Friday, Aug 29, 2008
What does it take to be a dominatrix?
He explained to me that what he was looking for was a woman who is passably decent-looking. The funny thing about BDSM [bondage and dominance and sadomasochism] is that you don't have to be that hot. There are an awful lot of fat girls, because you can be. I couldn't be a stripper -- I'm way too fat for that. Not that I would mind stripping. It's not that I'm not fond of my own body, but according to society's standards I just don't look right for that.
Anyway, he said you have to be passably cute, reasonably sensitive to other people's thoughts, emotions and fantasies, open-minded and self-assured. These are the qualifications. And most of all smart: You really have to be able to understand where somebody is coming from, empathize with them, figure out what they want and give it to them.
And be smart enough to turn on a dime if things start to go downhill.
What was the next step?
He said, "Do you want to go further? Why don't you start coming down to my house, and I'll train you." There's a lot of skill involved. I'm not really a BDSM practitioner in my life. I'd never even hit anybody before.
There's a total, full-on technique to using every single tool. Using a belt, or hitting somebody with your hand or with a crop or with a flogger -- it's all different. With a crop or with a cane, you can only really hit somebody on the ass; every single other place on your body is too sensitive. I had no idea. I pretty much thought that I would order somebody around and whack them with whatever.
So for five or six weeks, I went to his house every Saturday. We had a volunteer, a masochist. The training sessions were totally surreal, because it would be beautiful weather and I'd go inside this dark room with these two men and one of them would take off his clothes.
Did that freak you out?
Fully. The first time I went I had my fiancé come with me and wait down the street for me. And I had a phone with me and he had a phone with him, in case. It was surreal. It really was. I'd go in on a Saturday afternoon, do depraved things for a few hours and then come back out.
Do you now see clients alone?
No way. I am so concerned for my own safety, I would never do that. My boss sets up appointments and then I go to his house. And there has to be more than one person there. It can't just be me. There has to be another person sort of listening -- not listening in, but making sure there are no horrified screams or chain saws going or anything like that.
When did you have your first client?
It was just one weekend when I went to my boss's house, thinking that I was going to have a training session. He just turned me loose. He was like "OK, we've got a guy. He's going to be here in 25 minutes. It's your first."
How many times have you dominated someone now?
About 20.
What do you do when the customer shows up?
It's pretty much the exact same thing that I do when I'm working on a story, which is that I interview people.
Some people are really ready to talk; some people you have to soften up and be nice to them first; some people you have to ask the same question 50 times to get the answer. Some guys are just like "Oh, I don't know." So my interviewing skills come in real handy.
You have to be able to gently extract from them what it is that they want without forcing them to go through a list. "First, I want you to beat me up the thighs." That's really unsexy.
But usually when they come in, they've called and made an appointment with my boss, and he will ask them what they want -- like enforced feminization, which means that you dress them up in girls clothes, put on makeup and go: "Oh, you're so pretty. Oh! We're girlfriends shopping together." Either they want you to talk about how pretty they are and how you're girlfriends hanging out together, maybe even like lesbian girlfriends, or they want to be humiliated. They want you to say, "You're such a sissy! You're so bad!"
That is going to be my specialty because I like to dress people up, and I like gender-fucked things.
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