that’s the case). Keep in mind that pros are often part of the scene – the pro you were a dick to might very well be best friends with the hot dom at the munch you have your eye on.

Don’t forget, being inexperienced can be an asset. Some doms have run into far too many guys who expect them to act just like their old mistress did and are sick of having to explain that no really, they’re different people who want different things. Sometimes it’s just easier to deal with someone who isn’t dragging around all that baggage. It can also be a huge amount of fun to introduce people to awesome stuff they’re been fantasizing about for ages and finally get to experience. And honestly, some people are just turned on by being someone’s first dom.

That all might sound really complicated but all you need to do is make a bit of an effort to figure your shit out and treat dominant women like we’re people.

For the experienced subs out there, it’s not that having experience means you’re used goods, it’s that your new dom is going to worry that you’ll expect her to be exactly like your old dom.

Some guys seem to assume that having some experience means they’re somehow pre-trained and less work for a new dom. That’s bullshit, to be blunt. There is no universal standard of training. I don’t fucking care that so and so trained you, I’m not her. The fact that you think that’s relevant only tells me you don’t understand that doms are unique individuals.

Think about it this way: if you date Amy and then Brianna, would you tell Brianna that you’re a good boyfriend because you know what Amy likes? No, that would be completely fucking ridiculous. Amy and Brianna are different people, making Amy happy doesn’t say anything about your ability to make Brianna happy.

There’s also a special case of this for guys who’ve spent a lot of time seeing pros: lifestylers can get worried that you’re going to expect them to act like a pro. That is, to break out all the fancy fetish gear every time and do what you like, not what they like and always be up for a scene if you want one. This is where you need the self-awareness to know what you actually want. If you enjoyed playing with a pro but you want a relationship too and/or a more pervasive d/s dynamic than you can realistically maintain with someone you see once a month, great! On the other hand, if you just want someone to top you for free and otherwise act like a pro, suck it up and keep paying the pro. Trust me, everyone will be happier that way. You don’t want to be the self-absorbed asshole that your former girlfriend warns all her friends to stay the hell away from.

To be clear, it’s absolutely okay to want the pro dom experience. Maybe you’re extremely busy, maybe you don’t have the emotional energy for a relationship, maybe you need to keep your kink sharply separated from the rest of your life. As long as you’re honest about it and don’t try to badger some poor woman into pro domming you for free, it’s totally cool to want what you want.

Another potential issue with a guy who’s played with other doms, pro or not, is it can be intimidating to play with someone who’s played with someone who is really good at it and wonder if you measure up. Especially if he’s played with someone who literally does it for a living, it can be really easy to start worrying about whether you’re actually any good at this or whether he’s wishing he was playing with someone who had better aim.

Being more experienced can be an asset. It’s no worse than having had previous vanilla relationships. Sure, there’s a risk you have more baggage than someone who’s never dated before, but at the same time that also tells me that at least one person thought you were worth dating. Net gain! Plus it’s really helpful if you can tell your dom that you love x, like y okay, and can’t take much z.

The same advice I gave inexperienced guys still applies: all you need to do is make a bit of an effort to figure your shit out and treat dominant women like we’re people.

No matter how much experience you have, if you have a bit of self-awareness and can build an emotional connection with someone, odds are good she won’t care how much experience you have. Keep in mind that different people like different things for reasons that have nothing to do with you, and don’t try to be someone you’re not.

After last week’s cranky post, let’s talk about things I like. I really like games that make me think. If you do too you should definitely play The Beginner’s Guide. It’s Davey Wreden’s second game, he also made The Stanley Parable (which was amazing and you should play it too).

I can’t say too much about the game without spoiling it, so I’m going to have to be a little vague here. What I enjoyed about the game was having to think about what was going on and try to figure out what it meant. I also love games like Torchlight and Torchlight II which are all about straightforward dungeon exploring and monster smiting, but sometimes I want something I can dig into a little more.

