165: What if you were a blind dominatrix?
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In early September, we launched the first volume of our Happening series, which featured three stories of survival in the wilderness. Now that we have taken the show into weekly production, beginning today, we will be alternating each week between our regular, standalone stories and a story from our Happening series, grouped into volumes. So the way it works is that each of the volumes will have three stories linked by a theme, but will feature one of the stories every other week over a six-week time.

In many ways, the happenings episodes won't be that much different from our regular content, except that they allow us to expand a bit from focusing on a single life-changing event to focusing on more general elements in a person's life that have dramatically shaped or transformed them in some meaningful way. With that in mind, today we launch the first episode of our second volume of happenings called Kinks and Fetishes, exploring stories of people who have come into their own through participation in various kinks or by acting on specific fetishes.

Our story today, What If You Were a Blind Dominatrix, kicks off this series and comes to us thanks to Dick Wound in the Off the Cuffs podcast, who had originally interviewed her for his show. Thank you for listening. I still have moments where I perceive myself as that weak little blind woman, but in these spaces, I, as a vulnerable person, am suddenly given the gift of somebody else's vulnerability. From Wondery, I'm Whit Misseldyne.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 165. Happenings Volume 2. Kinks and Fetishes. Part 1. What if you were a blind dominatrix?

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I remember at the age of four having my first proper conversation regarding my vision with my parents and not really having an understanding of what blindness meant.

I was still happy-go-lucky. I didn't understand that this was supposed to be some big thing that was going to change my outlook on life. It was going to change how people treated me. It was just another one of those things that I kind of shrugged off as a kid and went, okay, cool, continue. It wasn't until I started school that I realized that I wasn't like other kids.

I wasn't able to see what teachers were pointing out on the whiteboard. I wasn't able to keep up in soccer, softball, and more often than not, I'd end up getting hit in the face with balls and just not having a fun time, which led to me being quite isolated in school.

It seemed at that point that all of these other kids had an understanding of what my blindness meant better than I did. And I was the person who had it. It led to me not having a great deal of friends growing up in primary school and throughout my schooling, which led to a lot of bullying and a lot of isolation.

At that point, in very technical terms, I had already lost 90% of what is classified as normal vision. I only had 10% of what normal people have left at the age of five. Everything was blurry. Everything was whitewashed. I could barely look down my arm and see my hand at that age.

I had this really strange concept when I was young that my vision would progressively improve as I got older. My brain thought, this is the only logical explanation of why adults in my life can see all this stuff, but I've got no idea what they're talking about. It wasn't until starting school that I realized all of my peers had the same level of vision as these adults in my life.

And I didn't, and it confused me, and I didn't necessarily have an understanding of why I was the only one with this level of vision purely because of something out of my control versus something that would progressively improve with age. The world then felt almost like a pop art picture.

But everything had this haze of white. Everything was blurred out and whitewashed and it's unsettling. You don't necessarily have a concept of who's around you at that point. You don't necessarily have a concept of what's going on in your surroundings. And unless people are actively engaging with you in that space, it feels really empty. It feels really lonely. Yeah.

I didn't have a concept of how I could engage with other people my own age. I didn't understand how to interact. I didn't understand how I could just be a kid and explore these new environments alongside my peers without additional help. And that's the main reason that I got targeted for bullying quite a bit. I was a very angry kid.

When I first started coming to terms with blindness and how I was actually the only one who was facing these challenges, I spent a lot of time being angry in my own head. I resented the people who picked on me.

to try and cope with some of the social skills and other situations, I was introduced to riding horses therapy to try and get me some social skills with at least another being that could even me out. But during my school days, I used to spend a lot of time sitting alone in my own head plotting my revenge against these people.

I find my imagination makes up for my inability to visually see the world through these textures and it makes me feel a lot more connected to my ideas and my thoughts and the world in general.

Even if I think about sitting in a car, the texture of the seats underneath your weight, the details of the seatbelt across your chest, the sound of the engine, I begin to feel and almost mentally hear all of these sounds and textual experiences that you'd expect from having your eyes shut in a car.

Even just thinking about sitting in a car, I can already feel my body slightly rocking with the motion of being in a motor vehicle with the sound of the engine sitting in my ear.

