Femdom, Femdom or Femdom?

Which one am I talking about?

The word “Femdom” is a slippery creature. It dresses itself in different costumes depending on the context, and then pretends it’s always been wearing the same one. No wonder half the internet is confused, and the other half is offended. When I say “Femdom”, am I speaking about:

• Femdom as an institution – the cultural-historical category, the “house” of Female Domination as a phenomenon.
• Femdom as a dynamic – the actual lived asymmetry between a Domina and a submissive.
• Femdom as a person – when someone casually says, “I’m into Femdom” meaning “I’m into a Domina.”
• Femdom as a marketplace or genre – the industry of ProDommes, porn, and fetish products.
• Femdom as an identity or sexuality – people who say, “I am Femdom” in the way someone else might say, “I’m queer” or “I’m poly.”

And that’s just five. We could add Femdom as a philosophy, Femdom as a lifestyle culture, or even Femdom as an umbrella label for half of Fetlife.

The problem? In most online conversations no one signals which Femdom they’re talking about. The markers in the language are fuzzy, so context becomes difficult to detect. One person is talking about Femdom as an institution (“Femdom is structurally Female-led”), another reads it as Femdom as a person (“You’re saying all Dominas are the same!”), and before you know it there’s righteous outrage, bad-faith accusations, and a thread that looks like a political campaign rally gone wrong.

And even though I love Princess Bride, “I don’t think it means what you think it means,” is actually becoming a BDSM trope in itself. It gets exhausting trying to orientate people who began with the wrong definition in the first place.

Linguistics and psychology

Human beings are categorising creatures (whether you like it or not). We rely on labels to compress meaning, but when one word performs multiple jobs without clarification, the cognitive load creates confusion. People stop processing content and start reacting emotionally. Anti-labelling movements (“let everyone do what they want!”) only intensify this, because without precise language we are left with free-floating words that can be attached to anything, meaning anything. In rhetoric, this is called “polysemy”—one signifier carrying too many meanings. In psychology, it is called “misattribution of intent”—confusing a general statement as a personal attack. In everyday life, it is called: the reason your comment thread exploded at 2am.

I see this constantly, it happens all the time on my posts. When I talk about Femdom as an institution or as a structural dynamic, at least one reader will get personally insulted. “Stop generalising Dominas!” they cry, as if I’ve reduced every Dominant woman in the world down to a single pokémon. But I’m not talking about individuals—I’m talking about a system. The confusion is not intentional; it’s just linguistics. A lot of people don’t read the context because we don’t have a disciplined vocabulary to distinguish. And what’s more… English speakers who have never been outside their country don’t realise that there are thousands of different dialects of English that are all correct – English, itself, is a language that is not codified (to Britain’s dismay.)

This is the fallout of our current BDSM lexicon. For twenty years, we’ve muddled through on vibes and gestimates, hoping “everyone knows what we mean.” But now that discourse has expanded—around safety, consent, and pedagogy—the lack of clarity is becoming an obstacle. Too often, I see people are actually agreeing but appear to be at odds because they’re operating with different meanings of Femdom in their head. From a logical perspective, it’s quite amusing. From a community perspective, it’s exhausting.

So, we are talking about Femdom. Which Femdom? Do you know?

Before you leap onto your high horse and gallop into battle, pause and ask: Which Femdom is being discussed here? Institution, culture, person, dynamic, structure, hierarchy, porn, lifestyle, or identity? Because if you don’t, you risk passionately opposing an OP you actually agree with. Yes, oh yes, this phenomenon happens so often it deserves its own term—call it Femdom Polysemy Syndrome (FPS).