The Beginner’s Guide (and The Stanley Parable, for that matter), aren’t for everyone. They aren’t so much “games” as interactive experiences – there’s no score, no win condition, no lives or deaths. Some people get really into stuff like that and other people just aren’t interested. I personally like just about anything weird and/or morbid, so I really enjoy stuff that tries to expand the boundaries of what you can express with a game.

After you play The Beginner’s Guide, if you decide to, I highly recommend watching this talk Davey gave called Playing Stories. In the context of that talk, the game is a lot easier to understand. It’s also an interesting talk in general if you’re into making games or anything else to express yourself.

One of many, many things that I’m irrationally irritated by is personal ads all about how the poster is bored and wonders if anyone wants to hang out. If you can’t entertain yourself with AN ENTIRE FUCKING INTERNET there is absolutely nothing I can do to help you.

Now, I realize that “I’m bored” is probably just a semi-socially-acceptable version of “I’m lonely” or “I’m horny” but that in no way fixes the impression it gives, which is that the poster is such a lazy little shit that they can’t be bothered to entertain themselves and expect a stranger to do it for them. I’m not your fucking mommy, random internet person. I don’t give two shits that you’re bored. Unlike you I’m a grownup and can amuse myself with the enormous pile of books I want to read, games I want to play (my steam backlog is a mess), blog posts I want to write, personal projects I want to work on, things I want to learn, tumblr, twitter, and about a zillion delightfully weird little shows on youtube. If you can get on Fetlife to whine about how you’re bored, you have access to all the entertainment you could possibly want.

If for some reason you’re you’re set on interacting with people face to face (while I’m baffled by it, I hear extroversion is a thing), meetup.com is your friend. Or you can get off your ass and google “volunteer [your city]” or check the local classifieds. If you need to get out of the house there is a way to do that, you just have to show the tiniest bit of initiative.

I’m also – possibly irrationally – annoyed by shared profiles. If you and your partner are so codependent you can’t handle having separate identities on Fetlife, why on earth would I stand in the path of that particular trainwreck? The idea that people in a relationship stop being separate people creeps me the fuck out, and aside from making my skin want to crawl off my body and down the street, I don’t think I’d have much of anything to talk about with people who think it’s a good idea to assimilate themselves into some borg-like hivemind.

Not that that’s the only reason to have a shared profile. You could also be pathologically untrusting or completely justifiably untrusting! Sign up now for a good seat at the inevitable trainwreck! I honestly don’t care why you don’t trust your partner enough to let them have an individual profile, I just want to be outside the blast radius when things inevitably explode. Call me cold-hearted but I’ll be over here enjoying a nice glass of wine while you lose days of your life you will never get back to an entirely predictable and preventable crisis. And honestly, do you want to hang out with someone who thinks your life choices are badly thought out and guaranteed to make you unhappy? You do not, so let’s spare each other the hassle and stay away.

Another less direct pet peeve of mine is people (men. let’s be honest, it’s men) who answer personal ads that have a clear age range defined when they’re well outside of that range. Not so long ago I saw a personal ad from someone who was very clear about what she wanted and part of what she wanted was people in a clearly defined age range. So of course some creeper replies saying he’s a little outside her range and wondering whether she’s at all flexible on it. If he was only a year or two older than her upper bound that would be a reasonable question. But of course Mr Creeper is not a year or two older, he’s TEN FUCKING YEARS over her oldest desired age. That guy is literally old enough to be her father!

Daddy kink is a thing, being into older men is a thing, being totally bored of bratty little boys your own age is so very much a thing. All of that is totally cool if it’s the younger party explicitly inviting older potential partners to get in touch. When some random guy messages a woman who is young enough to be his daughter knowing perfectly well that she’s looking for men a minimum of ten years younger than he is, that’s creepy as shit. When the absolute best case scenario is that you’re too fucking lazy to actually read the ad and just replied to the perky young titties, it’s time to back the fuck away from the keyboard before you embarrass yourself even more than you already have.

