Miss Peggy and the Myth of the Dominatrix: Reflections of an Anonymous Pegger

My lover-now-partner and I sometimes use XConfessions, an erotic application that could be described as the “Tinder of desires”. It recommends for partners an astonishing array of sexual practices, on which each partner can swipe left or right depending on whether or not they would like to try it out. If both partners are ready and willing to explore the same act, they get a “match”. With a partner who wants to explore sexuality as much as I do, XConfessions is the perfect tool for discovering entirely new playgrounds.

One fine morning, I was looking for some inspiration and decided to check out some bold suggestions. When I opened the app, the word “pegging” immediately appeared on my screen.

I had no pegging experience, but I had always fantasized about having the upper hand, so to speak (or of not needing my hand at all). I had associated pegging with the reversal of pre-established unequal power distribution between the penetrator and the penetratee. Subjugate. Submit. Enslave. This is what I got out of my favourite porn videos. I imagined that pegging would automatically turn me into a femme fatale—a dominatrix—and, frankly, it piqued my curiosity.

Unlike all my previous partners who did not share this desire, my boyfriend had already mentioned his desire to explore anal pleasure in all its forms.

So, it was very exciting but unsurprising when we matched for pegging.

My boyfriend later admitted that he had already been stimulating his prostate during masturbation for a few years. Having discovered the pleasure it could bring him, he now wanted to explore that with a partner. I was the first one to be open to that sort of experimentation.

While XConfessions was really only for fun and entertainment, in the end it also allowed us to open up about and discuss our shared desires. However, just like on Tinder, a successful match didn’t slow down (or stop) our swiping game. With an entire inventory of pleasures waiting to be explored at the tip of our fingers (and tongues!), the idea of pegging had taken a back seat. But it was never really far away, etched in a naughty little corner of our hippocampi.

Miss Peggy’s strap-on

A few months later, while I was innocently browsing the novelties in my favorite sex shop, I suddenly saw it, an appearance I refused to see as a simple coincidence. It had ten straps with gold fastenings and genuine red leather, and it was adjustable so that it could perfectly embrace every curve of my body (and, in hindsight, it also looked deliciously cliché). The harness of my dreams!

I could see it already: me, emerging from a smokescreen, lubricant in hand, dildo strapped to my pelvis, ready to give my partner the time of his life. This harness was going to give me exactly what I needed to embody my femdom alter ego: Miss Peggy.

To test the water, I sent a link to this new object of my desire to my boyfriend. All I needed—all it took—was an enthusiastic heart-eyed emoji for me to go ahead and grab it off the shelf.

I then had to choose a dildo to attach to the harness. Faced with the wide range of possible shapes, lengths, girths, materials, and realism, I didn’t feel as confident. I checked in with my partner to make sure we were both going to be comfortable with the chosen model. I didn’t want to surprise him with a freakishly large, purple, veiny monster of a dildo if I knew he’d much prefer a semi-realistic, five-inch silicone one.

Then, the long-awaited moment to try out our new gear finally arrived.

I put on the vermilion harness for the first time. Well, I painstakingly did, one complicated strap at a time… My partner ended up helping me out.

In hindsight, it would have been wise to find a balance between looks and comfort to avoid feeling as though I needed to read an instruction manual every time I was going to put it on.

Once properly donned, I summoned Miss Peggy—the insatiable dominatrix—from deep inside my psyche. There I was, finally feeling… as though I had no idea what I was doing!

Miss Peggy softens up

We started gently with a bit of rimming. I then inserted my index finger into my partner’s anus, and then, my middle finger. So far, these were things we had done before. However, what was about to come next was brand new territory. When he told me he was ready, I grabbed the bottle of lube and applied a generous amount to the silicone rod.

While I thought I knew what to expect, I still felt a bout of vertigo when the time came to cross the bridge between reality and fantasy. It was the first time I saw a naked man, in flesh and blood, his cheeks spread wide open right in front of me. And even though I loved his behind, I nonetheless felt awkward and embarrassed.

