Attack of the Copy Kittens!
Read time: 10 minutes. Audio available with a subscription on Substack.
Like any community, there is a constant pinging of ideas in BDSM, a constant tone being achieved by the collective of all the voices. There are leaders and followers and everyone is their own special combination of both. No one is an island, we all affect and inspire each other. What really fascinates (and occasionally infuriates) me is the gray area. In this case, it’s the space where inspiration turns into thievery.
In this post, I want to explore the ideas of community, creativity and responsible influence. The main reason I’m talking about this is the real world potential to help others. I hope there are Dommes reading this thinking “OMF yes!” and I hope there’s subbies reading thinking “WTF? I had no idea!” or “YES - I’ve totally seen that!”
I’ve thought about writing this post, long and hard. I’ve witnessed friends experience outrageous thievery at the hands of very successful people with seemingly no respite. I’ve had ideas slaughtered by forgery. I’ve witnessed true kinksters lose their spark for pro BDSM because of this issue.
Within this industry (and many others) it’s very hard to talk about these things without seeming negative or accusatory but this is what I’ve realized; we can and should talk about this behaviour because it truly, negatively affects all of us, Dominants and submissives alike.
If I’ve learned anything from BDSM, it’s that if you want something, you’ve got to ask for it directly. It isn’t until now that I’ve finally realized what the solution is. Instead of complaining about what I don’t want, I’m going to ask for and embody what I do want. I’m going to explain why it benefits everyone to cultivate originality and I’m hoping to sprinkle some seeds of creativity here myself.
INFLUENCE
The line between inspiration and plagiarism is very personal. Where one person feels fully valid, the next feels entirely ripped off. Like all subjective experiences, it just depends on the person. It depends on their perspective and experiences and we certainly don’t all agree on everything.
So what can we say for sure? What’s the main difference between a positive, respectful influence and a blatant forger? Well, in BDSM, we all draw from the same, general pool of kinks and interests, so of course there’s going to be tons of reasonable overlap. For the sake of this post, I’ll just clarify that there’s tons of commonalities here and I’m not referring to any of those. When I go on to refer to plagiarism, I’m referring to straight up copy kitten-ery.
A few examples of copy kitten attacks that I’ve experienced and witnessed personally: Having someone use the same name as you, the same tagline, the same phrasing on their site, copied tweets, blog posts, stolen event and business names. Yes, those are all things I’ve actually witnessed firsthand and each is just as ridiculous as it sounds. And if you were wondering - yup! - these are people who live in the same city! It sounds absurd but it’s a part of this industry and many who hold this position quietly seethe behind closed doors waiting for the next attack of the copy kittens!
It’s also worth reiterating that it’s very evident that we are all influenced by each other. Everyone in BDSM dresses the same and uses the same terminology. Most participants don’t even have to open their mouths, one glance and even the most vanilla among us can identify a Dominatrix and her slave. We know that each Domme didn’t come up with this image in her mind from within a vacuum. Of course not. She saw another Domme wearing a super hot outfit and thought - holy shit! That’s super hot, I want to get something like that too!
It’s all good, we’re people, that’s how we roll. It’s the reason why humans are the apex predator, we work insanely well as a group and our communication skills are top notch. We’re endlessly connected to and bouncing off of each other and ideas are our currency. Even the most oppositional among us is either acting within or reacting to the ideas of another. So what motivates us to veer past harmless inspiration and straight into the copy cat kingdom?
THE “KEEPING UP” ILLUSION
Welcome to my fuck up. When I think back on when I first started in FemDom, I cringe. I remember copying and pasting another Domme’s service list onto my fresh, little website with a twinkle in my eye and not a clue in my head. It didn’t occur to me until a couple years later how really, really uncool that was, particularly considering this was someone in my local market. I copied the general format of her website as well and started parroting some of her ideas on my sparkly, new Domme Twitter.
