Interview with a Dominatrix
Q. What is S&M to you?
A. Personally or professionally?
Q. Personally.
A. It's an extension of my sexuality. It's fun and it's
honest and it's a
place where adults can be safe to express themselves behind
the mask of
their roles. This is especially true for submissives - they
don't have to
worry, they are protected through their mask of
submissiveness and that's a
gift to me. S&M is love.
Q. How is it a gift to you?
A. When somebody is going to be my submissive, then they
trust me. They know
I'm not going to harm them and once we build the trust up,
we can go on and
explore regions of our psyche that aren't touched in
regular life but can be
in fantasy.
Q. Are you always dominant?
A. Yes. I tried to be submissive but it was a lie and I've
watched
submissive and I sometimes envy their position.
Q. Why?
A. It's a very selfish position to be a bottom (submissive)
- you have to go
into yourself to submit. To top you have to go into the
other person. It's
an enviable position to lose yourself and know that you are
protected.
Q. What does S&M mean to you professionally?
A. I'm limited as a professional in what I can do - more so
than when I'm
playing. The majority of my clients are married men and
their fantasies are
not very in-depth. It's a light sexual turn-on for them to
have a dominant
woman dressed up in leather but it's not a way to express
love. I'm not
choosing my client as a play partner. So, it's not as
sexual because I
choose to have a non-sexual session.
Q. What are some other terms associated with S&M?
A. D&S (dominance and submission), bondage/discipline.
Q. Do they all mean the same thing?
A. D&S scene doesn't have to have any S&M in it -
it's more psycho-drama and
role playing. S&M doesn't always have to have pain -
there's a safe word.
There's a few people out there who enjoy the pain, but most
people enjoy
where the pain takes them. Like hitting your head - it
hurts at the time but
you're really glad when it's over. When you know the person
you are with and
begin to trust them, then you can expand your limits. The
pain takes you
somewhere - it's the endorphin - it takes you to that
euphoric state. For
the slave, for them to go further - professionally and
personally, a bottom
will go further and further to please their mistress. The
mistress is there
to push her slave's limits. I have played with so many
people that I am
pretty good at reading them. For example, I may just say
"today your
mistress is tired so you're going to tell me stories about
yourself, or...
you're going to clean my house."
Q. How long have you been a dominatrix?
A. Professionally for two and a half years. Personally I
started
when I was 13. Since then I have left it and gone back many
times.
Q. Why did you get into it?
A. Because the man I was living with tried to spank me and
I turned around
and flipped and said "don't you ever do that again" and I
did it to him and
- it worked, it became sexual rather than abuse.
Q. What do you mean by "left and gone back?"
A. I was young and used to go out with very powerful men. I
didn't know what
I was looking for. Not until S&M had a name for me did
I find what I was
looking for in life. I came from a violent background and
S&M has taught me
about love, control, respect.
Q. What sorts of services do you provide your clients?
A. I provide them a fully equipped dungeon, a persona; a
woman with her
dungeon, her leather on, her no-nonsense attitude. Let's
[just] say when
they walk in the door and see me they know I'm dominant. I
tell them what
the rules are and what is expected.
Q. What are the rules?
A. I give them two rules. First they can't be higher than
me [physically]
unless otherwise ordered and, second, they must always
address me as
mistress. If they forget, it is noted and they are warned.
Next time they
will be punished and from then on they know I am serious.
Then we get into
more of a reality check.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I ask them about themselves, their fantasies, fetishes,
experiences. Do
they have any health problems? I talk to them. I inform
them about a safe
word - what it is and how important it is to use it in my
dungeon. I always
stress the most important thing in my dungeon -
communication.
Q. What is a safe word?
A. Mercy.
Q. What does it do?
A. It's a word to let your mistress know you are
experiencing difficulties,
that you're in danger - physical or emotional. It lets me
know anything -
that your hand is going numb or you're getting frightened
of a scene or
you've reached your limit for pain [- for example during
whipping].
Q. Do you have limits?
A. Yes, it's non-sexual and they cannot touch me. They must
respect me, be
polite, and they can't top from the bottom.
Q. What does that mean?
They can't control the scene from the position of a
submissive. They can't
say "Mistress, I want you to do this, I want you to do
that," because
basically they're there as my toy. Another limit I have is
safety - if they
want me to do anything unsafe, I won't do it. I won't shit
on them [either].
I won't castrate them.
Q. Do they really ask that?
A. Yes, they do. They phone me from all over the country...
And I won't let
them lick my ass. I won't let them rim me. Some doms let
their clients do
that, I don't. I consider that sexual; my lovers do that,
not my clients.
Q. How much do clients pay for various services?
A. $150 per hour.
Q. How long is a session?
A. Usually one hour. I listen to Mozart and Mozart's about
an hour.
Q. How often will a client see you?
A. I try to keep it to once per month - sometimes more. It
depends how we
click. When they're new they want to [see me] a lot. I
don't give them
everything they want, I leave them wanting more.
Q. Why?
A. It depends on how quick they are in their training.
Sometimes I allow
them more than one session per month. I've had some clients
that want to
[return] the very same day.
Q. Are most of your clients men?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you have any women or would you take one?
A. I would - they usually don't call. They usually come
with their husbands
or boyfriends.
Q. How often does that happen?
A. Not often. A man will phone and say his wife/girlfriend
is interested in
being part of a scene, I always talk to the woman because
it's usually a
pipe dream.
Q. What are women like in the dungeon?
A. They are strong - they can find their inner strength and
when a woman is
submitting and having her limits pushed, she does it more
sexually than a
guy. A guy does it for power and ego, a woman does it for
sexuality. But
some men do it for sexuality ... a really good submissive
male is just as
powerful and beautiful and sexual and submissive as a
woman. Men seem to be
stuck more in the fantasy than the reality of it.
Q. Who is involved - what kind of people?
A. Pretty educated people; businessmen, plumbers,
construction workers,
executives, teachers, cops, doctors, all sorts, but on
average they are
pretty intelligent. The good ones are very intelligent and
they can
communicate their desires, their fantasies and realities,
and they seem to
see me as a person rather than a persona.
Q. Did you see Exit to Eden?
A. No.
Q. Do you have anything to say that can clear up people's
misconceptions
about S&M?
A. It is not abuse - if it [feels like] abuse, then it is
abuse, get out.
[S&M] is a game that adults play and it's a gift that
people give each other
not to be abused. And it's fun - if it's not, stop and talk
about it and go
home. We don't have to like it all. S&M is like a big
restaurant - just
because you don't like everything on the menu doesn't mean
it's not a good
restaurant.
Issue 30 will bring you the third and final chapter in this
series on S&M:
View from the Bottom. If you're interested in contacting
the mistress in
today's column, contact me at the Euphony E-Mail address.
Until next time...