Patriarch Cornelius
About Patriarch Cornelius
I'm the leader of Domus Cornelii, 28 years old, born and raised in the Netherlands, and I still live here. My background is mixed: about 53% Scandinavian, 32% Eastern European (mostly Polish), and 15% North and Western European, mostly Dutch.
Physically, I have brown eyes, an average build, and I'm semi-hairy. I stand 183 cm (6 ft) tall and weigh 75 kg (165 lbs). I've been growing out my beard since 2021 and my hair since 2023.
Outside of the household, I'm an IT professional and a pretty big geek. I game, work on mods, and run my own Minecraft server. I'm also a serious collector and watcher of movies and shows, and a prepper at heart, someone who genuinely loves the idea of self-sufficient living and dreams of building a life far away from all the noise of modern society.
I was raised in a conservative, religious household, but I've grown apart from religion since then. These days I'd call myself agnostic: I believe there's more out there than we humans understand, I just don't know exactly what that is.
The Journey
This journey started at a young age. Growing up, I was more mature than most kids my age, and my interests never really matched theirs. Looking back, I think there was always something patriarchal in how I saw the world, even before I had the words for it.
Elementary School
My earliest memory of having kinky feelings goes back to elementary school, probably third or fourth grade, so I would have been around seven or eight. Our school had a big playground with a small grove, grass, and sandy patches with play equipment.
During lunch breaks, we often engaged in games of Tag on the playground. On one such occasion, I devised a game of kidnapping. The girls would hide, while the boys would organize and guard a base camp at the playground equipment, scouring the area for the girls, capturing them, tying them up at the base camp, and guarding them until all the girls were caught.
I remember one moment clearly: pinning down one of the girls and putting my hand over her mouth. She was wearing a dark green leather jacket and had blonde curls, and that image has stayed with me ever since. Of course, I had no idea what BDSM even was back then.
Looking back, I think this shows that BDSM isn't something you develop a liking for over time. These feelings are innate, and other memories from my childhood back that up.
Extreme Love
When I was about twelve, there was a TV show about extreme relationships, probably called "Extreme Love" based on some digging I did later, with a Dutch commentary track.
I watched it with my parents, and it went into a lot of BDSM dynamics. To my conservative, religious parents it looked like insanity, but to me a whole new world opened up, one that made a lot of sense. I got my own computer around this time too, and spent weeks reading everything I could find about BDSM online. There wasn't much else I could do with it at that age, obviously.
A Rocky Road
At eighteen I joined Collarspace, an outdated BDSM dating site, and spent a lot of time there for very little in return. It wasn't until I joined FetLife that I actually started to explore and understand what I wanted.
On FetLife I got to experiment, mostly through trial and error, and early on there were more mistakes than successes. I knew I was drawn to the Master/slave dynamic and felt pulled toward being a father figure in my relationships, but figuring out how to blend that with my broader BDSM interests in a way that made sense to me was still a challenge.
Through a series of relationships, including a few with abusive submissives (yes, that happens), I learned a lot. Each one, difficult as it was, helped me figure out what direction I actually wanted to take.
The Eureka Moment
In December 2019, I received a message on FetLife from a girl in Australia. You should have seen her first message to me. She was overjoyed to have found me, it was love at first sight and a dream come true.
We ended up in a long-distance relationship, and COVID kept us physically apart for years. Despite the distance, I took on my role as Master and helped guide her through the chaos in her life. She had a lot of personal struggles, and I was committed to helping her through them.
We often discussed my dream of establishing a household, and to my delight, she shared my enthusiasm. Around that time, I stumbled upon an article about ancient Rome, which sparked a fascination that quickly became central to our dynamic. Bit by bit, we shaped our household with a Roman theme, and I embraced my role as the Patriarch, Paterfamilias.
Once COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, we made plans to meet in person. I had secretly ordered an expensive custom-made stainless steel collar with a heart-shaped lock that had her slave name engraved in it, intending to propose when we finally met. I even bought the plane tickets to Australia. But just as quickly as our plans came together, she vanished. A week passed in silence before she resurfaced, only to tell me that she no longer needed me. According to her, I had solved the problems she needed help with, and now that they were behind her, my presence was no longer necessary.
I was devastated. Reflecting on our years together, I saw the many red flags I had ignored in the name of love. It's true what they say: love blinds you. A week later, she was with someone new, and I realized she had likely been unfaithful the entire time.
In My Father's Footsteps
After the break-up, I went back to looking for the right woman to help build Domus Cornelii. A few months later, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer.
I was forced to take over the role of Patriarch of the family in a matter of weeks. My father was heading into chemo, and nobody knew what the outcome would be. Suddenly, I was the real Paterfamilias, the one everyone looked to for leadership. I didn't have the luxury of time to prepare, I just had to figure it out as I went.
In the span of just three intense months, my father passed away. It's something that still affects me a year later, but I've kept leading our family in his place. After his passing, I bought the 5000 m² estate I grew up on and started my journey toward self-sufficiency. Whilst I don't plan to live here forever, I'm looking at spending at least the next 10 to 20 years on this land. It's a good place to work on self-sufficiency whilst still being close enough to enjoy the conveniences of civilization.
My mother lives with me on the estate. She has nothing to do with kink, but she trusts me and follows my lead. Historically, that's exactly how it worked: the son became head of the household after his father passed, and the mother followed his lead.
My focus has shifted from actively searching for a partner to simply working toward my goals, whilst making it as easy as possible for the right partner to find me.
In My Own Footsteps
Renovation of the house started in 2025, and by 2026 it's mostly finished. There are still a few things left to do, but we already live in it, and it's a genuinely modern house at this point.
I also picked up a mini tractor for working the land around the estate.
I've started my search again. I've dated a few women seriously since then, but I haven't found the right one yet.
The dream, long term, goes further than the estate we have now. I picture somewhere remote enough that you could actually scream during our play without disturbing anyone, many acres of land, raised garden beds, animals, forests, and a large pond we could swim in during summer.
More than anything, I want a big kinky family, with many kids, and I'm willing to work hard for that. That's the direction everything I'm building is pointed toward.