While I’m at it, for fucks sake stop posting the same personal ad over and over again. Protip: if I only check the local personals group once in a while and see a fresh ad from you every single fucking time I do, you need to chill the fuck out. I actually don’t want you to be as desperately sad and lonely as you look, but if you insist on waving the “I’m desperate and lonely!” flag, that’s going to do you about as much good as waving the “I’m too lazy to entertain myself!” flag.

On the upside, it’s really easy to do better than these examples. Seriously, the tiniest bit of thought will put you head and shoulders above the sad bastards who think “Your purpose in life is to entertain me when I’m too fucking lazy to do it myself!” is attractive. Just spend five goddamn seconds thinking about how the people reading your ad might respond. What would you want to know about a potential partner? Put that in your ad! What do you think is cool or interesting or funny? Put that in your ad! What does your ideal night out look like? Put that in your ad! Would you vastly prefer an ideal night in? Put that in your ad! Are you a total fucking nerd who wants to spend hours talking about game design and narrative structure and games that push the boundaries of the medium like The Beginner’s Guide? Put that in your ad! Then email me, The Beginner’s Guide blew my mind and I want to nerd it up.

While I was writing this post it finally occurred to me that people probably write terrible personal ads because they’re scared of being vulnerable. It’s a lot easier to say “I’m bored” than “I’m lonely.” I understand the urge to protect yourself, but if you’re not willing to open up even a little bit, why even bother looking for someone? To connect with someone, you have to make yourself at least a tiny bit vulnerable. Without that, you might as well just stay home and not talk to anyone (which I’m a huge fan of, don’t get me wrong). You don’t get to offload all the vulnerability onto the other person, that’s both lazy and unfair. And unattractive, which is more than a little counterproductive if you’re trying to connect with someone.

Readers, what kind of terrible, self-defeating behaviour raises your hackles?

Captain Awkward is a really great advice column and sometimes opinion blog, if you’re not already reading it I highly recommend it. Not so long ago she got a question from a woman who needed advice about what to do when her engineer boyfriend invites her to events with his work friends and then makes no effort to steer the all-work-all-the-time conversation in a direction she is remotely able to participate in. Normally the comments at Captain Awkward are great but this time they went right off the rails. Apparently it’s meeeeeean and terrible and some sort of anti-nerd bigotry to say that engineers are in fact capable of observing such basic social niceties as including your girlfriend in the conversation when you invite her out with your friends and ought to do so.

Yes, autistic people all along the autism/aspergers spectrum exist, may plausibly be over represented in the tech industry, and are not deliberately being rude when they can’t tell that someone is bored by a particular conversation. That’s not even slightly what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about are the lazy fucking assholes who throw actual autistic people under the bus when they use them as an excuse to ignore such overbearing social expectations as giving a shit about their date’s happiness. The vast vast majority of asshole engineers are not autistic, they’re assholes.

“Engineer” is just a job title, it’s not a fucking diagnosis. Having the patience to deal with a compiler not cooperating in absolutely no way whatso-fucking-ever prevents you from giving a shit about your partner’s happiness. Enjoying the sense of triumph when you finally get your code working correctly in absolutely no way whatso-fucking-ever prevents you from giving a shit about your partner’s happiness. Spending a weekend playing with a new framework or library in absolutely no way whatso-fucking-ever prevents you from giving a shit about your partner’s happiness.

You know what actually does prevent you from giving a shit about your partner’s happiness? Being a lazy, self-centered asshole. Engineers in general are perfectly fucking capable of noticing that their partner is bored to tears by a conversation they’re being actively excluded from and changing topics to include them. The problem is that some of them are too fucking lazy to do that, so they hide under the excuses of “you can’t expect engineers to be social” or “you’re saying it’s not okay to be a nerd!” or “this is just how I am and it’s unfair to expect me to change.”

