If there was a category in the high school yearbook, Most Likely to be a Dominatrix, I would have been it. I’m not sure exactly how I got this reputation, possibly because I liked giving orders and being a bitch, but one year my friend gave me this book, in hopes to start my career.
This memoir is wonderful, but actually has less to do with BDSM and more about the class struggle. It is a woman's journey getting out of the trailer park and becoming educated and worldly.
Shawna Kenney began when she was 19 and then retired in her early twenties. She started working as a stripper, doing outcall in hotel rooms, but found her niche in her “favorite role” being “in charge . . . the ruler, the queen, the BOSS.” The memoir does not cover her training as a pro-domme or protocol in sessions. The sessions she describes are activities like verbal humilation, foot fetish, cross-dressing and GS, but there is some impact play. She works for a private place where she is on call for either sessions in the space or out call, which may include other ladies. Because of this, she seems to talk mostly about the fairness and generosity of her lady boss then the other women she works with. One of my favorites is her menstrual fetish client who buys her used tampons. I love a girl who never throws anything away.
I don't think she was looking for empowerment, I think she was looking for a way to pay the bills. She wanted to pay her way through college; her parents weren't going to be able to assist her and they never went to college themselves. Her description of normalcy was illustrating her humble beginnings and how she continually defied her parents and society norms. I find particularly touching her thrill of backpacking through Europe and retiterates how unbelievable it is that girl like her could go on such a spectacular trip.
This is a hot debate in the BDSM world, if one is lifestyle or professional or both. Lifestyle meaning that one incorporates BDSM as a regular part of one's life; professional being one who plays for money. There are many lifestyle players who are also professional; there are many professionals who do not incorporate BDSM into their lives outside of work. I don't think either deserves our scorn or judgment. Also, every person will only play with what he or she wants to do. Just because you advertise as a professional domme, does not mean you are going to be capable or desirous of playing with every client who wants to play with you. This happened a couple of times in the book and Kenney had that client play with a domme who could give them the type of scene they wanted. This shows her integrity of satisfying a client and keeping her limits intact.
Kenney contends that LA is oversaturated in the domme market so when she moved here, retired. She tumbled into BDSM as a way to pay the bills; she enjoyed it, she was good at it and then felt it was time to hang up her paddle, but knows she can always return to it.
Many of my friends, in or out of the scene thoroughly enjoy this book. Kenney is a very intelligent, go-getter, balls to the wall kinda lady
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