One of my first fully fleshed out fantasies for dealing with bullies was very much tying these bullies up to the trees. So feeling the bark of the trees as I run this rope around the trees to try and tie up these kids who had pecked on me throughout the entirety of my schooling.

turning the tables and for once, for once being in the powerful position where I wasn't the one getting beaten up against a tree. I wasn't the one having my glasses broken. I wasn't the blind kid.

Some of those trees were the beginning of a lot of the vulnerability that I feel on a day-to-day basis. So I'd reframe it. And a lot of these fantasies took place in the dark because what decided people fear more than the dark?

At that age, it was a very stalkerish behavior. Waiting to hear these people come into the dark or walk past these trees at the time and me actually having the upper hand by knowing how to move quietly.

So I was able to sneak up on these people. I was able to get the upper hand and was able to just quickly tie and gag these people to the tree. And for a five or six year old, that's quite strange. All of a sudden, me with my blindness who doesn't need sight,

already had so much of a better advantage in these spaces because sighted people don't necessarily have to mentally map out where they are in a room, where they are in a general place. But I have that information all mentally mapped out in my head. So suddenly I didn't magically gain my vision. My bully has lost theirs.

it became a power swing in my favor for once. Being able to get away with tying bullies to a tree, with just being able to gag them and blatantly ignore them, that sounded amazing to me at the time. And still, a large part of me still finds that amazing when I think about people in my life who sometimes really wish they'd just shut up.

As I got through my primary school years and started secondary school, I started having more and more and more vivid thoughts alongside the fantasies that I got. I'd do darker things to victims in my imagination. As I got a little bit older, all of these thoughts and fantasies across the board, they evolved dramatically.

My fantasies began showing up in a lot more sexually driven detail. I'd experienced a lot of these sensations through my own body. I began to experience a sexual drive at that age and started playing around with that and figuring out why my body was reacting in this way to some of those themes.

At this age, I didn't want to tell anybody. I was afraid to tell anybody because I was raised in a private Christian Anglican school. So I never had the confidence to write it down. I never typed it out. So it was all very much in my own head.

When you spend your entirety of your schooling in an Anglican Christian private school that was also a girls-only private school, you're enforced to be this very traditional, good, obedient young person. About halfway through my secondary schooling, I was told at the age of 14 that I was showing signs of losing more vision.

All of a sudden, my 10% remaining vision didn't seem that scary anymore because, oh my gosh, I'm losing more? What? I just found a range of skills to help me cope with the vision that I already had left. Now getting the bombshell of, you're going to have to learn more skills because we're pretty sure you're losing more vision.

So I continued to be really angry at the world. I continued to go, well, what's the point of any of this? Because I'm just going to end up blinder and I don't know how much more I'm going to lose. I started therapy at 14 and

and have been continuing with therapy to help manage my vision loss and manage my feelings towards my vision loss to see if I could find some sort of emotional coping skill or some sort of way that I could get these intense feelings out in a safer manner than just yelling at people and just giving up.

During that time with the therapist is when these vivid imaginations and these fantasies about tying people up or stalking or hunting people with knives came up.

I was still afraid to talk about any of the stuff out loud because it was in such a direct contrast to what I had been raised to value and believe. The conflict within you is already so great. You don't necessarily want to break the illusion of being all of the things that you've taught to honor. Yeah.

And here I was sat across from my therapist with it sitting at the edge of my mouth about to tell somebody else for the first time and break the illusion that I am all that I had been raised to be. This is the first time I openly admitted to another person about what was going on in my head.

I had a lot of guilt and shame. I was taught how to behave, how to do what was expected of me, how to meet the expectations of my parents, to treat others fairly and kindly and with grace and respect.

Yet my coping mechanism for all of this bullying that I was experiencing were to do my own thing, to hurt, to hunt, to corner and take advantage of other people's weaknesses. So I continued talking to my therapist about this.

Just prior to 15, I probably started doing a lot of what's known as self-bondage. I acquired my first couple of pieces of rope and I would learn how to tie myself up in bed.

That was a very physical outlet to my sexuality and to some of these fantasies around rope that I had been constructing in my head. Because rope, leather and whips were all readily available to me, having continued with horses as a form of therapy throughout my young life.

I could just walk to my wardrobe, find some and just have a feel of the textures. And that's when I started getting an understanding of I should probably learn how to do some of this stuff safely. And that's when I started doing a lot of reading and research and started actively kind of looking into how to safely tie somebody up.

