Mistress. Ma’am. Domina. Goddess. Miss. My Lady. Teacher.

What am I leaving out? Ghostbustress? Kingmaker? FliyngDutchwoman!

Honorifics tend to be popular in kink. It makes sense. Most BDSM is predicated on the idea of some kind of power exchange, and most of us have grown up using honorifics to show deference and sometimes devotion to people in our lives who have some kind of power over us, whether it’s simply respect due to age and experience or actual power in the form of a boss, teacher or coach.

So, it seems natural that for those of us inclined to enjoying femdom power exchange sexually and/or in our kinky or romantic relationships, we would gravitate toward using those honorifics as part of a scene or a relationship.

Honestly, I never thought I would really care about honorifics. And I still wouldn’t say it’s something really important to me. I don’t have fantasies about hordes of gorgeous men all calling me Goddess—not that it sounds so bad when I put it like that. (Now I’ve gotten a whole gladiator fantasy going on in my head.)

But my partner’s enjoyment in using honorifics to refer to me is something I’ve grown to love in our relationship. It means something to me because it means something to him. It’s a way that he frames our relationship, or at least the kinky part of our relationship, and I notice that especially when he’s been in chastity for a number of days and is getting more and more frustrated, he tends to use them more often.

And I think I’ve waxed poetic here many times about my love of desperation. Right?  I DO SO LOVE desperation!

The two he most often uses for me are Ma’am and Instructor. I have to admit that the Ma’am was a little harder for me to accept because I still smart at moving from Miss to Ma’am territory, as a woman of a certain age. But he seemed to really love calling me Ma’am, even though he said he would stop if I didn’t like it, and I thought it was cute. So, I let him. And now I’ve grown quite used to it, and I find it charming.

The other honorific he often uses for me is Instructor, which I think also says something about our relationship, and also some of our mutual kinks. A teacher can be strict, but she wants the best for you. She wants to see you improve and strive for perfection, so you will grow. I guess we can take that figuratively and literally. Since I’m into gentle femdom, I do tend to think of myself as being in a teacherly kind of role where even when punishment or embarrassment is handed out, it’s done lovingly and sweetly.

One time I even bought a roll of gold star stickers and affixed them all over his body. Good times!

It’s up to you in your own relationships whether you want to use honorifics or not. I would tell submissive men to listen to their partners about their preferences regarding this.

One of the silliest things I experience online is men approaching me calling me Mistress or Goddess when they don’t even know me. There can’t be a surer sign that someone is not living in reality and not thinking of me like an actual living, breathing human being and not a fetish dispenser on two legs.

In fact, what got me thinking about this topic was the video at the top of the page that my partner shared with me, in which a man declares over and over again to a domme he’s just met that he will do ANYTHING for her, while repeatedly calling her Mistress over and over again, no matter how times she asks him to stop.

Some toppy women and dommes will get really mad if you approach them online using honorifics when you don’t know them. (Of course, some will demand that you DO, although I have seen this a lot more with pro dommes than lifestyle dommes.)  I wouldn’t say it makes me angry when a random man calls me Mistress or Ma’am, but it is a sign to me that someone is more interested in a fantasy than a real-world relationship with me.

The reason that I’ve grown to enjoy the honorifics that my partner uses with me is probably similar to the reason that lots of people enjoy sweet nicknames with partners, in kinky or vanilla relationships. It’s a sign of our closeness and the dynamic that we have developed with each other. Without that relationship, the names don’t mean much. 

Last, I would say that, although there are certainly some common names popular in femdom relationships, you shouldn’t be afraid to go outside the handcuffs if it feels right. My partner and I also have more personal monikers (too personal to share here) that reflect our power dynamics that would seem quite vanilla to most people who heard them.

But we secretly know their real meaning—that he sees me as the one in charge, and that he likes it that way.