Every Guy on Feeld Is a Pleasure Dom
Part 3 of 9 in the Toxic Masculinity in 2026: A Field Guide series.
Swipe through Feeld for twenty minutes. Count the men who identify as "dominant."
Now count the men whose profiles suggest they understand what that means.
The ratio is hilarious. And depressing. And illuminating.
Feeld—the dating app for the "curious"—has become a showcase for men who watched porn, learned a vocabulary word, and decided it was a personality. Pleasure dom. The term has spread through the app like a virus, adopted by men who think dominance means getting head and calling it "service."
If you can't use "aftercare" in a sentence, you're not a dom. You're a guy with a profile.
What "Pleasure Dom" Actually Means
In BDSM, a pleasure dom is a dominant whose focus is the submissive's pleasure. The power exchange centers on giving—the dom takes control in order to overwhelm the sub with sensation, attention, pleasure. It's service-oriented dominance.
This is a specific practice with a specific ethics. The pleasure dom orchestrates the submissive's experience. Builds arousal. Manages intensity. Decides when to give more, when to withhold, when to push past what the sub thinks they want into what they actually need. The control is real. The skill required is substantial. The responsibility is enormous.
Real pleasure doms exist. They're skilled. They understand that dominance is responsibility, not permission. They negotiate scenes—extensively, explicitly, before anything physical happens. They establish boundaries, safe words, check-in protocols. They read bodies—the subtle shifts in breathing, muscle tension, the quality of a moan that indicates approaching a limit. They know when to push and when to hold. They provide aftercare—the essential post-scene tending that BDSM requires. The winding down. The reassurance. The metabolization of intensity.
This is work. It's skilled emotional and physical labor performed in service of another person's experience while maintaining the frame of dominance. It's not easy. Most people can't do it well.
The Feeld "pleasure dom" has heard this term and thinks it means: I want to receive oral sex and I heard there's a word for that.
He thinks "pleasure" means his pleasure. He thinks "dom" means he gets to make demands. He's extracted the vocabulary from the practice and is wearing it like a costume.
The Red Flags
"I'm a pleasure dom who loves to please." This sentence contains zero information. It's a costume, not a description.
No mention of aftercare. If someone claims dominance but has never heard the word "aftercare," they learned BDSM from PornHub, not practice.
"I'll make it all about you." Real pleasure doms don't need to announce this. It's demonstrated, not declared. The announcement is marketing.
Vague about negotiation. BDSM requires explicit communication about boundaries, limits, interests. If he can't discuss negotiation, he's not practicing BDSM—he's performing.
"Daddy dom looking for his little." Often a guy who wants a partner to call him daddy while he provides nothing a daddy dom actually provides—structure, care, containment.
What Real Dominance Requires
Dominance is responsibility.
The dominant is responsible for the scene. For the sub's physical safety. For reading nonverbal cues. For knowing when the sub has hit a limit they can't articulate. For providing aftercare that matches the intensity of what happened.
This is work. Skilled work. It requires emotional intelligence, physical attunement, and genuine care for another person's wellbeing.
The real dom tracks multiple streams of information simultaneously. The sub's verbal responses—but also their body language, their breathing pattern, the way arousal builds or plateaus. A good dom can sense when "more" actually means "I'm approaching my limit but don't want to disappoint you." They intervene before the crash, not after.
The real dom plans. They think through the scene before it happens. What might go wrong. Where the intensity will peak. What the sub will need after. They prepare the space—physically and psychologically. They ensure privacy, comfort, safety equipment if needed. They establish multiple exit strategies.
The real dom knows their own psychology. They understand what drives their dominance. Whether it's service-orientation, control needs, sensation-seeking, power exchange. They've done the self-work to distinguish healthy dominance from acting out unprocessed trauma. They know the difference between consensual power exchange and manipulation.
The Feeld "dom" wants the title without the work. Wants to call himself dominant because it sounds powerful. Wants the aesthetic without the substance. He saw Fifty Shades or scrolled through BDSM TikTok and thought: this looks hot, I'll say I'm this.
RACK vs SSC
The BDSM community has developed frameworks for ethical practice:
SSC: Safe, Sane, Consensual. The older framework. Activity should be physically safe, done by people of sound mind, and fully consensual.
RACK: Risk-Aware Consensual Kink. The newer framework. Acknowledges that some kink isn't "safe"—it's inherently risky. The standard is that all parties understand and accept the risks.
Both frameworks require negotiation. Communication before, during, after. Explicit discussion of limits, desires, boundaries, safewords.
