So, I’m preparing for the class I’m teaching at the Wicked Women conference in ten days: “Pro Domme 101”. Which might also be entitled, “Everything You Always Thought You Knew About Becoming A Professional Dominatrix, Debunked.”

Seriously, I am going to try to touch at least briefly on every aspect that I can think of regarding starting up a business as a pro domme. It’s only 90 minutes, so this will be the Cliff notes version, but hopefully I can make it a learning experience. (If you have questions or suggestions about things you think should be covered in such a class, BTW, you’re welcome to send them in. I don’t promise to answer you all personally, but I’ll consider your input for the class.)

Someone asked me, “I’d love to attend that class, but I’m not going to WW. How come you don’t teach a class like this at Babeland or somewhere?” My response: A.) Why the hell not? And B.) Because I don't want to.

It's an issue of who I want to spend my time teaching. Understand, I definitely don't make big money teaching classes - often, as with WW, I get nothing at all but a comp to the event. So if I teach a class, it's just for the pleasure of passing on my knowledge. And I do feel a certain moral obligation to teach the next generation of perverts, seeing as how lots of patient people shared their information with me when I was just a pup.

But I reserve the right to be picky about who I give my time to. There are a lot of not-particularly-kinky women around who are taken with the idea of being a pro domme because they think it would be easy money. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what I think about that. If I taught a class where anyone on the street with twenty bucks could walk in, I’d get a lot of “show me the money” girls, and they would annoy the fool out of me.

But it’s different at a leather conference. You see, when you teach at a leather conference, you know something about the attendees before you ever stand up and start talking. And what you know is: they’ve made a certain level of commitment to the theory and practice of being a kinky person. They shelled out a not-insubstantial number of dollars to attend the conference, and a lot of them spent time and money traveling to get to it, too. To me that means that they’re willing to self-identify as a kinkster, and they’re willing to mix and mingle with a whole bunch of other people who also identify as such.

Not everyone will do that, and it signifies something to me. It’s not that I have an issue with bedroom-only perves. Hey, however you want to get your freak on is okay with me. Mazel tov.

But if you want to take it into the business realm – well, now I have some ideas about where the bar should be placed for you. You could call it professional rigor, although there’s almost something religious about it for me. Anyone can worship in the church, but if you want to get into the pulpit and start passing the collection plate? Oh, my dear, you got to have the true religion to do that.

So before I start teaching you how to be a pro domme, I need to know that you’ve got faith. One of the ways you can demonstrate an adherence to what I consider to be the basic principles of good kinksmanship (kinkswomanship?) is by going to a BDSM conference. It’s not the only way - far from it. And god knows there are few dangerous assholes (that I know of) who go to conventions. But since I can’t personally interview everyone who attends my class, it’s a good shorthand method of determining whether I am sowing my seeds of my knowledge and experience on fertile ground.