A dominatrix reveals what she loves about her favorite clients

Sex By Lindsey Kline

Domina Elle of Denver, Colorado’s beloved Mile High Dungeon has been binding, spanking, and paddling men for most of her career. After years of encountering weird and wonderful fetishes, role playing countless erotic scenarios, and indulging the kinkiest desires, she’s learned what she loves most in her clients. The perfect playmates are generous, imaginative, and full of laughter. But being a dominatrix favorite requires a little something extra…

MAKE NOISE

“I love when my clients make noises,” Elle tells us. Whether it’s primal grunting or gentle cooing, sounds signify whether or not you’re enjoying your personalized punishment. “If you’re moaning deeply or screaming in ecstasy, you’re letting it all out. When a client is expressive, I feed off that energy and excitement and it becomes a back and forth energy exchange,” she explains.

It’s not that Domina Elle dislikes her quieter clients, it’s just that they’re more of a challenge to read. Playtime often involves a degree of pain, so when someone is unresponsive, an absence of verbal cues and body language leaves little room for interpretation.

“It goes both ways,” Elle says, “I am very expressive during play and this makes it more exciting for the sub [submissive partner]. I make a lot of noise during sessions, everything from narrating scenarios to evil laughter as I observe the sub enduring a challenge I’ve set forth. When they’re expressive it’s exciting for me. But if they’re TOO expressive I’ve got ball gags and pacifiers to take care of that!”

PLAY WITH YOURSELF

Domina Elle’s clients are scattered everywhere along the sexually-experienced spectrum, from the curious rookie to the skillful kinkster. But it’s those who have been around the BDSM block who know exactly what they want and how to effectively communicate it.

“Newbies are exploring and just beginning to figure things out,” Elle says, “whereas people who are more adept tend to be better at explaining where they want to go. It helps me pull their deepest fantasies out of them.”

Figuring out what you love doesn’t require a sexually exploratory partner to fool around with. Clients can come to understand their fetishes, their desires, and their boundaries simply by playing alone.

Part of that sexual maturity, it seems, does come with age. “I do prefer 25 and older… Any younger, and I’m afraid I might traumatize them,” Elle giggles. “Go play on your own a little bit and come back when I know I’m not gonna break you.”

SHARE ALL THE DIRTY DETAILS

Communication is key if a dominatrix and her client are going to create erotic scenarios that bring sexual fantasies to life. One fantastic way to understand these desires is to explore their origins. Kinks are often stirring beneath the surface, randomly emerging during innocuous childhood experiences that inexplicably excite us.

“When I was a little girl, I saw the movie Tarzan,” Elle recalls, “and watching Jane get all tied up got me excited. So at age 12, I tied myself up. When I was 16, I tied someone else up. These childhood situations become eroticized, and it transforms as you get older and start experimenting.”

When Elle’s clients share their eroticized childhood experiences, their anecdotes can be downright outrageous. “I know a guy who was triggered by a Lucky Charms commercial,” she chuckles. “In the commercial, the kids were trying to catch the little mascot with a net. He saw the net come down over the leprechaun and he thought to himself, ‘Oh yeah!!’”

Not only can bondage scenes play out in breakfast cereal ads, but foot fetishes can unfold in the elementary school classroom. “I had a client who in first grade, noticed his teacher had sandals on,” Elle says. “When she stood at his desk, his heart started racing. He didn’t understand why, but he wanted to get under there and touch those feet!”

Whether your sister dressed you up in drag and you secretly adored it — or if in every game of cowboys and indians, you loved being hog-tied to the train tracks — disclosing these buried desires reveals the visceral stimulation that Elle strives to revitalize. So never skimp on the dirty details.

BE SHAMELESS

Domina Elle has regretfully found that a crucial component of her form of therapy is shame counseling. All too often, her clients have spent their lives suppressing their urges, feelings, and fantasies, and her sessions have to surmount years of sexual repression.

“One of the best things I can do for my clients is be an example of someone who is not ashamed, and who’s at ease with my own body and myself,” Domina Elle tells us. She hopes that with honesty and authenticity, clients can be inspired to open up and establish an intimacy.

“I need someone who’s not afraid to engage this with their whole being — their body, their intellect, their emotions, and even their spirituality. Then, we can really connect and have an amazing experience.”

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Of course, even if you’re expressive, playful, honest, and unashamed, there’s one thing Domina Elle needs before she can come to adore you: time. After playing together for years, a very natural camaraderie evolves, and you become an integral part of one another’s lives. BDSM is so much more than masters and slaves, bottoms and tops, or doms and subs. It’s authentic erotic creativity, self actualization, and kinky companionship.

[photos courtesy Domina Elle and photographer Jodajen // originally published January 29, 2018]