Why Evolutionary Psychology isn't very practically useful when thinking about Femdom (or any BDSM) Relationships

I'd rather be a hardwired pervert
than a Freudian-made one.

I like Evolutionary Psychology. It's a great parlour game, real studies by real scientists are fascinating, and I've found it helpful to see that my submissive sexuality might actually fit into a more primal setting: I'd rather be a hardwired pervert than a Freudian-made one.

However, whatever you think of the value of it as a science, Evolutionary Psychology is not actually very practically useful in Femdom or BDSM.

Partly this is because it's hard to disentangle nature and nurture.

Mostly, though, it's because Evolutionary Psychology is redundant!

Why go from (A)  observations of the modern world to (B) hypothesising based on a hypothetical palaeolithic, and (C) then back to acting the modern world? You can just skip the middle step and ask, "What works?"

And most of what what works boils down to: 

• Don't be an ass or a loser. 
• Take social risks to form new relationships.
• Listen to people and take them seriously.
• Date for broader compatibility, not just kink (because a lot of people are secretly kinky or kink-amenable).
• Ask for things you want, but focusing on what's in it for your partner.
• Don't try to be dominant with a dominant potential partner.

That last should be pretty obvious! 

If you insist on taking the palaeolithic view: presumably a dominant palaeolithic woman would want a mate who would be good at wrestling cave bears, but also do as he's told. 

However, that's working backwards from the thing we observe anyway, to a hypothesis that doesn't help guide our behaviour.

Which is my point.

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Why Commander/Champion isn't a simple predictor of Dominant/Submissive BDSM Roles

...the knotty business of gender roles.

I'm proud of my Commander/Champion insight - please go and read the original post if you haven't, or else none of this will make sense! I also think it's useful. I don't, however, offer it as the BDSM version of gaydar. Here's why.

First, like Gay/Straight, Commander/Champion is a spectrum. People may wander around it almost randomly, and particular relationships may trigger or re-enforce particular positions. (Though I suspect life tends to nudge people one direction or the other.) When I use the terms, I mean people who are clearly at one or other end of the CC spectrum.

As important, it's easy to misidentify Commanders and Champions in the wild. 

CC preference is about where you get your certainty from, and doesn't guarantee particular skills or attributes. You can be an introverted, inarticulate Commander, or an extroverted charismatic Champion. It follows that roles and status don't map to CC.

Not all Commanders are any good at being in charge in the real world - we all know bossy, angry people in low status jobs and stormy relationships. Not all Champions are nurturing, or even like people in general!

The attributes of each are applicable in a variety of professional roles. You'll find some Commanders in subordinate or supporting  positions, and some Commanders in leadership roles. Consider, for example, the sales assistant who knows just what jacket will suit you, and the manager who fiercely buys into corporate identity, or who is all about consensus building.

People also learn to perform their opposite style. For example, to reach their goals, a Champion may need to step up and be a decisive leader, and a Commander may need to adopt persuasive techniques. Or the Champion may see that the best way to help is to be commanding, and the Commander may decide that somebody needs championing...

There's also the knotty business of gender roles. Our culture demands that men be Commanders and women, Champions. This nudges people into styles that don't naturally suit them, with resulting blowback - e.g. the unfortunate stereotypes of the loudly alpha bank manager who is a wimp at home, and his super feminine wife who controls his life.

Then we come to the problem that BDSM is about play as well as dynamic.

One the one hand, a Commander may enjoy the experience of "bottoming", say being tied up and edged or whipped. On the other, a Champion may really get off on giving pleasure through "service topping".

Thanks to identity politics leaking into BDSM, and the related erosion of the terms top and bottom, they may loudly identify as respectively Submissive and Dominant, even though the Commander has no interest in more general submission and the Champion only ever dominates for effect.

Just to confuse things, people develop strong fetishes through repeated masturbation and actual experience. So it's quite possible for a Commander who enjoys bottoming, to become so fixated on the experience that that's their main and preferred source of sexual pleasure. Their head may also be full of complex submissive fantasies, precisely tweaked to generate the precise physical scenarios they like.

