How I became a dominant: my path into BDSM and this work

This story first appeared on BrabantsMeisje.

How I became a dominant? Not with a plan, but out of pure curiosity. As a shy boy I watched from a distance for years. One evening in a hotel room in Breukelen set everything in motion, and years later the penny dropped: it’s exactly the strong women who entrust themselves to me who move me most deeply. That turned out to be dominance, and it felt like coming home.

Sometimes someone asks me: “How did you get into this?” And then I have to smile a little. Because the answer begins in a place I never expected.

The shy boy

I wasn’t always the man you see in front of you now. As a kid and a teenager I was painfully shy. The type who stared at the floor with a red face when a girl spoke to him. While my friends were kissing behind the gym and getting their first girlfriends, I stood on the sidelines. Watching, listening, but with no idea how to join in. Women were a mystery to me. A fascinating, sometimes frightening mystery.

That shyness lasted a long time, much longer than I found comfortable back then. But here’s what I only understood much later: all those years of watching, of feeling without acting, of listening without speaking. They gave me something that turns out to be priceless. The ability to sense energy, including what isn’t said. Sometimes before she notices it herself.

The ad that changed everything

Somewhere in the nineties, by then I’d started my own journey of discovery, I saw an ad. A couple looking for a man to join them. My heart pounded. I can’t do that, can I? I thought. You don’t do something like that, do you? But there was something stronger than my doubt: curiosity. That burning, unbearable curiosity that has driven me my whole life. The urge to seek out tension, to feel a thrill, to explore my own limits.

I answered.

The hotel room

A cold November evening, a week or two later, I drove my old Renault 25 to a hotel. Van der Valk Breukelen. How cliché can you get? My hands were clammy on the wheel and I had no idea what was waiting for me. A couple looking for a third, exciting enough on its own.

Down in the lobby I met him. A calm man, friendly, who invited me to sit down for a moment. We ordered coffee and he started to talk. “My wife is upstairs,” he said. “Naked. On her knees. Waiting for us.”

Yeah, right, I thought. Sure she is. I didn’t believe a word of it, but let the guy talk. I hadn’t driven all this way for nothing. He went on about how she was his slave at home, how he beat her regularly, how she loved it. How she ate off the floor, at his feet, out of a dog bowl. Had I stumbled onto some sleazy reality show? I thought. I just didn’t believe it. He’s making it all up. You don’t do things like that, do you? This can’t be real, can it?

But I’d already driven all the way there, and somewhere deep down there was excitement too. Tension. The pull of the thrilling. “She’s waiting for us,” he said. “Fine,” I heard myself say.

What I saw

The elevator ride up felt endless and the hallway to the room seemed miles long. He pulled out a key card and opened the door.

The room was absurd. A huge bed, three by three meters it looked like, and in the middle of the room a big freestanding tub. And there, on the floor beside that bed, sat she. Naked. Sure enough. This can’t be real. On her knees, eyes lowered, waiting.

I felt the warmth of the room on my skin. She just stayed there with her eyes down and didn’t move.

“Want a beer?” he asked. Yeah, I could go for one. “Get two beers,” he ordered her, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She stood up, graceful, walked to the minibar, took two bottles. Came back and knelt in front of me. Offered the beer with both hands, eyes still lowered. “Here you are, sir,” she said softly. I took it. She turned, knelt in front of him, the same ritual.

I felt confused. I didn’t know this, I didn’t understand it. But somewhere, very deep, there was something else too. Something I couldn’t name yet.

The blow that changed everything

The evening went on and he started to play with her gently while I watched. Frozen. Like I had any clue what to do. I’d never seen anything like it, and interaction with a couple was new to me too. Was I supposed to do something now? I stayed nailed to my chair.

At some point he started to hit her. Not out of anger, I felt that right away, but with something else. Control. Precision. She moaned and cried “ow,” her skin turning pink under his hand. But that “ow” was different from an ow of stop, I don’t want this. It was more an ow of… this feels good? I didn’t get it. Surely that couldn’t be?

The sound of the blows and her moaning. You could hear it all the way down the hall, I’m sure of it. The police, I thought. Any minute the police will come in. And here I am, a respectable man. What do I do? If I leave, the police will show up right then, of course. If I stay, the police come too. Fuck. I was stuck in my own head. But then again. I’m done for anyway. So I might as well join in.

I crawled onto the big bed and started to get a little involved with her. I’m not into men, so I focused on her, played with her a bit. “Do you want to hit her too?” he asked. I froze. No. Absolutely not. That’s not right. That can’t be.

After a while I went back to catch my breath in a chair. He kept going, but he hit harder and harder. I think you could still hear it at the front desk. But he didn’t stop. She screamed from the pain. Until at one point she called out a really strange word. “Red.” Out of nowhere. He dropped everything and took her tenderly in his arms.

The bath

Later, when the three of us were in the tub, I looked at her. At the way she looked at him. Her eyes were soft, serene, full. He just beat her senseless, I thought. And now she looks at him like that?

