An Essay on The Societal Dominatrix- Part 4. Loving and Hating The Dominatrix (or Are You a Good Witch, or a Bad Witch?)

So the Dominatrix is here in our hearts and minds, readily available whenever we to put a sexy face on a naughty fetish.  However, in those rare instances when she’s brought in do a little more than grace us with a sneer and whip crack, then suddenly there are rules for our leading lady.  Just a few conditions like: perpetual virginity,  the understanding that she’ll give up her career upon the initiation of a relationship with a male, only romantically acquiescing to peers or superiors, homosexuality, possessing  secret longings to be the submissive or a ‘normal woman,’  a  professed distaste for her job or the clients she services.  If none of these conditions are met, then you can measure an improper Dominatrix’s media lifespan in seconds.  She either suffers tragedy in the forms of:  violence, death, or death of character potency by becoming a marginalized joke character - because it is only in comedy (the loudest form of tragedy) that such a character may exist.

Dominatrices that even get speaking parts are rare but let me bring up a few to try to illustrate what I mean:

Ghost Talker's Daydream – Saiki Misaki – A virgin who is malcontent with her job as a dominatrix that part-times as a necromancer.  Oo! Subtle metaphor!  She’s someone who has the power to exert control over the scariest, creepiest, most repugnant things imaginable without them harming her.  She’s also a necromancer.

Soul Caliber titles – Ivy Valentine – A virgin who is malcontent with her status as a corrupted being. She labors to find a way to expunge herself of evil and refuses to have intercourse lest she procreate said evil.

Various Batman Titles – Cat Woman – Largely only interested in Batman, a man who is a more powerful person than she is, whom routinely defeated her when she was villainess and largely rebukes and chastises her during her anti-hero phases.

Various Batman Titles – Poison Ivy – (this one’s even a stretch to include, Ivy’s largely been more of a pure temptress) Virginal, her touch killing anyone she contacts.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – Lady Heather – A professional dominatrix who falls in love with one of the main characters, Grissom.   Lady Heather is shown to be an anthropologist using her profession as research material.  She does not engage in BDSM with her ‘real world’ lover.  In one episode she kidnaps her daughter’s murderer to torture him to death, using her role to punish rather than reward, and Grissom switches her off with a safe word to defeat her.  Heather advises that in a BDSM relationship the slave is really in charge.  She then retires to become a sex therapist

Red Sonja’s Red Sonja- Virginal.  The prize of her sexual favor is contingent on a man defeating her in fair combat, or she will lose all of her Goddess-granted power.

What’s the reasons for these conditions?   It’s to normalize the Dominatrix.  The princess in her tower, guarded by a dragon – it’s one of the most typical narratives we have.  By defeating the challenge, and freeing the princess from her prison, we prove to the princess, her parents (or guardians, get it?) and ourselves that we deserve that attention.   The Dominatrix is only allowed to exist as another princess.  She has to either act as her own guardian, or her lifestyle has to act as her tower.   Whether she’s defeated or freed, she’ll drop the whip, assure her hero that the princess is in this castle, and rush to them for some good ol’ fashion vanilla sex, her Dominatrix outfit no longer any more meaningful than a Halloween costume.   She’s defeated, she’s trapped, or she’s a virgin.  Those are the Dominatrix’s only approved options within society.

Not that it’s inappropriate for our leather clad subject, but why the love/hate relationship? Ostensibly the Patriarch hates her for her power; that doesn’t belong to women.  Ostensibly the Feminist hates her for her lack of power, as it comes from masculine vindication.  She’s just another lust-contingent sex object to fulfill some masculine role reversal fetish.  But there’s something even more primal than that at play.

The hatred comes from the Yin to her Yang, that opposing force to complete her circle, shaping her and being shaped by her, containing some of her within itself just as she contains some of it within her.   I’m talking about her counterpart, the submissive male.    If he should force her by dint of a Patriarchal enforced fetish, or tempt her with money, power writ to paper, then that’s a little easier for the rest of the world to swallow.   What’s impermissible is the concept that her whip is just a way to make him be weaker and cry louder, her bonds a way to make him even more helpless, and all before she enjoys him exactly as he is:  a man who doesn’t deserve the reward of female sex/vagina/procreation.   That’s right; we’re looking at another kind of slut shaming.  However, she’s a particularly nasty permutation because she’s not just a free ride, like her oft maligned sister.  She’s not only letting the wrong kind of men on board, she’s seeking them out to the exclusion of the good ones, and if he’s not submissive(bad) enough when she finds him, then she’s going to fix that issue herself.   

The Dominatrix is trotting up and down the beach kicking down sandcastles of Masculinity and her victims are thanking her for it, and begging her to do it again.  Feminism and the Patriarchy may loathe each other, but they’ve shook hands and agreed on the Success Model before they decided to fight tooth and claw over it.  It’s not easy to convince people that Masculinity is such a privilege when people are paying, begging, and running for the opportunity to be free of it.   It must be a pain trying to convince someone their corset is a sexist prison when a member of the opposite sex is begging to be strapped into one.  It can’t be easy selling the concept of female hypergamy as an incentive to ‘man up’ with the Dominatrix talking about how she likes the shy ones because they’re more likely to cry. 

The Dominatrix is a metaphor for a woman doing womanhood backwards, and she’s got the strap-on to prove it.  She’s the woman who sleeps with men who are the wrong color.  She sleeps with men who are poor.  She sleeps with men who are too young for her.  She sleeps with men who are too old for her.  She sleeps with men who are pretty.  She sleeps with men who are ugly.   She sleeps with men who are dumb.  She sleeps with men who are creepy.  She sleeps with men who are short.  She sleeps with men who are thin.  She sleeps with men who are fat.  She sleeps with bisexuals.   She sleeps with men who are submissive.  She sleeps with men who are girly.  She sleeps with men who are weak.  She does it of her own free will, without penance or repentance, and she loves every minute of it.  She pity fucks without an ounce of pity, mercy fucks without a drop of mercy, and threatens to create more of herself and her partner whenever she does it.

That really, really seems to scare people, as I’ll try to demonstrate in my next post.