So though the Commander/Champion distinction might be helpful, it's no kinkdar.

If you meet a woman you experience as "domineering", she may actually be a Champion: championing somebody or somebody that's not you; or gritting her teeth and performing Commander in order to "lean in"; or she may just have good reason to be angry (because patriarchy generates a lot of bad experiences for women). God help me, if your dating and she's old school, she may even be actually goading you in order to see if you "man up" and act dominant.

Conversely, a woman who seems insecure and lacks confidence may be Commander who, lacking role models or just the right kind of personality, has experienced some nasty knocks whenever she acts naturally. Even nowadays, girls are told not to be bossy, and are raised to be nice. End result there are a lots of female Commanders who second guess themselves and self sabotage and never reach their full potential at work or in bed.

Even so... Commanders and Champions have a different feel. Each seems a little brittle when they perform the opposite style. Each makes different private choices whenever they don't feel judged. And, if you look closely and take them in the round, you'll find they do have different sources of certainty.

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Commanders and Champions: How to spot a dominant woman (sort of)

Guinevere was a Commander,
Lancelot was a Champion.

(This came up on reddit. Here's my tidied up response.)

This of course is a minefield. My (unscientific) observation of real life kinky people is:

There's no correlation between kink preference and social or professional status, introvert/extrover or stereotypical kink behaviour. In real life most dominants don't strut, most subs don't cringe or flaunt their small dicks and so on.

However, I do see a correlation between D/s preference and what I think of as a Commander - Champion spectrum.

Just to illustrate the idea:

Champions are natural joiners, Commander's aren't.

Commanders lead decisively, Champions tend towards consensus building or else implementing/defending existing traditions or practices.

Commanders know what's good for you or an organisation, Champions are all about facilitating.

Commanders build empires, Champions run them.

Guinevere was a Commander, Lancelot was a Champion.

People at the Commander end of the spectrum can be very natural sexual dominants, but, because they like to be actually in charge, make lousy service tops. Just to muddy the waters, they may have an instinctive reluctance to buy into kink culture or pander to expectations. They may also be very adventurous bottoms, with no interest in doing all the hard work of topping.

People at the Champion end of the spectrum can be very natural sexual submissives, but also make great service tops if sufficiently motivated. An interest in topping may be a reaction to the fear of succumbing to a submissive undertow...

It's not simple because it's a spectrum, and because culture, upbringing and personal growth may mask natural type. It's also unhelpful that "bottoms" increasingly identify as "subs".

However, a good strategy would seem to be to look for Commanders and introduce them to kink that has some clear benefit for them. This may mean stepping out of your social comfort zone and approaching women a little different from the ones you naturally end up talking to, and perhaps tapping slightly different social skills

One of the big hazards of being a Champion is that you naturally feel more comfortable talking to other Champions and don't necessarily know how to have a conversation with a Commander.

---

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Ask Giles: How do I spot a sexually dominant woman in real life? (Rather than in clubs or munches.)

This one came up on Reddit but given how heated people get, I'm answering here.

Short answer: "You can't!"

Long answer: "You can!"

The short answer - the one people yell - is, "you can't". This is because:

• Outside certain counter-cultures, sexually dominant women don't generally broadcast their preferences (because it can be inconvenient and because sex is private anyway).
• There's no certain link between kink and personality.
• Not all women who would enjoy Femdom have tried it or are even aware that the option might work for them.

People then go on to urge the poster to come to munches etc. Alas, not everybody wants to, or can, get involved in the Fetish scene.

However, the long answer is more positive but requires more work.

There is no guaranteed equivalent of gaydar (dommedar?). Even so, you can spot the women who, in the right circumstances, might potentially routinely enjoy dominating you.

If you are a sub, generally these are the women you are already going out with!

Seriously! Back in pre-scene, pre-Internet days, I had something like a 60% success rate at getting girlfriends to dominate me.