So I began reading into rope and playing around and kind of figuring out what felt good, what didn't feel good, what drove me sexually. And that's where my fantasies began to hone in more on sadistic natures and consensual non-consent themes appeared more frequently throughout these fantasies.

It was really good to have a therapist that encouraged me to explore what I wanted to explore, providing that I was doing it in a safe environment and that I wasn't at risk to myself. She also enforced that it was okay to have different independent values to that of my parents and to that of my school and to that of religion in general.

So throughout 15, 16, seeing this therapist and trying to do things in my own life that make me happy, whether people in my life agree with them or not, started that shift to that place where I finally came to this conclusion of I don't always have to make other people happy if it doesn't make me happy.

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I still had this really big concept of saving myself for marriage. I still had this very low sexual contact, even initially being a bit apprehensive to hold his hand.

I slowly managed to come to terms enough to allow myself to tell my partner at that time about some of these things that my head was coming up with. Some of the stuff that I'd done in the past to explore some of this. And that was the first real conversation with somebody not confined to confidentiality about what was going on in my head.

At that time, he was incredibly supportive. I finally was granted the freedom to kind of explore some of these things in a more physical sense. My partner helped me do some of the research behind some of the stuff to learn how to throw a flogger safely and a whole bunch of different impact toys.

He would go away and do some of that research and relay some of that information to me in a context that was understandable to me.

He was actually the one who purchased me my first proper flogger at that age. And I was able to throw a flogger for the first time. I was able to explore with paddles and with whips and with rope on another human being. And it was all of these fantasies that had taken place in my head, finally having some components out in the open and out in the physical.

At 16, I'm not hitting people, I'm hitting pillows. And my partner at the time, who had no interest in masochism whatsoever, was continually encouraging me just to hit pillows and practice.

When I started university and became a little bit more open with my new friend group, away from all of the stuff of my Christian upbringing, that I actually had the confidence to tell some of my friends. And it was one of my best friends who opted to come and let me try and have a swing at them. It's still...

stands out is that first moment that I really thought, I really enjoy this and we're laughing and we're having fun and I can finally start swinging at a person and actually hitting reasonably hard. Having a positive first experience was really critical in solidifying that what I was doing, providing I'd taken all the precautions to be safe, was okay.

So as a dominant, I take the role of somebody who's in control of the situation.

I identify more as dominant in the kink space than a top. A top is more somebody who does it without any sort of power exchange element whatsoever. So you can be hit by a flogger, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're a submissive. It just means that you enjoy being hit with a flogger. Whereas I, as a dominant,

really thrive off of knowing that in that space, I have the control over that situation because nobody going into this consensually is ever powerless and they have the ability to stop anything that we're doing at any time. But during the space of that scene, until one of those phrases get called, I'm the one in control. I'm the one in the power.

I did that independently for two years where I was just me and I was enjoying being a dominant. I was enjoying doing it in the comfort of my own home and my own bedroom and with people that I could pick. One of my main themes as a dominant is consensual non-consent. And I'm fully aware that that can confuse people off the bat.

Consensual non-consent, in a nutshell, is when somebody pre-consents to things that happen during that scene, even though during that scene they may be verbally protesting the entire time.

Even though then protesting with no's and other things that drive both parties deeper into those power exchange spaces never means that that person in the submissive headspace has no power to stop anything. They still have the ability of safe words, which when are stated, have complete ability to stop a sane person.

So even though some of these darker themes are explored, at no point is consent ever taken away from another party. Any sort of play or scenes that you partake in should have aftercare negotiated at the beginning.

You're experiencing all of these intense emotions, intense hormones while these acts are going on. And that's where feelings of guilt and feelings of uncertainty can seep in afterwards for both parties. And that's why aftercare for both parties is crucially important.

My aftercare is generally consistent of just having a good cuddle, a glass of water or a cup of tea. Whereas with some of my partners that I've had, they like physical contact. They like having a snack made. They like having...

you know, an emotional check-in where you can give reassurance, especially for humiliation or degradation scenes that they aren't actually any of the things that you've called them during that scene and give them that reassurance that you still value them as a essential human being.

Aftercare for me can also include first aid of varying degrees, me doing knife placings. I have a trauma kit where I keep a whole bunch of dressings and antibacterial creams and bandages so that during the process of aftercare, I can tidy up.

