What to Wear

A few years ago, when I was invited to spend an evening with a Domme in a New York dungeon to learn some techniques, I was thrilled. But my excitement was tinged with concern. What should I wear? The idea of dressing up in a bustier and fuck-me high heels was both titilating and off-putting. My husband sometimes teases me that I’m a prim New England girl at heart. He’s not wrong in many ways. It’s hard for me to let go in public, to not feel silly. I knew I would feel self-conscious wearing something really provocative, and I’m also not sure that kink play for me is play in the sense of dressing for a part. I ultimately settled on all black business casual. I certainly stood out among the women there. But here’s the thing, I also got a lot of attention. Now maybe it was because I was a new face in the crowd. Or, maybe because I did stand out with the incongruity of a woman wearing street clothes while wielding various instruments of pain – the ordinary paired with the extraordinary. I don’t know.

What I wonder is how integral is clothing to kink? It’s certainly part of the stereotype that non-kinksters use to portray the lifestyle. All of the women (but not all of the men) that I saw that night in New York were dressed for the part. There is certainly a sense of power and control when someone is clothed and the other naked and some kink, like pony play, demands a costume. For the typical Domme, though, is wearing leather and sexy clothese a way for the woman to feel more attractive or a way for her to get into the swing of things (sort to speak). Am I the only one who wonders about this at all?