This works for two reasons:

First, as long as you are not dating in reaction to your kinks - e.g. picking out sweet submissive girls in order to reassure yourself of your masculinity - then there's a good chance that your instinctive choice is the right one. The links between kink and personality may be obscure, but they must exist on some level.

Second, most people enjoy being in charge and getting their way from time to time!

Rather than asking who to ask, you should be considering when and how to ask, and what for. The short answers are, "early", "honestly without making a fuss", and "extensions of vanilla activities she already enjoys".

---

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Kinky Dating in the Vanilla World: How to find a Femdom relationship on OK Cupid

I'm not dating - thank God! However, there are an awful lot of male subs looking for partners, so when Fetlife user alwaysthere posted about dating in the vanilla world (source), I interviewed him and got his permission to share on my blog:

HIM: I suggest a two pronged approach:

1. Join your local BDSM community. Go to munches and make friends. Go to workshops and learn everything you can about how to do BDSM safely. Volunteer to help at parties, and be a good member of the community. There is a good chance you will find someone to play with which will give you valuable experience for when you do meet the right person. And you just might find someone who is also looking for more than just play.

2. Use online dating sites to meet new people in the vanilla world. I've had the best success with OKCupid. Let your profile hint that you are possibly kinky, but don't come right out and say it on the site, or you may scare off potential mates before you even meet.

You want to have as many first dates as possible. I actually made two different profiles on OKC that highlighted different aspects of who I am but were both 100% factual. If I found a person that I thought was a good match I'd email from one account and if I didn't get a reply in a week I'd email from the other one. It doubled my chances of meeting people.

On each first date, if conversation is going well and you think there might be potential, just come right out and say that you are into BDSM as a bottom or submissive. Be prepared to explain more about what this means.

If she's interested in you and receptive to the idea than you just got yourself a second date and sex is nearly a sure thing. If she reacts poorly to the idea of BDSM than you haven't lost anything more than an evening and the cost of a dinner.

She barely knows you at this point so there's no chance of her outing you to your friends that she hasn't even met yet. If someone you meet isn't interested in BDSM than you don't want to waste any time dating her any way. Move on to the next as quickly as possible.

I did exactly this strategy a number of years ago, and now I'm married to an awesome FemDom. We met on OKC and my coming out to her as kinky intrigued her. After a few dates, some great sex and a little bit of really basic BDSM I took her to her first ever Munch. Soon we were both regulars at workshops and parties and she became an accomplished rope rigger.

ME: Actually, would you mind sharing some specifics about how you hinted at kink in your profiles? I'd love to quote you on my blog, and perhaps in a book I'm planning.

HIM: OKCupid was the easiest to set up, because it has badges you can earn for answering questions, and one of them is "More Kinky". Lots of people have this badge who aren't outright into BDSM but it certainly indicates a predisposition to being open to BDSM. In general, take the time to answer enough questions to rack up at least a half dozen badges. It helps with matching.

There are also many creative ways you can phrase things in your profile that hint to your kinkiness but don't outright give it way. Let them read between the lines when you mention that you believe in non-traditional gender roles, or maybe you talk about how you are always looking to try new things.

Honestly, since dating profiles are more or less anonymous, you can put more obvious stuff on there. You just might have success with a profile that comes right out and says you like kinky sex. You don't have to get into all the details about what turns you on, but bring honest on your profile is more likely to get positive attention than one with the same old generic answers. Re-write your profile once every month or two and keep track of how many responses you get with each revision.

When you find a match you want to meet, write them a note that specifically mentions several things you like about their profile. When sending a message to a new match I usually would write one paragraph about how we are similar, paste a second paragraph that was the same for every match, and then close the message with one last reference to their profile and asks for a date. At one point I was doing one or two first dates almost every week.

ME: Did kink come up in your first dates?

