This is genuinely the most terrifying thing with
this. Like, we are very clearly not sponsored
by Riverside, because I'm going to slate them.
But it just likes to keep me on my toes. It's
like, not going to show you any lights today.
Maybe your settings are wrong. Who knows? Random
buzzes. Yeah. Yeah. But at least we seem to have
fixed what was causing the random buzz. After
buying three lots of microphones and trying every
setting, we think we've prevented that happening
again. Hopefully. Hopefully. Well, you've said
it now, though, haven't you? Yeah. Oops. Welcome
to Don't Scare the Newbies, a podcast where we
talk kink, raw and unfiltered. I'm Carizal, a
lifestyle submissive in a 24 -7 dynamic who likes
their kink heavy, intense and scary. And I'm
S, Carizal's dominant, who knows how to deliver
all of the above. And today we're going to be
talking about financial domination, how that
works in our relationship and what people think
of it. Give me all your money. I want money.
Shit, yes, I should start, shouldn't I? We literally
just discussed this. We just discussed that I
am doing the first section of this podcast today.
Yes, we're talking about financial domination.
A very, a weirdly divisive topic. Very controversial,
yeah. I think people don't seem to, you don't
come across many people who have a kind of, they
say fair attitude to it. They either think it's
great or they despise it. Yeah. Findom seems
to be really, yeah, divisive, polarising. Yeah.
You know? Which I just think is strange. Yeah.
You know? But we should probably talk about what
financial domination is. Yes. I mean, I feel
like the clue is in the name, but... Yes. Yeah,
you would think. But just for people who haven't
interpreted what those words mean, when we talk
about financial domination, we generally mean
the act of a submissive person giving money or
gifts to a dominant or a dominant person. demanding
money or gifts from a submissive person. And
there's a really strong element of kind of power
play with that. And there's a strong kind of
psychological element to it as well. For some
people, I think that feeling of being a little
bit out of control of their finances and having
at least the perception of real world impacts.
Yeah, there's a lot of things that it can play
into psychologically, I think, and that feeling
of being out of control or having your life impacted
in some way can be one of them. And I think there's
a lot about money being a real sort of material
manifestation of power in a lot of ways. Power
and money are so intertwined with each other
anyway that it makes sense that playing with
that as a form of power is a thing that people
are drawn to. Yeah, I think so. It's like so
many kinks, isn't it? It's kind of recreating
and playing with... real world hierarchies and
real world structures yeah i suppose you've got
one person i mean i don't know how i feel about
it it's almost like the dominance being cast
as the billionaire class yeah um in this scene
aren't they just taking the money off the poor
little plebs and adding it to their own pile
yeah it's interesting like i i don't I don't
put a lot of stock in hate comments on TikTok
because, as I've talked about before, you get
them for anything. You can do makeup videos,
cooking videos, whatever, and you'll piss people
off. But when I posted a video about financial
domination, I got someone commenting on it saying,
this is a right -wing kink. And it's like, you're
a dickhead, but also kinda. Like, you don't have
to be right -wing to like it. And I think that's
probably what they meant. But it is sort of playing
with that, like, let's lean into like... full
-on unhinged imbalanced capitalism to the max
in a consenting environment with people who are
cool with it yeah in a consenting and ethical
environment which is i think the fundamental
difference between findom and uh capitalism yeah
it's the consent and the ethics so welcome to
uh don't scare the commies a podcast where we
talk socialism Raw and unfiltered. Oh, no. You
haven't had the giggles like this since the butt
stuff episode. I haven't, no. I have a feeling
you should probably edit that out, but I also
have a feeling that you won't. No, I absolutely
won't. It's great. This is what happens when
you give me full control of the edit. The one
area of my life with real power. Real power,
yeah. All the stupid shit that I said. I suppose
it is also worth acknowledging right at the start
that there is an element of privilege in financial
domination as well. Yeah. You have to have a
level of, in order for it to be safe and ethical,
you have to have a level of disposable income.
that you won't necessarily miss yeah or that
you can at least survive missing how much you
want to miss it is is down to your comfort level
yeah um but i think like yes there's an element
of privilege to having any disposable income
at all yeah but i don't think you necessarily
need as much as you might think i know yeah for
years i sort of said with how many kinks i have
and how up for anything i am probably fin dom
is something i'd be really into but i just don't
have the funds for it and it was always like
a bit of a joke like yeah i'm not rich enough
for that shit yeah and part of what has got me
into exploring it has been being in a position
where i have got a little bit more money to play
with but actually there are ways of doing it
with very token amounts of money because if your
spare money that you have each month is five
pounds and you agree that someone can take that
five pounds off you you're gonna feel it It doesn't
have to be huge amounts. Yeah, that's a fair
point. That's a really good point. We know a
couple who've been dabbling with it a little
bit, and it's things like the dominant making
the submissive buy a bag of donuts for her every
now and again. And I know they're not on a huge
amount of money, but it's that kind of thing
where you can scale it. Scalability. Scalability.
Yep. Shout out to... One of our pals for putting
that word into our heads. And it will never leave.
So yeah, that's the politics. That's the politics
out of the way. Before we divert even further,
as we tend to do, I wanted to pick up on, you
obviously defined financial domination as, at
least largely, at least the majority of how people
do and see financial domination is about that
process of taking money or giving money, the
tributes and the gifts and things like that.
I think... in a sort of broader sense, financial
domination. So domination of finances can also
include things like financial control. So monitoring
spending for a submissive, for example. It could
include setting requirements for a submissive
to manage their money in a certain way. So expecting
a submissive to hit a savings target. I think
we're mainly going to focus today on that sort
of classic financial domination of the dominant
taking the submissive's money. But... It is a
broader spectrum than that. And as with all kinks,
it's so customizable to what needs you want met
from it that no definition is supposed to be
prescriptive and put you in a little box. It's
about how it works for you. Yeah. And there's
an element of all of that in our dynamic and
in our relationship, isn't there? It's not just
about taking your money off you. There is that
kind of other element of control. Yeah. Which
I guess you don't see, you know, my experience
of, you know, the world of kink. kind of don't
see that aspect of it talked about quite so much
no um but it's you know another interesting kind
of play on authority isn't it i was going to
say it's a relatively new thing for us but sometime
in october or november of last year wasn't it
when we started talking about it yeah mix it
went into our rules it was actually something
that we agreed at our november check -in but
obviously that didn't come out of nowhere during
the check -in we've yeah we started talking about
that in october possibly even as early as september
kind of bouncing some ideas around so yeah it
feels pretty recent but actually that's quite
a while now yeah yeah we've been doing it a little
while and in true kink fashion it started as
a joke I think I was, it was me, wasn't it, that
kind of made the joke of it was towards the end
of your pay month. And we were going somewhere.
We were going to a munch, I think. We were, yes,
Mix. And I said, jokingly, and I will say that
again, jokingly, wouldn't it be funny if I made
you pay for everything today? Yeah. And that's
kind of where it started. Yeah, because unfortunately,
because of who I am as a person, I was immediately
wet. Yes, yes, you were. Like the filthy little
pervert. That you are. But we didn't jump into
it straight away. We actually had quite a lot
of conversations about it. We did. Before we
got into it. Because as we will discuss, it is
a bit of a... it is a bit of a head fuck when
you first start to think about it yeah real ethical
minefield yeah i think so and i think particularly
for the way that we do it so a lot of what we're
going to talk about today is about it's obviously
talking about our experience of it within our
24 7 total power exchange romantic relationship
yeah and that's a very specific context for any
type of financial control but financial domination
to operate within and is probably not typical
of what most people would see. Yeah, I agree.
It's not a form of financial domination you see
represented a lot, and I have definitely encountered
other people who do it in personal relationships,
but it's often seen as a very impersonal kink,
something that's sort of practiced at a distance,
often without any other kinks really being involved,
maybe some humiliation and degradation, but not
something that's integrated into a dynamic like
ours as commonly. Yeah, yeah. based on our on
based on our experience of the world of kink
yes we don't see lots of people doing it in the
way that we do it yeah so the way that we talk
about it today might be a little bit different
from what people would expect or what people
might have themselves have experienced because
we're doing it in a different doing it in a different
context yes yeah absolutely because the version
of findom that we do is As you say, very much
based on our relationship, our personal relationship,
where there's a lot of other stuff going on,
including normal couple -y stuff. And the version
of Fyndom that people have usually heard of would
be the professional version. Yeah. It's something
that people see a lot of sex workers online,
sometimes in person, but primarily online, I
think. Yeah. Doing with a client base. Although
part of what might be enjoyable for both people
involved, not just for the client, might be the
domination of it and the power of it. Ultimately,
it is the way that a person is making a living
in a lot of cases. And that is not to say that
that is a lesser form or a bad form or that that's
a problem in any way. But I think that also gives
people a perception then that it is only something
that people do as a job. And that it's not really
a legitimate kink in its own right. They see
it as just a way of making money. Because that's
the only context they tend to see it in. Rather
than seeing it as a service being provided and
a kink that, as I say, everyone involved may
well be genuinely into. They only see the financial
aspect of what's happening there. Yeah, it's
often perceived, isn't it, as purely transactional.
Yeah. And not a lot more than that, which I think
it can be that. It can be that when it's unethical.
And it can be that and ethical if everybody's
into it. Yeah. But you do see a lot of, like,
particularly ethical professional doms actually
take a lot of interest in the people that they're
doing that with and have a lot of guardrails
around how it works. Yeah. I've seen a lot of
content posted by professional doms, either specifically
fin doms or just pro doms who do fin dom as part
of what they do. And the good ones talk about
their ethics quite transparently. They might
have some stuff that's more kind of meant to
be a little bit spicy and it's marketing and
it's just like, yeah, I'm going to drain every
penny in your bank account and leave you broke
and leave you in debt and stuff like that. But
they will also talk about, okay, but this is
how I don't actually do that. And then you'll
see people where they are not necessarily approaching
it ethically. And I definitely encountered this
when I was a sex worker that I would speak to
other sex workers and a lot of people would be
like, If you want to make easy money, get into
Findom. Like, you can just ask these guys to
send you a grand and they'll do it. It's great.
And it's like, yes, that sounds wonderful. Who
doesn't love to receive a big pile of money?
But you still have a responsibility because I
think being horny is so mind -altering, right?
Some of the dumbest decisions I make in my life
are because I'm horny. And some of the best ones.
But it is like being intoxicated. It is intoxicating.
