Femdom Kayfabe

by Domina Kiara

Anyone who’s a fan of pro wrestling is probably familiar with the term Kayfabe – as in “never break Kayfabe!” But for those of us who aren’t fans of WWE, Wikipedia has a lovely article about it. In short, kayfabe is the practice of ‘staying in character,’ and it’s way more important than you might think!

The first time a high-profile pro wrestler ‘broke kayfabe’ (dropped out of character at a public event) was at an event at Madison Square Gardens in May of 1996. This event, dubbed the “Curtain Call,” was so impactful that it even forced the WWE (WWF at the time) to admit that pro wrestling was, indeed, all staged and that the professional wrestlers were, in fact, actors working off of scripts.

The event was to bid farewell to Kevin Nash (Wrestler name Diesel) and Scott Hall (Wrestler name Razor Ramon) as they were planning to transfer to the WCW. After the main event (which was untelevized), Wrestlers Triple H and Shawn Michaels came out and hugged Diesel and Razor Ramon goodbye. The issue with this is that Triple H and Shawn Michaels were supposed to be rivals in-character, so hugging their friends goodbye at a live event was breaking kayfabe.

Michaels, being the ‘world champion’ at the time, couldn’t be reprimanded too badly, and of course there was nothing that the WWE could do to Diesel or Razor Ramon since they were no longer employed with the company. However, Triple H had been slated to win the King of the Ring tournament, and as punishment for breaking kayfabe, they gave the win instead to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.

Even after it was common knowledge that pro wrestling was scripted and the players were all actors, there were still big time consequences for breaking kayfabe. In 2010, Serena Deeb’s WWE character was a member of the group “Straight Edge” and was warned not to drink around fans. She was caught drinking in a public bar and fired for breaking kayfabe. Harsh, right?

But what does all this have to do with the world of online domination? Quite a bit, actually. I’ve been working as a primarily-online Domme since 2005 and I have quite a few friends who are online Dommes as well. The things that I see them say in clips or share on Twitter are so radically different from their actual personalities sometimes that I’ll DM them and tease them about it (and of course I expect them to do the same for me!). In fact, when I first started out as an online domme, I would tell anyone who asked that I was ‘an actress.’

You may be familiar with the quote from Father João Rodrigues that he wrote about Japan when he was a missionary there. “The Japanese say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and your family. The third face, you never show anyone.” This is absolutely true of online dommes in my experience.

I practice BDSM in My personal relationships as well, but those are so much different than how I practice as an online domme. In My personal relationships, there is always a ton of communication and the beginning and ending of the ‘scene’ is clearly stated. But online, there’s this pressure to be always ‘on’ from the very first interaction and all the way to the end, and especially in public Tweets, blog posts, and advertising posts on places like Reddit. I even feel nervous about publishing this article because I’m literally breaking kayfabe to do it!

Why is it that online dommes are so pressured to remain in character and not break kayfabe? Well there are a lot of reasons, really. I see a lot of trends in those who are first starting out as a domme online. They’ll see a successful and well established domme post about a large tribute they received during a humiliation session and make that their entire character. Or else they’ll embrace the role of findomme exclusively and never bother to learn about or incorporate any other fetishes into their persona.

In essence, it’s all about trying to find clients and make money. I’ve written an article about this already titled Would You Work For Free? (Read it here) and the answer for everyone was a resounding ‘hell no!’ This business is so competitive right now! So when an online domme sees another making money hand over fist with a certain fetish, of course they’re going to be curious about it. And when they go to that successful domme’s profile and see that her public face is all business, all bitch, all the time, then they’ll want to portray themself in a similar way.

I will say that I’ve been far more successful and comfortable in Myself and My business now that I’ve allowed a bit more of the real ‘Me’ into the persona that I play online. But it has definitely caused its fair share of problems for Me too. I opened up to a select few subs about some of the issues I was having in My personal life and several of them left because they either ‘didn’t believe’ Me, or told Me that they couldn’t ‘tell what’s real’ between what I told them and what I post on Twitter.

So why not just bare it all? Why not just post everything out there, say to hell with kayfabe, and be Me? There are a lot of reasons. First, some dommes have families, friends, other jobs, etc that they don’t want involved in their online domme persona. Do you really want to hear about how sometimes your Mistress can’t log in to take calls sometimes because she’s got to work as a cashier to make ends meet, or her child is sick and needs to be taken to the doctor, or she has a debilitating chronic illness that’s flaring up?

Sure, maybe some of you do. But in My experience for the majority of men who seek an online domme, they either don’t care or will ridicule a domme who shares that sort of information. What’s ‘real’ often doesn’t matter to the majority of them. They want a sort of kink vending machine where money goes in and sexy fetish play comes out at their convenience. They have a fantasy and want that fantasy fulfilled so that they can come and then the majority of them hang up and don’t think about their ‘domme’ until the next time they get a boner. Unless you’re a true sub and actually care about improving My life, I’m not going to tell you about it. And even if you claim to be, I won’t tell you about it until a huge amount of trust has been established first. And I’m talking like at least a year.

And even more scary is how cutthroat the world of online domination has become. I’ve seen so many online dommes get dragged by others, and anything that they can find on your personal life, they will use. I’ve had good friends doxxed, their personal addresses exposed, pictures of their children posted, etc.

I’ve personally had people talk about My ADHD and Treatment-Resistant Depression as if it makes Me lesser, as if My daily struggle makes Me somehow LESS worthy of respect. I’ve seen dommes exposed for having a side job, people saying that if you can’t support yourself solely as an online domme then you need to leave the business. I’ve seen dommes shamed for supporting themselves solely on the merits of online domination, being told that living off the money from subs is making them beholden and dependent upon those subs and thus putting the subs in power.

Regardless as to whether or not you agree with any of these statements and tactics (which I 100% do not), the fact is that they happen and will continue to happen. So is it any wonder that the world of online domination is about caricatures of dommes instead of the actual people behind the keyboards?

As always, this is simply My opinion. Your mileage may vary, but these are some of My personal experiences that have been rolling around in My head for the past few months. I’d love to hear what you think about it and if your experiences have been different!

This article has been written by Domina Kiara, who is a regular contributor to The Review. Please let her know what you think by visiting her website, Twitter or right here in the comments below.

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