Well, I have to admit that I have never consciously sought out and met a DOM myself. Things developed in that direction in the bedroom with my husband, but we didn't meet through a dating portal and BDSM was just a distant fantasy for me at the time that I didn't associate with reality.
As an observer, however, I accompanied a very good friend for several years on her search for a DOM and partner. Or rather, she was looking for a partner and a DOM, so with that emphasis. We designed ads together, looked at her "candidates". She also told me about her contacts and I gave her advice about the men. I have to say that I found that very exciting and interesting, probably because I didn't want or need to get involved with the men and just observed what my best friend was doing. Of course, I have been on this earth for a little longer and have had my own experiences with men.
Now, all relationships are very individual and, especially in a BDSM relationship, there are very different types, from the sub who wants to put all life decisions in the hands of a DOM to the woman who likes sex a little rougher. I myself would rather classify myself as belonging to the latter group. My girlfriend never wanted to be a slave and give up her self-determination, but she may like more "leadership" than I do. She is and was definitely "different" from me.
My girlfriend's search lasted several years. She finally found a man with whom she is very happy and the roots of this relationship actually lie in Fetlife, but completely different to what you might imagine. I won't go into this any further, although it is a very interesting story and shows how life goes. Be that as it may, I have indirectly experienced a lot of men or DOMs, although my experiences are of course limited to emails from the men and reports from my girlfriend. However, I have also seen some because I have occasionally "covered" my girlfriend, i.e. accompanied her on a date without being recognized and stayed close by as protection and observer.
My impression is that there are a lot of men with serious psychological problems among the DOMs. I am not talking about psychopaths who want to live out their misogyny and look for willing victims to dismember. I am more thinking of specimens with pronounced narcissism. Some are classic macho men. Many are able to initially disguise their misogyny, but can no longer suppress their attitude when they experience opposition. I consider macho men to be men with low self-esteem who cannot deal with their mistakes or weaknesses and need a chicken below them in the pecking order in order to feel a sense of appreciation. A certain type of woman is well suited to this and, if necessary, violence helps, since women are naturally somewhat smaller and weaker than men. These can be recognized relatively quickly. On the one hand, many people act accordingly and immediately disqualify themselves. On the other hand, a woman just has to answer a little cheekily, cleverly reply and show him up a little. Then he quickly loses his supposed friendliness and reveals his aggressive, misogynistic core. There are supposed to be women who like that and men like that. I can't understand it and think that the rude awakening will come a little later. Directors of women's shelters can probably tell you more about such cases.
But the ones I consider dangerous are the narcissists. I think it's in the nature of things that men with narcissistic personalities like to act dominant and are therefore often found on the dominant side in the BDSM scene. There are some who can write very charmingly, can be charming and exude charisma. They can be intelligent and can then be particularly manipulative. Psychologists say that the boardrooms are full of men who have a manifest narcissistic personality disorder. And if you look at current world politics, some protagonists are sure to suffer from a corresponding disorder.
Such a man will devour her, skin and hair. He will first court her elaborately, pretend to be fascinated by her, perhaps even be fascinated for a moment, adore her and emphasize her uniqueness. In the next phase, he will demand the reward for his efforts. She must recognize and acknowledge his genius, his godlikeness. She must serve, be of service to him in every possible way and, of course, refrain from any criticism. She is much too stupid for that, because he senses that from the fact that she criticizes him and talks back. That can only be ignorance, stupidity and stubbornness. Stupid, just like women are.
Of course, this does not show itself immediately, but the intelligent narcissist proceeds slowly, step by step. But the goal is always the same. She must submit herself completely and ideally not even notice it herself.
My friend met a man like that. The man was gorgeous, by the way. I could understand that she had a crush on him. It then became a catastrophe. He was her affair because she was very unhappy in her marriage. Soon he began to eat her up, demanding more and more, crossing one boundary after another - I won't go into detail here to protect her - until she couldn't take it anymore and the whole thing ended in a scandal that cost her her marriage, almost her children too, and left her in despair. It took her years to recover from it.
When we started looking together after she had recovered and was ready for a new relationship, we met lots of men who were exactly that type. Some were too stupid to pretend. Others were so confident in themselves that they thought women would go for the macho act. Well, maybe there are women like that too. These cases were easy and were immediately rejected.
It was more difficult with those who were not obvious erotomaniacs. Those narcissists could hide in this group. It proved useful - I think, I didn't get to know the men better and perhaps we did some of them an injustice - to answer the men with a bit of appropriate sarcasm. Classic narcissists are said to suffer from a lack of self-confidence, which they compensate for in this way. In any case, it was astonishing how few men could handle a sarcastic woman with confidence.
But even then there were still some surprises. There was the educated, affluent citizen who initially appeared and wrote perfectly, only to suddenly, when the topic became a bit more relevant, indulge in the most horrible gutter language towards my friend. In one case, my friend seemed overjoyed to have found the right guy. Yes, he wouldn't have been my type, but he wrote normally, was also at home with BDSM as a dominant part, made a composed and settled impression, did not seem to be an erotomaniac despite his inclination, but then revealed an extremely strange interest with a request for photos of her children, which set off all the warning lights.
Whether my girlfriend was traumatized and wrongly saw dangers everywhere where there were none is up for debate. As I said, maybe we did one or the other an injustice, but from the texts I read, it seemed extremely difficult to find someone who could and wanted to accept a woman as a partner despite being a DOM and sub. It's probably like squaring the circle