The Feeld "dom" often can't define either framework. He's operating on vibes, which means he's not operating ethically.
Why This Happened
Kink went mainstream. Fifty Shades, for all its problems, put BDSM in the cultural conversation. Dating apps added kink options. Terms that were community-specific became general vocabulary.
But the terms traveled without the context. "Dominant" got extracted from the ethical framework that gives it meaning. It became a self-designation anyone could claim. Nobody checks credentials. No community vouches for you. You just... write it in your profile.
BDSM communities have gatekeeping mechanisms. Munches, workshops, mentorship. People who've practiced for years helping newcomers learn safely. You don't just declare yourself a dom—you develop skills, get feedback, build trust within a community that can actually evaluate competence.
Dating apps have none of this. You write "dom" in your bio and you're a dom. The community context that made the term meaningful doesn't transfer. The ethical frameworks that made dominance safe don't come with the vocabulary.
So men claim it. Because it sounds powerful. Because they think women want it. Because the alternative self-descriptions feel weak. Because "looking for meaningful connection" sounds boring and "pleasure dom" sounds like you know what you're doing.
"I'm a dom" sounds better than "I'm a guy who doesn't really know what he wants but hopes you'll figure it out."
The mainstreaming gave them vocabulary without practice. The dating apps gave them platform without accountability. The cultural moment said "kink is normal now" without teaching what kink actually requires.
The Damage
This isn't just annoying—it's harmful.
Women exploring submission deserve partners who understand what they're doing. Who can hold space safely. Who won't traumatize them through incompetence.
The Feeld fake dom encounters a woman with genuine submissive desires, fumbles through something that resembles kink, provides zero aftercare, and leaves her dysregulated and confused about why the experience felt wrong.
She came in trusting the label. She thought "dom" meant he knew what he was doing. She might have been nervous but willing—submission requires vulnerability, and she offered it. He took that vulnerability and mishandled it through pure incompetence.
The aftermath isn't just disappointment. It can be genuine harm. BDSM, done right, creates intense neurochemical states—endorphin flood, adrenaline spike, oxytocin bonding. The body goes places. Aftercare exists because you can't just leave someone in that state. They need to be brought down safely. Held. Reassured. Metabolized back to baseline.
Without aftercare, the sub crashes. The intensity that felt good during becomes overwhelming after. What was arousal becomes anxiety. The vulnerability that was safe in-scene becomes exposed and unsafe post-scene. This is sub-drop, and it's genuinely distressing.
The fake dom doesn't know this. He finishes, feels satisfied, maybe gets an Uber. The woman is left alone with a nervous system that's been revved to redline with no guidance for how to come down.
She might conclude she doesn't like submission. When actually, she doesn't like unskilled, selfish men performing dominance badly.
The fake dom poisons the well. Degrades the terms. Makes it harder for real practitioners to be taken seriously. Creates a population of women who tried BDSM once and learned that "dom" means "guy who wants things done to him without reciprocation."
How to Spot the Real Thing
Real dominants talk about their partners first. What they want to provide. What they're looking for. What kind of dynamic they build.
Real dominants ask questions. What are your limits? What are your interests? What does aftercare look like for you?
Real dominants have experience they can describe. Not notches—scenes. Dynamics they've maintained. Things they've learned about themselves through practice.
Real dominants don't need to announce dominance. It's evident in how they communicate. Clear. Attentive. Present.
The fake dom announces. The real dom demonstrates.
A Service to Readers
If you're navigating Feeld or any kink-adjacent space, here's your filter:
Ask about aftercare. Anyone who doesn't know what it is or why it matters isn't ready to dominate anything.
Ask about negotiation. How do they discuss boundaries? What's their framework? Confusion here is disqualifying.
Ask for specifics. What does dominance mean to them? What do they actually want to do? Vague answers mean they're performing, not practicing.
Watch for ego. Real dominants aren't fragile about questions. They welcome discussion because it's part of the practice. Defensiveness is a red flag.
The Feeld "pleasure dom" is a symptom of mainstreaming without context. Terms extracted from communities and dropped into apps where anyone can claim them.
The solution isn't gatekeeping—it's education. Understanding what the terms actually mean. What the practices actually require. What distinguishes costume from competence.
Every guy on Feeld is a pleasure dom.
Almost none of them are dominants.
Previous: Mogging Mewing and Canthal Tilt: A Glossary Next: Sigma Male Is Just Batman Without the Bat