Aftercare, no matter what the level of intensity, is essential for anybody who wants to partake in kink or BDSM. I wish there was a way that I could put into words the freedom that these experiences give me as a dominant, as a young blind person.

When people think about young blind women, people consider us vulnerable beings. And having this dominant outlet for myself and allowing myself to have some control over my life, even if it's just for a couple of hours, is amazing.

intense and it is unmatchable to any feeling that I've ever managed to obtain through therapy, through talking with others. It suddenly makes everything kind of come to life and even though I can't see like everybody else, I'm able to experience all of these intense emotions.

It's exceptionally hard to have a sexual identity style be so drastically different to how society would perceive somebody like me. I can't describe how grateful I am as a dominant to be granted submission when I myself am a very vulnerable person in the eyes of society. There's no way to describe the gratitude that they deserve.

I still have moments where I perceive myself as that weak little blind woman. But in these spaces, I, as a vulnerable person, am suddenly given the gift of somebody else's vulnerability.

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She's really encouraged me to explore some of my more darker sides to my dominance. And that's where things like consensual non-consent scenes have kind of emerged from my stalkerish early fantasies where I

Knives have now been thrown into the mix in Sharps play, where asphyxiation and choking is commonplace, where toys of varying degrees of impact and pleasure have flooded any place that I could possibly get my hands on in terms of trying new things.

I started considering the opportunity of becoming a pro-dom where people pay me to have these experiences with me and give more people an opportunity to have a safe outlet to explore some of their own feelings around submission rather than domination. That's where the term pro-dom comes from because it's in reference to a professional dominant or a professional dominatrix.

And I've been really fortunate to find really supportive people in the pro-doming space and in the kink space in general to support me through this process of finding my feet as a pro-dom.

As a blind dominant, personally, I don't even notice necessarily that in this space I am blind because a lot of these skills that I've refined over the years, I've just learned to do by touch and by feel and getting a gauge on how people are reacting by finding a pulse point and listening to their breathing and getting a gauge how they're reacting.

I have a really unique ability to be able to do scenes in complete darkness because I don't necessarily need to see somebody in any concept to do any of this safely. I can do knife play in the dark. I can do a lot of impact in the dark. I can do a lot of things that...

sighted people need vision for in the dark which is an incredibly unique experience because even though blindfolds are really common in scene it's a completely different experience where you're not in a blindfold the lights are off and it sinks in that both of you in that moment are blind and

By being able to do that, I'm bringing people into the dark. I'm bringing people into that original realm of when I was young. I'm able to regain power not by gaining back my vision, but taking away somebody else's for a short period of time.

I'm able to show people a better side to the blindness that I didn't necessarily have being a young person. I personally find a lot of peace in the dark because for those couple of hours where the sun is down and the lights are off and society is quiet, society can see just as much as I can.

Even though it's during a time period where people aren't generally awake and people are asleep, I find some peace in knowing that for those few hours, I'm not alone. Everybody else is exactly the same as me. But for those couple of hours, everybody is more afraid of the dark than I am.

I find a lot of solace in these scenes where I can go into the dark because all of a sudden I'm not the only blind person in that room anymore.

I'm better able to instruct people in the dark in that space so that they don't experience any more fear or discomfort than they have to. I'm able to give them that information that I never really had growing up because nobody had an understanding of how they could give me that information safely.

It has been such a crucial factor for me in coming to terms with everything else and giving myself an outlet to safely explore some stuff that I would never have the ability to explore otherwise.

Where else in society am I going to get empowerment? Where else in society am I going to find people who are understanding about my needs? I don't think there is anywhere else, and I don't know where I'd be without this.

It's completely reasonable and okay to find outlets that are unconventional for your emotions that are safe and provide you some of that reassurance that you couldn't get anywhere else.

I still require aftercare and a lot of the time I still need that reassurance from the other person, but I'm able to explore all of the things that naturally came into my head as a young person in a safe environment. I can't express how much that continues to drive me to be better in my daily life, how much that helps me continue to cope in my daily life.

I have a lot of access issues a lot of the time and when I'm fully independent I do get quite anxious because I am fully aware of my vulnerabilities. I'm very much aware that I need more help than most but just because I need help with more things doesn't mean that I'm any less of a human being and that I deserve that help any less.