And it's very easy to make a decision. while
you're horny while you're mid wank that you will
regret afterwards post -nut clarity kicks in
and your bank account's empty it's like ah shit
yeah and i think that's a really big responsibility
for for someone to take on like i never did it
when i was a sex worker partly because doing
anything dominant just gave me the ick i used
to get because i'm really tall i used to get
a lot of requests of like will you step on me
and will you verbally abuse me and will you hit
me and stuff and it's like oh god no i can't
do that much as nothing is inherently a dominant
or a submissive act if something feels like a
dominant act to me i cannot do it i'm too sub
for that shit um so yeah financial domination
wouldn't have appealed to me anyway but i also
even at the time without all the knowledge of
kink and ethics that i have now was just like
i don't want to be in a position where i've maybe
left it so someone can't pay their bills where
their wife can't pay their bills yeah yeah like
where their kids are going to go without something
you don't know people's circumstances i think
it's something to approach so carefully And the
good pro -doms do. They check those kind of things
and they talk about those kind of things as part
of their negotiation. Yeah. I'm not saying the
way that we negotiated it and the ethics that
we apply to it is universal or the best way of
doing it. There's probably a lot of similarities
around how an ethical dominant, whether they're
a professional or lifestyle or whatever label
they use for themselves, those kind of... rules
and boundaries around it i think probably probably
fairly fairly universal fairly common i would
have thought yeah and i could see this being
a topic that we revisit with a guest sometime
because it's such a versatile kink we're going
to be talking about the way we do it but there
are so many different ways that you could do
it and it would be really interesting to hear
other people's versions of findom yeah yeah i
think there is something one of the one of the
perceptions that people are going to have i hesitated
to use the word misconception then But one of
the perceptions that people have of Findoms,
probably coming from that kind of experience
that you had of fellow sex workers saying, this
is just a really easy way to make money. Yeah.
Is that it is essentially a scam. Yeah. And there
are doubtless people out there practicing Findom
in a way that is essentially a scam. But it's
a weird assumption to make. It is, yeah. It's
making that jump that because... because something
involves money being taken from you or you giving
your money to someone that that is inherently
worse than any other vulnerability that you give
up yeah to any kind of dominant whether whether
pro or otherwise um people i think money can
be quite a generally taboo uncomfortable subject
and so people are understandably wary about that
and it has a real world impact on you like quite
a serious impact if you don't manage money well
yeah um and it can often the vibe of it can be
like scams like i know there's versions of findom
that involve like blackmail or getting people
to send huge sums of money over the internet
to someone who they'll never meet and it's yeah
it starts to cross over with those things like
you know like relationship scams that happen
online where it's like oh i need 10 000 pounds
to get into your country and if you send it to
me i'll i'll totally date you and then the person
doesn't even exist yeah um so there's an element
of that to it Not an element of that to the kink,
but an element of how it functions and how it
looks from the outside. Yeah. Because it's interesting
what you said about that difference between the
marketing and the reality of it. You know, because
I've seen, you know, people who are people who
practice Vindom who essentially say exactly what
you said earlier on. I'm going to drain all of
your money. I'm going to scam you out of all
of your money. Yeah. I'm going to. leave you
ruined, all of that kind of stuff. And a lot
of the time you then see the small print at the
bottom. But we're going to have a really deep
conversation about this before I do anything.
Yeah. And then there are people who use that
as honest marketing. Yeah. So not actually a
scam artist, but they almost kind of advertise
themselves as that way. You know, I'm not offering
anything. You won't get anything. All I want
is your money and you're going to send it to
me. Yeah. kind of thing and i think there's a
for me there's a weird bit of respect about that
if they're kind of telling you who they are and
how they operate and there's a part of me which
thinks well buyer beware if you get involved
in that kind of kind of thing there is definitely
there is definitely situations where people are
taking advantage of people who are in vulnerable
situations or people who are vulnerable and leaving
them even more vulnerable but there is also a
little bit of personal responsibility on the
on the submissive side for that you know if you're
entering into a any kind of fin dom dynamic relationship
whatever and the person is saying you're going
to give me money and i'm going to spend it and
that's the end of our interaction what else did
you expect yeah so it's that really really strange
gray ethical area for me about we talk a lot
quite rightly about how the dominant person in
that interaction has to act in an ethical way
but the person in the submissive part of that
interaction needs to act in an informed way yeah
you know in a in an aware way and not just thinking
with their dick because it is usually not wanting
to gender everybody who is a finn sub but it
is generally men That's definitely the perception
of it and it does seem to be the most represented.
I'm always interested in whether we don't see
different styles of financial domination represented
as much because less people are doing it or because
there's so much controversy around financial
domination that people who don't have to market
themselves because it's not their job just keep
quiet about it. Yeah. I think it's one that carries
a lot of shame for a lot of people. And not the
fun kind of shame, not like, oh, it's so humiliating,
all my money's gone. But like, actually feeling
like they're going to be judged by people whose
opinions they value. Yeah. I think there is sometimes
an element of that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's
it. And there definitely was an element of that
for me. Yeah. I think that worry about how the
people in our circle would think about me and
think about us if we did that. Yeah. I think
was a consideration. that i had when we were
kind of talking about it and thinking through
how it would work um but i think that was i think
that was mostly because of the existing income
differential that we have and people being at
least vaguely aware of that kind of it feels
like a potentially an ethically murky area because
i earn more than you yeah um and yet here i am
taking what little amount of money i still have
yeah yeah yeah well exactly exactly yeah and
you know you said that jokingly which was good
but yeah that was the worry that i had they're
going well hang on a minute this person already
earns a fair chunk less than you and you're reducing
their spending power even further for your own
benefit like i worried about the perception of
others i can understand about that yeah you know
um Both within the circle of people that we know
and the circle of people that we don't kind of
interact with us. Yeah. I think I worried less,
maybe partly because it's easier for me because
you're the one who'd be getting judged, not me.
But often that gets my back up more. Like if
people have a problem with you, I have a big
problem with them. Yeah, yeah. I think it was
that I figured that people who knew us wouldn't.
I wouldn't have that reaction because they don't
have that reaction to any of the stuff that we
do. And we do some pretty off the wall stuff.
Yeah. And I care less, I think, about the opinions
of people outside of our circle. People that
we meet at one or two munches who think, God,
what they're doing is a little bit weird. It's
like, does that really impact on our lives? No.
Yeah. But people's reaction has generally been
positive. I think a lot of people are really
interested and curious to hear about a version
of Fandom that maybe does defy some of their
stereotypes and expectations. Yeah. Yeah, because
we're doing it within the context of our relationship
and not as a slightly disconnected. Yeah. Disconnected
thing and not as a professional thing. Yeah.
I think disconnected is exactly how it's often
seen, whether it's professional or not. It's
seen as something that is done at both often
a physical distance and quite a big emotional
distance. Yeah. It's seen as very sort of, trying
to think of the right word for this, very hierarchical.
Yeah. in in the way that it's done obviously
any power exchanges to an extent but creating
a much bigger distance in status between the
dominant and the submissive yeah because of the
way that it's often done where it's either done
with the expectation of nothing in return for
the money yeah or where all you'll get back is
sort of humiliation and insults and of course
i'm entitled to this um it feels like a more
impersonal kink yeah than getting right up in
someone's face and giving them a slap you know
it's yeah it's got a feel to it that can be less
intimate and i don't think it has to be and in
some ways that that massive power gap can be
very intimate if you're a dominant and a submissive
yeah but i can understand where that external
perception comes from that it maybe feels a lot
more removed from sex than yeah spanking someone
or tying someone up does yeah yeah i think so
it's less physically intimate in those kind of
context is it but again you do see the kind of
people who do it professionally um really having
quite a lot of care for the for the submissives
in that um and and part of that might just be
how that how they how they operate and and they
want to have that kind of slightly more personal
connection to them and part of it might be a
um part of it might be a business thing or actually
if you look after if you look after your fin
subs they will look after you yeah kind of kind
of thing you know so it's that kind of mutually
beneficial transaction that you've got going
on yeah like i mean from a business perspective
what you want for a sustainable business is not
one big payment every now and again you want
regular monthly subscribers essentially yeah
and that's why every business is driven so much
by retention and customer loyalty and stuff even
if they're not very good at it that's always
the aim because you can predict that you can
you can create your business model based on it
yeah a customer who comes in once and you completely
empty their bank account and take 20 grand off
them and then they go ah that was silly wasn't
it i never speak to you again yeah it's not actually
good for your business no yeah because then you
have to find another one yeah that might be achievable
it just sounds like hard work Yeah. It sounds
like a lot of work, doesn't it? It does. I could
definitely not do this professionally. I would
be terrible at it. It does make sense, though,
why people often see this as a professional thing,
not just because of representation, but I think
as soon as money's involved, it does sort of
get put into that box. Yeah. It's an interesting
one where us playing with money. And financial
domination isn't the only area where money comes
into our kinks, like the way that we split sort
of the cost of appearance control, for example.
Yeah. But it's easy to see from the outside looking
in things starting to look like business transactions
because that's what money is in real life. Yeah.
That's what it is in literally any other context.
You can give money as gifts, but money is what
keeps businesses going. And it's hard to see
how playing with money can feel non -transactional.
yeah and i guess i mean feeling transactional
is kind of the point sometimes but yeah but to
see it as a form of intimacy and not just something
that someone would do for the money yeah it's
hard for us to get our head around because a
lot of the time money when money's involved it's
the primary motivator yeah yeah that's true and
i think that's what makes this such a fascinating
topic is that it's such a broad thing yeah it
is much wider it involves much more than people
would typically typically thing this might be
a little bit of a diversion but one thing that
has just occurred to me is um i don't know whether
this count would count as financial domination
but some dominance usually femme presenting dominance
um will kind of have a process for people who
want to approach them and actually what they
say is if you want to approach me show me that
you're serious by sending me a tribute yeah and
it doesn't it depends on the dominant i suppose
sometimes it is a trivial amount so it's symbolic
and sometimes it is not a trivial amount which
is also symbolic yeah and i don't know whether
that kind of would fall under findom i can absolutely
understand why some of them might do it because
it filters out a lot of people i think it's a
really good way of really showing the value of
your respect as well I would say that it falls
under the Fyndom umbrella, but it might be, for
some people, the only area of Fyndom that they're
interested in. And beyond that point, it is no
longer a feature. But it is recognising the symbolic
value of money as power and respect and showing
that you're taking something seriously. Yeah.
And time as well. Yeah. Dominance, time. yeah
because female dominance particularly get absolutely
bombarded with messages and a lot of the messages
they get are just unhinged yeah like there are
it's not all of them i wouldn't say it's even
a majority but there is enough male submissives
who are really letting the side down and having
some way of filtering out the people who don't
value your time and aren't prepared to show you
adequate respect by putting an actual value on
that an actual monetary value i think makes a
lot of sense yeah it's it's an interesting one
because it's got a different feel to a lot of
financial domination not not all by any means
but a lot of financial domination ties into sort
of humiliation it's look how weak and pathetic
you are giving over all this stuff to me where
that i think doesn't generally have that humiliating
connotation to it it's more about demonstrating
respect yeah and that's not putting the submissive
into a lower position it's just putting the dominant
into a higher position in relation to them yeah
which isn't quite the same yeah yeah it's a really
good way of putting it it's it's emphasizing
the power difference without demeaning the submissive
i suppose which is so it's just another facet
of this weird weird world a weird wide world
of financial domination yeah it's another angle
to it yeah and that i mean this would become
a huge diversion if i talk about it too much
but it's interesting thinking about the ways
that we create power difference in play and dynamics
in any interactions between subs and doms yeah
how often it is about reducing the submissive
while the dominant stays still how often it is
about how often is it about elevating the dominant
while submissive stays still and how often are
both of us actually moving in relation to each
other it's really interesting because i think
i often what i want from a power exchange is
for me to feel reduced to something less than
human and you to be elevated to something more
like a god we're both moving away from the middle
yeah but not everyone necessarily involves both
of those and i think findom sometimes highlights
that more than others but you can see it in any
kink yeah yeah i think so i guess you could think
about that in terms of domestic service yeah
Like you are, with the exception of my office,
which I therefore just leave, you are responsible
for all of the domestic tasks around the house.
