Our resident Dominatrix, Anne O Nomis, is the author of the first book in the world on the Dominatrix's history and arts. In her book, she developed a framework of the "Seven Realm Arts" to break-down what it is that a Dominatrix does in her secretive dungeon lair. It has gone on to become highly influential around the world, and used by training institutes such as the world’s oldest BDSM training chateau, La Domaine Esemar located out of New York. ‘The History & Arts of the Dominatrix’ is recommended as curriculum text, and is a prized possession at London Mistress School.

Anne O Nomis has been teaching her Seven Realm Arts course for four years now at Passionfruit, and we've watched enrolees go through a journey while taking her course of growing in their confidence and the way they stride through their world, alongside the knowledge they gain.

In a blog post divided into 2 parts, we've asked Anne to talk about her brand new course 'The Art of FemDom Relationship Training' and reflect on her four years of teaching the 'Dominatrix Seven Realm Arts' course.Whilst the current FemDom course is sold out, we've managed to squeeze in one more Dominatrix Seven Realm Arts class beginning next week on Thursday April 4th from 7 - 9 pm.

The next 'The Art of FemDom Relationship Training’ course won't run again until 31st October 2019 as Anne is on a 4 month research project from July.

PART 1: Coming to the topic of lifestyle and sexual Domination

For the past year, I've been working on research for a part of Domination that I hadn't previously turned my focus to, and that is to lifestyle FemDom (Female Domination). That is women who are dominating as part of their actual lifestyle and sex life.

Part of that started with trying to track down a decent manual or guide for aspiring lifestyle Mistresses. That might be someone who feels that they are dominant by nature and wanting some guidance on how to channel that and integrate it successfully within their relationship(s). Or in some circumstances, it's that their partner has shared with them that they identify as being submissive. Or rather their partner might want to be their servant, or their slave. Sometimes that may be mixed with particular "kinks", fetishes or fantasies; for example, they enjoying wearing women's hoisery and lingerie and being feminised, or perhaps they have a particular fetish for a powerful dominant woman wearing leather or latex, or high heel boots.

In either case, the woman is seeking some guidance and ideas; and has questions like:

"How do I manage Domination and submission within my relationship with my partner? Do we stay normal and some how click into playtime, or do I try and somehow integrate dominating him as a fulltime thing around-the-clock"?

or

"How do I work out what I want from the relationship? What should I do to dominate my partner and to keep things fresh and interesting? I need ideas!"

or

"I'm wanting to train my partner who is submissive, but I'm unsure how to do this."

or

"My husband has just sprung on me that he's into being dominated and he has particular kinks for being put in bondage and kept in chastity, and punished. This has come as a bit of a surprise to me, but I regard myself as an open-minded person and I want to fulfil his desires, and he says he was attracted to my natural dominance, but I feel like I don't know what I'm doing."

These are by the way literally requests and emails I've had. So I've tried to proffer advice as I could.

The limitations of existing books and manuals

Initially I'd sought a good manual to be able to recommend people, but I haven't found any one book that "does the job" as it were. There are various books that are potentially useful - that for example introduce the basics of lifestyle domination aimed at women who've been sprung by their partner or husband saying he's submissive. They are often titled to I think alleviate women's perceived concern or nervousness about being harsh, cruel or uncaring, with titles or sub-titles which incorporated reference to "nervous beginners" or "FemDom for nice girls", "for nice girls", "caring Mistress", which speaks to all the cultural baggage we grow up with as women, having to be pleasing and appeasing, kind, polite; and to the way in which the word "bossy" tends to be directed culturally at assertive girls or women but not commonly used for men in our society. Amongst these guides those written by Janet Hardy or under her various aliases - which I regard as good just for those looking for something to get them started.

I also tracked down some notorious underground Mistress training manuals, that were rather extreme. Dating from the turn of the 21st Century, some of their content seemed implausible to my trained eye, or encouraging frankly illegal and unethical strategies.

One really useful writer on Female Domination is Elise Sutton, whose self-published books are amongst those that have ended up recommended on the reading list for my new course. She advocates male submissives as being in search of "loving female authority", which is I think an idea and ideal that many can wrap their head around. One could say her views are a little idealized or romanticized, but nonetheless they will be helpful to many who align with the idea of "loving female authority".

