The question "what went wrong" can be misleading. In the case of the OWK, I don't think so however. What does it take for the world's pre-eminent - and perhaps only ever - full-time femdom society to close it's doors?
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| Mistress being mistress in the OWK |
Continued from part II: A day in the life.
Money makes the world go round
Some men balk at the prices pro-dommes charge. They conveniently forget pro-dommes have to pay bills too. Break it down and I'm actually surprised they don't charge more. Think about it, apart from the daily cost of living, tribute should include pension payments, liability and health insurance, vacation pay and compensation for loss of privacy, just to name a few.
And that is before you take into account most successful pro-dommes invest time and energy in their sessions, meaning they prepare for sessions, putting considerable energy in them and because of that don't do 40 hours of sessions a week.
Above all, a successful pro-domme needs people skills, something not for everyone. Part of their people skills - contrary to what many believe - is not accepting any prospective slave. Quite the contrary, less is more, despite the comments of a handful frustrated slaves.
Male-dom and female-domme share one particular trait: the man usually pays. When it comes to maledom, the - almost inevitable rich [or so people believe] - master takes care of his precious little one, financially. Something similar happens at the other end of the BDSM continuum, where he hands over, all that he has, to her. This time however, he is the lowly slave and she is his infinitely-deserving mistress. Rather funny don't you think so? It gets even stranger when you think about the number of male findoms in the world. Zero?
To make your dreams come true, more often than not, you have to look at it as a business. Some people don't like that, but in all honesty there is nothing wrong with it. Most likely, the original owners of the OWK underestimated just how much money goes into such a venture.
Not that business-savy
Running a dilapidated caste is expense. Just ask the British gentry, or what's left of it. Nothing wrong with seducing interested males to make a contribution. People do it all the time.
So is it a bad thing for part of the OWK to be run as a business? Definitely not. Nothing wrong with a business - especially one that brings happiness to many, mostly male - in order to support a particular lifestyle.
The question remains: why didn't the original OWK last longer? Information about the OWK is virtually non-existent, so the best I can come up with is an educated guess backed up with anecdotical evidence.
First and foremost, whoever ran the place probably never thought about it as a business. Perhaps it conflicted with their idea of a private society where men are slaves. More likely they weren't adept at running a business. One US mistress expressed her interest in setting up an annual pelgrimage for like-minded kinksters from her continent. Her endeavours went nowhere, the OWK never responded.
Even if the orginal owners were indeed business savvy, I believe they underestimated the cost of running such a place. Despite spending an initial 2 million euros, in the end, what you are left with is a set of buildings that are over four centuries old. That is expensive in anyone's book.
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| Goddess Amazon showing her OWK passport. (click image to watch video) |
In 2016 Goddess Amazon posted a video on Youtube after her legal fight with the new owners of the OWK, regarding ownership of her videoclips.
In the mistress' quarters the "hot water turned of at 10 pm till 6 AM." Not that the slave cared [yes, you are a bad, bad slave]. Visiting dommes "had no choice but to play with the subbies."
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| Undated image of parts of the OWK castle being damaged by water. |
It was not just the ceilings that were caving in, the whole place was falling apart. Meanwhile queen Patricia was burned out, she was over it. With the OWK facing huge bills to upgrade the place, she did raise prices - but wasn't making the necessary repairs. Her daughter hated the idea of women over men and wasn't interested in taking over. Neither was mistress Gabrielle, her one-time chief fixer, so her majesty sold the compound and later the name OWK, including the characters of queen Patricia and madame Gabrielle. That spelled the end for the original OWK. It was doomed anyway. Why? Read part IV.
I never visited the OKW but was aware of it. What a wonderful off-the-wall idea!
ReplyDeleteHowever, the problem is the Castle.
When they were originally built, castles were architecturally state of the art but arts improve and modern homes (from where Masters, Mistresses and slaves come) have modern amenities such as hot water, efficient drainage and insulation.
The idea of a Feminist MicroNation it its own castle has great appeal but actually, it should start with a modern building so the MicroNation can concentrate on its core purpose and not on architectural renovation and paying the sky-high overheads.
What the OKW needed, to take root and flourish, was the slaves to spend their time working on the structure of the building and the plumbing - and maybe enjoying the occasional BDSM treat as a reward for good work.
Perhaps it might come again one day but next time, let's hope it is set up in a more business like and less romantic way.
Agreed. Total Cost of Ownership usually relates to software but why not apply it to buildings?
ReplyDeleteStart fresh and understand it takes years to build something like the OWK. Get plenty of land and plan decades ahead. If you need deep foundations, do all the drilling at once, biggest cost saving ever. After which you erect individual buildings one by one. Focus on quality and your enterprise will be much more commercially viable. Ploughing back profits is your best chance to grow Utopia.
Don't be be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Stop looking for femdom freebies. It gets you nowhere. The only way for a venture like the OWK to succeed is out of character. Accept it is a real world business and hire professionals.
Definitely would be an interesting project to manage. I'll add it to my bucket list. Perhaps one day, after I've set up my very own chain of BDSM hotels. Who knows?