Yeah. As part of our contract and as part of
our dynamic. So you often will be... pottering
around the house doing all sorts of different
tasks in all sorts of different rooms and multitasking
and and getting up a bit of a sweat while i'm
sat on the sofa staring at my phone playing silly
little word games yeah um new york times crossword
for the win and i guess it's interesting to think
about what in terms of moving which which direction
that would go in because i don't necessarily
think that that reduces you but it would elevate
me I think because I am being attended to. I
agree. Service for me is very much about seeing
you as above such things as doing your own laundry.
Yeah. Like you are too important to have to wash
a plate. That's very much my headspace when I'm
doing service. And that's why I hate it so much
when you do a task when I'm not well and you're
like, I'm going to wash up and I'm sitting here
on the couch going, no, please, please don't
wash up. Yeah. Yeah. It is because I see it as
beneath you. Yeah. But some of the ways we play
particularly are about dehumanizing and objectifying
me. Yeah. Which we are going to talk about next
week when we talk about degradation and humiliation.
Ooh, nice trailer. Yeah. Good plug. See? It's
so good when I'm organized with my scheduling
and I actually know what's next. Actually know
what's coming next. Yeah, yeah. But now you have
to remember that you've said this to make sure
that we preserve the order. Yes. Of when we publish
them. We're going to have to publish these a
week apart. Yes. This is where all our guests
come back to us and go, hey, can we move our
episodes around? And I start screaming and I
never stop. Start sobbing. Yeah. So we've talked
quite a lot about ethics. We've touched on quite
a lot ethics. But I think that was something
that was a particularly big challenge for you,
was getting your head around not how we could
make it ethical, I think, so much as how you
could feel OK with how ethical we made it, if
that's a fair summary mix. yes is my straightforward
answer to that yes yes um yeah it was i think
it took me a while to get my head around it and
and i did quite a lot of i think appropriate
thinking rather than overthinking i am prone
to overthinking i completely accept that but
i think in this one for this it was it felt appropriate
to really kind of examine how i felt about it
not how i felt about findom as a kink but how
I felt about how we would do it and whether I
was comfortable with that. Because I think one
of the really good things about us, one of the
many, many, many, many, many, many, many good
things about us is actually we've always been
quite open about money. I think we've always
been open about it. I don't know if it was necessarily
easy for me, at least in the early days. I don't
know how you felt about talking about money mix,
but I... I found it really hard at first. Right.
And I think... I was not aware of that. No, because
I found that hard to tell you as well. So I'm
telling you now while we're mic'd up. Yeah, so
I've never been in a relationship before where
I was not the main earner. Yeah. And we've talked
about that. so a lot of my past either I've just
been on my own and been responsible for everything
myself or I've been in a relationship with someone
who either couldn't work or had more unstable
employment or I was in a position where I actually
said actually I don't think you should work because
there's no point there was you know when I was
a sex worker I told my partner at the time there
is no point you doing the minimum wage job that
you currently have when I can earn your weekly
wage in a good night So I've never been in a
position where someone else is earning more than
me. And I found it so uncomfortable to talk to
you about money in the early days, not because
I thought you'd react badly, but because I was
terrified of coming across like a gold digger.
Like if I asked you how much you earned or if
I talked to you about, so how are we going to
split bills and stuff? It just felt like anything
I said ran the risk of giving the wrong impression.
And it's so daft, like in hindsight. no offense
you have a lovely home and a good wage but if
i was a gold digger i might have aimed higher
that's fair yeah completely valid looking for
a yacht and yeah someone who could just keep
me like a princess and never have to work again
you know that's what a gold digger would be going
for i don't think gold diggers are generally
pursuing someone with a nice two -bedroom terraced
house and a moderately expensive lease car Yeah,
at a middle management job in the public sector.
Yeah, I am not. I am not a sugar daddy. I am
not of that income. But yeah, I think that was
my fear. There was an element of that and also
an element of just a little bit of shame, I think,
about the place that I'm at in my life where
I have a really good job, but I essentially started
my career about four years ago after a lot of
this is a job that we'll do for now. And then
this is a job that will do for now. And I don't
really know where I'm going with my life. And
even the job that I have now, I got initially
as a stopgap. I just left a job that was making
me really unhappy. Didn't know what I wanted
to do next. And I was like, I'll just get a job
in a call center for six months or so while I
figure out direction and I'll go from there.
And then I loved it. And then I got promoted
and now have a really interesting job that is
not anymore having to take 80 calls a day, which
is great. So I met you at a time where I was
really only just finding my feet with a career,
not just a job. And I was really self -conscious
about the fact that I had essentially thrown
away my 20s, both in terms of career and financial
literacy and managing debt and all of that stuff.
I was like, I am a bit of a mess financially
and I'm getting on top of it. But like, it was
hard to talk to you about money because I was
scared of you looking down on me, I guess. Yeah.
Which you've never given me any reason to think
that you would. But I think that's why talking
about money in relationships can be so hard.
Because a lot of shame does get attached to money.
And a lot of connotations get attached to people
when they're in a relationship where there is
a gap in income. Yeah, I think you're right.
And I think it kind of goes back to that thing
we were talking about earlier on. It's a little
bit of a taboo subject, isn't it? It's a weirdly,
weirdly difficult thing to talk about. Yeah.
Even in a committed relationship. Yeah. You know,
kind of. And there might be an element of protection
to some of that, self -protection to some of
that as well. So not having a joint account,
having your own account and kind of feeling like
you want to pay your way. Because I do remember
having the conversation about how we were going
to split the bills when we moved in. And I think
we were both a little bit surprised by the other
one's assumption. Because I think you assumed
that we would split the bills 50 -50. Yeah. And
I assumed that we would split the bills according
to our relative income. So not 50 -50. And I
think we were both a little bit surprised by
the other's suggestion. Because in my head, why
on earth would you split the bill 50 -50 unless
you earn the same amount of money? Yeah, and
if I was talking about anyone but me, I would
be like, no, of course that makes sense. You
wouldn't split the bills 50 -50. But because...
I had never been in that position before. Yeah.
And because I'd been the one who brought up us
moving in together, like you were really keen.
It's not like I massively accelerated the process,
I don't think, but I brought it up. Yeah. It
just felt incredibly cheeky to be like, can I
come and live in your house and eat half of your
food and use probably more than half of your
electricity? Yeah. And pay fuck all. Like that
was never going to be my suggestion. I wanted
to know what living here cost. And if 50 % wasn't
actually doable, I would have definitely said.
But if you'd said, yeah, this is what it costs
and I want you to pay half of it, I would have
been willing to do that. But I think what you
suggested and what we obviously ultimately did
is fairer. And it's what I would suggest to anyone
else with a significant income gap because it
makes sense. Because when we kind of balance
that right, we end up with roughly probably the
same amount of fund money, you know, that spare
spending money until you started taking it off.
And that was that was that was exactly the reason
for that is it's it if you've got any kind of
size gap of income, but take the same amount
of money off someone to pay a bill. It's essentially
a regressive tax. Yeah. Because it hits the person
with the lower income harder because they then
have less disposable income. And we probably,
I don't, we're probably not a million miles apart.
I probably come out of this deal still with a
little bit more, a little bit more disposable
income. Not a massive amount, I don't think.
But that's the point is actually then we've,
then when you've taken care of the stuff that
you've got no choice about paying, then we can
share the cost of having fun. Yeah. More equally,
which we do. Yeah. And we had, I know I said
I found it difficult, but I still like knew I
had to like. put on my big enby pants and deal
with it like we had some really important and
good conversations about money yeah we did have
those conversations about how we were going to
split bills but we also talked to each other
in a lot of depth we also talked to each other
in a lot of detail about things like any debt
that we had yeah sort of committed outgoings
that we had yeah what i was going to do with
with my flat because there's expenses attached
to owning a property and i didn't want to sell
it within five minutes of moving in with you
yeah um so we talked about how that impacted
on both of us as well as part of that conversation
yeah and i think uncomfortable as it can definitely
be it's really important in a relationship to
be able to really transparently talk about your
financial situation yeah and i think especially
you know times that by 100 if you plan on starting
to mess around with financial domination yeah
this cannot be done if we don't have transparency
about each other's finances no particularly transparency
about mine because if i was in a massive hole
of debt that you didn't know about yes that's
not respecting your consent because you're not
making an informed decision on what you're doing
if you don't know the position that i'm in no
no you're absolutely right um so um all i have
to say about that previous conversation part
of our conversation was martin lewis eat your
knob off quite apart from the kinky aspect of
stuff that we're going to talk about actually
that is I think part of that, at least a little
part of that conversation was driven by the dynamic
that we were building. So aside from financial
domination, there is a degree of financial control
that I have as part of our dynamic. But actually,
it's yet another example of people in any type
of relationship can probably learn something
from the approach that you have to take where
there is any kind of financial control involved
and that level of transparency and that level
of openness about how money works in your household.
and in your relationship is necessary for the
stuff that we do. But it's also just necessary,
you know, for a happy life. Yeah. I had a really
funny moment the other day and it just shows
how some couples must operate very differently
from us. I went to get my lip filler and my Botox
topped up. Yes. And I am very regular at the
person that I go to and I've been going to him
for various little tweaks for years on and off.
And he agreed to do my Botox for free at my last
appointment, which is very nice of him, very
generous. Incredibly generous. But he knows that
we split the cost of any improvements to my face.
