Why send all your money to women you have never met outside of your laptop screen who treat you worse than dirt? Liv Slomka hears the story of a student pay pig
They sit in dark corners of their rooms and can only be seen from the light glow of their laptop screens.
Pay pigs are individuals who belong to a group known as findom, which stands for financial domination. It is a fetish that could be compared to a lifestyle.
It usually starts on specific websites, chat rooms on social media and even pornography websites/ comment sections that are aimed at people who are looking for pleasure. The Findom scene originated in America, the exact dates of its creation are unknown, but the fetish lifestyle has been moving to other countries through online waves.
The typical agreement involves a man giving money to a woman he met online, she degrades him and treats him like her own personal piggy bank, and he finds satisfaction in his ways to being degraded and his bank account being completely drained to satisfy his ‘goddess.’
This kind of relationship usually involves a contract so that both parties agree in terms of what the man wants for the money, what his fetishes are that need to be satisfied, how often they need to speak, if the relationship is purely online or if they will ever meet.
This whole relationship relies on the man treating the woman like a goddess and the man being degraded which allows him to have sexual relief. Keeping a relationship with your goddess is much harder as a university student.
There are female pay pigs out there but nowhere near the same numbers as men, many of the female paypigs are a part of the LGBTQ+ society. Based on support groups for pay pigs, gay men are more common than women. So, the roles can be flipped but you might have more luck with a gay or trans man than a woman.
Aiden*, 22, student pay pig
Aiden was just an ordinary student who had a tough time making friends outside of his computer screen and found that being a pay pig was much easier for him than forming real relationships.
This whole pay pig-goddess relationship relies on the man treating the woman like a goddess and sending the woman copious amounts of money, in return the man is being degraded and compared to worms and trash or is being humiliated in other ways which allows him to have sexual relief.
After watching an extremely popular American show called “Euphoria” he realised that he found the concept of a pay pig interesting. The show didn’t go into much detail on pay pigs and that’s when he decided to do some of his own research.
“In the beginning, it wasn’t actually the idea of being someone’s piggy bank that got me off it was just submitting to dominant women but obviously paying was a part of that,” Aiden says.
His journey of finding a goddess wasn’t easy as his funds were limited to his student loan. Many women who look for a pay pig want someone who can provide for them. With Aiden working nights to try to cover what he gave his goddess from his student loan, and working more wasn’t the “ideal” situation.
Many of the women that he tried to start the pay pig-goddess relationship with just wanted him to pay for their rent or food. “Pay pigs get off on paying for stuff but usually it’s not like ‘I need petrol money and a takeaway, help me’ but more of paying for attention from the goddess and tasks set by her for me to complete, it’s almost like small quests for her to give me a piece of her precious time,” he says.
During our interview, Aiden wouldn’t show his face on our video call as it was only reserved for his goddess. He found his current goddess on the SecretBenefits website, but he has played around with others like Findoms and Seeking. When he first got into the findom scene he tried to find a cam girl on pornography websites to be his goddess, but they had other views on this type of relationships.
His views on paying have changed since he started being a pay pig, it was not what gave him pleasure but now he has trouble with anything sexual outside of being a pay pig. He has recently joined a reddit support group for pay pigs, (r/paypigsupportgroup), to seek help and advice for the times where he feels guilty for taking money from his family to satisfy his needs.
Aiden has tried pornography, video chats with women, Viagra, and real-life relationships but they have all failed. It’s like he’s addicted to paying his goddess in return for her harsh and cold words which allow him to reach climax in the privacy of his room while he’s away at university.
He doesn’t feel lonely as long as he can pay his goddess for her attention. When he can’t pay, he’s at work and it’s a constant cycle. Aiden feels like he can’t share this side of him with his friends because who would send their whole student loan to a woman they have never met?
“Sexual compulsivity is like gambling and excessive fitness – these process compulsions that deliver a bodily sensation and dopamine in a different way to drugs and food. The money that is involved in findom can heighten this experience more.
People with drug or process addictions or compulsivity may have experienced childhood trauma, sadness or feel difficulty forming and keeping relationships. They may feel they don’t have control or fulfilment in their lives in the way they would like.
“They may also find it hard to be themselves and express feelings or feel certain expressions of feelings that are weak. I also see a lot of difficulty with anger – maybe pent-up emotions, they find it hard to show or have difficulty with rage,” says Sarah Berry an accredited and experienced sex and relationship therapist.
He is afraid of his loved one’s reactions and that he might get reported to student finance. His friends and family think that he works so much and needs to borrow money as he gets the lowest student loan when he gets the maximum student loan.
“If I donated all my money to charity and decided to starve for a week everyone would call me a great guy and would be glad to have me as a friend and tell everyone about my heart of gold, but as soon as they find out I send all my money to my goddess I’m a pervert, mentally ill and should be taken away,” he says.
He doesn’t even check his bank account. “If I go into overdraft I go into overdraft,” Aiden says. He feels like checking his bank account takes away his happiness and the happiness of his goddess as well as the stability of their relationship. The most that he has sent his goddess was around £3400 in a month.
He doesn’t think that all the hours he must work have any effect on his university work and is happy to carry on how he is. Aiden has many regrets in his life but being a pay pig is not one of them, he said that being a pay pig just spiced up his life and taught him how to work harder than he ever thought was possible.
* The name has been changed to protect the subject’s identity.
