The confidence to be attractive

The NY Post’s little front page expose “My life as a Midtown Dominatrix" is really nothing more than a sales pitch for the feature’s new book Whip Smart. But on that I will speak no further because that is not what caught my eye (and, frankly, yawn); what interested me were the comments left by the readers.

Anyone who reads articles about anything related to BDSM in the press knows that there is so much venom directed towards it’s practitioners that it is no wonder those in the lifestyle feel they must remain hidden and ashamed, especially men interested in submission. The comments related to this particular article often were directed at her looks vs. how much of a fee she was earning for session. Short version: who would pay that much for so much ugly?! I couldn’t help but think looking at her photo- “Ugly? Most certainly not!” But in the world of BDSM, especially in the world of professional domination, it is the attitude which is so much more important than mere and base looks and this is a lesion so many outside of BDSM would be better off learning as well.

Never under estimate the power of confidence. I am personally quite average in look and build and yet regularly when I walk down the street I am hit on by men. While part of me was flattered (and annoyed, it’s not like the guys who were hitting on me were saying anything ‘polite’) It used to puzzle me. So I asked several male friends what was it about me, specifically, that was attracting such demonstrative attention? They led me to realized that it wasn’t so much how I looked, what I was wearing etc (though that did have something to do with the whole package of presentation) it was that I carried myself with an almost unworldly level of self confidence. Later experimentation and observation bared this out: when I was sad, stressed, or otherwise not feeling at the full of my potential, I would be hit on less frequently than the days I was feeling on top of my game or even feeling loved by friends and partners.

So, back to the issue of the role of looks vs. ‘attractiveness’. I can’t help but feel that there is a category of men who wish for the meekest of kittens in looks and attitude due to their own low sense of self worth. These are the sort of men to limit a woman’s potential to looks. After all, when one is empty inside, how are they able to judge the value of someone else who is complex and confidant? Furthermore, I never can shake the feeling that the men the most critical of women’s looks, especially in an anonymous forum, are not hot shit themselves. Ah, irony.

In the case of the so-called ‘unattractive professional dominatrix’, however, there is another issue here: the men interested in dominant women (professional of lifestyle) care less about looks than the ability of a woman to engage them mentally. While, for some, looks do play are part in that (especially if that woman looks particularly ferosh in leather or latex), I have often seen men pick a professional dominatrix based on looks but counter to their actual interest (let alone the skill set of the woman), and come out of it miserable. There is a lesion here for men both within the kink world and non-kink world, if you ignore you actual intellectual desires, you will be emotional disappointed.