My Addiction that’s ‘hopefully’ over?
What if I told you, people were getting money for doing absolutely nothing…sounds good right?
Hidden between people opinions, news stories and drama is a secret world within Twitter that from experience is easy to enter but hard to escape. A community that centred around a kink known as financial domination (also known as findom.) This article studies the definition and my experiences which looking back is a community that I never want to enter again.
Findom as described by Nelson Yang “is a sex public in which self-identified submissives (subs) send money remotely to self-identified dominants (doms)” (Yang,2018:4).
It's a scene from the outside sounds wild and from close-examination is mainly straight ‘Doms’ asking for heterosexual males to send money. From personal experience, males are a large majority in this scene though females do play domination roles. As seen in the television show Euphoria (2019) it places this community in the spotlight with Barbie Ferreira(a character known as Kat Hernandez) playing a domination role; which involved insulting, teasing and dominating subs into submission (get into later). Findom is giving into the power of the dom and the arousing nature that this causes.
A dom on Twitter describes findom as: “findom is more both parties profiting from a kink one has…We agree on what gets them turned on and what’s out of the question to say”
They are many ways of sending your ‘tribute’ to a dom. The Independent highlights this by stating it“consist of one-off payments, others are regimented regular transferrals of money and some men even hand over passwords and total control of their bank accounts to a domme, asking her to devise a minimal budget too” (Hoise, 2020). The Independent shows only a small proportion of options as it expands from RT games (the more engagement to a tweet the more money they receive), paying for bills and even signing a contract, it's a wild overload of ways for greedy doms to take cash from people.
From my experience, I was doing one-off payments that in a short amount of time quickly added up. These one-off payments started to become an addiction as the more time I spend the more their ‘mind games’ sucked me in and the more regularly I would send. Moniker Adam Powers states that a “development of fetishes can be from a dom planting a seed or from always having it just not fully realising it” comparing it to “nature VS nurture.” This statement plays a massive role in making people become addicted as once in the mindset of ‘fulfilling who you are’ then it becomes harder to leave. An example was when trying to find doms to interview instead was forced into being lured into sending or people feeling like their time is worth money?
I have experiences and talked to many profiles that have given everything to doms, are in debt and I started to see the clear link into these doms ‘mind games’ and mental health. Canterbury healthcare states evidence to highlight that people enter too; “escape real life, have low self-worth and lack of intimacy”(Canterbury Healthcare,2018). For me, these mind-games took effect as my mental health decreased. Though I can't say it was not fun, regret and sadness were really taking effect as my reliance on sending money to doms for pleasure grew, leaving my chances of escape becoming slimmer. As stated by someone who I was in contact with throughout my experience:
I saw the worst in this community that is dominated by non-kink doms (only wanting money) and pages that go overboard. They are known as Instadoms often described as a dom that has zero understanding of the kink but are very social media savvy. These doms are scattered throughout this scene to lure unsuspecting people with clickbait and hot images but when coming down the session there is little substance and only wanting cash. A Dom on Twitter suggests, however: “sometimes it actually can help mental health…buts its a fine line whenever I see a vulnerability within someone I don’t take advantage although there are some which is a real shame.” Though from my experiences and dming many on the platform this was yet to be seen on my behalf as throughout I was stressing out, getting worse mentally and my bank account was declining at a rapid rate.
Two awful experiences that highlight what's behind these pages are when blackmail and being threatened starts. As you can see from above when contacting a Dom on Instagram I was interested and with my state of mind of made to believe he was ‘the one for me.’ However, refusing to send (was uninterested)before I knew it he was on my Facebook threatening to tell people that I know. I understand people do enjoy this as Frank Parlato wrote: “the master will use this ‘blackmail material’ to get the client to pay them exorbitant fees, sometimes even draining their bank accounts” (Parlato,2019). Linking back to the doms definition, boundaries were clearly not respect and serious damage could have been made over ‘a kink’. Furthermore, as stated in the DM I was made to believe this was what the scene was like with him stating “I am real and genuine.”
As shown in the message beside me. Findom is not as fun and not as kink loving as what first seems. From someone feeling the weight of lockdown and resorting to findom for comfort. It highlights the stressful environment and the mental challenges that can be faced in this community. This situation was my last draw and resulted in me leaving the scene. Mathew Swallow discusses this stating that “The current UK statistics on suicide are 3:1 men to women, and whilst I don’t believe submissives are suicidal, I think the element of self-deprecation relates to the fragile state of the male ego” and that findom can cause “mental arrest”(Swallow, 2018). These ‘mind games’ are not ‘games’ but have damaging effects that many don’t realise what they are doing.