And as I was leaving the appointment, he was
like, tell your partner it was full price and
then you make a profit. And obviously I did not
do that. No. But I can imagine there probably
would be some people who would. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And probably without prompting. Yeah. Fair play
to them, I guess. But yeah, it is kind of a weird
way to approach it. Yeah. I can't imagine having
a relationship where... where i felt the need
to sort of hide my financial situation or try
to get one over on my partner financially i think
even if there's no other problems in the relationship
you're weakening your foundations doing that
and even in completely vanilla relationships
i've had in the past i've always i've liked honesty
around money obviously control wasn't an element
of that but yeah saying like this is how much
money i've got left i'm a little bit skinned
or actually i've got loads of spare money this
month do you want to do something nice and i'll
pay yeah not sort of squirreling it away and
hiding what you have and being cagey with each
other i don't think that's healthy no no no i
don't either i think that's a little bit strange
um but about three days ago you asked me about
my perspective on the ethics of it and i think
that was what i was very aware of was um we have
a fairly significant gap in income um currently
yeah you will in short order be very important
in financial services in which case the situation
will flip and that's fine with me um but i was
really aware of that and and was i think probably
more worried than i needed to be about what that
might do to our relationship as well as kind
of like i said earlier on the perception of others
yeah um because we're really open with the people
around us, like in the community about what we
do. So I think I was probably as worried about
that as I was about actually ethically, am I
okay taking money off someone who earns less
than me? Yeah. You know, just on a really pragmatic
basis. Like, how do you, how do I swear that
in my head and be okay with it? And I think,
I think the way that I, came to be okay with
it was to be very very clear and very specific
and and quite protective of how we did it um
so the way that because because there's no getting
away from the fact that the idea of it was really
hot it was really exciting just another way of
exerting power over you really leaning into that
property sort of angle to our dynamic you are
an object for my use and pleasure and then layering
money on top of that which just feels really
impersonal yeah and and because it is transactional
yeah you know and you think about some of the
words that people use to describe fin subs they
talk to them talk and i use them about you as
well they you know words like pay pig or piggy
or wallet or um i think i've called you a walking
cash machine yeah you know stuff like that just
really quite cruel degradation if you think about
it was really really exciting yeah and i love
any form of objectification so that takes a lot
of boxes for me yeah but i was really conscious
that i didn't want the frenzy of that to overpower
the ethics of it yeah and you're so good at that
this is often how new kinks go for us is one
or both of us comes up with a new idea And I'm
like, yeah, let's do a seven day interrogation.
Yeah. Let's let's like do the most unhinged violence
we can think of. And you're like, OK, so the
safer and easier and less intense version of
that is where we're going to start. And then
I hootle and fuss and I eventually agree with.
And not because I wear you down, but because
I think you recognize that I'm usually right.
Yeah. To be fair. Yeah. And also, even if I could
handle the insane version that I've come up with
in my head, it's also in any kind of kink. I
think it's important that you go at the pace
and play to the level of the person who wants
to go the slowest and lowest. Yeah. It's always
better for the person who wants to go more extreme
to compromise and settle for a softer version
than to push someone out of their comfort zone
and potentially be on their limits. Yeah. Like
ultimately, even if it's not about being right
or wrong, it's if what you want. is a softer
version of something there is no ethical way
of me getting you to bump it up a level apart
from waiting patiently and seeing if you get
there yourself yeah and you generally do that's
because i start off a little bit anxious and
i'm like oh yeah no actually yeah which is kind
of how this went for us didn't it um finned on
yes has gone for us so um i think the first thing
we did was we we'd already had a really clear
agreement about how we pay for stuff um so we
split the bills according to our income and the
cost of anything else is usually shared 50 50
more or less it seems like we take it in turns
getting a takeaway or paying when we go out for
meals yeah but we we share the load relatively
equally of everything that's not a household
bill yeah um but we actually wrote that into
our rules in the section about financial domination
just so that we were really really clear about
that um And included in that is all of the bimbo
related expenses, which we agreed to share. Yeah.
Which again, wildly, I think you were willing
to pay for. Yeah. I was like, yeah, I'm going
to look really cute. And you were like, if I'm
making you suddenly buy makeup, buy hairstyling
stuff, buy a whole new wardrobe, get filler,
get Botox, potentially get plastic surgery. This
was before I insisted on plastic surgery. You
were like, yeah, obviously I'm going to pay a
share of that. And I think probably if I'd held
out, you would have paid more as well. Yeah,
probably. Yeah. Well, because I saw that as like
any other kink expense. Yeah. Like if we buy,
I don't think it's worked out. It probably hasn't
worked out 50 -50. But if we go to the DVB in
Birmingham and we buy kink equipment, we generally
share that cost. Yeah. It's the same with bimbo
stuff. So we wrote that down just so that we
were really, really clear. And I proposed, I
think, quite a detailed set of rules on how it
would work. Yeah. Which was more for my comfort,
I think, than for yours. So we agreed that you
would set a budget every payday. Included as
part of that budget would be an amount for us
to play with in Findom. The original version
of our rules were that you could set a zero budget,
so you weren't required to do it every month.
Yep. What else was there? So the original set
also included, Mix, that I could increase the
budget over the course of the month, but I couldn't
reduce it. So once I committed to that money
on payday, that was what was there. But that
if I had an unexpected emergency of some kind...
during the the pay period i could request the
money back at any time um i couldn't do it just
because i budgeted badly and wanted to buy a
takeaway yeah but if there was an unexpected
vet bill or something else that i had to deal
with that was my responsibility to pay for i
could request it back yeah and this wasn't a
rule but this was something that we both agreed
verbally that this would be the approach we take
we we started with pretty low budgets yeah so
i didn't immediately commit the maximum amount
of money i could afford to play with i think
the first month we did it was maybe 30 or 40
pounds something that we played with and again
this sort of circles back to what we talked about
earlier about this kind of play being a privilege
for me that is a pretty low amount of money that
is the kind of thing i would spend impulsively
on getting us takeaway pizza for some people
that might be all the spare money they have in
the world and then that wouldn't be a token amount
the token amount for them might be 50p yeah and
for some people a token amount might be 100 grand
and i'm sure they have some very fun times with
findom yeah um but proportionate to what i had
in terms of income savings and and financial
commitments at the time that felt like a small
enough amount of money that i wouldn't actually
miss it if it turned out not to be our thing
yeah yeah as an experiment yeah to to try it
out and on the other side of that um the way
that because of the bank account that i've got
I was able to say every time I demanded money
from you. So that was part of the rules as well.
Part of what we agreed was that I would demand
the money from you with a screenshot and then
you would cover the cost in there. But then what
I would do when you made that payment was put
that into a separate pot in my bank account so
I knew that money was there on the off chance
that you needed it. Yes. You know? i don't think
it would because of the amounts we were talking
about i don't think it would have been material
if i didn't do that but i felt like it was necessary
to kind of keep that money separate to go well
that's not really mine yet yeah because something
might happen and they might want it back yeah
um and we got some advice didn't we mix about
sort of the storage of money and the transferring
of money from a friend of ours who's a qualified
mortgage advisor to make sure that we weren't
going to be doing anything that would look really
sketchy Yes, we did. And she was not concerned,
was the short answer. Basically, don't put stupid
stuff in the references when sending money. So
if I sent you money with the reference, like,
please step on me, mix. Bank might not like that.
Mortgage advisor definitely won't like that.
So I think that was the first set of rules, the
original set of rules, wasn't it? And we just
wanted to try it out and see how it went. Yeah.
And like you say, with it being a relatively
low amount of money that we were playing with,
it was relatively low amounts of money that I
took off you. So it was like coffee and Greg's
lunch. I don't think that was just purely because
it was a relatively low amount of money. I think
there was something about kind of wanting to
be able to do it on a regular enough basis that
we would think about it. Yeah. You know, because
there's no point if on your payday you set a
budget of 40 quid and then the next day. I'll
buy a Lego set for 40 quid and tell you to pay
for it because the month is done then. Yeah,
then unless I end up having some spare money
and topping it up, you can't do it again until
I next get paid, which is not ideal. Yeah, yeah.
So remembering that the word trivial is a relative
term, fairly trivial amounts of money that we
were transacting as well. Yeah. You know, that
you were sending me. It was like £4 for a coffee.
Yeah. Although £4 for a coffee is ridiculous.
Is ridiculous, yeah. This is why I take... a
coffee with me if i'm going out the house with
a coffee yeah yeah i make an instant coffee in
a coffee cup and i take it with me yeah yeah
yeah no i can see the income difference in it
yeah i have reached the reached the level of
income and middle classness that no actually
i'm quite happy it's like that's a special treat
if i'm on like a a day out i will buy a coffee
in a coffee shop yeah but if i'm just going into
the office absolutely not yeah yeah that's true
Plus, there's nowhere good for coffee near where
my office is, so I would have to spend probably
£4 on a shit coffee. I'm definitely not prepared
to do that. No, that's fair. Yeah, the coffee
shop I buy from would not be my choice. But it's
just chains around where I work. The other thing
that I do, and it was a friend on FetLife who
pointed this out, my bank account does roundups,
so if I spend 75p, It will round it up to a pound
and it will put the 25p in a little pot for me.
I make you cover the rounded up amount and not
the actual amount. So if it's £3 .85 for a medium
chai latte from Costa, so you pay £4 because
that's how much it costs me. I remember a pal
on FetLife pointed that out and it was just that
extra little bit of... humiliation to it to make
you pay the round up as well yeah I really like
that as well I'd spotted it as well I think it
was the first time you'd done it and you posted
a screenshot on FetLife and I'd noticed it and
I hadn't said anything I was just like oh yeah
that's hot I'm paying the round up as well and
then that person commented on Fet as well and
was like yeah it's great it's all good fun but
a lot of that structure that we put behind it
around kind of no minimum budget you can ask
for it back if you really need it but not for
poor financial choices i think almost all of
that was about my my comfort level with it that
balance of yeah this is a really hot idea and
i want to explore it but i am struggling a little
bit with the ethics of it and whether i should
given the difference in our financial situation
yeah no i would agree because i was if if you
hadn't had any concerns i would have wanted to
start with a pretty low budget to see how it
felt yeah um and just to see kind of how manageable
it was for me and I would have wanted to at least
have a conversation about what would happen if
I got into some kind of financial difficulty.
I don't think I necessarily would have needed
it to be in the rules that I could ask for the
money returned, because as we've talked about,
as we've sort of negotiated this, as we've moved
on, our contract covers that you are responsible
for my well -being. You are able to cause me
suffering and distress, but the aim is never
to cause me damage or harm. And so I think that
really covers, not in a very sort of prescriptive,
this is what must happen if I have an unexpected
bill, but covers a responsibility for you to
think about what the right thing to do in that
situation is if you've taken two, three hundred
pound off me. And I'm sitting there going, I
cannot afford to take the cats to the vet. First
off. you also help out with with cat vet expenses
because they are your children now as well yes
you're a very good step cat parent um but also
like you're not gonna just sit back and watch
me have a miserable time and stress about money
yeah like regardless of how much of my money
is in your account and how much is your money
in your account you would want to help so yeah
there is that element of just what we do as a
couple and also what your responsibilities are
as a dominant that i felt provided enough of
a safety framework there yeah that i wouldn't
have necessarily needed as many sort of built
in black and white ways of dealing with that
in the rules but i was completely comfortable
with having those because that makes it more
comfortable for both of us and safer for both
of us which is a good thing yeah i think so and
i think that's how that's developed over time
isn't it so we're on to our second set of rules
now second like at least if we're counting major
overhauls makes there might be the odd wording
wording tweak here and there yeah yeah in that
way that i like to whenever i look at the rules
i like to tweak the wording slightly yeah for
extra clarity Yes, for the avoidance of doubt.
