Writing Realistic Female Dominance

Scene 1

I couldn't believe I was doing it, even as I followed the tall blonde in the black PVC catsuit to the door with "Private" written over the door in tilting red script. I just went to the sex club to watch, at least that was my plan, but as soon as I saw her demonstrating the proper way to flog a man in a kneeling position, I knew I would be on my knees for her by the end of the night. I couldn't see anything inside the private room after she disappeared into the shadows.

"Close the door behind you, then turn around and press you palms and forehead to the wood," she commanded from the dark. I didn't hesitate to obey. Her catsuit creaked as she stepped up close behind me and ran her hands over the backs of my arms and shoulders to measure my compliance. She pushed even closer, using her chest and hip to pin me hard against the door. Her breath tickled my ear.

"Spread your legs. I want to inspect what you're offering. See if it's worth my time." I moved my feet apart, the fabric of my pants stretching tightly across my erection. She reached between my legs from behind me with one hand and cupped her palm roughly against my balls before squeezing my stiff cock through my pants. I groaned. Without a word, she unbuckled my belt, unzipped my pants, then pumped my burning cock in her fist. I was too turned on to resist her squeezing, stroking fingers and soon I was shuddering against her while thick spurts of my cum painted the door. She stepped away from me and pushed me to my knees. My eyes had adjusted well enough to the darkness of the room to look back over my shoulder to see her sit down in a chair. She crossed one glossy leg over the other and watched me.

"Lick that mess up so we can get started. At least now you won't come first thing."

I stared at my come, sliding slowly down the door. Was I really going to do this? I didn't even know her name.

Scene 2

Everything was in place for my anniversary surprise. My parents picked the kids up from school and were under strict orders not to call until Sunday night unless someone lost a limb. Takeout from the restaurant where we went on our first date fifteen years ago waited on plates in the oven. Champagne was chilling in the refrigerator. All I needed now was my husband.

"I'm home," he called, as he came in the door. I sat on the couch in the living room and listened to him stomp slush off his boots before leaving them in the mudroom. "Gina?"

"In here," I replied, smiling. He still had no idea.

"Where are the kids?"

"With my folks for the weekend. I have you all to myself." I set my face into an expression of imperious serenity as he popped out of the hallway. He stopped dead when he saw me in my white silk robe, the golden threads of the embroidered pattern catching the afternoon light. My curly black hair was pinned on my head with golden combs, a few ringlets framing my face. My makeup was light, except for my shocking red lips. He was so surprised to see me in my special clothes somewhere other than the bedroom that his mouth was literally hanging open. "Your awe is noted," I purred, fixing him with a heavy-lidded gaze, "but your supplication is lacking."

He was on his hands and knees at once, crawling across the floor to me. He kept his eyes on my feet.

"Please forgive me, my Goddess. Please forgive your worthless servant. I was so taken with your beauty that I forgot to pay proper respect."

"Is forgetfulness an excuse for disrespect?"

"No, my Light, it is not." His voice squeaked a little coming out. He was ashamed and apprehensive.

"With no excuse, the just thing for me to do would be to punish you, would it not?"

"You are always just, my Goddess. I deserve punishment. But I beg you to have mercy on me. Please, allow me to show you my love and devotion. If you will allow me to touch and kiss your feet, I promise I will show the proper respect this time."

I stroked his cheek with my bare toes. "I will allow it. Go retrieve your footbath basin from the bathroom. Change into the clothes I have laid out for you on the bed."

He sighed and rubbed his cheek against the top of my foot, still careful to avert his eyes. "Yes, my Goddess. Thank you for your sweet mercy to this poor supplicant."

