The History and Arts of The Dominatrix - Anne O Nomis

Anne O Nomis
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Chapter I The Ancient Dominatrix Goddess and her Priestess Initiates
Chapter II The Female Flagellant Governesses in the Seventeenth to
Nineteenth Centuries
Chapter III The Bizarre Dominant Ladies of the Twentieth-Century
Underground
Chapter IV The Contemporary Occupation and Arts of the Dominatrix
Chapter V The Seven Realm Arts
Afterword Ascent from the Underworld
List of Illustrations
Figure 1 The Lady of Warka from the City of Uruk (Warka)

(c3100 BCE) Marble, 21.2 cm height, Collection of Iraq Museum,
Baghdad, Iraq. Picture ref #345588 © Bridgeman Art Library.
Figure 2 Warka (Uruk) vase

(c3200–3000 BCE) Carved alabaster with friezes, from the treasure
house of the Goddess Inanna in the Eanna district. Around 1 m height
(attributed height cited up to 120 cm tall), Collection of Iraq
Museum. Picture ref #BO14987 © 2013. Photo SCALA, Florence/BPK
Bildangatur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Gesthichte, Berlin.
Figures 3a and 3b Detail from The Uruk Trough

(c3300–3000 BCE) Limestone vessel, 96.5 × 35.5 cm, Collection of
British Museum, London, UK. Ref # ME 12000, Picture ref#:
AN327001001 and AN32384001, © British Museum Trustees.
Figure 4 Venus of Laussel

(c23000 BCE) Limestone bas relief carving. From rockshelter in Abri
de Laussel, Dordogne, France. Collection: Musée d’Aquitaine,
Bordeaux, France. © Wikimedia Commons.
Figure 5 Seated Female with Lionesses

(6th Millennium BCE) Terracotta statue. Found in grain bin at
Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Collection of the Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey. Picture ref #DA32308 © 2013.
DeAgostini Picture Library/SCALA, Florence.
Figure 6 Queen of the Night

(c1800–1750 BCE) Baked straw-tempered clay plaque, 49.5 × 37 cm,
Old Babylonian. (formerly known as the ‘Burney Relief), British
Museum Collection. Ref # ME 2003-7-18-1, Picture ref #
AN3323001, © British Museum Trustees.
Figure 7 Reconstruction of Jewelry from Tombs of Ur

(c2600 BCE) Gold, lapis lazuli & necklaces also with carnelian, from
the Tombs of Ur, Mesopotamia (Southern Iraq). British Musuem
Collection, London, UK. Ref # 122411, Picture ref # AN810871001 ©
British Museum Trustees.
Figure 8 Cylinder seal depicting Ishtar

(c2334–2165 BCE) Cylinder seal from Akkad period. Oriental Institute
of Chicago, USA. Ref # A27903, © Oriental Institute of Chicago.
Figure 9 Disc of the High En-Priestess Enheduanna from Ur

(c2350–2300 BCE) Calcite limestone disc, 25 cm diam × 7 cm depth,
from Tombs of Ur (Southern Iraq) Penn Museum Collection, USA. Ref
# B16665, © Penn Museum.
Figure 10 Clay cuneiform tablet of Hymn to Ishtar

Neo-Assyrian from Library of Ashurbanipal, 16 × 9.4 cm, British
Museum Collection, London, UK. Ref # SM.954, Picture ref #
AN31113001 © British Museum Trustees.
Figure 11 Figure on a lion in Ishtar lion plaque

(c2000–1595 BCE) Clay plaque fragment, 7 cm high. Ref # 31-43-
425, © Penn Museum.
Figure 12 Celebratory Procession

(730–727 BCE) Gypsum wall relief from reign Tiglath Pileser III from
Nimrud, ref #136773, British Library Collection, Picture ref #
AN111849001, © British Museum Trustees.
Figure 13 God Min from Coptus in Egypt

From the Ancient Temple of Min at Coptus, Egypt. NB: Sculptures of
Min held by Ashmolean Museum Collection in Oxford, UK ©
Wikimedia commons.
Figures 14 and 15 Lead votive figurines from Sanctuary of Artemis

Orthia
(Late 6th Century–5th Century BCE) from Sanctuary of Artemis
Orthia, Lead, 3.5 cm height, Fitzwilliam Museum, Refs # GR
1456.1923 & GR 1449.1923 © Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge.
Figure 16 Winged priestess wielding a whip in Pompeii