For the avoidance of doubt and at my absolute
discretion. And you can tell I work in contracts.
So our current set of rules, I think some of
the basic elements are still there, but there
is a minimum budget now because we've established
that that minimum that we were setting, the budget
that you were setting to begin with, was completely
comfortable for you. Yeah. You can still add
to it if during the month and you usually do.
Yeah. But you can't reduce it. And you can't
ask for it back. Yeah. We've taken that out of
it for exactly the reason that you said is actually
if there is a financial emergency in the household,
we will deal with it as a household. Yeah. And
even if it was something that is entirely my
problem. because of who you are as a person,
I can't imagine you're just going to go, well,
that's not my fucking problem, is it? Yeah, yeah.
A massive bill in relation to your flat. Yeah.
Would be a good example of the kind of thing
where I wouldn't kind of sit back and go, it's
not my fucking flat, is it? You know? I might
have some words to say if the massive bill was
caused by the current occupiers of that flat.
Yeah, if Hope and Ash fuck it up, then. They
can pay for it. I will have some opinions about
that. And we can say this because they don't
listen to the podcast. They haven't even listened
to their own episode. No, they haven't. So we've
turned the screw a little bit on that set of
rules, which feels really good. Yeah, feels good
to me, mate. And the amounts have increased.
Yeah, which has been entirely down to me, that
side of it. We agreed a minimum, but the minimum
was round about what my first month had been
anyway. It's been me that has continued to sort
of gradually and I think quite sensibly upped
it. There's definitely been times where I looked
at my account at the end of the month when I
got paid and thought, I could put a lot into
the Fyndon budget right now. And then I have
thought, let's put some in savings. maybe half
of what i've got spare into savings and half
into the find on budget um because what this
has actually done weirdly has put me in the best
financial position i've ever been in i've currently
got like better credit more in savings um up
until about a month ago i had my my credit card
fully cleared but i have now put some holiday
stuff on it and some stuff for your birthday
on it but like i got to a point where my credit
card was fully paid off which it hadn't been
for a very long time um because what this has
done is instead of seeing money as okay this
is here to spend i'm gonna do whatever whatever
i want within reason with it yeah it's now like
if i plan things well and i take care of my finances
we have more to play with and it's more fun yeah
so it's been a good motivator for me to build
up some savings and to make sure that i'm paying
off more than the minimum that I have to on my
credit card and things like that. Yeah. Because
that puts me in a position then when payday rolls
around where I go, actually, yeah, I can put
the budget at £200 this month. Yeah. And we can
do some fucked up stuff with that. And that hasn't
changed, is it? Other than the minimum, the amount
that goes into the budget is entirely driven
by you. I don't, I might degrade you for it not
being high enough. Yeah. But that is just me
being a pervert and not me. setting an expectation
yeah and that is not in any way a deterrent from
me setting it low if anything it might encourage
me to always love a bit of bonus degradation
yeah yeah that's things this is such a win -win
for me because if there's plenty of money in
the budget then you'll take it off me more frequently
and in larger amounts and that's always really
hot but if there's not a lot of money in the
budget Then you degrade me for it. There's been
a couple of months where I don't think because
the amount was too low. I think because you have
poor self -control and took so much money off
me early in the month that you had nothing left
to play with. And then would spend the last week
or so of the month degrading me for being a useless
wallet that couldn't afford to buy you things.
Yeah. That was fun. Yes. Yeah. I think one of
my favorite examples of that was I think I'd
gone to buy a meal deal. And because I get the
meal deal and then I get an extra snack. And
then I get a bag. It's like £5 something to get
lunch. So my bank account rounds up to £6. And
I think there was only £4 left in the budget.
So I sent you the message, but I said something
like, you're too useless and skint to cover the
full cost of this, so you can empty the budget
for it. And made you send £4 for a £6 meal deal.
Yeah. Which was great fun. It was. So we renegotiated
those rules and we relaxed some of the safety
features and that allowed us to be a little bit
freer with it. and then you escalated as i tend
to do yes as you tend to do very just hit me
with your car style submission once again shove
hogweed up my butt yes sort of style yes mix
tell us what you did tell us what you proposed
uh what i proposed was that as well as the current
games we were playing with money every month
that we should also include a rule that our holiday
that we go on every year somewhere hot should
be entirely my responsibility to pay for yes
and your initial reaction was jesus christ no
it was but i was gonna say it was horny but horrified
yes was it you were like that's awful why am
i hard that is a beautiful way of putting it
and a very accurate representation of what happened
yeah And I think that I wouldn't say that it
sent me into a spiral, but I had a lot of thoughts
about it. Yeah. Partly, is that actually affordable?
It's a hot idea, but is it actually doable? Because
we don't go on massively expensive holidays.
In the scheme of how much holidays can cost,
it's not a massively expensive holiday, but it's
not a cheap one either. no you know it's a chunk
of change so i was a little bit worried about
actually is it sustainable whilst managing your
life and retaining what we were already doing
about with with findom um but there was also
again that ethical thing of that really should
be the other way around you know if it's going
to be all on one person it shouldn't be you until
you have a really important job yeah in which
case it can be you And that was exactly why it
was hot to me, because it is the opposite way
around from what people would expect for our
earnings. And because I will feel it a lot more
than you would. Even the holidays we've been
on up until this point, we've split sort of 50
-50. And you don't necessarily, from what I can
tell from how you talk about your money anyway,
don't really feel the pinch from making the payments
to pay it off. Where I sometimes there's been
times where I was like, hey, can I pay you the
money I owe you for my share of the holiday next
month? Because I don't have it this month and
things like that. So, yeah. But my financial
position has changed a little bit over the last
few months, which helps. And also, if I know
that that's the plan in advance. Yeah. I'm planning
to pay for a whole holiday instead of planning
to pay for a half a holiday. Yeah. Which always
makes it easier to manage. Yeah. You know, it's
yeah, you know, it's coming. But we talked about
that quite a lot, didn't we? We kind of talked
it through. I don't think we spent a long time
talking about it, but we had a proper detailed
conversation. It was deep, yeah, but I was impressed
at how you fought your usual urge to overthink
yourself into a whole. Like, you definitely had
a lot of thoughts and we talked a lot, but we
resolved it in the check -in where I thought
it might be one that you would think on for a
month and we'd come back to at the next check
-in. Yeah. I was hoping that wouldn't happen
because I was keen to get it booked. Yeah, and
I think that might have been part of why that
happened as well. From my perspective, we're
going, no, we need to get a holiday booked. So
we probably need to decide whether we're going
to do this or not. Because we are definitely
the kind of people, aren't we, that say we should
book a holiday or we should think about where
we want to go on our holiday. And we both go,
yeah, no, you're absolutely right. We'll do some
Googling. And then a month later, we should book
a holiday. We need to think about where we want
to go. Yeah. Yeah, we should do that. So I didn't
want it to be another reason why that drifted,
because I know you like to get it booked in.
We need to get holiday time booked off and stuff.
Yeah. But we did agree some rules around that
as well. Some guardrails. Yeah. And again, that
was definitely more driven by your sort of comfort
level and you needing to feel like it was ethical
and balanced and safe and all that good stuff,
which I appreciate. Yeah. But yeah, you. your
main thing was you wanted to set a maximum budget
that could be my responsibility and if the holiday
came to more than that budget that anything over
over the cap we would go back to splitting yeah
yeah yeah i think it is slightly over though
isn't it it's the hotel at the airport to fly
out took us over by the cost of that hotel room
mix. And because you didn't want to upset me
when I was having so much fun being a good pay
pig, you did relent and allow me to pay that.
But I think if the actual holiday accommodation
or the actual flights had taken it over, you
would have said no. Yeah, yeah. So what did we
include? We included the flights and the accommodation.
And car hire mix. Car hire insurance. And insurance,
yes, mix. And the... The airport hotel, yes.
Yeah. And then when we're out there spending
money, just goes back to kind of take it in turns
paying for stuff. Yeah. Roughly 50 -50, as we
usually do. Yeah. Because you had suggested that
as well, hadn't you? I had, yes, Mix, and you
did not feel cool about that. That's just taking
a piss at this point. Like, really hot in theory.
Maybe next year. Yeah, maybe next year. There's
a really weird thing that goes on in my head.
which I can't quite understand why. But it's
a little bit like my office. So you are responsible
for cleaning the entire house, but you do not
have to clean the office. And the reason for
that is that every now and again, I need to do
something domestic to remind myself how to do
things that are domestic in case you are ever
not able to do it. Yeah. So that's why I sometimes
will do the dishes when you're poorly and use
the washing machine and stuff like that, even
though I do the laundry wrong. You do the laundry
so wrong. It is not restful for me at all. so
i when we were talking about the holiday and
you were kind of saying well i'll pay for everything
while we're out there as well i thought no i
need to there needs to be some kind of connection
to me contributing to stuff to that just to remind
myself that i am a mere mortal i think that is
yeah following the example that you give of kind
of putting myself putting me on a pedestal almost
as a god i need sometimes to remind myself that
i am not I think that's very healthy. And I think
that was what was behind that. When we're out
there, we're spending money like we normally
would. Yeah. And then there is, we've said, or
I've said, that because you're going to have
money that you need to pay towards it every month,
if any given month is a problem, then we share
the cost 50 -50. Of the monthly payments. Yeah.
Until it's not a problem anymore. Yeah. Does
that make sense? It does, yes, Mix. So yeah,
the arrangement can change at any time and that
can go up to me asking you for up to 50 % of
the cost. Yeah. Of the holiday. Yeah. Not necessarily
as a lump sum. I mean, that would be deeply unreasonable
seeing as it's on my credit card. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I can ask you to contribute. That is
one that's still within my control to take that
back if it's becoming an issue. Yeah, yeah. which
is distinct from the usual Fyndon budget, which
is once you've sent it, it's gone. Yeah. Kind
of thing. Yeah. And I think that was just because
of the amount involved feels like a lot, but
is a lot. Yeah. It sort of feels like a pallet.
So there's that kind of safeguard that I felt
like I needed. And if we do it this year and
it's all good fun and we do it next year, I guess
we'll probably check in about that at some point.
you know that felt like a reasonable way to start
it yeah as always you encouraging me to be sensible
and start a little bit lower and slower is generally
a good thing for me too it's essential for you
and it would never even be it's never something
i'm going to try to negotiate you up on but often
i end up feeling like actually yeah that does
give me some reassurance it does give me a little
bit of extra safety in doing this new thing yeah
because going back to what we're talking about
way before about how findom can become generally
unethical when you're horny you don't always
make good decisions a lot of the new ideas for
kink i have come up when i'm horny yeah and when
i'm not i mean when am i not but yeah when i'm
less horny yeah i might regret it if i've sort
of boxed myself into something that is quite
hard to manage because i think your sensible
nature and your occasionally overthinking nature
is very good for me yeah Because I do not overthink.
