As I left early voting and walked to my car at the end of October 2019, I stopped to talk to a local political candidate to encourage him to support the field of Public Health generally and causes that I cared about specifically that impacted our community. I quickly found myself engaged in an intellectually stimulating conversation with a man who was interested in many of the same things I cared about. He seemed genuinely interested in making the world a better place and in bettering himself. I found that we were speaking the same language. After a long conversation, I excused myself because I had cold groceries waiting for me in the car. That conversation led to a 3-week texting affair where we met twice. I enjoyed his sense of humor and attention as we got to know each other. I was seduced by him, but nothing physical came of it. This experience woke me up sexually though because it reminded me how I am a woman and I am desirable. I had been ignoring my physical needs due to prioritizing meeting the needs of my son as a single mom and of my parents as a caretaking daughter.
Since I had separated from my ex-husband when my now almost 13-year-old son was an infant, I had thought I would find the right guy for me in my day to day life. I have only now realized how cloistered away I have been and that it was time for me to become proactive with my search for my dream guy. A female friend of mine asked me if I had ever tried Tinder. My response to her was that I wasn’t looking for a hookup, but a long term relationship or even marriage because I potentially want to have another child with the right guy. She told me that Tinder wasn’t just a hookup site and that all I had to do was write that I was not interested in hookups in my profile to get the appropriate responses. I like to be adventurous and try new things, so I posted a profile in the new year.
The first person to message me on Tinder was a Dom seeking a sub for him and his wife to play with. Obviously, he did not read my profile. At the time, I didn’t know what a Dom or a sub was. I had never heard about kink or knew what he was asking. Looking back, I did answer some of his questions as a sub would. My favorite position is doggy style and I do like for the man to be in charge in the bedroom. I appreciated the interest and enjoyed hearing what he was looking for, but I did not pursue the opportunity to join in on the 3-some.
Later when I was speaking to someone else on Tinder, who appeared vanilla, I was asked about how my experience on Tinder was going so far. I laughed and shared about how unexpected it was for me to get the opposite of what I was looking for in my first message on Monday morning. As I described the scenario, I captured this Dom’s attention by talking about kink. We then stayed up all night talking about kink and what he would want to do to me if we met in person. I loved hearing about how much he wanted me and how he wanted to show me what it meant to be a sub. I found out a couple of nights later in person. Overall, I enjoyed the experience. I was euphoric in subspace. I loved having my hair pulled and relinquishing control. It didn’t go very far though because I saw how he wasn’t right for me. That was my only in-person Dom/sub experience. Since then, I have only had online experiences.
Most of my online experiences were called Master/slave relationships and a few of those were total power exchange dynamics. Almost all of them didn’t last long. From those experiences, I learned more about myself, what I want, what I don’t want, and what it means to be a sub. I felt like each relationship was better than the last in terms of quality and being closer to what I wanted.
I feel so much gratitude to each of the men who wanted to connect with me. I also feel sadness for what could have been. I see now how all of those relationships weren’t right for me and it was in my best interest not to have them anymore even if at the time I couldn’t see that and I still feel emotionally attached to some of the men because I felt so connected to them. I wish them all only good things in life. I hope they find the happiness that they are looking for because they truly deserve it.