****

These two very different scenes represent just two possible facets of the hundreds of scenarios that fall under the blanket definition of female domination. Femdom scenes are far more common as fantasy than reality. In a 2014 survey that's forthcoming in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 53.3% of the men surveyed had fantasies of being dominated sexually. In a 2009 survey published in The Journal of Sex Research using a similar sample size and makeup of participants, women rated fantasy scenarios of female sexual dominance much lower than fantasies of female sexual submission and further indicated that they were far less willing than the male participants to want to make their fantasies a reality. With such a wide gap between the number of men who fantasize about femdom and the number of women who are willing to be sexually dominant, it's a fantasy many have but few realize.

Writing for Literotica is one way to explore that fantasy and bring it to others. Why aim to write realistically when fantasy is the ultimate goal? Your audience falls into one of two categories: people who haven't had an experience like the one you're describing in your story or those who have. For those who have, details of your story that are too fantastic read the same way as stories that refer to 38D breasts being bigger that 32D breasts - it marks you as someone who probably doesn't have any experience with the real thing. The majority of your readers are going to be in the first group. Some readers love the outsized fantasy; they want every Domme to be a six-foot redhead with impossible proportions wearing shoes with heels higher than a human foot can arch. The majority, though, fantasize about having a real-life experience that's likely to be out of reach. Writing more realistic erotica makes it easier for them to identify with your characters. For authors concerned with painting a realistic picture of femdom encounter, it can be difficult to know where to start.

Realistic, resonant female domination writing is far more than accurately describing the feel of a flogger or the sheen of a pair of boots. The action, regardless of what it is, can always be broken down into the Three Rs that must be considered and addressed: Relationship, Ritual, and Release.

Relationship

The Relationship between the people in a femdom scene isn't just a question of whether they're strangers or established play partners, although that makes a difference for how comfortable they are with indicating consent non-verbally. There are also issues of actual power imbalances as the background for a scene, and exploring them makes the story not only more interesting but more realistic.

In Scene 1 above, the two characters are strangers who met in the sexually-charged atmosphere of a club. While it can be tempting to have a character so overwhelmed with desire that he throws caution to the wind, it's not realistic - a reader won't connect to a character who does something so far outside what he himself would do in the same scenario. The male character submits without actually voicing doubts to the Domme, but that doesn't mean he's not experiencing them. He's excited, but also hesitant. Showing his uncertainty about totally submitting shows how strong his desire is rather than taking away from it.

The fact that the two in Scene 1 don't know each other also means their play starts out with low-stakes testing of consent and boundaries. She goes into the room, but he has to follow her to continue. She tells him what to do, but he shows he accepts her dominance by doing it. It ends with her most extreme request, but she's not holding his hair and pushing his face into the door, she's giving him the choice to continue. It's not because she doesn't think she can do it. If anything, she's got greater power making him do it by calm request from across the room instead of using physical force. Because they have never played together before, she uses the most extreme instruction to test how sure he is before they move into the flogging he saw her give someone else earlier.

In Scene 2, the two characters are long married and obviously have played domination games with each other before. There's still an interesting element of novelty, though, since it's clear they have previously confined that kind of play to the bedroom and the husband is not expecting his wife to initiate the scene when she does. Because they trust each other and know their limits, they can realistically move directly into their scene as a surprise. There's no need for negotiation or either of them having trepidation about what they're doing, because the existing relationship makes it believable.

In Scene 1, there's not only a physical power imbalance but a social one, too. She's tall and strong enough to pin him against the door; he's already seen her flog another man. He's also a visitor to the sex club, there for the first time. She obviously has more experience than he does with the club and with femdom in general. These are small details, but they make the imbalance between them clear without either of them saying anything about it.

Other types of natural power imbalances that fit this model: boss and employee; strict governess/teacher and student; superior officer and subordinate; policewoman and prisoner/suspect; mother and son; nurse and patient; queen/lady and servant.

Don't just stop with natural power imbalances, though. Interesting stories can also come from inverting what would normally be a power imbalance in favor of the sub outside of the femdom scene. Inversions: employee who catches the boss doing something he shouldn't or discovers his submissive sexual tendencies; a student who masters her teacher; a suspect in for questioning who uses her dominance to bend a policeman to her will; a daughter who runs the roost over her doting father; a chambermaid who makes the randy lord her sex slave.