I rarely think at all. And that might change
over time. We'll see how it feels after the holiday.
Yeah. It is quite hot that you put it on your
credit card though. Yes. You got yourself into
credit card debt for me. Like a good little pay
pick. Entirely manageable short -term credit
card debt. Yes. That I'm paying in installments
and will probably clear within three months.
But yes. But still. But still. Quite hot. yeah
um so i wanted to talk about some of my favorite
moments since we've started exploring financial
domination yeah um but i would like to hear yours
as well i think the top one for me other than
the holiday that we've just talked about like
that whole thing just as a concept is really
hot to me yeah um the idea of treating you to
a luxury week away somewhere hot in the autumn
and you not having to spend a penny on it apart
from the spending money while we're there because
you insisted yeah but yeah there's something
really hot about the massive imbalance of that
if the purpose of my money is to make your life
easier the purpose of me as a submissive is to
make your life easier better more fun yeah so
so expressing that in a really material way is
awesome um but i think my favorite other than
that was the blowjob game Oh, yes. I enjoyed
that as well. That was a good game. Shocker that
you enjoyed the blowjob game. Yeah. Weird. Weird.
So that game, what we did was we agreed that
I would try to make Mix come using only my mouth,
which is immediately hard mode because you don't
come easily from oral. That's not your go -to.
So I was only allowed to use my mouth and I would
have 10 minutes. And for every minute that I
took, I would... be fined 10 pounds yeah up to
up to the 10 minutes yeah and then if i had not
made you come after the 10 minutes yeah then
you would fuck me which is a win but it would
cost me 50 quid yeah in an additional fine for
having failed at the challenge uh yeah i failed
and i had a great time blew most of that month's
budget but well worth it well worth it yes um
but i didn't make it easy for you did i i didn't
notwithstanding the fact that it isn't particularly
easy to make me come from for moral anyway just
because of who i am as a person but you were
handcuffed yes you were kneeling on the floor
and you had a hood on yes so the only part of
your entire head that was exposed was your was
your mouth yeah which just made it even hotter
for me because it's literal fleshlight yeah and
it did make it more difficult because as soon
as i started a little bit of the hood overlapped
with my lip and got sort of drawn into my mouth
right so i had less control i mean i've got botox
in my top lip anyway yeah um then i've got a
bit of fabric covering half of my bottom lip
so i've got very little fine control over what
my lips do and the filler does a lot of the work
to be fair i think i'm a lot better at sucking
dicks since i got basically a plastic mouth,
but... But still, I was hampered. I did not have
a whole lot of control. I wasn't allowed to use
my hands anyway, but having them cuffed definitely
made it harder because I had less balance. Not
being able to see meant I couldn't figure out
exactly where I was at and was getting disoriented.
Having my handcuffs cuffed behind me meant that
I started to cramp and get quite sore and stiff
quite quickly, which also affected things. So
yeah, it was not the easiest blowjob I've ever
given. No. I mean, I'm not saying that I set
you up to fail, but... But that was a substantial
amount of money as well. We made it even hotter.
Yeah. And you, like, saved up to do that. You
deliberately didn't use all of my budget the
month before so that some would roll over. Yeah.
So, yeah, we're not casually blowing £150 on
sex games every day. This was an event. An event.
Yeah, yeah. It's not our usual level of spending.
Yeah. But it was hot on the heels of another
one which was a decent amount of money. Yeah.
Wasn't it? It was a week or so after we went
out. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd allowed the money to
roll over from the previous month because you
were planning two big ones. Yeah. So there was
the blowjob game. And shortly before it, we'd
done the day when we went out day drinking with
some pals. Yeah. And I was paying for all of
my drinks, but also all of your drinks and both
taxis. And we live in the wilderness. So the
taxis are the biggest cost. Taxis were not cheap.
No. Yeah. Yeah. So that was another chunk of
chunk of money. Yeah. That went out, which was
also fun. Yeah. Although I got in my own way
a little bit with that one because the original
idea for the day out was that you would just
buy everything. Yeah. You would go to the bar
and pay for everything. And I think I got that
kind of fear of perception thing there because
we were with other people that I didn't know.
Yeah. And they weren't kinky people either. Yeah.
So we couldn't have just said, oh, yeah. the
wallet is paying for everything today. I mean,
we totally could. They would have been cool with
it. And I think once I was drunk, I did in fact
say that. Yeah. And they were cool with it. And
they were cool with it. But I had that worry
in my head about how is this, I'm meeting these
people for the first time. Yeah. How is that
going to be perceived? So instead of making you
pay for everything in the moment, we kind of
alternated going to the bar. And afterwards I
said, I took the money off you. Yeah. For how
much you'd, how much it. i'd spent for how much
i'd spent yeah and i don't think that that didn't
take anything away from it for me the the reimbursing
you afterwards because that was also quite hot
yeah you know you have that thing you wake up
in the morning with a bit of anxiety oh god what
did i say what did i do how much did i spend
yeah look at how much i spent and go oh god and
then you go okay but that's only half of it give
me the rest yeah like yeah that was quite fun
as well yeah But yeah, I think if we did it again,
either just us out drinking or us with some kinky
people, and you did feel comfy just making me
go to the bar every time. Yeah. I mean, I hope
we go somewhere that has a little QR code on
the table if we do that, because I hate going
to the bar. That would be the worst part for
me, not spending the money. Yeah, going out to
talk to a person. Get up from my seat, talk to
a person. Terrible. So the things that I put
into the outline were mainly like my favourite
bits, but I'm curious because you don't generally
involve yourself in my outlining. Which happens
very chaotically in random five minutes of the
day. What are your highlights from things that
we've done with Financial Domination Mix? I think
definitely those two, the blowjob game and the
day drinking have been highlights. Part of that
is because they were such substantial sums compared
to what we normally do. But I think the fun part
of it for me is probably the kind of the degradation
that goes along with it. I find that really...
I find just the process of taking the money off
you is hot in itself. It's this really weird
thing where I'm kind of wandering out of Greg's
going, it's quite exciting to do it. But I think
it's most fun for me when there's that degradation
that goes along with it. you know kind of using
all of the mean words to describe you you're
just a walking cash machine kind of i really
enjoy that aspect of it just grinning and vibrating
as i say that and i did really enjoy as silly
as it is i did really enjoy that that little
trip to the co -op where there wasn't enough
money in the budget because again kind of really
leaning into that your purpose is to serve me
your purpose is to cover these costs and you
can't even do that how useless are you And you're
so good at that. You are so good at the degrading
and humiliating aspects of it, which is the thing
that makes it really hot to me. Yeah. Because
like you, I find it quite hot if I just, if you
ask me to, if you tell me to send you some money
and I send it. Yeah. That's already hot. But
the extra element of it where you're then getting
like quite nasty and quite personal sometimes
with the things you say, you are so skilled at
that. exactly my thing yeah like there was some
amazing bits and because it was just so hot it's
kind of a blur but during the blowjob game there
were some of the things you were saying there
where i remember sitting there like oof yeah
it was amazing oh yeah because i was doing all
sorts wasn't it i was kind of questioning your
skills yeah you know questioning your value as
a person and you know um i think i made reference
to the fact that with the bimbofication stuff
having the filler in your lips serves two purposes
doesn't it one is it kind of fits with that bimbo
aesthetic but also it allows us to lean into
that you're actually your face is just a flashlight
yeah so degrading you for that as well going
how much money have you spent on your lips and
you're still fucking useless yes it's that was
great yeah i enjoy yeah i enjoyed that um for
the record for anyone curious filler in your
lips does actually make you better at blow jobs
i've got less fine control over my lips but i
i have been told it feels incredible Can confirm.
I mean, it was great before. Don't get me wrong.
Very, very good. But yeah, it is a completely
different feeling. Highly recommended. I'll tell
you one thing that I do really enjoy, which we've
not talked about actually, as part of the wider
financial control, is the way that we deal with
your share of bills. Yeah. So... for the household
bills that's just set up on a monthly payment
that comes out of your account automatically
and and comes into mine because i pay the bills
from my account but like grocery shopping i do
the food shopping so i pay for it and then what
we did before we started doing findom was i would
tell you how much your third is and then you
would send it to me yeah but actually now i already
knew the code to your phone now i know the pin
to get into your banking account So whenever
I need to take money off you for anything like
that, I just pick up your phone and take it.
Yeah. And there's something really hot about
that as well, about that level of, there's something
about control in there, which is a really core
part of my kink, like control and power. But
it also, your money is my money, or actually
it's my money in your account, kind of vibe to
it, even though it's a household bill. Yeah.
you know i agree and and i really find that hot
because it doesn't require any additional commitment
of funds to have something else to play with
this is money that i legitimately owe you for
my share of things that we've agreed in the same
way that i would be paying that if we had a a
non -power exchange relationship yeah what's
different is the routine of how it's taken And
we still have around that we have agreed sort
of safety measures. So you've agreed like you're
not going to ever go into my savings account,
my business account. You're not going to mess
with my credit card. Like all of those are completely
off limits. You can't touch them. But you can
open my current account and take money that you
are owed without asking first, without telling
me how much it's going to be, anything like that.
I do generally tell you that, don't I? You do
afterwards. Also, I could look afterwards. But
you don't say. I'm going to take £30 off you
now and then take my phone. You take my phone
and then afterwards we may talk about how much
my share of my shopping was. Yes. So it's part
of how we manage our household finances. But
in that way that we do, we've managed to pervert
it somehow. Yes. Which is one of the really fun
things about power exchange relationships, I
think, is it's not just the sort of in quotes
kinky things that you do. It's how do you make
day to day life. mundane routines how do you
make them kinky yeah and things like the housework
and things like how we deal with sort of shared
costs of things and subtle little bits of protocol
that carry over into public life and all of that
stuff yeah that's how you make a 24 7 dynamic
really feel like a living breathing part of your
life yeah because you can have a 24 7 dynamic
that doesn't have those things where the rules
are sort of always just kind of there in the
background but the more little ways you can find
to integrate it into daily routine The more connected
it feels. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I
really enjoy that. Last thing. One last thing
that I've just remembered because it only happened
the other day was part of our routine is that
you make a meal plan and a shopping list every
week. Yes. And I go and do the shopping and then
I take the money off you for your share of it.
So I will buy what is on the list. This week
you added garlic and spicy water. Yes. For people
who aren't deranged, spicy water is fizzy water.
