Sophia James of “Dominant Female Submissive Male” Is A Fraud

As an advice book, this 2014 manual is not good. While there are many ways a book might be bad, this one is a special kind of harmful. That’s the sort of guide where some of the advice isn’t the worst, so you go through a few pages giving them the benefit of the doubt, and then things hop off into its own ridiculous realm.  We have misogyny, sexism, weird pet peeves of the author, dangerous BDSM advice, and of course miles of fap. 

And whoops, it’s built on yet another bit of garden variety scamming. Whee!

The initial tells that something aren’t quite right is the odd perspective Sophia James brings to how she thinks all of this kink business works. I am loathe to call all suspicious femdom accounts “men”, but the misogyny in the way the manual talks about women; their frankly dangerous claims about other, unnamed professional dommes they claim insight on; and their enormous gaps in knowledge all point to significant odds this is dude fap. Fap charging other people money. Yuck.

Follow the author on twitter, and the nature of their fraud becomes immediately more telling- this person doesn’t exist. Not as in Sophia James being just a pen name for a real domme, but it’s clear that the persona exists to masturbate about femdom, while taking the money of naïve men who are just trying to educate themselves as a bonus. For Sophia James, It’s a very careful kind of lying: You find a feed full of stolen pictures of different but just similar enough to seem like the same person if you squint. They don’t explicitly say this is them, but it’s awfully weird how they feel they should do this. Otherwise they’re just peppering their timeline with ogling free porn of women and saying random fantasy for dudes type things, or telling various pro-dommes their ideas are hot. Now it’s *possible* that Sophia James just happens to be a largely lesbian who is incredibly tedious, but… come on.

Here’s their profile on twitter:

And, below is where they nicked their profile pic from:

The text of their twitter profile, other than ads for their books, is almost entirely stories they claim to be doing with other women, sometimes where their sub can watch. Otherwise its so, so many comments on random women and whether they are hot or not. We get it dude, you like willowy women with big boobs.

They also comment extensively on stuff other female dominants share, but only the sexy stuff. Unlike the actual social media profiles of professional dommes there is distinct lack of the usual familiarity or aesthetics.

Kink isn’t that big of a world, and even if you confine yourself to a niche, normally the profiles have some modicum of interaction, at least if they aren’t endless book spam or twitter “engagment” groups. Sophia James behaves like a poorly socialized horny man who figured out pretending to be a domme is the only way one will give him the time of day.

Ok, whatever. There’s a million fap accounts, why is this an issue?

If you believe the author, they “[…] sold over 400 copies of this book last year and many thanked me for changing their lives. ” and then claim they sold 10 thousand of this book total. That’s a LOT of people who have been cheated. It’s most likely they are lying here too, but even in best case and I am wrong that they are an actual femdom:

“Dominant Female Submissive Female” is still complete garbage as a guidebook.

Follow this book’s advice, and you will sound foolish and sexist to other kinksters, and probably drown in cynical misanthropy. To its credit, it at least seems to tolerate its target audience of sub guys most of the time. But, its idea of helping is piling on reassurances that sub men can be ok if they over compensate. In this guide, the author claims the fact that subs are fundamentally gross can be made up for by disposition. Sophia James definitely holds everyone (dom and sub) to some very low standards, but they think sub men are desperate addicts.

Lest you think women are spared her dubious regard, although the author created this guide primarily for submissive men, they also claim that their book would be useful for “millions” of women as well. These women, Sophia James makes clear, are a cuckold’s fantasy, unable to resist a dominant man, and only willing to stoop to a sub because they have leverage by filling his needs. But this book is here to… teach you to take advantage of emotionally vulnerable sub men?

Scratch what I said about tolerating sub men, the manual wants you to actively harm them.

Sophia James claims, at time of writing, five years experience as a pro-domme after they realized the money they could make (whee!), and an unclear period starting before that as a dominant with her boyfriend. They have definitely been online for a while, with a twitter profile as old as mine, but holy god are they full of shit.

Let’s continue with the yikes that is the author’s message… 

Dominant Female Submissive Male is quick to remind submissive men that for them this is about sex, and for their female partners, about power. Women, they make clear, just don’t have fetishes like men. Just rape fantasies.

Sophia James also disapproves of the following: overt (consensual) cuckolding that is not a female partner “discreetly” cheating without his consent; online domination, which she feels can be safely replaced with free porn clips; 24/7 lifestyle slavery; the possibility that a woman might find anything kink related, like men kneeling naked to greet them erotic; women who do more intense D/s and kink than her; the ability for wives/girlfriends to respect men who have kinks that are more than an occasional indulgence; fat people; and men who drink.

That later thing takes on a comedic proportion, as James cannot resist repeatedly worrying about the alcohol consumption of men. After a while, I started logging every reference particularly oriented around her scathing frustration with men who drink (often characterized as dominant) and hit 16 different points of fretting over about 160 pages. 