That was the moment. So remarkable. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Not the sex, not the tension, not the newness of it all. It was that look. So in love. So peaceful. So much like coming home.

I don’t understand this, I thought. I want to know more about this. I have to know more about this.

How I discovered I was a dominant

After that evening I was hooked. I had to know more. I went online, read everything I could find, and slowly I began to understand myself.

I’ve always been drawn to strong women. Successful women. Women with fire, with their own opinions, who know what they want. So logically, I thought, I must be submissive. That had to be it. I started reading ads from dominant women.

What a disaster. Ad after ad, and with every text I thought: no. No way. Next. Sometimes I was done at the first line, sometimes I made it three sentences. Couldn’t swipe back then, but otherwise I’d have swiped left on all of them. Always the same feeling: this isn’t it. This isn’t me.

I was about to lose heart. Then I thought: let me look at it the other way around. Ads from submissive women. Just out of curiosity.

And suddenly it was different. Oh, that sounds interesting. Hey, she writes well. Yeah, I never thought about that, but that’s actually exciting. One after another. Again and again that feeling of recognition, of yes, this.

And then the penny dropped. I wasn’t submissive at all. Strong women who give me their submission, that’s what I find irresistible. Their strength doesn’t disappear, it only grows stronger. A woman who has to fight all day to hold herself together, and who can relax with me. Who feels safe enough to surrender.

As if for years I’d worn a coat that didn’t fit, and I suddenly discovered there was another one in the closet that fit perfectly.

I was dominant. And it felt like coming home.

The years after

That one evening was the start of a journey that has lasted more than twenty-five years now. I started reading and experimenting, discovering things I’d never imagined. Always with mutual respect, always with consent as the sacred foundation. I took courses, learned shibari, and trained myself in breathplay, impact play, and psychological dominance.

But above all I learned to feel. To turn that old shyness into something useful: the ability to read what a woman needs, sometimes before she knows it herself. Because that’s what it really comes down to. Not the whips in my cabinet. Although I do have a whole range, from bullwhips to paddles to elegant snake whips. Not the techniques I’ve mastered. But that moment when someone can let go, feels safe enough to surrender.

From hobby to work as a gigolo

For years BDSM stayed something I did in my private life. I dated and grew as I went. Until a stressful stretch came along and a relationship ended. After years of not dating I set out on the dating path again. Everything was new to me all over again.

I liked dating. I really enjoyed building a connection with someone I didn’t know yet and going on an adventure together. And somewhere along the way I started to hear what women were telling me. Over and over the same message: that they felt so quickly at ease with me. A kind of deep coming home in themselves, where they were allowed to be who they are.

“You know,” one of them said, “that calm you radiate, that space you give to be who you are… more women would benefit from that. It’s genuinely healing.” I frowned. “I’m really not that special, am I?” She laughed. “You are. You know how to put a woman at ease. You know how to make her feel at home. Safe. And from that safety, discovering together. Not many men can do that.”

It took a while before I worked up the nerve. Because I do love tension and taking on new things, but this was big, this was different. In the end I did it. I made it my work. A BDSM gigolo, to be precise. To guide women in discovering BDSM in a safe way. And it turned out to fit exactly.

How I work

I just really enjoy helping women find themselves again, develop, and grow. I can do that best when the connection is there. That’s why I prefer to build a steady circle, or to be recommended by someone I already know. I’d rather call them “dates” than “clients.” That last word feels too cold, too businesslike for what it is.

I deliberately keep that circle intimate, so I can give the attention someone deserves. I don’t set a clock and I don’t book quick or short. I do it well, or I don’t do it. Setting a clock the way most people do feels cold and distant to me. This work is about connection, not transactions.

What I’ve learned

In all those years I’ve learned that real dominance has nothing to do with shouting or anger. A real dominant is emotionally stable, radiates calm, takes up space, and can hold a woman through all her struggles and resistance. And I’ve learned that aftercare doesn’t stop when the play stops. That the days after matter just as much as the hours before. That a text the next morning, “How are you doing? I’m thinking of you,” sometimes means more than any technique.

Looking back

Sometimes I still think about that evening in Breukelen. About the boy I was then. A bundle of nerves, curious, no idea what he was getting into. And then I look at where I stand now.

I think of the woman who thought she was broken after her divorce, and who after a year together discovered she was actually whole, just different from what she’d thought. Of the mother of three who had cared for others her whole life and learned to receive for the first time. Of the woman who had buried a fantasy for twenty years because she thought there was something wrong with her, and who cried with relief when she understood there was nothing wrong, nothing at all.

That look. That same serene, fulfilled look I saw for the first time in that tub. It still fascinates me. After all these years.

Because that’s ultimately what it’s about. Not the techniques, not the tools, but that moment when someone feels safe enough to let go. And that I get to be part of it. That stays special. Seeing women grow, let go of old shit, and find themselves again. Wonderful.

Victor (Photo: Gigolo Victor)