HIM: I would bring up the subject any time it felt that we were doing well on the first date, which was probably 60 to 70 percent. After a short time I got practiced at it which made it easier. At least 75 percent of the time when I bright up the subject I got a positive response. This who responded positively were 90% likely to have a second date and I had sex with about half, maybe more.

ME: Did you ever get false matches? E.g. kinky but wrong preference?

HIM: I did once and we ended up playing just for fun. She was a submissive and we alternated tying each other up. We never had sex during the play, nor did we start a relationship. We are still friends and run into each other at munches once or twice a year.

ME: Did you get targeted by pros fishing for clients?

HIM: Only through fetlife, not through vanilla dating sites. The messages seemed off for some reason, so my guard was up but I kept replying until she asked for a gift as a tribute. So I challenged her to meet me in person and I would bring a gift. Never heard back again.

ME: What about the 30% who weren't up for kink? How did they react?

HIM: Mostly it was just "I'm not really into that" and then the subject changed. No crazy drama at all. And then since it was a requirement for me, I wouldn't pursue a second date.

---

Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

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Please don't identify as a submissive if you are not

The point about being a submissive

is that you... submit.

Click to find out how!

The point about being a submissive is that you... submit.

It's not about one-true way, it's about truth in self-advertising.

Submissives can - must - have limits, but they mark the edge of the sandbox for the dominant.

Submissives usually have fetishes and fantasies, but they present these as tools for the dominant to get what they want.

If most of the kinky sandbox is off limits, if your fetishes and fantasies are must-haves or preconditions, then really you are a bottom.

It's OK to be a bottom.  Bottoms are kinky hedonists who negotiate and horse trade with tops to get specific kicks.

Submitting and bottoming are different activities and offer different benefits to your partner or playmate. The dominant expects to be in charge. The top expects to enjoy building a scene together. (And sometimes dominants like to top, but that's a different story.)

 The top expects enjoy building a
scene together.

It's tempting for bottoms to present themselves as submissives, not least because the term "bottom" has become unfashionable and the waters muddy.

Bottoms may be carried away by the fantasy around their preferred kink, or like to use the fantasy of submission to justify going through with a degrading activity.

Also, though bottoms have the edge on dignity and self determination, some protestant streak in our culture rebels against pure hedonism: it's sometimes more comfortable to embrace a submissive identity than that of a mere kinky pleasure seeker.

Finally, misidentifying looks awfully like a dishonest dating strategy in order to gain access to dominant women: the kink equivalent of one of those awful Red Pill tricks.

Presenting as a submissive when you are a bottom is like taking somebody for a meal then telling them what to eat! It's rude and dishonest, makes real submissives look bad, and drives dominants away from the dating scene.

If you don't want to use the term "bottom", describe yourself as having "submissive fantasies" or as enjoying "submissive kinks."

Just don't identify as an actual submissive unless you are.

Please.

---

Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

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Why the Femdom dating scene is often so crap - the numbers

I've observed this for a few years now. A Canadian study suggests that the real ratio is potentially 1:1, but (male) subs report really crappy ratios in the BDSM dating scene, and dommes have difficulty getting dates with men they actually like.

Several things are going on, I think:

1. Not all the kinky people are around on the scene.
2. For (probably cultural reasons) men tend to be greater sexual risk takers than women, so more men than women are "active" about their kink, and thus more subs end up on the Scene.
3. Since there are plenty of subs around, "active" dommes may pair off without ever coming near the Scene.

The end result looks roughly like this:

• 25% of potential dommes remain inactive (for cultural or confidence reasons). 
• 50% pair off permanently with a sub without appearing in the Scene. 
• 25% of dommes end up in the Scene

Meanwhile:

• A tiny percentage of male subs remain inactive. 
• 50% pair off without reaching the Scene. 
• 50% end up looking for a domme in the Scene. 

So that gives you a 2:1 ratio "in favour" of dommes.

It gets worse.

If half the dommes are monogamous (or in poly arrangements that cancel out dommes and subs equally), then that rises to 3:1.

