Lifestyle and Professional (4)

Well, as I have not been PDing now since July due to my painful feet, I have had it easy as I have just been holding down the one 'job' as lifestyle Mistress to paulss.

When I am back in the saddle, I shall be seeing only a few subs per week as I am realising that I am more interested in quality than quantity nowadays. It is hard to turn down sessions but I think it is better than feeling a burn out coming up on the horizon.

I do think P gets a bit neglected in all honesty because I see other subs in my professional life. He is however such a honey and a darling that he never complains, makes a fuss or does anything but support me with love and devotion 100%.

So, I balance my two parts of my Mistress life well only because I have such a fabulous sub at home to keep me sane and sorted. I try to make sure we do lots f quite ordinary everyday stuff so life is not all bdsm as sad to say I think that would make for disaster however much one likes the idea in fantasy. A bit like overdoing it on chocolate, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

24/7 subs and slaves can and do live similar lives, it is only the concept of 'ownership' which separates them.

"If no sexual offence is being committed it seems very odd indeed that there should be an offence for having an image of something which was not an offence," Lord Wallace of Tankerness

Good luck with that! I tried to write a piece for the group on this, and found it very difficult, without saying more personal stuff than I felt comfortable with. But you'd have thought a chap who has done pro dom work, with a pro domme girlfriend and a semi-pro model as a sub, and took a client as a personal sub, it should be easy! Didn't find it so, though.

The antidote to whinge threads??

Yes! It is difficult isn't it. I was prompted to post this from what someone had asked over on Etc.... but wanted to take some time to formulate my thoughts on it. There are obviously a few things I don't want to go into, like others on here, but I will be as open as I can.

Like @SirStephen00 I was playing in a lifestyle sense long before I became a pro. It started with kinky sex, took me a while to discover what I was really into and developed from there.

It's something I'm often asked straight after a session - do you have a partner, does he know, what does he think about it?! The fact is that, since my early 20's, I've never had a monogamous relationship. So, if I weren't pro Domming, I would be having other intimate scenarios with other people who weren't my partner. In the past I have a few relationships that have failed because of it.... they were very new relationships (I may have considered more of a compromise for someone I felt stronger about) but I'm afraid I don't really tolerate that sort of jealousy and if they don't share my lifestyle philosophy... we're never going to last for long.

Like many things, you learn about how you balance your work and life as you go. I always promised myself that if ever pro Domming effected my enjoyment of BDSM, I wouldn't do it. So, I've learnt how much I can do to keep enjoying it and keep a balance - it's usually seeing two or three people a week.... and being highly selective about who those people are. This means that I'm still able to engage in play within my lifestyle and it also keeps what I do in a professional sense fresh. Like @Ms_Valentine , I have an incredibly understanding partner. There are times when I don't want to play, times when I'd rather just have a foot rub or a lazy day in bed.... but I'm pretty convinced that times like that happen whatever you do, if you've had a busy week.

Generally speaking, my lifestyle and professional play doesn't really differ....there is a slight higher level with my partner because of what we share together and because of how we feel about each other, but I've had similar connections with others in a professional encounter.

I often find that it is other people who have more of a problem about the balance than I do. When I was single and looking, I found that potential partners confessed they didn't really know how to approach me. They didn't want to offend me by thinking they could get a freebie...some of them just wanted to serve me and were confused as to how to go about it. I had to make it clear that to play privately, there would have to be something leading to a relationship. It was a bit of a weird balance for me too at that time - I had to make it very clear that if I approached someone at a munch or here on Ic that it was in a lifestyle sense. Luckily, most people real life on the scene understand... quite a few online don't!

www.mistresssusannah.co.uk