Yes, sparkling water for the posh people, which
we didn't need. Well, I noticed that when I got
home. Yeah. It kind of was a little bit mean
to you. But then when I took your share of the
shopping. I added a £10 dumbfuck fine. Yes, I
did enjoy the dumbfuck fine. Because we bought
things that we didn't need. Yeah. I am sure you
were out of spicy water, though. I remember looking
in the fridge and only seeing one bottle there,
so I don't know where the rest was hiding. It
was on top of the fridge. I'm too short to see
that. It sounds like a skill issue to me. You're
definitely not too short to see the... five bulbs
of garlic that we already had in the fridge yeah
i think they were under the potatoes and i didn't
i had a man look you did yeah um but yeah the
the dumb fuck fine was was was a lot of fun yeah
to add on i really like that because it's stuff
we talked about when we first negotiated for
findom wasn't it like obviously the budget was
an element of it but also what you could do um
so we initially a lot of what we did was reimbursement
you would buy yourself a coffee or a snack or
lunch or whatever it was and then expect me to
cover it like tell me you know cover this and
i would pay you back yeah yeah um but we've definitely
started branching out more with things like randomly
being fined or just taking money off me because
you can or playing games with it and yeah yeah
there's there's not any limits we've set around
how you take the money off me it's completely
up to you what that looks like i'm having fun
with the variety of it yeah i could do i the
the idea is that you're holding my money and
i can take it off you at any time yes love that
so as a result of us doing this since november
you have acquired quite a lot of my money i have
yeah have you um apart from the things that i've
been reimbursing you for money that you've already
spent have you spent any of it mix do you know
what i don't think i have um no weirdly it's
a bit that i'm struggling with and it's not struggling
in terms of like it's not a problem or i'm not
worried about it or concerned about it but i
just don't spend money on myself very often so
in the two or three months where we were doing
it in that way that i would put the money in
a separate pot just in case you needed to to
kind of take it back so i knew exactly how much
it was and i think most of that went into my
savings um and then since we've changed that
because a weird thing with that was we were talking
about wanting to feel the impact of it But the
focus of that was on you wanting to feel the
impact of that, kind of set it at a level where
you're going to notice that the money isn't there.
But I think part of what was behind that kind
of change of, okay, well, let's relax that requirement
around kind of keeping it in a separate pot and
stuff like that, is that I wasn't feeling the
benefit of it. Yeah. You know, I was still spending
the money. My bank account was still reducing
by however much, even though it was only a few
quid at a time. My bank account was still reducing.
because of the way that we work so i wanted to
kind of like feel like i was getting the benefit
of it in the same way that you were or the opposite
way that you were uh i suppose so the so the
money from those first few months has gone into
my savings and the money from since we changed
the rule has just meant that my bank balance
is as a result you know quite significantly healthier
i get paid again on tuesday and i'm shocked by
how much is still in my account Good. I love
that for you. Yeah. But it would also be nice
to see you make some fun purchases. Yeah. Yeah.
I need to have a think about it because the conversation
that we had at the start, like we had the conversation
about, so what do I do with the money? And I
almost felt this obligation to spend it on us.
Yeah. You know, like if we go out for an adventure
or something like that, to pay for it. And that
might still be a feature of it, but I haven't
really fully resolved. what to do with the extra
money. But there is just something quite nice
about just having those expenses covered in that
really direct way. So I buy something, but my
bank balance doesn't go down. Yeah. And that
in itself is kind of hot. Yeah. And it's a way
that benefits me and makes my life easier, which
is part of the point of doing it. But as a result
of that, because my spending habits haven't changed,
I'm kind of left with, okay, so what do I do
with this little lump of money? Do I squirrel
it in savings and be sensible? Or do I buy some
silly Lego set? Which I might do, actually. Yeah.
Because there's a new Formula One car, the MC39,
which is last year's, last season's McLaren.
It's out and it looks mint. It looks absolutely
brilliant. I love how nerdy that is as an option
as well. It's like people's perception of Fyndom
might be like a stunning woman in black leather
making some man buy her designer shoes and handbags.
Yeah, yeah. And then in our household, it's like,
no, like, Mix is going to buy a Lego car. Yeah,
a Lego Formula One car. Nerdery on nerdery. But
it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. This
one is beautiful. So I might get that. Excellent.
I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. I'm
not going to kind of sit and fret about it, but
I think it would add a layer of fun and hotness
to it if rather than just letting the money kind
of cover expenses, actually, I am buying things
and almost making the point you bought this wallet.
Yeah. Because I found it hot. You didn't end
up getting anything, but there was one time we
went to the supermarket, a rare occasion where
I was allowed in the supermarket along with you.
Yeah, yeah. Because when I'm in the supermarket,
it tends to get expensive. Yes. I put things
into the trolley. Yes. But yes, I was in the
supermarket. Usually pals. Yes, yes. Like when
you took me to the supermarket and I got another
giant cow. Yeah. His name is Teacup. Yes. So
yes, I was in the supermarket with you. And as
we were going around our shopping, you stopped
and looked at all the Lego sets and were like,
hmm. some some pay pig gave me 50 pounds yesterday
i'm gonna see what i can buy with it yeah and
you didn't end up getting anything but just like
that thing of you sort of shopping in front of
me with my money was very hot so yeah yeah i
encourage more of this yeah and i almost feel
like it's it's a weird sense of obligation to
to feel i suppose is is it's almost like maybe
that's the route i do need to go down with it
because then it's just another layer on the on
the kink yeah You've got the process of taking
the money off you in the first place, the impact
that that has on you and me. And then it's like,
I'm spending your money on something frivolous.
Yeah. But yeah, it shows you that the level of
overthinking that I do is that at the beginning,
I was almost worried about not spending the money
that I take off you. on you yeah i remember that
yeah you did you even talked about like should
i just take it off you for a period of time and
then every now and again give it you back and
i was like no absolutely not but i could understand
why that felt like sort of the the safest like
most comfortable approach but that would kind
of take a lot of their the edge out of it for
me but we talked about if you don't feel super
comfy just spending it on yourself taking me
for a weekend away or going out for a meal together
or something that benefits both of us yeah like
would feel like a good compromise there and that's
as you say still an option yeah but i think you
have stepped into your confidence with it a little
bit now where probably you would feel comfortable
going i've now saved up enough money from my
pay pig that i'm gonna get myself this ridiculous
big lego set yeah and that would be excellent
as well Yeah, I think I just need to stop overthinking
and enjoy it. And as we've said a couple of times,
this is how we do it. And this is something that
we're figuring out. I don't think there is a
right or a wrong way. I think the idea that you
had of sort of periodically just giving me a
big lump of the money back. For me, it would
have felt like it took something away from it.
For some other people, that might be the ideal
zero impact way of doing Fyndom. You get all
the fun of the process, but no one actually ends
up in a different financial position than where
they started out. If anything, the sub benefits
a little bit because it's a... enforced saving
essentially at that point yeah yeah yeah um there's
a lot of ways that this can be adapted and i
think that's something that i've really enjoyed
about exploring it with you is we looked at what
would make it fit our lives we looked at what
would make sense for us and we created our version
of it it just shows how you really can make this
fit for maybe not everyone like i say if you're
in unmanageable debt if you really are budgeting
to the penny every month you're probably not
it's not going to be a good idea to start messing
with that. No. But for the majority of people,
there will be a little bit of flex in your budget
somewhere where you can go, yeah, maybe that
might be fun to play with. Yeah. If it appeals.
Yeah. Yeah, if it appeals. Because I think that's
the... I think that's one of the risks that people
need to kind of think about with this, isn't
it? Is that once you start doing it, I think
we were both surprised by how... exciting it
was yeah and how much fun it is and how hot it
is and and um how it really reinforces the dynamic
and there is a level of kind of intimacy and
closeness to it as well kind of that like you
say that every day sort of demonstration of our
dynamic and our power difference it's easy to
see how people get themselves into trouble with
it like actual trouble yeah with it because it's
quite intoxicating it really is yeah i imagine
it's similar to the headspace of the early stages
of a gambling addiction it feels like it could
be risky in the same way yeah um it's definitely
something that i keep check on in myself because
of my history of addiction and because of my
experience of sub frenzy and things like that
like i really keep a close eye on how i am with
it and like i said there's been a couple of times
where i'm working out my budget for the month
and i've got you know quite a bit of spare money
I'm like, I could just chuck like half of my
wage into the Fyndham budget this month and I'd
probably be okay. And I sort of catch myself
and go, yeah, but if I do that, it's not going
to feel as good when I reduce the budget next
month. It's going to then not feel significant.
And then I'm going to be tempted to try to keep
doing this over and over. It's not sustainable.
And I'm not taking care of my wellbeing, which
is my responsibility as well as yours. And so
I go, no, big chunk of that is going into savings
and I'm going to be sensible. So yeah, I think
it's... Having the self -awareness to notice
if you're becoming tempted to do something irresponsible
with it and being responsible for yourself, but
also taking some responsibility for each other
as well. Recognising if it's having a negative
impact on each other and checking in regularly
and helping to correct course if that happens.
Yeah, yeah. Because although we haven't been
doing it for ages and ages and ages, we've been
doing it for a little while. And I think to begin
with, I was very conscious about the amount of
the budget that you were setting. And I kind
of, I would check in and go, is that okay? Are
you sure that's affordable? I think I've forced
myself, forced is a strong word, but I have got
myself to a place where I can trust that whatever
the level is that you set for it, either at the
beginning of the month or if you raise it during
the month, that it is affordable. Yeah. And I
think it's still something that I'm aware of.
And I think if you suddenly said next month,
oh yeah, the budget's 600 quid. We will have
a conversation about that. Yeah. Which would
go along exactly those lines. And there is that
weird thing of actually you don't want to peak
too early. Yeah. If you say it's 600 quid one
month and 50 quid the next month, entirely acceptable.
We will have fun with that. But you will have
that experience of having had 600. So, yeah,
the moral of the story is if you're going to
do this stuff, think it through. Definitely.
And be sensible with it. But as we've said. Several
times throughout today's episode It's hot It
is hot It's really hot But why? Why is it so
hot? that is a good question mix i think my initial
reaction to it was something very tied into my
masochism so the first joke always risky joking
about kinks but when you joked about making me
pay at the munch yeah we've sort of been in a
routine for a while with that munch where generally
you buy lunch because there is not an app and
you have to talk to a person and i hate it yeah
um and then we generally take it in turns buying
drinks but you sometimes buy a few more of them
Because again, you have to talk to a person.
So I'm quite used to when I go to that munch,
I don't necessarily spend a whole lot of money.
Yeah. And when we were on the way there and you
made that joke about making me pay for everything.
Yeah. It's like, oh, that's so cruel. And I like
cruelty very, very much. But as we've explored
it more, there's definitely a lot more layers
to it than that. Sometimes it is that cruelty
of making me pay for something and me setting
the budget high enough that I will feel that
a little bit without it being risky. A lot of
the time it's about the humiliation. So the verbal
stuff that goes along with it, the names you
call me and when there's not enough in the budget
to cover something and those kind of things.
