Many people come into forums for professionals and ask us what they need to do to be a pro. What you may notice is that most of the time these posts don’t receive replies. Why? Because we’re already tired from reading the question.
Those of you who request help almost always request help with everything. “Can someone help me learn how to do this job?” You don’t realize this but what you’re asking has taken people years to learn and master. It the stuff that people write articles and books about, conduct classes and workshops for, and hold seminars and conferences over multiple days and on an annual basis in various parts of the world. So, when you ask things like, “where do I get started and learn to do The Dominatrix?” you will often hear crickets because it’s impossible to effectively summarize all of this into a single FetLife comment.
I know it can seem intimidating to get started with this kind of undertaking but this line of work is not for people who want or need their hand held. It demands that you’re a self-starter. If you’re independent you will be hustling for every dollar you make. Every day. Contrary to what The Paypig Whisperer lead you to believe on Twitter, this is not easy money. Even if you want to work in a house, that still requires that you put forth an effort in order to be hired, trained, run sessions over and over again, and retain the clients the Headmistress sends your way.
But what about mentorship? A House will help train you if they hire you, but from independents it’s rare. Mentorship is a big investment on the part of the mentor. They are taking time away from their career and lives to help you develop yours. If someone does offer it they will expect you to first demonstrate a serious commitment to the job. Then, they’ll either expect to be compensated by asking for payment directly, by taking some or perhaps all of your tribute as you shadow them in sessions, or by establishing some other a quid pro quo arrangement. “Clean my dungeon and I’ll teach you X.” Free mentorship is largely a myth.
So, if you’re asking people to help you do it all we already know how the story ends. It ends with someone realizing they don’t actually have the passion or skill to do this work or simply because you didn’t receive a reply to your inquiry. And the reason you didn’t get one is because we know what casual interest looks like. Someone with a casual interest is not worth our effort. Why would we want to answer the same I-obviously-haven’t-bothered-to-Google-a-single-thing-I’m-asking questions for what feels like the trillionth time when we rarely get yet another pro-curious individual to even buy us a cup of coffee for the time we spent sharing our years of Google research, let alone a simple “thank you”?
People who are serious? We know what they look like. Hungry and driven, like we have had to be to make this a viable career. We read and researched and practiced and kept at it. We took the time to figure it out ourselves. People like this ask different questions. Those are the people we are more likely to help because we see ourselves in them and remember how much we appreciated help with that thing we couldn’t find on Google. We appreciate a sincere effort.
So, before you ask another person who’s been doing this job for 1, 3, 5, 10, 20 or more years to help you go pro, ask yourself if you had been doing it for that long would you want to share all your hard work with someone who seems lazy and isn’t likely to show any appreciation? Probably not. If you’re willing to put in the work, you may one day see for yourself.