In Scene 2, there's no apparent power imbalance in the relationship itself at all. If anything, seeing the amount of preparation the Domme has put into making sure they will both have a pleasant anniversary highlights the lengths she goes to satisfy him as well as herself. This isn't the only way to write a long-term femdom relationship. What about the family where stay-at-home-dad is wearing a chastity device and panties under his jeans and polo? The boss who always lets his employees go early on Friday afternoons because he's got a standing date with the cleaning lady and her strap-on? Maybe the couple that switches off who's dominant based on which of their apartments they are staying in that night? Femdom fits into all kinds of existing relationships, with any kind of external power dynamic imaginable, so long as the details are consistent.

Another question of relationship is whether or not the people involved are being themselves (or a close version) or whether they're playing roles. In Scene 1, the narrator and Domme seem to be themselves; In Scene 2, the couple is playing the roles of Goddess and supplicant. Clear roleplay offers another opportunity to explore the difference between who your characters are outside the bedroom and who they are inside the scene. As in Scene 2, it doesn't take extensive backstory to set up the difference between the two.

The thing to remember for realistic femdom writing is that your characters are people before, during, and after the scene. They have relationships, fears, comfort levels, and reactions. The more you explore them, the more they become relatable characters instead of just bodies going through a shadow play.

Ritual

The core of femdom erotica is the ritual itself. "Ritual" doesn't mean doing exactly the same every time/ Even if it was your heart's exact desire, it would get old after a while. Instead, ritual means the kind of dominance, how roles are established, how it begins and ends. The ritual is what sets a femdom scene apart from the rest of your characters' lives. This is what your readers, whether they love pure fantasy or like their erotica grounded in reality, are seeking and the details make all the difference.

Setting - Where your characters are in space and time is important to establish before you think about other details. Are they in public or in private? Are they in a place where sex play is unacceptable and they could be caught? Are they both taking a risk? Is the place familiar and comfortable?

Time is also important. A governess giving the young adult lord a birching is based in reality if your story is set in the Victorian Era, but it's a woman playing a role at any later time. When the Domme in your story calls a man her slave, is she being literal? History, alternative history, and science fiction can be great outlets for settings where inherent power dynamics are different from modern times.

In Scene 1, the setting is sexually-charged from the beginning and sets up a power imbalance: she is comfortable there and finds it familiar, he's there for the first time. Though the scene starts with them playing in a private room, there's a public space just on the other side that could be used if she wanted a crowd. In Scene 2, the play is confirmed to be very private in a time and place where the Domme has had time to prepare for a specific ritual. It seems unlikely that the couple will leave the house all weekend

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Wardrobe - What your characters are wearing (or not wearing) goes a long way to establishing dominance and submission. Scene 1 has a Domme in very common clothing in erotica. But how many PVC catsuits and five-inch heels have you seen in real life? How many have your readers seen? Does it seem like comfortable clothing a woman in charge would choose, or something she'd only wear for a male fantasy?

It's not that fetish wear and lingerie aren't appropriate or sexy for Dommes to wear. A woman owning, even flaunting her sexuality is a kind of power in itself, and nothing establishes that a scene is sexual and signifies that a role is being assumed or that a ritual is starting faster than describing the Domme wearing clothes she would never wear in regular life. Power is important, though, and for a realistic Domme, her sex appeal comes from her authority, not the other way around. The clothing details that make stories unrealistic and less relatable to me as a reader are the ones that indicate a woman has less power, not more. The domineering boss in the corner office doesn't show a lot of cleavage or wear a miniskirt to work unless her sexuality is how she got where she is. Who has more authority, a woman wearing a latex "naughty nurse" outfit or a woman in a crisp cotton nurse's uniform snapping on a latex glove?