My impression is that this is actually bloody awful for both parties.

• The male subs are so collectively desperate that they lose sight of other compatibility needs, become entitled, and resort to "numbers game" tactics - all self defeating.
• The end result is that scene dommes find the signal to noise ratio overwhelming.

Conclusion: I'm very glad to be married to my mistress!

---

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So how easy is it to get women to dominate you when vanilla dating?

...looking back -- I persuaded an inordinate
proportion of my girlfriends to do Femdom

I was dating pre-Internet, pre highly-visible BDSM. Judging from Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden -- which was pretty much all we had -- mainstream women's fantasies rarely stretched to Femdom.

Even so -- looking back -- I persuaded an inordinate proportion of my girlfriends to do Femdom.

I can recall in detail ten girlfriends before Xena. (If you recall, 70% of my past girlfriends didn't really need my penis, and 40% didn't really want it.)

• My first, I never asked. We had some oblique conversations about fantasies. I suspect she wanted me to tie her up.
• One flat out refused to do it. 
• One did it a couple of times but wasn't that interested.
• One did it, really enjoyed it, but was uncomfortable with the idea of "having that kind of power".
• Two did it, really enjoyed it, and cheerfully initiated it again.
• Three enjoyed tying me up whenever I asked -- either it was fine as part of their sexual repertoire, or else they really enjoyed it but needed permission.
• One dommed me once, was pretty incredible -- actually a bit scary -- but I spoiled it by topping from the bottom.

...my kind of girls; strong, adventurous,
broad-minded.

These were all my kind of girls; strong, adventurous, broad-minded. However, none of them could really be described as alternative or connected to the "scene", which barely existed for young people back then.

Even so, all but two of them gave it a go, and six of them seemed to enjoy the basic concept. That's a 60% success rate -- pretty good odds when looking for any sort of compatibility when dating, 

The trick was... wait for it... Just Ask (but without making a fuss).

Looking back, I was an appalling "do-me sub" mainly obsessed with getting tied up -- I didn't know any better!

Had I been more focused on what's in it for her?, the girl that wasn't interested might have enjoyed other Femdom activities, and the one who was good at it would have had an opportunity to explore her own desires rather than mine.

The trick was... wait for it... Just Ask
(but without making a fuss).

And, of course, the Femdom would have been more in all the relationships where it was present.

Now we live in an age where almost everybody knows about BDSM and almost half of women admit to having Femdom fantasies.

So go look for play partners in the Scene if you want, but don't give up on the idea of dating within the vanilla world!

EDIT: Interesting Reddit threads here , here and here.

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

Did 50 Shades of Grey miss the trend?: How many women fantasize about sexually dominating their partner?

46.7% of women fantasize about
dominating somebody sexually.
Find out how to not mess it up when you meet one.

Good news! 46.7% of women fantasize about dominating somebody sexually, according to a survey of 1,517 Quebec adults.

64.6%, meanwhile, fantasize about being dominated. So rather than 50 Shades of Grey revealing the dark truth about women's sexuality, it really just revels in one of several dark truths.

Sure, two thirds of women get off on the idea of being dominated, but roughly a half of them quite like the idea of doing the dominating.

Better yet, since 53.3% of men have submissive fantasies, it follows that the true sexually submissive male to potentially sexually dominant female ratio is 1.14:1, pretty much one domme for every sub.

Depending on what female switches really do, this is slightly better or much better than the estimated 1.6:1 to 4:1 ratio in the active fetish community.

But the game changer is: these new statistics are for the whole community, not just the active fetish one.

Just think about it. Half of modern women are potential dominatrixes.

...if a woman has a dominant fantasy
it's likely to be a fairly soft one...Learn how to sell yourself to her as a slave!

Half of the entire pool... the pool of every single datable woman in your city, the ones you have other stuff in common with, not just the ones who pop up in the Fetish community. Those are pretty good odds if you approach it right.

It feels as if something has changed. Are modern women simply more confident and empowered? Is it that there are more dominatrix-like role models on screen and in books?

