What Dominatrixes Know About Power That the Rest of Us Don't | Lindsay Goldwert | Episode 33

Oct 15

"It's not just being powerful in the bedroom, it's being powerful everywhere in life." - Lindsay Goldwert

What if some of the best lessons about confidence, boundaries, and getting what you want came from professional dominatrixes?

Not from a business executive. Not from a motivational speaker. From people whose work requires an unusually sophisticated understanding of power, negotiation, consent, and human behavior.

Journalist and author Lindsay Goldwert went looking for exactly those lessons. What she discovered challenged her understanding of authority, sexuality, relationships, and the way people advocate for themselves.

In Episode 33 of The Sexology Lab, Lindsay joins Michelle to discuss the surprising lessons behind her book Bow Down, why so many adults struggle to ask for what they want, and how the principles of consensual power exchange can transform everyday life.

But the conversation doesn't stop with dominatrixes. It expands into midlife sexuality, changing desire, perimenopause, and a question many couples rarely consider: What if we stopped prioritizing maintenance sex and started prioritizing maintenance intimacy?

What This Episode Explores

"Let yourself be the most interesting person in the world to yourself." - Lindsay Goldwert

Power isn't always about controlling someone else. Sometimes it's about having enough confidence to communicate what you want, establish boundaries, and decide what you're willing to accept.

This conversation explores how lessons from kink can apply to personal relationships, professional confidence, and sexual well-being.

Lindsay and Michelle discuss:

What professional dominatrixes understand about power, consent, and negotiation.
Why setting boundaries can feel so uncomfortable.
How to advocate for yourself at work and in relationships.
The realities of financial discrimination and censorship affecting sex workers.
Why sexual preferences and identities can change throughout adulthood.
How perimenopause, stress, and relationship dynamics interact with desire.
Why physical intimacy doesn't always need to lead to intercourse.
How to approach midlife as an opportunity for reinvention rather than decline.

The conversation connects with other discussions on The Sexology Lab, including Midori's perspective on kink and sexual identity and Dr. Nazanin Moali's exploration of responsive desire and mental load.

Meet Lindsay Goldwert

Lindsay Goldwert is a journalist, author, and writer whose work explores the intersections of sexuality, money, power, relationships, and culture.

Throughout her career, she has worked with publications and news organizations including Glamour, Marie Claire, ABC News, CBS News, and The New York Times.

Her book, Bow Down: Lessons from Dominatrixes on How to Get Everything You Want, investigates what professional dominatrixes can teach us about confidence, communication, negotiation, and personal agency.

Lindsay also co-authored The Midlife Plot Twist with Gabrielle Moss, a book exploring the unexpected realities of adulthood, including changing relationships, sexuality, careers, finances, and personal identity.

Her approach combines journalism, humor, curiosity, and a willingness to ask questions about subjects people are often uncomfortable discussing.

Lindsay is also pursuing professional sexual-health education through Sexual Health Alliance, where she is expanding her understanding of human sexuality and building relationships with educators, researchers, and clinicians.

3 Key Takeaways

1. Confidence Is About Communicating What You Want, Not Controlling Other People

Professional dominatrixes understand something many people struggle with: power requires clarity.

Their work involves establishing expectations, communicating boundaries, negotiating experiences, and understanding the needs of everyone involved.

Lindsay discovered that these skills have applications far beyond kink.

Whether you're asking for a promotion, setting boundaries with family members, or communicating your needs to a romantic partner, self-advocacy begins with understanding what you want and believing you have the right to express it.

2. Your Sexuality Is Allowed to Change

The things that excited you at 25 might not excite you at 45.

That doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong.

Lindsay discusses how confidence, experience, physical changes, and shifting relationship dynamics can influence sexual interests throughout adulthood.

Rather than trying to recreate the past, she encourages people to become curious about who they are now.

Midlife can be an opportunity to reconsider what pleasure, intimacy, and fulfillment actually mean.

3. Maintenance Intimacy May Matter More Than Maintenance Sex

Many couples are encouraged to schedule sex as a way of maintaining their relationship.

But what happens when scheduling intercourse creates more pressure than connection?

Lindsay proposes a different perspective: maintenance intimacy.

Instead of making intercourse the expected outcome, couples can prioritize affection, physical closeness, communication, and shared experiences.

The goal isn't to eliminate sex. It's to create more opportunities for connection without making every intimate moment a performance.

Who This Episode Is For

This conversation is especially relevant for adults interested in building confidence, setting healthier boundaries, and improving communication in their personal or professional lives.

