Femdom Mistress: Carolyn

I Am a Lifestyle Dom.

I came to this world a bit late in life (long story as to how I managed to repress my interests and then find them again). But I was lucky enough to find a wonderful community in the D/s forum on Compuserve that had been started by Gloria Brame, one of the authors of Different Loving. I met my husband/sub there as well as many wonderful friends, some of whom I consider family.

I’ve been with my husband in a TPE (Total Power Exchange) dynamic since 1977. We are low protocol, and not “out” to anyone other than our kinky friends. We manage to maintain our dynamic around strangers very easily and if you’d like to know more about the specifics, please ask.

I love the idea of “paradigms” or styles to explain different dynamics, and I’ve written this about my style:

Those of us in happy longer term relationships are often asked to describe what our relationships are like to give the newcomers a snapshot of one way of making authority transfer relationships work. In that context I offer you two of our “styles.”

We are a Female Dominant – male slave (although we don’t use the term slave in our household) couple. We’ve been friends for about 18 years; a couple almost 17 years; and married 15 ½ years. We’re a middle-aged, upper-middle class, professional, white, suburban, fairly conservative couple.

I Am The Captain of My Ship

The primary “Style” or model we use is a naval one. I see myself as the ship’s captain. Our relationship is the ship. This is really key to me because I consider my household to consist of me, my husband AND our relationship as a discrete third party. So the ship analogy works well for me.

As captain I am responsible for both the ship and the crew. Responsibility is a large component in our dynamic. I am not a “master gets what he wants” type person. I am a “master is in charge and therefore responsible for stuff” type person.

As captain I’m responsible for getting our little ship to our destination – to our life goals, whatever they may be. Being captain includes clearly identifying and defining the goals; ensuring they are viable; plotting the course to get us to the goals; and implementing the course by propelling and steering the ship in the right direction.

As captain I don’t decide things based on what I want – but what I think is best for us and for our relationship. We, as individuals, plan on reaching our goals with this ship. So the ship’s safety is important. But if the ship sinks – if the relationship ends – I’m still responsible for ensuring that all hands make it safely to land.

But that’s not part of the plan, so that’s why I need to assess the needs all three of us: master, slave and the relationship when making decisions.

My husband is the first mate. His job is to carry out my orders. But he’s not a lowly person around here. He’s second in command to me. And when I’m not around (which is very very rarely) he’s expected to run things as I would, not as he would. Whether I’m on the bridge or not – this is my ship, running on my rules. And he supports and carries them out. He’s not here to anticipate me, or second guess me. He’s not here to pamper me or make my life easier – he’s here to implement and assist.

As second in command he’s a proud, competent, and highly respected member of the crew. He’s not here as a worm or worthless entity. He’s an important man. That there is no one below him in the hierarchy is irrelevant. He’s still right up there next to me, but under my authority.

The ship’s captain is not served by his first mate. The captain is assisted by the first mate. There’s a big difference in how those words feel in a relationship.

Other aspects of the captain style that ring true to me are that the captain gains and keeps his or her position through competence not just by being loved, worshipped or admired. And the ship is a little world unto itself – it’s self contained but not a fantasy. It has a role in the outside world but also has a sense of unified autonomy. That’s our household, and one of our styles.

We have another that appears to be diametrically opposed to the ship’s captain style – and our other style is trophy spouse. Ok, I know, you hear trophy spouse and think of a paunchy 50-something year old guy with gold plated bling peeking out from a shirt that has too many buttons unbuttoned, and a 24 year old blond with more bling than the guy and large breast implants laughing at everything he says. That’s close but not quite it.

A Trophy Spouse

I married my husband when I was 50 and he was 33. He’s attractive, very well groomed, can be taken out in all sorts of venues. He’s intelligent and great company. When I brought him into my home I lived alone, owned my own home, had a professional career and was pretty damned autonomous and happy. To a very large extent I wanted a companion to add to my life – a luxury. That’s the trophy part.

I didn’t need service. First, I’m competent and second I often prefer to hire a professional to do things. But I have a high powered and sometimes stressful career and I wanted a tranquil and charming person to bring companionship, intelligent conversation, humor and grace to the dinner table – not someone who was going to play “Who had the most stressful day at the office” with me over dinner, and certainly not a house servant.

I also wanted someone who would be able to travel with me when I want to travel; which pretty much limited what he could do for a career or job since I am job #1 and anything else is secondary.

How we came to this idea as a recognized “Style” tells a lot about the style itself. It also is how the ship’s captain – trophy spouse styles can come together, because this all started when we met a couple on a cruise ship.

When we first spotted them, we laughed because they looked like the stereotypical short fat old guy with the young tall blond, dripping in diamonds, trophy wife. We got to know them during the cruise and boy were we wrong. She had been a high level CPA at a big accounting firm, and his accountant but they had not met in person. When they finally did meet, he decided “I will have her as my wife!” There was more to it than that – but after 2 years he won her over and she quit her job and took the job as his wife.

Far from the ditzy bimbette, she was a charming woman who brought intelligent conversation, humor and grace to the dinner table. She was a TRUE trophy for him, and made me realize how much my husband was my reward to myself for having reached a certain point in my life, and my trophy. Trophies are, after all, prizes.

One thing really stood out to show how similar they were to us. One night at dinner we were talking about movies and she said some movie had been made in some particular year. My husband said, no, it was made a year later. The man, being as proud as I about his spouse, looked not at my husband but at me and said, “She is never wrong about these things.” I looked at him and said, “I’ll bet on my husband on this one. Trust me, if he says he knows the year, he does.”

That was an Ah Ha moment. He wasn’t talking to them – he was talking to me and it was as “owner to owner” with not so subtle chest pounding. We had both put our trophies out there and were comparing them – both proud of what we owned. And yes, my husband was right, she was wrong. Win, Carolyn. Did I mention competitiveness?

And that’s when we adopted the trophy spouse model. It also is very appropriate to use because being the good provider and spoiling my subs is one of my kinks. So while I’ve seen the “spoiling” in Daddy-Little girl styles that doesn’t work AT ALL for me and my husband. But the trophy spouse seems to encompass spoiling quite nicely.

Life On Our Cruise Ship

Our ship is a bit like a cruise ship. It’s kind of plush and heaven knows my husband’s life is cushy as all get out. 90% of the time I’m easy going. We have our routines, just as the cruise line serves dinner at set times. But it’s not run like a sparse military operation. I view happiness as a moral imperative just as the cruise lines strive to ensure their guests have a relaxing wonderful vacation. There’s lots of opportunity for happy fun times when the ship is well organized and well run.

My setting the course, watching the weather, checking all of the ship’s systems, and keeping an eye out for rocks is understated and intended to go unnoticed most of the time. The goal is to have it feel as natural and unobtrusive as possible. I do it well without a lot of fuss and fanfare. My goal is to have a happy, cheerful, comfortable and tranquil ship, and allow the trophy spouse dynamic to be more palpable.

But when the seas get rough or when there’s a problem on the ship the captain of even a cruise ship (other than the Costa Concordia) is still the captain of a ship – the only one in authority, the person who is ultimately responsible for the safety of the ship and the crew.

A common question on Fetlife is, “How do you keep the dynamic alive when things get crazy with health, work, family etc.?” But for us – when things get crazy – the captain comes onto the bridge, the second in command stands next to him (or her in our case) and obeys quickly without question. We function as a team, with calm efficiency. That’s one reason that we always feel like our dynamic is turned up a notch when “life happens.”

What’s really happening is that the ship’s captain style is taking priority over the trophy spouse.

~Carolyn

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