Really enjoy that. but there's also something
about the hierarchical nature of it where it
again really elevates you in that position where
i am just property anything of mine is yours
to use as you please yeah your money is more
important than my money so spend mine all of
that kind of stuff yeah yeah and there's a lot
of intimacy and vulnerability in it for me as
well i think where because money is such a taboo
subject and a difficult thing and sometimes like
a a problem or a source of tension in relationships
yeah making that something that is completely
transparent not just with the honesty stuff i
talked about earlier but you can put your hands
in it and footle about yeah yeah like that's
that's cracking open a whole other level of of
me i think we often we don't think of money as
being part of our identity because it's not supposed
to be part of your identity but the amount of
money you earn massively influences the life
that you live the social circles you move in
the way that you look the options you have in
life the amount of privilege you have all of
this is so tied to money it actually is a very
big part of people's identities in a way that
we don't really like to examine because it's
uncomfortable yeah And when you start playing
with it and integrating it into your romantic
relationship, you can't ignore the relationship
that you have with money and how that defines
who you are as a person. Yeah. Which is really
interesting. It's made me a lot more self -aware
about that, I think, as well. Right. That's fascinating.
But I think that doesn't surprise me at all.
A, because I know who you are as a person and
you are quite a deep thinker. I am the over -thinker,
you are the deep thinker. But that is how a lot
of kinks work as well. You know, there's so much
of kink and not even necessarily the kind of
the more edgy, darker kinks. They imitate real
world structures and real world oppression and
stuff like that. They are imitating those things,
not replicating them. So, yeah, it's not surprising
that there's that kind of element of like the
role that money plays in people's lives and society
is a factor in the enjoyment that you get out
of the kink associated with it as well. Yeah.
It's not really. I think I've always had such
a complicated relationship with money and financial
status because I was brought up in a pretty well
-off family and then left home and had a minimum
wage job and then went from that to being a sex
worker and earning insane amount of money early
on. And then because of my mental instability.
having very unreliable earnings for a period
after that and a lot of up and downs since then
you know my addiction meant that i never had
any money and then i got a pretty good job and
suddenly had money and then cost of living suddenly
shot up and that amount of money wasn't a lot
of money anymore and i've had a very rapid yo
-yoing between periods of pretty severe poverty
with positions of being in a much better financial
position than a lot of my friends at other times
and going rapidly backwards and forwards between
the two where it's often felt like money was
this like ridiculously powerful force in my life
that I had no control over and it would just
yank me about where one week I can't afford food
and then a few weeks later I'm paying for everyone
to go out for dinner you know like that kind
of whiplash and being in a position where that
power of money becomes externalized and becomes
controlled and becomes regulated has come alongside
a period of unprecedented financial stability
in my life and it's just given me that much more
comfortable feeling talking about it and thinking
about it which has been really healthy as well
yeah um and there's a lot of elements to that
obviously the fact that i'm now in a stable well
-paid job and i'm living with someone who is
in an even more stable and even more well -paid
job was always going to improve my relationship
with money and my confidence in dealing with
it yeah but i think being a lot more really actively
conscious about it at all times because it's
a part of our relationship has added a layer
to that that's been really helpful yeah amazing
amazing Just as a brief diversion back to something
we talked about earlier on, we were talking about
our income difference and how we deal with the
bills. I remember part of the conversation about
kind of how we were going to split them and how
we weren't going to split it 50 -50. We were
going to do it based on our relative contribution
to the household income. You were saying things
like, well, I don't feel like I'm contributing
enough because that means that you're paying
more. And I was like, you moving in makes my
life cheaper. So if it makes it slightly less
cheap, then it's still cheaper yeah someone else
is paying some of the bills it took me months
to really fully get my head around that i i was
like i feel like a freeloader here by not paying
my full half yeah but even if i'd come in and
said i'll pay you 20 quid a month yeah you're
still 20 quid a month better off than you would
have been yeah yeah and i just couldn't quite
yeah get my head around how that worked but yeah
before you moved in nobody else was paying the
bills yeah you know um Yeah, it's just that weird
perception, I guess, you can have around money
and feeling like you're not contributing or feeling
like you're doing it wrong somehow. Yeah. And
you go, no, you've made my life easier by contributing.
Well, that was very deep, wasn't it? Yes. What
about you, Mix, though? What does financial domination
do for you, apart from bulking up your savings?
Apart from giving me more money. Well, let's
throw that open to the audience. What do I always
say? This will truly be the meme of the podcast.
Yeah, yeah. There is something for me in the
transactional nature of it. Obviously, because
control and power are my core kinks, if you like.
The conceptual reason why I do kink is about
having control and power and exercising that
control and power. So there is definitely an
element of that to find on as well. But I think
what makes it even more exciting for me is kind
of going back to what we were talking about before
about how it can feel transactional and it can
feel a little bit impersonal. It's not for us.
It's not in the way that we do it, but it does
have that kind of element to it and really leans
into what you just said about you are property.
You are here to serve my needs and nothing more.
And it's a really good way of... properly pushing
at that of it's not your money it's my money
yeah so make my life easier by giving it to me
kind of kind of thing um i used the word intoxicating
earlier on but thinking back then it was kind
of talking about it from the subs perspective
it's quite intoxicating from the from the from
my perspective as well even if it is four pound
for a cup of coffee yeah it's like oh yeah this
was free because i have a cash machine at home
that will that will pay for this for me Yeah,
I have been really surprised by how, despite
it being like a transactional thing, it is really
hot. It's really quite sexual. Yeah. I mean,
it's so strange. And I think the other element...
There is something about the amorality of it.
Yeah. You know, I really struggled, like we said
earlier on, I really struggled when we were first
talking about it, about the ethics of it. But
I think something that I've kind of learned recently
from some of the incredible education that we've
taken part in is that there is an element of
my kink which is about being unethical. Yeah.
Within an ethical and consensual framework, acting
unethically. That is really, really quite exciting.
Yeah. It's a phrase that will be etched into
my brain forever. Something that Ancilla L said
in one of the classes that we took. Sometimes
kink is about exonerating yourself from moral
responsibility. Yeah. So I try my hardest and
I don't always get it right, but I try my hardest
to be a good person in the world. But in our
relationship, I can be it. twat i am allowed
to be an awful person yeah because strongly encouraged
yeah in fact because that's what we've agreed
and that's what we've negotiated that doesn't
mean it i think it's okay for people to take
money off other people at the level of society
in the way that we do within findom but for us
personally that option to be amoral at best amoral
um is is something that's really exciting and
i think there's just something about the the
filthy nature of money yeah that really kind
of adds something to that um which i find quite
exciting which is a weird place to be in given
how let's say i really struggle with the ethics
of it because on the face of it it's not right
that i take money off you it's not there's no
version at a societal level there's no version
of that that's okay But in our context, really,
really exciting. Yeah. And I think probably in
my experience, the people who are most turned
on by bad things because they're bad tend to
be the people who are most concerned with doing
the right thing as a whole. Like people who have
a strong sense of ethics and values and morals
and a really sometimes quite rigid moral compass.
You need breathing room from that sometimes.
You need a space to be like, I'm a flawed human
being and this is where the flaws come out. Yeah.
I think if you're someone who doesn't really
give a shit about doing the right thing, you're
not going to be particularly excited by doing
the wrong thing. No. It's where, like, being
a good person, it's not like it's a massive chore
and a difficulty. I think if you want to be a
good person, you probably are a good person and
it's coming pretty naturally as a general rule.
it still requires you to think about the impact
of your actions and think about your motivations
and really sort of examine yourself and do a
little bit of that overthinking and deep thinking
that we're prone to yeah and having a space to
go in this protected space with the consent of
everyone involved within the framework that we've
created none of those rules need to apply yeah
and i don't have to think about it i think that's
that's why a lot of the time I think that a lot
of the kinks that a lot of people are drawn to
are things that they just like because they're
not right in another context. Yeah. There doesn't
necessarily have to be a lot of other layers
to it. There often is, but there doesn't have
to be. Sometimes it's just hot to do bad things.
Yeah. And I enjoy you doing bad things to me
very much. Yeah. Yeah. I know you do. I think
in a strange kind of way, exploring financial
domination has... has really helped alongside
not just from Ansel El but other but particularly
actually it's okay to hearing people who really
know their shit say it's okay to enjoy really
fucked up things yeah I mean you've said it to
me before I accept that that is the truth but
kind of hearing that in that wider context in
that educative context has been a really helpful
thing and I think exploring financial domination
because of the associations it has with, like
you say, with money and the taboo around money,
I think has really kind of helped me to kind
of make peace with some of the really quite nasty
and dark things that we have talked about doing
and are doing. Yeah. You know, so there's a wider
benefit for us, I think, for having explored
financial domination because it's opened that
door to, well, if I can do that, then what else
can I do within a consensual and negotiated context,
obviously. Of course. So yeah, all good. That
was quite deep, wasn't it? You just thought I
was going to say, oh, power. No, I thought I
might get a little bit more from you, but no,
you went deep. I like it. You like it when I
go in deep. I certainly do, Mix. We've reached
the part of the recording where you get to the
bullet point on the outline that says, Mix, wrap
up however you want. Fuck's sake. No, no. I need
to pay more attention to where you're putting
the S's and the K's. I need to pay more attention
to where you're putting the S's and the K's in
the outline because I don't pay attention to
it. I just go, I just work out the flow of it.
Yeah. I don't look at who's doing each bit. But
you're going to be doing your first outline pretty
soon, which I'm excited for. I am. I know. Got
an episode coming up in, I believe, three weeks
about long distance relationships, which Mix
knows a lot more about than me. So they are doing
their first outline. So if it's chaotic. So listeners,
that might be one to skip because it would probably
be shit. I think one of the things that I am
taking away from this episode that I didn't necessarily
expect is actually how a kink that on the...
The general perception of financial domination
is that it is quite transactional and it is quite
surface. It's not that deep. But actually, when
you really sit down and think about it, especially
in terms of the way that we've done it, but I
can imagine for a lot of other people who engage
in it as well, it actually has a lot to it, a
lot behind it, a lot that is going on for people
when they're doing it, which I think can only
be a good thing. I think that it isn't fair to
label any kink as being transactional and surface.
But I think that is probably a perception that
people have of financial domination. And actually,
if you're doing it in a thoughtful and considered
an ethical way, it's really there's a lot there.
It's quite deep. I agree. I can't imagine it's
surface level for many people, if any, even if
they haven't figured out exactly what's going
on beneath the surface and just go, well, it's
hot. There will be a reason why that is. Yeah,
I think. The more we talk about it, the more
layers that I spot in it with money being such
a major driving force in everyone's lives. Playing
with it is inevitably going to feel pretty heavy
in some ways. Yeah. But also very lighthearted
and silly sometimes in the ways that we do it.
It's got nuance and it's got different shades
to it. And I really like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
The little flying money emoji that I put whenever
you send me the Texcent mix. Yeah. A little flying
emoji, flying dollars emoji. Or sometimes a little
pig. Yes. So there you go. That's us done, I
think. I think we have covered everything that
we could possibly have covered, Mix. And quite
a bit more. Oh, yes. Bye. See you next time.