(Pre-79AD) Wall fresco Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii, Italy. © The Art
Archive / Villa of Mysteries/Collection Dagli Orti.
Figure 17 Aquamanile water jug in the form of Phyllis dominating

Aristotle
(Early 15th Century) Originating from Maasland, Collection of
European Decorative Arts, Jubilee Park, Brussels. Image © Vassil,
courtesy of the Creative Commons.
Figure 18 Socrates & Xantippe

(c1670–1700) Mezzotint by John Smith after Hendrich Goltzius,
Collection of Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA. Ref #
B1790.3.1667 © Yale Center for British Art.
Figure 19 The Cully Flaug’d

(c1674–1702) Mezzotint, After Marcellus Laroon, 24.6 × 19.6 cm, ref
# 1886,0612.320, British Museum collection, London, UK. Picture ref
#AN49538001, © British Museum Trustees.
Figure 20 Erotic flogging scene

(1718) Frontispiece to Edmund Curll’s reprint of the book A Treatise
in the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs. Ref # P.C.20.a.23 from Rare
Books collection of the British Library, London, UK. © The British
Library Board.
Figure 21 Flagellation engraving
(1752) Engraving by John June, ‘Publish’d according to Act of
Parliament, Sold by Mr L’Agneau of Black Fryars, 1752, March 26.
Ref # PC3–1752 from Library of Congress Collection, Washington D.C
© Library of Congress.
Figure 22 Fashionable Lectures Delivered with Birch Discipline

Frontispiece to book listing the names of 57 ladies performing birch
discipline. Ref # P.C.31.e.18/7 Rare Books collection of the British
Library, London, UK © The British Library Board.
Figure 23 George Beare, Portrait of Peg Woffington

(c1740–9) Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 63.5 cm, Paul Mellon Collection,
Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA. Ref # B.1981.25.38. ©
Yale Center for British Art.
Figure 24 Nathaniel Hone, Portrait of Kitty Fisher

(1765) Oil on canvas, 74.9 × 62.2 cm, Collection of the National
Portrait Gallery, London, UK. Ref # NPG2354 © National Portrait
Gallery.
Figure 25 George Willison, Nancy Parsons in Turkish Dress

(c1771) Oil on canvas, 57.2 × 47.6 cm, Collection of Yale Center for
British Art, Connecticut, USA. Ref # B1981.25681. © Yale Center for
British Art.
Figure 26 James Wilson, The Fair Nun Unmask’d

(c1770) Mezzotint made after Henry Morland Painting, 34.9 × 25.1
cm, Collection of Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA, Ref #
B1970.3.576, © Yale Center for British Art.
Figure 27 The Berkley Horse, designed 1828 by Governess Dominatrix

Theresa Berkley
(c1876-7) Reproduced in Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) Ref #
P.C.14.de.3 from Rare Books Collection of the British Library,
London, UK © The British Library Board. (It is thought that this
image was from an old copy of the Venus School-mistress book.)
Figure 28 Detail of putti flogging against a ladder

(c1876–7) Detail from ‘Frontispiece’ of Pisanus Fraxi (pseudonym of
Henry Spencer Ashbee) Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) Private
collection copy of book © Anne O Nomis.
Figure 29 Page of handwritten letter from Frederick Hankey to

Ashbee
(1875) Letter dated 26 May, 1875 and is interleafed within Henry
Spencer Ashbee’s own personal annotated manuscript copy of Index
Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) Ref # P.C.14.de.3, Rare Books
Collection of the British Library, London, UK. © The British Library
Board.
Figure 30 Frontispiece to Index Librorum Prohibitorum – Index of

Forbidden books
Detail from ‘Frontispiece’ of Pisanus Fraxi (pseudonym of Henry
Spencer Ashbee) Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) Private collection
copy of book © Anne O Nomis.
Figures 31 and 32 Models for Jacques Biederer, Paris

(c1930s) Private collection supplied to the author © Anne O Nomis.
Figures 33 and 34 Model Nativa in photographs for Yva Richards,

Paris
(c1930s) Private collection supplied to the author © Anne O Nomis.
Figures 35, 36, 37 Models in pony-play for Charles Guyette, New

York
(c1940s) From the collection of the Kinsey Institute, Indiana
University, USA © Kinsey Institute.
Figure 38 and 39 Vintage image of couple modelling for Charles

