Life as a financial dominatrix: Welcome to the internet’s most expensive fetish


Source: Telegraph.co.uk.

UK – Like many women, Cleo enjoys being spoiled. Over the years, she has amassed quite a collection of gifts. There’s jewellery, designer shoes, perfume and even cash sums deposited in her bank account – all sent by devoted admirers. The unusual part? She’s never met any of them. Because for Cleo this is purely business.

A financial dominatrix, she makes money issuing orders to often wealthy men, who contact her online asking to do her bidding. Her dozens of clients – although she prefers to call them her ‘pets’ or ‘pay pigs’ – range from high-powered company executives to suburban husbands.

The nuances of the relationship will vary with each; from one ‘pay pig’ sending her £20 a week to another donating the vast majority of his earnings and having her take full control of all of his finances.

“Clients are wealthy executives, earning a small fortune, but who feel enslaved by their work – and get off on making themselves vulnerable.”

Cleo, 43

It may sound like something of a niche market, but search online and there are any number of fetish websites on which ‘fin-dommes’ – as they are known – tout for business.

Their presence gained wider prominence this month, when it emerged that Sophena Houlihan, the 17-year-old who allegedly received lewd texts from Labour MP Simon Danczuk, had been working as a financial dominatrix for a year before they made contact.

Using the moniker ‘Goddess Rosalie Von Morelli, Sophena advertised online for ‘money slaves’, selling her services to men who would pay for the pleasure of receiving her orders, whether performing menial tasks, buying her gifts or purchasing everything from her toenail clippings to underwear (£15 a pair).

“Domination, that’s what they want,” she explained. “I send them messages, rules, goals, set them dates to treat me, spoil me, send me gifts or money….it’s a submissive-dominant relationship.”

And one that can prove very lucrative for the women on the receiving end, as Cleo, 43, can testify.

She’s been working as a fin-domme for four years from her modest suburban home and, while she still has a regular office job, she estimates that her extra-curricular ‘hobby’ brings in several hundred pounds a month. The product of a self-confessed ordinary childhood, she fell into the fin-domme world after stumbling upon it on a fetish website and now has dozens of regular clients or all ages and incomes.

“I have clients who randomly feel the need to spoil a woman and send them gifts, and clients that want to be completely dominated or humiliated and have me control all their spending,” she explains.

“Some are in touch every day, some once in a while. It all depends on their needs and fetishes.”

“It is no different from men who get spanked. The fix, the thrill, comes from handing over responsibility to someone else.”

Mike Berry

What they all have in common is that they’re offering their hard-earned money for almost nothing in return – although that, says Cleo, is precisely the point.

“A lot of those who get in touch are wealthy executives earning a small fortune but who feel enslaved by their work – and get off on making themselves vulnerable,” she says. “They worked for that money, so when they turn it over it’s freeing for them.”

Certainly consultant clinical forensic psychologist Mike Berry is not surprised by the dynamic.

“It’s to do with power and control – often these men, and it is usually men, have very high-powered jobs or their lives are very ordered, or are sexually inadequate. “In many ways, it is no different from men who get spanked. The fix, the thrill, comes from handing over responsibility to someone else and embracing the risk that comes with that. It’s a total contrast from the rest of their lives – and that’s the attraction, along with the secrecy.”

That‘s certainly the case for one ‘pay-pig’ who spoke – on condition of anonymity – to Vice, two years ago. The manager of a large company, he was married with children and lived an outwardly respectable life.

But, behind the scenes, the majority of his disposable income went to the ‘beautiful goddess’ he was ‘born to serve.’

“I leave myself enough money to eat basic foods and pay my bills and everything else goes on her,” he revealed. “Sometimes I’ll go hungry so that I can spend more on her.”

In fact, according to Goddess Nia, a 25-year-old full-time fin-domme based in the US; the more high-powered the client, the greater their need for humiliation.

“They feel enslaved by their companies. They’ve spent their whole lives making money for other people. They want to release that,” she says. ‘Goddess Nia’ makes her pay-pigs – she also calls them her ‘subs’ – fill out an application form and send her a ‘tribute’ – ranging from cash to an item from her ‘wish-list’ – before agreeing to work with them.

“There is nothing sexual in this job for me. It’s just empowering.”

‘Goddess Nia’

“These men give me their credit card details and call me on the phone just to have me answer and ignore them. I neglect them all,” she says. A typical interaction, she claims, is centered on haughty abuse.

“One man got in touch to say ‘‘Goddess Nia, you’re a perfect ten.’ I said ‘did I ask you to rate me on some misogynistic scale? I want you to send me a tribute and I want you to send it all in ten dollar bills, as I’m such a perfect ten. And I want it to be $1,000.’ He did it.”

If it sounds like easy money, both Cleo and Goddess Nia are anxious to insist there is skill in what they do.

“You need to be a good reader of people and to know exactly which buttons to press,” says Cleo. “I see what I do as an art. I love the money, but it’s working out how to dominate someone financially emotionally that gives me the real thrill.”

“There is nothing sexual in this job for me. It’s just empowering,” echoes Nia.

Undeniably, however, there is a sexual element to proceedings for their clients, even if it is not overt.

“If there is one area of life where people don’t behave rationally it is in their sexual life,” Dr Vincent Egan, Associate Professor of Forensic Psychology Practice at Nottingham University, points out.

“Many of the men participating in this sort of thing could easily find sex wherever they wanted, but this brings in different dimensions. Some may feel guilty over the money. And while power is an aphrodisiac for many, for the powerful it may also be a relief to be submissive.”

“While power is an aphrodisiac for many, for the powerful it may also be a relief to be submissive.”

Dr Vincent Egan

The internet, of course, allows for all these nuances: while some fin-dommes – Goddess Nia included – do sometimes meet in person, most interaction takes place online affording even greater freedom, as Mike Berry emphasises.

“In the cyber world you can become who you want and what you want and relationships can get very intense in a very short period of time. There is a loss of a sense of reality.”

Nonetheless, Cleo believes the biggest misconception about her work is that it is somehow ‘weird’.

“Everyone likes different things – it’s just that some brave people will admit it.”

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