One thing that I think is very clear is that you can't assume these dominatrix fantasies are off-the-peg ones, or match what the webcam dommes get up to.

"Dominate" implies a dynamic, yes, but only 23.8% of women imagined spanking or whipping somebody, and 10.8% were interested in "forcing" somebody to have sex. However, 41.7% imagined tying somebody up for sexual gratification.

So, if a woman has a dominant fantasy it's likely to be a fairly soft one, and -- I'm betting -- she's still unlikely to have done anything about it, or even be prepared to admit it.

That means that, if you are compatible in other ways, you still need to approach Femdom honestly but with care, always asking yourself "what's in it for her?"

---

Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

Those Fetlife stats and why they don't matter: What are the chances of finding Femdom in the Fetish scene?

What are the chances of finding
Femdom in the Fetish scene?

A single heterosexual sub walks into a munch.

What are his chances of eventually -- since munches aren't singles bars -- finding an ongoing relationship there, rather than the opportunity to take part in scenes at clubs and play parties?

Judging from what people post online, worse than finding a vanilla relationship in the straight dating scene where the ration of men to women can drift as far as 1:4 in your favor.

But how much worse?

Those Fetlife membership statistics

There's no super survey of Femdom in the fetish world. However, somebody posted some stats for Fetlife. Since many Fetlifers are denizens of clubs and munches, we can treat it as a snapshot of what goes on in real life.

Up until this point, the best data I could find was quite old Kinsey statistics from 1993:

14% of men and 11% of women have had some sexual experience with sadomasochism

That's a BDSM male/female ratio of 1.27 to 1... not too bad. However, the proportion of (self-identified) men to women in this Fetlife survey is roughly 1.6:1, actually worse than yesteryear. This may just mean that more men surf one-handed than women, though. Let's just agree that there are roughly as many kinky men as kinky women in the world.

(The Kinsey stat doesn't mention sexual orientation but the Fetlife orientations seem roughly matched -- the same proportion of men and women are available for heterosexual pairings.)

Things get more depressing when we start looking for Femdom.

Kinsey : “A [1995] study looking at message board posts found 71% of heterosexual males but only 11% of heterosexual females... prefer a dominant role when engaging in sexual bondage.” 

That gives an m:F proportion of 6.45:1 assuming equal numbers of men and women. I'm guessing that women were in the minority on the old boards, and that a high proportion of them were pro dommes, not in itself a bad thing, but not necessarily what most subs want long term.

Reddit user "dalalphabet" totaled up:

23,989 submissive males and 14,767 dominant women.

Less than 10% of men and women identified as exclusively same-sex in their orientation, so let's ignore orientation for the moment. That gives Fetlife a proportion of 3:1... not good, but roughly twice as good as a few years ago.

Meanwhile, 32,083 male switches and 20,406 female switches changes the odds somewhere between 1.6:1 to 4:1 depending whether the women will top men.

However this probably doesn't matter, because the precise statistics don't matter. Here's why...

Why the Fetlife statistics probably don't matter anyway if you are looking for a Femdom relationship

Let's just agree that in Femdom world there are more subs than dommes. It certainly fits the sob stories online about male subs greatly outnumbering dommes.

The precise proportion, however, is irrelevant.

Any imbalance in favor of the
dommes means that most of the
dommes will be attached most
of the time

Any imbalance in favor of the dommes means that most of the dommes will be attached most of the time, since subs will do their best to preserve the relationship. Meanwhile the pool of single subs will "churn" as men drift away disheartened and others take their place.

When a sub position does become available, you'll always be competing with several men. A larger group size won't help because you'd need an awful lot of dommes for more than one to be single or looking for a secondary at any given time.

Assuming exclusive relationships and that 3:1 ratio, a community of 40 means you're competing with 19 other spare subs, a community of 400 just means that you're now competing  199 other subs.

If it looks bad for the sub, it's also bad for the domme.  Many unattached dommes report real trouble in finding a partner. I think this is the result of of pool size and "noise".