The problem was, I didn’t see her as an equal, I saw her as leagues ahead, a lighthouse far in the distance. I saw her site as a public template, she was the representative of the whole industry to me. Now I think back and shake my head. Now I know that each Domme is actually a small business and most popular Dommes have a unique perspective and carefully chosen niches informed by experience and business savvy. As a novice, it all felt generic and indistinguishable. Looking back, it was probably very obvious that I was just parroting things I’d seen somewhere else. It might’ve also been blatantly obvious who I got it from.
The thing is, it felt like I was just trying to ‘keep up’ and now I know, this is a very misleading, toxic road to go down. Yes, we must learn from each other, we must do our market research but we must also realize that there is no golden standard here. It’s a wide open field and each person must find their own path. The feeling of ‘keeping up’ is just a thinly veiled scarcity complex. This industry has no clear path, no standards and very little guidance so creating goals for yourself is understandable and necessary but we’ve got to be very careful what those goals are and why. If you find yourself closely shadowing the moves of another person, chances are, you’re on the wrong track and chances are, they see you.
This applies to subbies as well. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had subbies allude to ‘probably not being as good’ as my other subs. It’s particularly egregious when I’ve just had an amazing session with someone and they don’t even get the credit for it in their own mind. We have to create a stark line between fantasy and reality here. FemDom clips and marketing are meant to inspire and excite us, nothing more, nothing less. You’re truly not expected to do anything but your best and what excites you, in particular.
The goal for both sides of the D/s dynamic is to be yourself and it’s surprisingly hard to do.
ALL GOOD IDEAS WILL BE STOLEN
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” - a phrase that still stings my soul a little when I hear it. Memories go as far back as second grade for me, watching as my arts and crafts idea was slowly copied by each and every one of my classmates. Watching in horror as I realized that I would be getting exactly zero credit for this idea and when I cried to my teacher she told me to take it as a compliment.
Now, 30 years later, as a (somewhat) grown up, business lady, I’m very familiar with plagiarism. It’s just a part of my job at this point, a constant presence. I know that any good idea will be taken and I will also, occasionally opt into the good ideas of others. It’s a trade off for the most part, a part of any business and it is also known as good ol’ fashioned competition. Some is fair and healthy and some is down right dirty, I’ve honestly seen it all. For the most part I enjoy the challenge, I like being kept on my toes, being forced to out-maneuver, to fortify and evolve but other times it’s just downright disheartening.
So where is this line? When does healthy inspiration turn into thoughtless forgery? Why does some inspiration feel totally heartwarming and some feels pearl-clutchingly offensive? How do creators respectfully build off of the ideas of others?
THE GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT
There seems to be a gentlemen’s agreement among most, fellow creatives. There is an intuitive understanding that a direct copy isn’t going to serve anyone. For example, if someone in my market invests in an expensive piece of equipment, it may inspire me to invest in something as well, but the unspoken gentlemen’s agreement would dictate that it simply be a different piece of equipment.
If you adhere to the agreement, you generally benefit from it too. If and when you come up with a good idea, it will be left alone for a time so you can soak up the benefits before it becomes amalgamated into the community. Sure, right now, you don’t get the shiny thing but you can in the future or you may even build strong relationships with others by building trust and be able to rent it from them or something like that. The gentlemen’s agreement is truly a Win-Win for everyone involved but you’ve got to have patience and conscientiousness for it to work.
HOMOGENY
A varied market is a healthy market. Finding a niche is the name of the game. By shadowing the moves of someone in your market (city) you’re fucking yourself over just as much as you’re fucking them over. Countless times, I’ve spent time and effort carving out a niche for myself, only to have my little, local shadows follow suit. If it were a savvy business decision, I would respect it but it’s just a mindless, self-destructive pattern for most. I’ve done my research and found a few, niche specialties that no others offered in my market. These were things I thought would be fun to get into and had either no interest, or very little, from other providers at the time. Cut to a year later and let’s just say, it’s very clear that it’s not just local subbies perusing my website for kinky ideas.