It's also valuable for people navigating midlife sexuality, couples experiencing changes in desire, and anyone curious about what kink communities can teach us about consent and negotiation.

Sex therapists, sexuality counselors, educators, coaches, and other sexual-health professionals will find useful perspectives on sexual shame, personal agency, sex-worker advocacy, and the importance of approaching unfamiliar communities without judgment.

In This Episode, We Cover

The story behind Lindsay Goldwert's book Bow Down.
What happens when a journalist enters the world of professional dominatrixes.
Lessons from Simone Justice and the DomCon community.
Why consent and negotiation are fundamental to healthy power dynamics.
The connection between money, sexuality, shame, and power.
How to establish personal standards for how others treat you.
The challenges facing sex workers in banking and online commerce.
Why desire and sexual identity evolve during midlife.
The limitations of treating low desire as exclusively hormonal.
How stress, emotional connection, and relationship satisfaction influence intimacy.
Why penetration isn't the only meaningful form of sexual connection.
The role of humor and curiosity in sexual-health education.

Quick Answer: What Can Dominatrixes Teach Us About Power?

Professional dominatrixes can offer lessons in consent, negotiation, boundaries, communication, and self-advocacy. In consensual BDSM, power is negotiated rather than simply taken. Participants discuss expectations, limits, and preferences to create experiences grounded in mutual agreement.

In Bow Down, journalist Lindsay Goldwert explores how these skills can apply outside sexual settings, including workplace negotiations, romantic relationships, financial decisions, and personal confidence.

The central lesson is that meaningful personal power involves understanding your needs, communicating them clearly, and respecting the boundaries and autonomy of others.

Expanded Insights From the Conversation

What Does a Dominatrix Actually Know About Power?

When Lindsay began researching Bow Down, she was interested in a question that went beyond sexuality.

Who understands power better than someone whose professional role revolves around negotiating it?

Her research introduced her to professional dominatrixes whose work required communication, preparation, emotional intelligence, business knowledge, and clear boundaries.

One of the most influential people she encountered was Simone Justice, an established figure in the professional kink community.

Simone helped Lindsay understand the terminology, culture, and expectations surrounding professional domination. She also helped Lindsay gain access to DomCon, where Lindsay encountered conversations about business, privacy, taxes, specialized skills, and professional advocacy.

What surprised Lindsay wasn't simply the diversity of practices. It was how much the conversations resembled those taking place in other professional communities.

People wanted to discuss their businesses, protect their livelihoods, develop their skills, and be treated with dignity.

The experience challenged the sensationalized image of dominatrixes and highlighted the people and professional concerns behind the roles.

The Difference Between Power and Control

Power and control are often treated as interchangeable.

But consensual power exchange offers a different framework.

In BDSM, a dominant role does not eliminate the other person's agency. Negotiated limits and ongoing consent remain essential.

This distinction helps explain why Lindsay found the world of professional domination so relevant to everyday life.

Confidence doesn't have to mean overpowering someone else.

It can mean communicating clearly, respecting boundaries, and refusing to participate in situations that violate your values.

Lindsay describes learning to bring a more assertive mindset into decisions about relationships, money, and career opportunities.

The question becomes less about how to make others do what you want and more about how to recognize and communicate what matters to you.

For another perspective on kink, identity, and the importance of questioning assumptions, explore The Sexology Lab's episode library, including our conversation with Midori.

Why Is It So Difficult to Ask for What We Want?

Many adults are comfortable identifying what other people need but struggle to express their own desires.

They may worry about seeming selfish, demanding, difficult, or unreasonable.

Lindsay encountered this struggle in her own professional life.

After receiving feedback that she wasn't advocating effectively for her ideas, she began questioning why she found it so difficult to speak up.

Researching Bow Down helped her recognize that self-advocacy is a skill that can be developed.

One of the lessons she shares is the idea of creating a personal set of commandments: standards for what you will and will not accept.

These might include refusing to apologize unnecessarily, declining sexual experiences you don't want, or speaking up when someone treats you disrespectfully.

The point isn't to become inflexible.

It's to develop a clearer understanding of your values and recognize when your behavior is inconsistent with them.

Confidence can grow through everyday decisions, not just major acts of courage.

What Kink Communities Can Teach Us About Consent and Communication

Consent is often discussed as a simple yes-or-no question.

But healthy sexual communication involves more than receiving permission for a particular activity.

It also includes discussing expectations, identifying boundaries, recognizing discomfort, and understanding that consent can change.

Within consensual BDSM, negotiation is especially important because participants may explore activities involving vulnerability, intensity, or deliberate power differences.

Those conversations can provide useful models for relationships outside kink.