And in one of Elise Sutton's books, Searching for Wanda (the last of her trilogy, this third book specifically on the topic of masochists), she included results of a survey she ran with 43 of her FemDom acquaintances filling it out. So not strictly scientific, but nonetheless the results were interesting and completely in line with what I've experienced in the lifestyle scene.

Sutton's findings were reported across just 3 pages of her 250 page book, but I felt they deserved more attention, and I've turned them into a bar graph for easy referral, dear readers. Actually I lie. Truth be told I had my slave do me a bar graph and then corrected his errors, and counted these for cane strokes he'll receive. (Wink)

So what women want when they get their own way?
Turns out - help with housework, being pampered, getting oral (cunnilingus)....

There were 21 activities that Sutton had her 43 female Dominant acquaintances rank, described by her terms used in her book, which were turned into a percentage. They are biased to heterosexual relationships, and there were 31 lifestyle FemDoms, 3 active pro-Dommes, 5 retired pro-Dommes, and 4 phone counselling FemDom/BDSM Dommes who filled in the survey.

See if you're surprised by this:

Domestic servitude (man doing household chores) - 92
Personal servitude (man giving women massages, pedicures, manicures, baths) - 89
Body worship (male orally servicing the woman sexually) - 87
Orgasm control (male masturbation forbidden, male must gain woman's permission before receiving an orgasm) - 79
Control finances (woman makes financial decisions) - 76
Final authority (woman has final say in most if not all areas of relationship) - 75
CF/nm activities (Clothed female / naked male) - 73
Spankings (light to firm discipline upon male buttocks with bare hand, hairbrush or paddle) - 73
Cuckolding (woman has right to have other lovers, male must remain monogamous) - 59
Strap-on play (penetrating male anally with strap-on dildo) - 52
Fetish outfits (woman wears leather outfits, boots, etc) - 51
Forced feminization and/or sissification (feminizing male, dressing up male in feminine attire, having male do chores while dressed as maid, etc) - 48
Light sadism (woman likes to inflict slight pain on male - scratching, biting, pinching, clothes pins, clamps, etc - 45
Male chastity and long term denial - requires male to wear chastity device, his orgasms are restricted and rare - 43
Water sports (golden showers, enemas) - 42
Bondage (use of restraints, hoods, gags, etc) - 40
Corporal punishment (harsh discipline of male via whip or cane) - 38
Humiliation play (woman likes to humiliate the male, verbally, publicly, objectification, other) - 31
C/B torture (inflict pain on male genitals) - 28
Hard sadism (woman gains sexual pleasure in seeing a man suffer- inflict pain, hear male scream, leave welts, marks, bruises, etc) - 25
Extreme play (psychological abuse, blood sports, scat, other extreme activities) - 16
(Source: Elise Sutton 'Searching for Wanda' (2010), Lulu Books, pp.171-173)

Were you surprised by any of this, dear reader?

Elise Sutton noted in her book that professional Mistresses were more likely to enjoy the activities at the end of the list: corporal punishment, humiliation play, CB torture, hard sadism and extreme play. (Sutton, p.173)

While married women were primarily interested in having their husbands serve them domestically, personally and sexually. (Sutton, p.173)

Which is why I knew I wanted my new course on The Art of FemDom to focus on relationship training with these particular areas in mind. That is, how to train and manage your partner doing domestic chores, personal servitude, and how to ask and get what you want sexually, and be the figure of authority within the consensual relationship.

However I also wanted my FemDom guidance to be extended to queer communities and not only traditional heterosexual relationships. And 20th Century BDSM history was rich on this, I knew from my past historical research. As indeed in the USA in particular, there was a fascinating history of "leatherfolk", which developed as a form of identity with their own values and protocols, which included a large contingent of gay men, returned servicemen from the war with military discipline, as well as queer / feminist practitioners and a wider more inclusive BDSM community.

(To be continued in Part 2: Leatherfolk, Protocol, and Training derived from dogs and dolphins and how it's useful to slave training, Masochists and the fantasy of a Venus in Furs)