In Scene 1, the Domme's outfit makes sense for where she is and what she's doing. It sends the right message because she's in a place reserved for the kind of sex she wants to have. In that setting, her clothes mark her as belonging, his street clothes mark him as an outsider. It also serves as a kind of armor, which emphasizes her physical dominance. Her skin only touches his in the ways she chooses, while his skin is available to her. In Scene 2, the Domme wears an opulent, comfortable robe and has bare feet, which fits not only her Goddess role but the type of rituals that they're going to engage in, foot and body worship. Both women are wearing costumes that show their dominance, but both would be out of place wearing the other's outfit.

What about the subs? What clothing enhances their role in the ritual? After reading Scene 1, do you have any doubt he's going to be taking off some or all of his clothes after he accepts her challenge? In Scene 2, even though the clothes she's laid out on the bed for him are not described yet, do you think he's going to come out wearing more or less than he went into the bedroom wearing? For male subs, nudity is the visual shorthand for submission. It's so powerful that there's a whole genre of stories based around just that aspect: clothed female(s), naked male. Other than nudity or partial nudity, feminizing clothing is the biggest category of ritual clothing. Anything from a pair of panties to a full sissymaid outfit with petticoats, stockings, and high heels show clear male submissive roles.

Clothing for the sub, just like clothing for the Domme, has to fit the ritual. An elaborate outfit or a collar in Scene 1 doesn't make any sense for the setting, the amount of time the Domme has had to plan, or the relationship between the two. In Scene 2, though, an elaborate outfit makes sense for all the reasons it doesn't make sense in the first scene. The husband could come out of the bedroom wearing a simple loincloth or a complex leather harness, sandals, and collar.

Avoid just listing the clothing people are wearing. In Scene 1, the sight and sound of the Domme's clothing add to the sensory description of the scene. As that story progressed, there would be more descriptions of how the PVC felt against the sub's mouth and tongue, how it tasted, what it looked and like when he was in different positions.

Script - How much do your characters speak to each other and how do they talk when they do? The script is where roleplay comes in more than any other part of the ritual: the script is what makes a modern Domme with a cane in her hand a nun punishing a pupil, the lady of the house disciplining her servant, or an amazon delivering the stinging punishment he so richly deserves.

In Scene 1, the sub doesn't speak at all. Part of the way the Domme takes control of the scene is by knowing what to say, because the sub doesn't know what he's doing or what comes next. The two of them have not moved into any roles that we see in the scene other than sexually adventurous versions of themselves.

In Scene 2, the script is the biggest part of the ritual. The two characters speak in a completely different, way when they're in the scene versus their casual conversation when he first comes into the house. Their roles are established immediately through the language that they use: she's a Goddess and he's a supplicant, trying to worship her. She uses the script, not physical force, to dominate him. Her questions demand his response, but the way she asks them doesn't leave anything open to his interpretation or input. It's clear from the formal way of speaking and the vocabulary that includes multiple ways of referring to each other that they have developed these roles and rituals over time.

One of the most important things to parse when making a realistic femdom script is what the characters call each other. "Mistress" would work well for either Scene 1 or Scene 2, but doesn't work for a medical, caretaking, or education scene. "Miss" works for a strict teacher or strong-arming nurse, but not for the goddess in Scene 2 or the dominatrix in Scene 1 (unless she made him use it ironically). Don't be afraid to get creative or use the same terms from languages other than English. "Domina" is perfect for a Roman slave scene or a goddess; "Madame" works for a woman with a penchant for tall boots and short whips; "Signora" is ideal for a demanding inspector of domestic servitude. All of them just mean "lady" in Latin, French, and Italian, respectively, but their connotation brings different, richer meanings.

Humiliation - Not every femdom scene requires humiliation, and too much humiliation turns some readers off. The thing to remember about the level of humiliation involved is that it's purely contextual; there is no inherently humiliating act.