Partners can benefit from discussing what feels good, what doesn't, what they're curious about, and what they don't want to experience.

Professionals who want to develop a deeper understanding of kink-affirming care can explore Sexual Health Alliance, which provides advanced sexual-health education for clinicians, educators, counselors, and coaches.

The Financial Discrimination Facing Sex Workers

One of the most important parts of Lindsay's research had little to do with sexual activities.

It involved money.

During her conversations with professional dominatrixes, Lindsay learned about the barriers sex workers encounter when trying to access financial services, maintain payment-processing accounts, and conduct business online.

These challenges raise broader questions about who has access to financial systems and how moral judgments influence commercial policies.

Lindsay also discusses how sex workers can experience the consequences of censorship and platform restrictions before those issues receive widespread attention.

Her experiences illustrate why discussions about sex work should include workers' perspectives on economic security, privacy, and professional autonomy.

Organizations such as the Woodhull Freedom Foundation advocate for sexual freedom and provide resources on the intersections of sexuality, law, and civil liberties.

Why Sexual Desire Changes in Midlife

The second half of the conversation moves into another area of Lindsay's work: midlife sexuality.

One of the central themes is that changing desire cannot always be explained by a single factor.

Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause can influence sexual function and comfort.

But desire can also be affected by stress, relationship satisfaction, sleep, physical discomfort, mental health, and the demands of everyday life.

Lindsay challenges the expectation that people should be able to move effortlessly from managing careers, family responsibilities, and emotional stress into feeling sexually available.

She also emphasizes that these pressures affect men, not only women.

Rather than viewing every change in libido as a personal failure, the conversation encourages people to consider the broader context of their lives.

For medically reviewed information about menopause, see the National Institute on Aging's menopause resources.

What Is Maintenance Intimacy?

Maintenance intimacy is Lindsay's alternative to the pressure some couples experience around maintenance sex.

The idea is straightforward.

Instead of scheduling sexual intercourse and expecting both partners to be ready, create opportunities for physical and emotional connection without requiring a particular outcome.

That might involve lying together, holding hands, touching, talking, or simply enjoying physical closeness.

For some couples, that connection may lead to sexual activity.

For others, it may not.

Both experiences can be meaningful.

The distinction matters because pressure can make intimacy feel like an obligation rather than something freely chosen.

Maintenance intimacy prioritizes connection, curiosity, and responsiveness over completing a predetermined sexual activity.

This perspective complements discussions of responsive desire, including our conversation with Dr. Nazanin Moali, available through The Sexology Lab episode library.

Your Best Sexual Experiences Don't Have to Be Behind You

One of the most compelling ideas in Lindsay's conversation is that sexuality doesn't need to remain fixed.

People sometimes compare their current sexual experiences to an earlier period when desire felt more spontaneous or intense.

But preferences change.

Relationships change.

Bodies change.

And people develop new perspectives on what makes an experience pleasurable or meaningful.

Something that felt exciting at 22 may feel uninteresting at 48.

Something that never appealed to you before may become more intriguing as your confidence develops.

Neither experience automatically indicates a problem.

Lindsay encourages people to approach their current sexuality with curiosity rather than treating earlier experiences as a permanent standard.

Midlife can offer an opportunity to build a sexual life that reflects who you are today.

Listen to the Episode

What Dominatrixes Know About Power That the Rest of Us Don't | Lindsay Goldwert | Episode 33

What if becoming more confident doesn't require changing who you are, but becoming more comfortable expressing what you already want?

Join Michelle and Lindsay Goldwert for a conversation about the surprising lessons behind professional domination, the importance of consent and communication, and why midlife may be the perfect time to reconsider your relationship with power and pleasure.

Explore The Sexology Lab and listen to more episodes.

About Our Sponsor: Sexual Health Alliance

The Sexology Lab is sponsored by Sexual Health Alliance, a global leader in professional sexual-health education since 2015.

SHA offers certification and continuing education opportunities for sex therapists, sexuality counselors, sex educators, sex coaches, and sexologists.

Through education from leading experts, immersive learning experiences, and an international professional community, SHA helps professionals build meaningful careers advancing sexual health.

Whether you're interested in understanding kink and consensual power dynamics, supporting clients through changes in desire, or developing expertise in human sexuality, SHA provides educational opportunities designed to expand your knowledge and professional practice.

Explore Sexual Health Alliance's educational programs.

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The Sexology Lab explores the intersection of sexual health, psychology, and culture. Through expert conversations, we challenge outdated narratives and provide research driven insights into relationships, desire, and human behavior.

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