Guyette, New York
From the collection of the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, USA ©
Kinsey Institute.
Figure 40 A ‘bizarre’ style lady with whip by John Willie (J.S. Coutts)
(c1962) Tempura & Watercolour artwork by John Willie (J.S Coutts),
Original is held in private collection. This image is also reproduced in
the book The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline by John Willie,
published by Bélier Press, Second Edition Revised and Enlarged (with
previously unpublished drawings and paintings), p.353. ISBN: 0-
914646-48-6 © Bélier Press, Inc.
Figure 41 Display at Back Date Magazine Store, 1175 6th Ave., NYC
on Sept 1958
(1958) 8 × 10 Photograph from the collection of the Kinsey Institute,
Indiana University, USA © Kinsey Institute.
Figure 42 Martin Leigh, The Velvet Underground (1963)

(1963) Book cover thumbnail supplied to the author.
Figure 43 Bruce Rogers, The Bizarre Lovemakers (1967)

Figure 44 Myron Kosloff, Dominatrix (1968)

Figure 45 Maîtresse film poster (1975/6) designed by British artist

Allen Jones
Original vintage movie poster, 104 × 69 cm, from the collection of
Reel Poster Gallery, London, UK (who stock original vintage movie
posters for sale). Photograph by A.J Photographics. © Reel Poster
Gallery.
Figure 46 Miss Doreen, aka Miss Anne, Miss Anita, Miss Tracey,
London (1960s)
(c1960s) Vintage photograph © David Jackson, DDI magazine, USA.
Figures 47 and 48 Miss Doreen in her West End flat (1960s)

(c1960s) Vintage photograph © David Jackson, DDI magazine, USA.
Figures 49, 50, 51 Mistress Anne of Kent, UK

(c1963) Vintage images for John Sutcliffe, published in AtomAge
magazine Vol. 3 © John Sutcliffe/AtomAge magazine.
Figures 52 and 53 Jean Fischer of Ossining, New York

(c1960s) Vintage photograph © David Jackson, DDI magazine.
Figure 54 Artwork of Dominatrix with distinctive gloves resembling

those of Jean Fischer, by John Willie (J.S Coutts)
(c1962) Tempura & Watercolour artwork by John Willie (J.S Coutts).
Original is held in private collection. This image is also reproduced in
the book The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline by John Willie,
published by Bélier Press, Second Edition Revised and Enlarged (with
previously unpublished drawings and paintings), p. 348. ISBN: 0-
914646-48-6 © Bélier Press, Inc.
Figures 55 and 56 Anne Laurence, Upper Manhattan

(c1960s) Vintage photographs © David Jackson, DDI magazine.
Figure 57 Dutch Dominatrix Monique Von Cleef, New York

(c1963) Vintage photographs taken in Leonard (Lenny) Burtman’s
apartment for Bizarre Life magazine © Leonard Burtman, Bizarre Life
magazine and David Jackson, DDI Magazine.
Figure 58 Front cover of Bakersfield Californian on the police raid on

Von Cleef
(22 Dec, 1965) Bakersfield Californian newspaper, USA © Bakersfield
Californian.
Figure 59 Signed photograph of Monique Von Cleef in her ‘House of

Pain’, The Hague
(c1970s) Vintage photograph autographed by Von Cleef and given to
David Jackson © David Jackson, DDI magazine.
Figure 60 Monique Von Cleef in The Hague

(c1960s) Vintage colour photograph of Monique Von Cleef in her
‘House of Pain’ © David Jackson, DDI magazine.
Figure 61 Sadom Bea, The Hague

(c1970s) Vintage photograph, private collection. © David Jackson,
DDI magazine.
Figure 62 Miss Kenny, The Hague, on the cover of Domination

Directory International Magazine
(c1970s) Image of Miss Kenny by Bert Wibo reproduced on front
cover of DDI magazine Volume 1, Number 2, c1984 © Bert Wibo,
Massad Magazine and David Jackson, DDI magazine.
Figure 63 Brita Schmerse, Herbertstrasse, Germany

(Late 1970s) Vintage photograph © Bert Wibo, Massad Magazine and
David Jackson, DDI Magazine.
Figure 64 Mistress Gaby, Herbertstrasse, Germany

(c1980) Vintage photograph © Bert Wibo, Massad Magazine and
Figure 65 Nicole de Carje, Herbertstrasse, Germany

(c1982) Vintage photograph © Bert Wibo, Massad Magazine and
Figure 66 Artist Natasha Gornik, Mistress Alex Goes to Times Square I

(2013) New York, Limited edition digital print © Natasha Gornik.
Figure 67 Artist Natasha Gornik, Mistress Alex Goes to Times Square I