When looking into articles from the Stylest or Cosmopolitan they explain it but never dig deep or highlight the negative effects that lay underneath the ‘fun’, money and ‘the kink.’ It comes across as a community that everyone is simply enjoying an ‘unusual’ kink but forgets to cover the issues that have been mentioned here.
This image highlights the types of tweets that surround the findom scene. This is a cause of the addiction and the start of how damaging these sayings can have. Being in an environment where you are made to believe that this is “your only purpose in life”, accepting yourself and only useful when sending caused people like me in allowing it to affect me. It got the ball rolling in what was becoming me “giving my life a purpose” and a comfort blanket from feeling lonely. Mental torture where you become trapped in an environment that degrades you into submission and there’s no hope of ever leaving. People do enjoy verbal humiliation however there are people like me that don’t and are trapped in a stressful and unforgiving environment. Style Caster states that “ verbal belittlement is a consensual psychological form of humiliation that creates a rise in excitement for both the top and the bottom” (Lane,2018). Which I understand, I see that this scene caters for those people however for me in summer of 2019 when my mental health was declining, seeing this and blind entering is often occurrence that again is never mentioned. As the article later states that “humiliation affects an individual mentally” (Lane 2018). Which I have experienced and witnessed many other pages; what seems like a secret comfort blanket ends up becoming attached to you and uncomfortably warm with little help or chance of escape.
A sub spoke on Vice stating: “It’s hard because it’s a part of me I enjoy, but I’d also really like for it to all go away too. It’s a love/hate thing. I’ve tried everything to get past it, but nothing works. I even went to therapy recently” (Asif,2020).
Looking ‘positively’ I have not seen this but ethical findom is apparently a term that goes around as a dom that respects, cares and builds a relationship with their sub. Ethical Findom is where the dom stops before physical, emotional and in this case financial injury occurs. An example that was brought up with a Twitter dom is that: “I worked with a sub to set him a budget to pay off credit card debt.” Meaning findom is being used not only to help the master but also is doing something that can benefit the sub instead of bringing them down. Though with my trust broken, my experiences and outlook of the findom scene, it's easy to see why I don’t believe or fall into what doms on Twitter are going to do.
In the end, I’m not proud of my time in the findom scene and leaving was the best decision I have ever made. I have sent over £1,500 pound (approx) which makes me actually vomit and I don’t want to think about after finishing this sentence. All its has done is bring me stressful situations that will haunt me as I find myself back at the start. By leaving my productiveness has increased, my bank account belongs to me and my mental health has seen an improvement. If people enjoy it then let them enjoy it but for me, I am putting my own feet up and treating myself.
If you are struggling with mental health then I highly recommend Samaritans they got me through this dark period in my life (Call:116 123/ Email: jo@samaritans.org) and if you are struggling with findom then I highly recommend reading this: https://findom-help.livejournal.com)
*just want to highlight when writing this I send two doms a draft of my article that I have written. One decided to help me, loved it and understood me while the other tried to get money from me…AFTER READING WHAT YOU HAVE READ.
** also wanted to highlight that there is so much more I can discuss, so if requested I could make this a collection of articles, go even more in-depth and possible do Q&As?
References
Asif. (2020). “This Is How Much Money Paypigs Really Spend On Findom. Vice.com. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4wv5/how-much-money-paypigs-spend-findom
Canterbury Healthcare. (n.d.) What Is Findom And The Addiction It Causes? — Canterbury Healthcare. Available at: http://www.canterburyhealthcare.co.uk/tag/findom/
Euphoria. (2019) [TV] Directed by S. Levinson. Los Angeles: WarnerMedia.
Lane, S. (2018). Why Some People Find Verbal Humiliation Hot — And How To Try It. StyleCaster. Available at: https://stylecaster.com/erotic-verbal-humiliation
Parlato, F.(2019). Retard: Insight Into Possible Defense Keith Can Use At Trial — Erotic ‘Findom’ — Artvoice. Artvoice. Available at: https://artvoice.com/2019/03/29/retard-insight-into-possible-defense-keith-can-use-at-trial-erotic-findom
Swallow, M. (2018). Digitally Submissive | The Psychologist. Thepsychologist.bps.org.uk. Available at: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-31/may-2018/digitally-submissive
Yang, N.(2018.) Fintech/findom: On emergent sex publics and the anthropology of desire (Doctoral dissertation).
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