If you live in a big city, potential vanilla partners are measured in hundreds of thousands, kinky ones in mere thousands.

It's simply 100 times harder to find a truly compatible partner if you limit yourself to the kinky pool. It's about the same as only dating fellow squash players. True, you'll always have some values in common, but that won't be enough in itself.

Although subs want to throw themselves at the feet of anybody who will dominate them, dommes tend to be more wise and less desperate in their choice of partners. However, their pool is limited to a small number of men who won't help them establish whether that compatibility exists. Worse, a good proportion of those men will be rather odd; entitled, pushy, needy, ugly...or just fixed in those expectations.

So is it worth getting involved in the local fetish scene? 

You don't know until you've tried. Communities can vary wildly.  You'll certainly find friends, support, and BDSM know-how.

However, if you are a male sub I would not regard the scene as the automatic answer to all your romantic needs. You'll still probably have to go out and find your own domme in the vanilla world.

And, if you are a married man with submissive urges and a vanilla wife... well the grass is neither greener nor kinkier on the other side of the hedge.

Update: Amusing thread on Reddit in which a young man discovers the Fetish community isn't entirely full of hot young things.

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When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

Three ways to find a dominatrix when dating in the vanilla world

...wishful thinking (and hot BDSM sex)
may make you stick around.

It's probably irresolvable.

If you date in the kinky world, then the kink is like an elephant in the room making it hard to see the other aspects of the relationship.

Worse, wishful thinking (and hot BDSM sex) may make you stick around in a relationship that has no future.

Finally, by going for kink first you may be missing out on soul mates with whom you could later develop a kinky relationship.

You're putting the cart before the horse.

However, if you date in the vanilla world, you might get deeply involved in a relationship only to find you're never going to get the kink you need.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

...soul mates with whom
you could later develop
a kinky relationship.

There's no easy answer.

However, I can tell you that vanilla dating can work. I found my wife in the vanilla world after a series of relationships, all of which involved a kink element.

What I learned is:

- Since our kinks reflect who we are, there is a good chance that if you are compatible in other ways, you will also be kinkily compatible. However this will be a compatibility of dynamic rather than specific fantasies.

- People will do almost anything during the sexploration phase, but quickly grow bored unless there's something in it for them.

With this in mind, here's my advice on how to find a dominatrix through vanilla dating:

1. Date strong women

...strong women

Look for adventurous self-confident women who are broadminded, comfortable in their own bodies, like to get their own way, and who you respect.

If you don't know women like this, work out how to be where they are.

If your prevailing culture is culturally conservative, either move away from it or focus on women who are physically adventurous: the sportswomen, the climbers, the runners, the dancers... the ones who don't mind moving around and getting sweaty.

(Meanwhile, work on making yourself a worthy partner. Shed any sense of being a loser.)

2. Introduce Femdom during the sexploration phase

...the sexploration phase

Introduce the Femdom early, during the sexploration phase when you're having lots of crazy sex anyway.

I know it's tempting to hide your "secret" until you feel secure in the relationship. However this is fundamentally dishonest (bait and switch!), misses the vital sexploration phase where almost anything goes, and potentially leaves you deeply in love with somebody with whom you can never have a satisfactory erotic relationship.

3. Focus the Femdom on her

Don't be fooled.

People will do all sorts of kink during the sexploration phase. However the main thrill is "doing hot transgressive stuff with new lover". Once the love isn't new, the kink becomes a chore.

...mindblowingly good things that she couldn't -- shouldn't! --
get from a vanilla relationship.

For this reason, you need to shed your specific fantasies and make the Femdom about her.

Make it a way for her to get mindblowingly good things that she couldn't -- shouldn't! -- get from a vanilla relationship.

Take things she already likes and use Femdom to enhance them.

My book Getting Her to be a Vanilla Dominatrix can help with this!

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Why not introduce some Female Centered Femdom to your relationship?