DEAR ANDREA: I'm a writer who believes in female supremacy and am currently seeking to correspond with a true dominant woman who will wear the pants and put me firmly in my place. I feel I have much to offer the right woman. I need to correspond with responsible, intelligent dominant women in order to connect with some possibilities.

Love, She Wears the Pants

Dear Pants:

So? Surely you've noticed there are pros available to top you by phone, via old-fashioned epistle, or via e-mail, IM, ICQ, or, well, you get the picture. If you're willing and able to pay for it, what's stopping you?

I can see how paying might be an issue for submissives with a tendency to overthink things: "How can she really be the boss of me if I'm paying her?" Then again, the double indignity of ponying up to be abased could easily exert an appeal of its own.

If paying is out of the question and life is not delivering dominant ladies to your door on demand, I'd do the obvious: go online. There are message boards and chat rooms galore – why aren't you out beseeching likely women (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) to allow you to worship them?

Love, Andrea

Dear Andrea: My boyfriend is way into being dominated by a woman. I'm not very into it; I do it because I love him. But I want to know if there is a way that I can dominate him and get things out of it for myself. I want to enjoy the things I do to him as much as he enjoys having them done. And also, I'm running out of ideas. Is there anything I can do to feel more into it? And do you have any ideas on how to dominate him? I've done things from making him wear panties to smacking his butt with a wooden spoon.

Love, The Reluctant Domme

Dear Domme: Forced cross-dressing is good, wooden spoons are good, and new ideas are easy to come by. Just pick up a couple of textbooks and start cribbing. Places like Blowfish (www.blowfish.com) and Good Vibrations (www.goodvibes.com) have even done your homework for you – the reviews on these Web sites will lead you to books that suit your style and level of experience. This is a relatively recent phenomenon, so be grateful you didn't run into this problem in, say, 1983.

Start thinking in terms of building a scene, not merely going through a list (panties, check; spanking, check; calling him a miserable cur, check). Your basic scene starts with setting a mood and defining roles – ordering him into the bedroom and onto his knees, say. Then, like any good story, it should build gradually to a climax of some sort before reaching resolution. It's your movie; start directing.

Learning to get off on something that just isn't your thing – now that's trickier. Since dominating him is neither natural nor particularly hot for you in and of itself, you're going to have to get there through him. That is, if your partner's turn-on is the only one available, you're going to have to share it. It's really not much different from what makes blow jobs hot for the blower as well as the blowee.

Have you watched carefully as he goes through whatever changes you put him through? Have you asked him to talk more? Many tops want nothing more than for their bottom to shut the hell up (what do you think gags are for?), but in your case, I'd think a little narration might come in handy. Let him tell you what a goddess you are, and how you are the source of everything sexy and powerful. And then try to believe it. Even good movies require a suspension of disbelief.

Love, Andrea

Dear Andrea: Recently I found out my friend's wife hits him, hard enough to leave bruises. I told him it's abuse and he should leave (he'd never hit her back). What should he do? I mean, is it any less abuse because he's a man? She also says really mean and hurtful things to him and is very controlling. He has to call many times while he's out (even just to the store) so she knows what he's up to. I care very much for him, but that's not why I want him to leave her. I just think nobody deserves this kind of treatment. Don't you?

Love, Worried Pal

Dear Pal: This is about abuse, not sex, but of course I do. He has to get it together and leave, though, or risk having people (OK, me) wonder if he's getting something out of being victimized. And before you ask, yes, I'd say the same thing if the genders were reversed.