First, given that I couldn’t actually feel the silicone shaft, let’s just say that I was having a hard time aiming for the bull’s-eye. So, I had to try a few times in order to successfully hit the target. With a bit of patience, we were able to find the right angle and gradually insert the dildo without my boyfriend feeling any discomfort.

It was then my time to shine: time to get my pelvis going! But, by having reversed the gendered roles, as simple as it may seem, I had lost my bearings. Clad in leather, I was floating in the vast cosmos of novelty. Let me tell you one thing: at that moment, Miss Peggy had suddenly lost her edge.

The positions we adopted on a daily basis suddenly seemed foreign to me. To try to reclaim them, I imitated the attitude and movements that I’ve long associated with the penetrative partner. It was a choreography that I had internalized without even realizing it, just like my dance at the 2003 end-of-school-year show that I know I could perform at the drop of a hat if someone were to put on a song by Lorie.

I was confronted with the image of sexual masculinity that I had internalized in spite of myself: what a man should look like when he’s having sex, how he should moan, and the posture he should adopt. These are not concepts that can be deconstructed in the span of a fuck, but I felt privileged to share this experience with him for the first time. I felt my partner’s vulnerability, which in turn exposed my own. I felt the need to ask him a lot of questions, to make sure he was comfortable and enthusiastic.

My emotional discomfort gradually faded to make way for discovery. I managed to get out of my head and let myself be carried away by the new experience.

As with many first times, it wasn’t perfect, but we still experienced pleasure, both physically and emotionally. We had shared an intimate, new, and steaming hot moment.

We soon wanted to try the experience again … and again… and again.

Miss Peggy and the 1001 pegs

Now, the red harness is part of our everyday lives. It has its spot in our closet, hung on its own hanger, amidst our button-down shirts.

Ever since our first pegging experience, my relationship to the strap-on and to pegging per se have been constantly evolving. But the biggest thing I’ve learned was definitely the fact that pegging doesn’t necessarily equate to dominance and that I don’t have to call on an alter ego to have a good time. Sorry, Miss Peggy!

In fact, with a bit of practice and by asking my partner about his likes and dislikes, I soon realized that, just like there are 1001 ways to make love, there are 1001 ways to peg. It can be lascivious, kinky, acrobatic, greedy, or disciplined. I’m always surprised by our joint discoveries of new possibilities, dynamics, positions, and sensations.

Recently, when my boyfriend was on top while I was wearing the strap on, his moans melodiously in sync with my pelvic strokes, I reached new heights of pleasure. The friction of the leather against my sex made me come so hard, I felt as though I had left my body. One more orgasm to add to my list of memorable pleasures, tied with the time I came by just squeezing my thighs together (but that’s a story for another time).

I can safely say that pegging has introduced much more flexibility in our sex life.

We engage in a greater variety of sexual activities—beyond gender roles—and we think it feels good! Not having to worry about predetermined roles and just going with the flow has revolutionized my mostly heteronormative sex life.

And my boyfriend’s too! He often tells me how good it feels to have a partner with whom he can share and explore his desires without judgment. This openness extends beyond our sex life, strengthening the trust and transparency that binds our emotional relationship.

Having this fluidity also increases the range of possibilities for pleasure. When the time comes to get naked, we become the protagonists of a choose-your-own-adventure book: each embrace, each touch, influences the next and leads us to an unprecedented orgasmic conclusion.

With hindsight, I’d say that, when you think about it and deconstruct the way pegging is represented in our collective imagination, you realize that it’s simply one of many ways of getting off. Automatically associating male anal penetration with submissiveness probably contributes to the stigma that surrounds it. Don’t get me wrong, it can be very exciting to explore power dynamics during sex! It’s just not mandatory.

Sometimes, I enjoy having my boyfriend put the harness on me, having him tie the fastenings one by one, starting at the hips to then move down to those around the thighs. I make him slowly lick the dildo. I dig my fingers into the hollows of his cheeks. I give him permission (or not) to touch himself while I penetrate him. Miss Peggy makes an appearance, but only when it suits us both.

To learn more about pegging and maybe even try it yourself, check out our article Pegging 101.

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If reading this article has piqued your curiosity, there’s an episode of our podcast, À quoi tu jouis?, that explores anal pleasure (available in French only).

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE