Ooofda, big question.

I would like to be able to say that the (almost always wealthy) men who saw me were just looking to explore, get something off their chest, experience something new, or basically pay for a boutique one-on-one strip club type of thing.

Sadly, that's not what I found. More than anything, these guys were deeply isolated - not just from women or from their wives, but in general. I can't tell you how many times a man twice my age told me something like "I've never told anyone this" or "I feel like you're the only person I can talk to" or "You're the only person I can be myself around."

I really think my clients' fetishism was a kind of symptom of a lifetime of bottled-up feelings, experiences, desires. (Not to say wanting to get spanked once in a while is bad - I'm talking about this particular group). For instance, I am intimately familiar with "the midlife crisis." I've talked people through major life decisions (e.g. whether to retire or change careers) simply because they haven't found anyone else they believe they can approach without fear of judgment.

As weird as it sounds, I think I got a good number of repeat clients not because I'm some kind of bombshell (actually I was a little overweight the entire time and was friends with some actual models working the same scene), but because I'm a good listener -- and also, once you've seen somebody naked and shown them that their deep dark insane scary secret fantasy is really not a big deal, they breathe easy around you.

TL;DR: My clients had one thing in common: I was the closest thing they had to someone who they could be totally honest with. If that weren't the case, they wouldn't be seeing me. Some of them even had wives/girlfriends who knew they were seeing a professional domme, and they still saw me, because there was something they felt they couldn't express with anyone else.

great question. He has no fetishes (as in, there is not any particular act that he really gets off on), but "anything goes" if it makes his partner excited/happy/whatever. He's dated some very masochistic women in the past and enjoyed that. With me, we've basically done everything I have expressed any interest in - we've each tried domming and subbing, and we've done bondage and such from both sides. But it's just "something to do" rather than a major fantasy -- both now and when I was domming, we've had more "vanilla" sex than "kinky" sex, and the toys are just for when the mood strikes one of us (no pun intended). Our usual dynamic is I initiate the sex and he takes control at some point. Sometimes it's rough, sometimes there's bondage, sometimes we flirt with each other using our EDC pocket knives... but that's the extent of it. We exchange very little pain and have no formal "titles" like Master or Mistress.

I feel it makes sense to add this, although I might catch some flak:

I have come to believe all healthy heterosexual women are, to some extent, "submissive." I'm not some kind of Red Pill fanatic, but I believe the female sexual experience is tied to letting go, giving up control, etc. I also think straight women need to feel aggressively desired in a way that, in my own experience, is less universal for straight men.

Although I consider myself an assertive and decisive person, and my "vanilla" experiences confirm that, I chose to be with a man who's even more dominant than I am, rather than one who would "put the pussy on the pedestal" in a relationship with me. Take that for what it's worth.

if nothing else, it is definitely an expensive hobby! Anyway I'm not against all BDSM; I think it can be done, but many do it wrong.

Best of luck to you & I'm glad you found this useful.

You're not wrong -- but it really is what you make of it. I had to hustle hard to get the gig going; I was probably spending 20+ hours sending messages on various websites to get each client, but my retention rate was good. After about 18 months, I was in pretty high demand in NYC, seeing at least 10 clients a week without trying too hard ( a couple were wealthy and saw me almost every week). I put myself through school, tuition, etc and had a good amount of money saved up to live on by the time I began my vanilla job search. I also made connections with a couple more experienced dommes who were kind enough to pass their sloppy seconds / the clients who couldn't afford their rates to me.

Sorry, I can't share any links.

Private clients could easily bring in $250 for an hourlong session. You can't make that much in a dungeon, because you have to split it with the house. With a few regular private clients, it can be pretty lucrative.

yes. these are the hard and vital life lessons that are now cemented in me:

1. don't settle in life -- not in work, and especially not in relationships. Don't marry just to be married; be with someone you can be fully yourself around, no matter what. Otherwise, you will never be happy. You'll grow over time but only develop more secrets from your partner. also, look for women in unusal places; the smart ones don't go to bars to find a mate.

2. You don't want what you think you want. One lawyer I met said that when he was in law school, he would look at the books in the library and think, "My dream is to make a case that ends up in one of those." Well, he made several; he is on first-name terms with Supreme Court justices; he has it all - money, power and reputation. He is deeply isolated and miserable, and in his mid 50s considering a career change to become a novelist.

3. Learn to be vulnerable. The more you ignore your vulnerability, the tougher the consequences. I met a c-suite exec who was 4 years sober from alcoholism - drinking was how he managed his self-doubt, and it was how he covered up his feelings of weakness. When we met his greatest regret was not having reached the point he was at (finally coming to grips with his vulnerability) before having lived over half of his life.

4. Be flexible. don't just stay the course because you said you would - that is ego. Instead, use your reasoning and cut your losses when it is the logical thing to do.

5. The less you try to "prove" to others, the better your life will be. Most of the men I saw had 5,000 sq foot houses, luxury cars, serious careers, and beautiful wives 15 years younger. They were unhappy because they did all this for the wrong reasons - a "make my parents proud" complex, a "make other men jealous" complex or a "realize my teenage dream of drinking an $800 glass of scotch in a private jet" complex. None of these things are ultimately satisfying. In the end, try to introspect as much as you can, and always ask yourself "who am I doing this for?" Answer yourself with brutal honesty, and change course if need be.

That's about the best I can do. Will edit if I come up with more.

You need to learn how to pick up women. Assuming you have financial success, take a bootcamp linked below and change your life, or forever be stuck settling with a woman at the end of her prime who is just looking for a steady $$$ man with option to divorce.

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well, for one, men who wouldn't have given me the time of day otherwise were quite literally groveling at my feet because of a sexual feeling. It's a power trip for about 5 minutes; then it just makes you feel like everything you do is ultimately not going to matter or be respected because beauty (and, really, youth) have such power.

on one level, I developed tremendous respect for my clients and their acheivements. But also, they showed me a side of themselves that was extremely under-developed. Despite some amazing conversations, I felt constantly saddened by the fact that these men mostly just needed some very basic needs to be met. It was never really about the fetish; it was about isolation and the need for intimacy. Not even the need for deep intimacy at first, but the need for basic sexual and emotional acceptance.

This is really how it was. Within an hour of meeting someone I sometimes shared with him the most intimate experience in his entire life. Again, it's a power trip for a second, but when I stepped back to think about it, I felt very, very sad that things were like this. They shouldn't be like this, not with someone whose wife has known him longer than I've even been alive. And my feeling is that this isn't just a symptom found among the rich; it's just that these were the men who could afford to do something about it.

I hope this makes sense - it's hard for me to articulate this, but it's one of the reasons I did the AMA.

Basically, and I really mean this - I encountered unspeakable amounts of isolation, a complete lack of experience with genuine human connection, among some of the richest, smartest, most ambitious and best-traveled men on earth. I had a full-grown man crying on me, often for the first time in years, several times a month. The brokenness was almost unbearable for me, and it made me very pessimistic about pretty much everything.

I can't say for sure, but I really hope not. I'm in a stable relationship now as well and my SO and I have each other's backs.

Not a huge gap - u/Mhammerhands hit it on the head, I was in college for most of the time. I also simultaneously had a couple internships / a part-time job.

Is work gaps really that big of a problem on a resume? Asking cause I don't know... OP is also 23 and has a 4 year degree, so I bet there is not significant gap. I bet she was Doming while in school.