Yes, you can be a bit stubborn and go, yeah, no, I'm going to do this myself. Or you can also speak up and make your own life easier instead of struggling all the time against what is a world that wasn't built for me.

It's okay that the world wasn't built for me because the world as a whole hasn't really understood that people with disabilities are fully capable of doing stuff independently if access arrangements are met.

I'm very much of the opinion that even though the world isn't currently built for me, I want to help build the world to be a more accessible place for other people like me, which is why alongside my pro-doming stuff, I'm continuing to study towards a bachelor's degree in software engineering.

I want to make the softwares that I want to use to make sure that computers and information and books and all other things are more accessible for the people who come after me. I constantly try and advocate for accessibility of kink. I've been told that

kink probably isn't a good idea for me because of my blindness and yet here I am starting to try and be a pro dom and I'm living proof that access can be found in kink if you are willing to put in the work it's so good to have kinky friends who are supportive because just being a disabled person

I always had this fear that I would be rejected right off the bat for my ideas of becoming a prodom because, hey, who wants a disabled prodom? But apparently, apparently quite a few people do. So I braille people in wax. That's a very unique thing to me because who else is going to know braille in this space?

And I've taken one of my mobility canes that I learned how to use when I was 14 and use that as an impact implement sometimes for a bit of a laugh, because why not find power in my blindness? Yeah.

It's incredibly empowering to be in this position because in a way I get to lead a double life. I get to still be this very vulnerable, blind young woman, but at the same time in the safety of kink and BDSM, I'm able to be this kick-ass dominatrix who can find empowerment in her vision loss. I don't know where I'd be without this.

I don't know how I'd be coping if I didn't have kink as an active part of my life. I don't know how much more emotionally vulnerable I would be if I had to continue to be only a vulnerable member of society without any empowerment whatsoever. I think it's really important to remember that you can find power and you can find strength in some of your biggest vulnerabilities.

I met my girlfriend at the beginning of the year and she's a masochist. So the gratitude that I feel for her after every scene that we do has not changed since the first time I got to swing a flogger at another human being.

There is no words that I can use to accurately describe how thankful I am to have people that are willing to give up their own control and grant me the gift of their vulnerability. I don't feel as vulnerable asking for my needs to be met as I did asking

When I was younger, I don't see my needs necessarily as a sign of my vulnerability. I see them as things that I need to thrive. I wouldn't change anything about my own journey. I've been through a lot in both learning to come to terms with my vision, leaving my Christian upbringing behind a little bit, and moving forward into my life as a young adult, focusing more on what makes me happy because I

At the end of the day, my blindness is a part of me, but it isn't my entire being. Today's episode featured Mistress Blind.

You can find out more about her on Twitter and Instagram at MistressBlind. You can also email her directly at MistressBlind at ProtonMail.com. MistressBlind was originally interviewed on the Off the Cuffs podcast, hosted by Dick Wound and Minimus Maximus. You can find out more about them and the Off the Cuffs podcast by going to the website OffTheCuffs.org or by finding Dick on Twitter at Dick Wound or on Instagram at DWPodHost or OCPKink.

From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Wondery app, or wherever you're listening right now. You can also join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app to listen ad-free. In the episode notes, you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our shows for free.

I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was produced by me and Andrew Waits, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song Illabi by Tipper. You can join the This Is Actually Happening community on the discussion group on Facebook, or at Actually Happening on Instagram. And as always, you can support the show by going to patreon.com slash happening, or by visiting the shop at actuallyhappeningstore.com. Wanderer.

If you like This Is Actually Happening, you can listen to every episode ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Hey, it's Guy Raz here, host of How I Built This, a podcast that gives you a front row seat to how some of the best known companies in the world were built.

In a new weekly series we've launched called Advice Line, I'm joined by some legendary founders and together we talk to entrepreneurs in every industry to help tackle their roadblocks in real time. Everybody buys on feeling, Guy, like everybody. So if you don't give them the feeling that they're looking for, they're not going to buy. A lot of times founders will go outside of themselves to build a story. And

And you can't replicate heart. You know, I think we all have a little bit of imposter syndrome, which isn't the worst thing in the world because it doesn't allow you to get overconfident and think that you're invincible. Check out the advice line by following How I Built This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to How I Built This early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.