The author is from the UK, but while they do have somewhat of a more developed pub culture, I have to wonder how much of her fixation on aggressive, dominant men who drink is related to some past personal experience or, you know the pretty standard incel weirdness of thinking of some men as incomprehensible Neanderthal sex gods. Regardless of if this is them processing some past ex trauma or just their perception of the men in general, I get the impression they have no experience with male switches or bdsm dominants, even as friends. It certainly doesn’t occur to Sophia James that anyone can have a normal happy relationship without drinking, cheating or pushing for sex at inappropriate moments. Having a sub, according to the book, is simply a protective measure against the inevitable frailty of guys.

The tragicomic part of the story is just how unfortunately limited and sad her beliefs about what is possible from a man, all while claiming to have cracked some sort of code. It’s heterofatalism on steroids. At best case their life story is how “she” crashed out of a first marriage, with a history of infidelity. After their pursuit of the most Dominant and Drunken men, they found themselves dependent on a lifelong male friend, whom they appease the kinks of to keep in a relationship with. Line up, ladies, Sophia James wants to change your life!

Outside of her dumpster fire personal history, this attitude of accepting being an absolute shit to each other is the core harm of the guide.

There’s a LOT of nonesense here about gender and abusive behaviour being natural. It wouldn’t be out of place in the Alpha/Beta reductive place of the manosphere’s toxic cynicism. Women are silly saps, according to Sophia James, and this book is here to save us by teaching us to settle for someone even more self destructive and pathetic than us. Hooray!

Let me emphasize how dumb this book is. Her theory of female desire, propped up by her interpretation of the film “Once Were Warriors“, of all things, is that all women are biologically predisposed to being submissive. She thinks this comes from surviving in “the jungle” with the support of violent, rape happy men. Sophia James then suggests that the modern woman exists in a state of tension, being intellectually aware a kinder, more subservient man is more useful to her, but less attractive.

Indeed, Sophia James puts every fetish sub men typically have firmly in the camp of “creepy”, repeating anything and everything sub guys typically ask for is repulsive except hurting him in ways he doesn’t enjoy. If, and only if, you bend over backwards, the advice of the book it to trickle truth your wife about your fetishes and possibly withhold anything that isn’t tame, or she might stop being attracted to you. Also, Sophia James tells the reader, the wife may still cheat because she will want to get the sex she needs that isn’t this.

So enamored with the idea female sexual dominants don’t exist for our own sake, they also stress it as a plausible quid-pro-quo fantasy, that it is likely you will have to indulge a female partner’s desire to receive aggression in bed. Ok, fine, switches are a thing. Then, at the same time, James casually drops her belief that women who are into being humiliated have poor self esteem, unlike men, to whom it is just a kink.

She also tells her readers women do not have fetishes like men. To be honest, it doesn’t seem that she considers a female rape fantasy as a fetish, just the norm, but constant contradictions are just one more thing this birdcage liner wants you to know. Obviously, as a sexual sadist, I am left scratching my head.

Forget being a woman, if Sophia James was actually fucking all the women they say they are on their Twitter, they would have at least a tiny little bit of exposure to the fact this is nonsense. Dommes don’t work this way. Of course, ultimately they are only fucking their hand, and any person unlucky enough to buy this book out of their money.

Cheating is just going to happen, according to Sophia James, and must be accommodated

Quoth our book: if you see a pro domme, take that shit to the grave and don’t let wifey know. It’s perfectly reasonable to lie to someone you love, and it’s just inevitable. They will probably tolerate it if you are a good enough catch.

To be fair, this isn’t just this book. One of the awkward elephants in the room in the kink space, particularly the professional side, is the complicity in infidelity by baseline. Generally the tactic taken is that kink desires are an entitlement, and that partnered men deserve an outlet that lets them otherwise stay politely married.

Lest you think I am calling out professionals as homewreckers: books like the twinned New Topping Book/New Bottoming Book, which are more lifestyle oriented also assume cheating just happens. In lifestyle land the very valued discretion implicitly includes protecting kinky folk from tipping off their vanilla partners. In my case, I admit sympathy in so much that coercive compulsory vanilla is a problem on the scope of compulsory heterosexuality. Sophia James goes one step further and tells you to lie to your partner, cheat on her, and if you still get caught, vaguely suggests you use this as some sort of leverage of needing femdom to justify it.

In this scenario, Sophia James has an intensely cynical view. Everyone cheats, and according to them, regular women put up with it to get a catch. Given a sexy arsehole who offers himself, she doesn’t think she can resist. She mentions she did it in the past, to her detriment, and that her boyfriend’s friend who flirts with her and has constant legal trouble, as well as being a serial cheater on his wife, is a significant temptation. The wife, who also appears to be her friend, tolerates this extramarital activity via yelling but staying. Again, Sophia James has incredibly low standards for what construes a good partner. 

(They also separate guys into nerdy professional job having subs and dominant construction workers, then contradict themselves by rambling about recommending former clients who were builders to their vanilla friends to do construction work. So again, consistency is not Sophia James’s strong suit.)

But, as long as he doesn’t drink, beat her and supports her, why even if he has overtly poor impulse control markers and active malice (eg sleeping with her and bragging to her then boyfriend), he is just too sexy! Women can’t resist these awful men! Ew.