My personal feelings about that aside, the real-world problem is, by following the template of another, local Domme, you’re missing the opportunity to provide something they don’t. You could have a lane all to yourself. The same principle applies to subbies. Stop trying to homogenize yourself into the crowd, truly think about what you are naturally good at and optimize that. Are you a great listener? Do we share a common interest? All of this is meant to show you who you are. Keep that in mind and stop trying to blend in.
I remember going to a public BDSM event a few years ago and being thoroughly shocked to see I was the only person wearing a colour other than black. The only person out of hundreds of kinksters! To me, that says a lot about the quiet, unspoken rules of conformity that exist even within communities on the fringe and this behaviour goes far beyond a colour preference.
Do we all want to have the same experience? The same website? The same kinks? The same descriptions? The same booking form? The same equipment? The same taglines and titles? The same outfits? The same desires? The same sex life? I certainly don’t. The truth is that everyone excels at something, the fun part is finding out what that is.
We’re all here because we’re fucking weirdos! So go forth and be weird already!
ABSTINENCE
Well, I never thought I’d write that word on my website - but here we go! Yes, I would suggest experimenting with abstaining from FemDom clips and marketing, this goes for both Dommes and subbies. Start from square one and work on building those imagination muscles in your own, kinky, little vacuum. I think you’ll be surprised where your mind wanders and how flush with D/s dynamics life truly is. It’s a lot more than a man in a cage or a woman wearing a latex catsuit and once you force your mind to look for it, you’ll realize that it’s everywhere.
For me, my days of ‘market research’ are over. I now intentionally insulate myself from the marketing and ideas of other Dommes in an attempt to truly take a dose of my own medicine, aka all the advice I’ve dolled out in this post. I quit social media last year and have been enjoying my time outside of the echo chamber. I have a few friends in the community who I can bounce ideas off of, which is nice, but not a necessity anymore. Now, I finally have the confidence to simply do what feels right to me, on each day, in each moment, removed from the context of anyone else's ideas or desires except my own and the person in front of me. It’s taken awhile but it’s very liberating.
CHOOSE A DIFFERENT CITY
Having said all that, it is tough to create within a vacuum. We all need some inspiration from time to time and until there’s a ‘Pinterest for Sadists’, many will continue to look to each other for ideas. What I strongly recommend for Dommes seeking inspiration is to simply look outside of your own city. Perhaps we should start a Dominatrix pen pal system, where we can freely swap ideas and they don’t directly affect our businesses locally? Until we do that, we’ve got to self regulate, so let’s just be mindful of where we draw inspiration.
Just imagine a market where each Domme was influenced by a totally different vibe, how amazing that would be as a provider? And how exciting that would be as a client in that city? We can’t help but be influenced by what surrounds us, so if you’re in need of inspiration, find someone in a different market who you respect and glean some ideas from them. Be intentional about where you draw your inspiration from.
START CREATING
Nothing is ever entirely original, that isn’t the goal. Creativity these days is simply connecting two disparate ideas, two things that haven’t been connected before. Something as simple as using a kitty litter box in your sessions as a humiliation device or binding your sub to the bottom of an upside down massage table instead of the top and riding them like a surfboard.
Build off of good ideas. Learn to identify an original line of thinking and take the next step or a lateral step instead of an identical one. Start looking outside of your local market for inspiration, perhaps even outside of your industry altogether! Identify the urge to emulate and assess the motivation before proceeding. If you’re truly turned on and passionate about the idea, fuck yes! Go for it! But if the motivation is grounded in anxiety then just wait, it may be scarcity complex rearing its head. Take a breath and go forward with clear intention.
Cultivate creativity! It’s a valuable skill that you get to take with you, in and outside of BDSM.
Truly and honestly, I have a deep kinship with everyone who is drawn to BDSM. We are all our own, special type of weirdo. It’s not something to quell or diminish, it’s something to explore and expand upon. Break out of the mold, even if it’s just one inch at a time. The goal is never to beat someone at being them, it’s simply to find yourself and be that ;)