If that’s just who you are, then who you are is an asshole and you need to fix your shit. That’s not a refusal to accept people as they are, that’s a refusal to tolerate shitty fucking behaviour. If you invite someone to an outing, you goddamn well include them in the conversation. If you don’t care about them enough to include them, why the fuck did you even invite them in the first place?

The idea that engineers can’t be expected to be even halfway polite is in fact incredibly insulting. I’m a fucking grownup, not some spoiled child who will throw a tantrum if you make completely reasonable demands of me. Excusing me from basic politeness is saying that I am such an incredible fuckup than you’ve just given up on me. Some people are certainly that big of fuckups, but if you wouldn’t tolerate that behaviour in a chef or a teacher or an actor or a bus driver or a writer or an accountant, there’s no reason to tolerate it in an engineer just because they have a different job title.

Again, being a lazy asshole is very very different from being an autistic person. “Actually can’t tell someone is bored without that someone saying so in words” is very different from “doesn’t care that someone is bored and can’t be bothered to even but forth the tiniest bit of effort to change topics of conversation.” Not everyone is good at noticing that someone is bored. That’s different from being an asshole. Not everyone is good at finding a topic of conversation that everyone can participate in. That’s different from being an asshole. Not everyone is good at talking with people they don’t know well. That’s different from being an asshole.

Everybody messes up sometimes. I’ve accidentally insulted people’s interests and failed at including everyone in the conversation and I have no doubt I’ve bored people who were too nice to tell me that they could not possibly care less about whatever technical detail I was rambling on about. Assholery isn’t people who try but make mistakes, it’s people who don’t think they should have to try and who can’t be bothered to make even small changes when someone tells them they’re unhappy. Using an example the letter writer from Captain Awkward provided in the comments “The last time this happened was a winery trip that involved a 2-hour long car ride to and from, plus 3 hours at the winery, which was JUST work talk. The entire time.” Seven hours of actively excluding your date from the conversation is not an accident, it’s assholery.

The sort of self-centered dicks who pull this shit are probably beyond my help so what I’ll say is that if someone tries this shit on you, tell them to go fuck themselves. You deserve better than some assclown who thinks their job title excuses them from giving a shit about your happiness.

Hey Canadians, Monday the 19th is voting day. Get the fuck out there and get Harper out of office!

Here are some long lists of reasons you should vote Anyone But Conservative:

25 reasons Stephen Harper is bad for Canada

Harper Watch

Shit Harper Did

If that’s not enough, look at this ridiculous fucking bullshit. The Conservatives bought giant front-page ads on dozens on newspapers and styled them to look like official notices from Elections Canada. We should absolutely blame the spineless trash who printed that shit rather than walk off the job, but the bigger problem is that the Conservatives thought that was a remotely reasonable thing to do. This is the level of contempt the Harper government has for us.

If that’s not enough, look at this other ridiculous fucking bullshit. My voter registration card said polls would be open until 8pm on Monday, just like they are for every other election ever. And now all of a sudden polls in BC are only open until 7pm. That is voter suppression and it is not acceptable.

If that’s still not enough, look at this other ridiculous fucking bullshit. Elections Canada workers at advance polling stations have been mistrained in an effort to prevent marginalized people from voting. You do NOT need photo ID to vote. By all means bring it if you have it, but you can vote with two pieces of ID with your name if one of them includes your address. You can also vote with two pieces of ID with your name and a person from your riding who knows where you live and will vouch for you. This is literally voter suppression and we are supposed to be better than that! Technically this mistraining could just be blatant fucking incompetence but that’s still a compelling reason to vote Anyone But Conservative.

If you don’t vote for any other reason, vote to spite Harper. He obviously wants to prevent you from voting if he possibly can. Go to votetogether.ca, find the candidate in your riding who has the best chance of beating out the conservative candidate, and vote Harper the fuck out of office.