Blackmailers around every corner

The other place that I find myself just rolling my eyes is the obsession that Sophia James has with blackmail. They sincerely believe real criminal coercion is the bedrock of a lot femdoms. As well as internet strangers cheating men, and more practical but incredibly basic safety advice around that, Sophia James is sure fear of being outed is omnipresent in anything that is more extreme than she tolerates. From husbands getting in too deep with their wives, only to be trapped, to her “friend”, whom she says she has no evidence they are engaging in blackmail, but must assume they are by the depths to which the men who serve her will go, James simply does not believe in the sexual perversity of women, only a sort of revenge sadism.

Oh, and she defines lifestyle (sorry “life-style”) femdom as a woman exploiting multiple men via real blackmail. Woo.

Propping all that up is their advice to women, and their own description of the alleged real power they claim in their relationship. Sophia James describes her boyfriend as being someone who always held a torch for her, but didn’t quite fit into her concept of an ideal man (fap fap fap), mentioning that they were the cardinal sin of short. After twenty years of friendship, at the tail of another disaster relationship of hers, he gives her a place to stay. This lets him accidentally-on-purpose expose her to his porn collection. This, of course, is the apex of behaviour what good men who are catches for rational women do.

Because this comes from the Penthouse Forum reject pile, this discovery sparks her willingness to try it, but as she repeatedly reminds us, she can take or leave kink. She claims even this still sets her apart from most women, who won’t tolerate it at all. Her boyfriend must defer to the power she wants because she can shut off the fetish tap at any time. Well, at first it’s her saying it is 80/20 in a girlfriend to mistress ratio, but then she mentions that actually mwahaha it’s become more 70/30 and he says she has too much power. And also how much she revels in his suffering without his sexual enjoyment for… reasons?

After all, she’s very happy to remind us he can’t say no, and she could replace him at a moment’s notice.

James goes on to say that kink is a paradise for femdoms, because loads of good guys are into it and you can enjoy the ego boost. She cites her physically disfigured friend now making thousands as a pro. In the same breath, she also goes on to caution these women who were rejected by men in the past are full if anger they will take out on men. Yes, because that’s why we do this, you hooting numpkin. Clearly.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds miserable. And it’s going to make any female sexual sadist, top or dominant decide whatever she is, this book isn’t it.

Let’s talk about the book’s ridiculous dating advice

James cites very little experience outside of their alleged personal life, their friends and events oriented around “for pay”. Even then, things like Club Pedestal are something they say they tried only a few times. The whole realm of lifestyle BDSM? She briefly touches on the fact that Fetlife can help you find munches, but other than calling them plain clothes and a few basic other facts, her only caution is that male dominants will also attend. It’s pretty clear this is not a space they are particularly familiar with or may have ever set foot in.

I had hoped that with their claim of half a decade of experience as a dominatrix that would have more interesting things to say about the professional side. Of course bit isn’t good either. While most professionals now give you some good advice in regards to screening, deposits, etc… the how of their alleged work is absent, yet more evidence of the fappery. They aren’t interested in helping you develop and appropriate relationship with a pro, but figure out how to date her. Their section on getting a pro to like you is dodgy too. Although they do hit the low hanging fruit of telling you not to be an unattractive cockwomble, Sophia James also really, really sells the idea a pro will broker introductions to her vanilla friends.

Dear reader, I am being mean enough with this blog I know that it might get traction and people with actual experience as professionals might even read this far. Would you ever, as Sophia James suggests, set your vanilla friend up on a blind date with clients as a feasible thing to plan for?

TL:DR: The Final Verdict on “Dominant Woman Submissive Man”

I think, in some ways the saddest part about this book is that it will sell, precisely because it caters so much to fantasies over the useful. After over a decade of flailing around in the kink community, on top of trying to do my kinks since I became sexually active, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s the infinite supply of people who don’t want the real thing but want to want it. The obviously roleplaying/fap twitter profile successfully masquerades as something dominant because a lot of people wish we were like Sophia James.

I could sum it up as so: Probable man bilks a pile of sub guys out of money, probably self justifies because he doesn’t believe this is any more real than the porn (s)he writes, at least on some level. If you want to get mad at Sophia James, the scammed money isn’t as bad as the damage this does to both sub men and women. Unfortunately all we can do is flag it and put our effort to trying to promote better content above the sea of manuals just like this, of which there are legion more on Amazon.

This sort of book is what causes women to avoid femdom like the plague. It’s ugly, insulting and hateful, and fails to represent anything about what it is actually like from the domme side. I wish it was shocking to find something like it, but this is the norm for femdom advice right now.

Though I don’t do star ratings, I can say it’s on the short list for books that insulted the tree that was cut down to make the paper it was printed on.

Did you like this review?

This blog is a labour of love, trying to make femdom more accessible for everyone while sharing my story and art. To help faciliate that, I’ve started using the “Throne” wishlist to let readers and fans get me sutuff (good and bad) to review. Want to see something else covered? Buy more books for me to review here.

(And for the love of all that is sacred, Sophie James might be writing hateful, harmful drivel, but absolutely do NOT harass them. No dox. No DMing. No threats, no harassing. Just don’t buy this book and tell other people not to.)