Rich submissive men are paying "findoms" to control their money. Photo / 123rf
Eager “submissives” are handing control of their bank accounts to strangers online – with unexpected consequences.
She earns six figures looking after the money of chief executives and bankers – but this is not your average financial adviser.
Harper Thornhill, known professionally as Countess Diamond, is a “financial dominatrix”, catering to the growing number of people, mostly men, who pay for the thrill of having someone else take complete control of their money.
While the language is the same – restrained but consenting adults are “submissives” – the services offered by Diamond and others go beyond whips and chains. Often these dominatrixes, sometimes called findoms, work entirely online or over the phone and may never even meet their clients, let alone touch them.
Diamond, a married mother of two from Bristol, in western England, aims for complete financial control. She orders her submissives, sometimes called slaves, to hand over access to their bank accounts, restricts their spending, controls their financial decisions and takes a healthy cut. It may sound risky, but Diamond, 35, says it’s where the thrill lies.
“The people I work with get a rush from losing money, or the thought of it. They’re turned on by the idea of giving over everything they have, knowing I’m going to take a big chunk of it.”
Submissives, often referred to as paypigs, ATMs and finsubs, send them significant sums of money, buy them gifts or completely surrender their finances. The clients willingly sign up for the experience and, as with the usual dominant/submissive dynamic, the sexual thrill comes from relinquishing control to the dominatrix. But in findom, the power-play is all acted out through money – and it’s getting more popular.
Findom App, a platform that links findoms to submissives, currently has 9000 members and the company claims this number is growing rapidly.
Members post every one to four seconds, with a spokesman saying: “Our members don’t sign in once or twice a day, but rather they’re online all day, every day. Findom is not a fad, it is here to stay.”
Google searches for “findom” have risen 83 per cent over the past five years, according to the platform Sensuali.
On X, you can find countless demands from findoms to potential paypigs that are often aggressive and loaded with insults.
One findom, Daphne, posted: “Let’s go losers I’m in the mood to drain today let’s start big and give me what I deserve.”
A tweet from Goddess Keeli, a 23-year-old self-described “USA college brat”, read: “Annoyed & ready to take it out on a stupid little beta & his bank account.” In a video underneath the post, she tells the camera: “You would be nothing without me.”
But Countess Diamond says this is just one type of financial domination. While she makes her own financial demands to eager submissives, her approach is all-encompassing and even ethical. She says: “The approach is very much ‘I have no interest in you, I just want your money.’ It feels elitist and could result in harm occurring in the relationship.”
Instead, Diamond claims she insists her clients pay down debt and even make pension contributions.
Vicky Reynal, financial psychotherapist and author of Money on Your Mind: The Psychology Behind Your Financial Habits, says: “Money to many people represents power and what is being enacted in a findom dynamic is a person giving that up.
“The humiliating language that usually accompanies this intensifies that dynamic of feeling powerless. It is a masochistic dynamic, in that the person engaging in it finds pleasure in the suffering.”
However, Reynal says the link between pain and pleasure can often come from traumatic experiences. For example, those who experienced neglect as children may consider themselves “bad” and deserving of punishment.
She suggests those who seek out the services of a findom may be struggling with having control in their lives. They may long to give it up or be the complete opposite – people who feel small and powerless and seek out this familiar dynamic.
Either way, there is a risk of developing an addiction.
“There is a psychological release that comes from engaging with this behaviour and that often becomes compulsive,” Reynal says. “For many, there is a progressive element to it as they might need to give away growing sums of money to get the same fix.”
Diamond insists that, rather than draining her customers’ accounts and heading for the hills, she works to improve their financial situations.
Acting as their unofficial financial adviser, alongside an accountant and a fund manager whom she consults, she demands her submissives make pension contributions, debt repayments, investments for their children, cut unnecessary spending and set aside money for their partners.
Those who follow her instructions are praised and those who fail are punished with financial restrictions or increased “debts” to Diamond.
She says: “When I can see they need to make savings, I restrict their spending. Say they’re spending a stupid amount of money on getting to work, I order them to walk half the way.
“What’s amazing is no matter how much I restrict their spending, they find the money. I’ve had submissives who’ve got out of debt, got married and bought houses.”
She first ventured into domination about eight years ago. She started doing webcam work, which she describes as a “saucy phoneline”.
She had just had her first child and was on maternity leave when she realised that, once she covered childcare, travel and lunch, she could not afford to go back to work as the regional manager of a well-known retailer.
“The goal was never to make a career out of it, it was just to help cover the bills.” However, she found the work empowering, she was good at the domination and decided to leave her old job.
Today, she has had thousands of submissives and commands a six-figure income. She messages about 30 clients each day (which starts at 5am) and her longest-running relationship has lasted seven years – she speaks to him every other day.
They’re chief executives, heads of departments, businessmen and bankers, from Britain and beyond. Lots of them are married and Diamond says the more money they have, the more their wives turn a blind eye.
Diamond charges some clients thousands of pounds a month, while taking very little from others.
Interestingly, many of her submissives are rugby fans and most have either grown up with wealth, made a lot or have struggled financially and this relationship with money has had long-lasting effects.
“Some people may see my work as exploitative, but it’s really not,” she says. “They’re having fun and it’s educating them to be more mindful of their money. It’s a good thing, for me and for them. As much as I’m in control, it’s still their choice.”
Lots of her work is online – sending personal messages and voice notes – but she meets some submissives in person. For example, she may “allow” a loyal slave to take her on an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, if they’ve “served” her well for two years. At no point does the relationship become physical – Diamond says this is not her area.
Her most popular service is her “debt contracts”. Marketed as a game, clients agree to be “monetarily reigned by Countess Diamond for the entire duration of the contract”. Over 30 days, customers receive regular emails from The Bank of Countess Diamond demanding payments of increasing amounts.
There are three options – low, medium and high risk – which cost £10 (NZ$21), £25 ($52) and £50 ($104) respectively.
In a high-risk contract seen by Telegraph Money, it says: “Slave shall make a minimum weekly payment to Countess Diamond in the amount of £250 [NZ$519] via Vouchers … The ongoing schedule will be determined by Countess Diamond and is subject to change at her discretion.”
The first email sent stated a starting debt of £1000 (NZ$2074) with a minimum weekly payment of £250. A few days later, the debt increased by £30 ($62) and shortly after it went up by another £50. In addition, those who fail to pay on time are charged a £10 late fee.
Diamond says the debt contracts are popular because they can involve relatively small amounts of money and take effect instantly. Submissives get a thrill when the debt increases, knowing she’s accruing wealth.
Since the start of the cost-of-living crisis, she has noticed submissives spending larger sums in one go, rather than cutting back. “The rush they get when they spend means more when times are tight.”
However, she never pushes people into debt they cannot pay and has stopped providing services to submissives whom she identifies as vulnerable.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, says playing games with your finances could have real consequences, if you trust the wrong person.
She says: “It’s your money, and your life, so it’s entirely your choice, but if you’re going anywhere near this you need to appreciate how risky it is. You could ringfence money for this purpose, setting up a pre-paid card and giving it away, but you’re still handing over personal financial information and willingly making yourself worse off.
“By sharing your financial details, you’re losing any protection from your bank if things go wrong.”
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