(2013) New York, Limited edition digital print © Natasha Gornik.
Figure 68 Artist Ian Reid, Thrill. (Mistress Darcy lets her slave into
her discreet lair.)
(2013) New York, Limited edition digital print © Ian Reid.
Figure 69 Artist Kate Peters, Mistress Absolute. (Portrait from the Yes
Mistress series.)
20 × 24" limited edition C-type hand print © Kate
Peters/INSTITUTE.
Figure 70 Artist Kate Peters, Madame Caramel. (Portrait from the Yes
Mistress series.)
Peters/INSTITUTE.
Figure 71 Artist Kate Peters, Mistress Jezabel. (Portrait from the Yes
Mistress series.)
Peters/INSTITUTE.
Figure 72 Artist Stuart Pearson Wright, Portrait of Mistress Jezabel

(2011) Oil on canvas, set within oval frame, 40 × 50 cm © Stuart
Pearson Wright.
Figure 73 Mistress Amanda Dwyer, Owner of Salon Kitty’s

Vintage photograph supplied by Mistress Amanda Dwyer © Salon
Kitty’s/Mistress Amanda Dwyer.
Figure 74 Salon Kitty’s ‘Red Dungeon Room’

Sydney, Australia. Photograph supplied by Mistress Amanda Dwyer ©
Salon Kitty’s / Mistress Amanda Dwyer.
Figure 75 Domina V in her Fluffy Boudoir – A Safe Place for Sissies,

Brighton, UK
Photographer H9 © Domina V.
Figure 76 Mistress Tokyo at play in her dungeon
Sydney, Australia. Photographer Lucas Konrad Messerer, from Soul
Focus Studio © Mistress Tokyo/Soul Focus Studio.
Figures 77a and 77b Cuntress Gabrielle and Mistress Electra Amore,
Fetish Palace, Adelaide
(2013) Adelaide, Australia. © Fetish Palace.
Figure 78 Artist Phil Miller, Portrait of Mistress Morrigan in her

dungeon
(2013) London, UK. Limited edition digital print. © Phil Miller.
Figure 79 Artist Phil Miller, Dungeon Images from the Lady’s Lair,
London
(2012) London, UK. Limited edition digital prints. © Phil Miller.
Figure 80 Artist Lucina Nathanael, Venus in Furs or Maîtresse Nuit’s

homage to L Von Sacher Masoch’s Ideal Woman
(2013) London, UK. Limited edition digital print © Lucina Nathanael
& Nuit d’Or.
Figure 81 Artist Lucina Nathanael, Heel

(2011) London, UK. Limited edition photographic print © Lucina
Nathanael & Nuit d’Or.
Figure 82 Artist Nuit d’Or, Le Noir 9

& Nuit d’Or.
Figure 83 Artist Lucina Nathanael, Heels & Whip

& Nuit d’Or.
Figure 84 Artist Nuit d’Or, Suspended Animation

& Nuit d’Or.
Figure 85 Artist Lucina Nathanael, Intimacy

& Nuit d’Or.
Figures 86a and 86b Artist Natasha Gornik, Domme Jaguar & couple
Limited edition photographic print © Natasha Gornik.
Preface
My journey into the world of the Dominatrix began in Melbourne,

Australia, five years ago. The inner-city suburb of Fitzroy was then
the domain of the city’s Dominatrices. A tramline makes a path
through the suburb’s heart, down the length of Brunswick Street,
lined with cafés, boutique stores and cocktail bars. Just a few minutes
walk from the main street were two dungeon establishments,
discreetly located within Victorian villas on leafy side streets.
At the time, I was managing a large design showroom, the car park
entrance of which was opposite one of the dungeon establishments.
My male work colleagues would be on the lookout for the arrival or
departure of one of these intriguing ladies, passing through the tall
front gate, carrying a duffle bag slung over shoulder, stuffed to the
brim.
The Dominatrices of Fitzroy then formed part of the cultural
geography of place. Stiletto high-heel boots clicked down Fitzroy
footpaths in confident strides. Each dungeon accommodated around a
dozen Dominatrices. You could on occasion catch a glimpse of them
at local vendors, in Atomica Coffee, in Black Pearl bar and in Polly
Lounge. Indeed the latter had a cocktail list that included a ‘Mistress’
and ‘Red Stiletto’ drink, in a seeming nod to its clientele, who often
frequented the bar after work.
I was in Polly Lounge bar one night with friends, lounging on
velvet chaises surrounded by Venus sculptures and Pre-Raphaelite
paintings; when on the seating area to my right, a woman ordered her
companion to kiss her foot.
‘Kiss my foot, slave’, is exactly what she said. He dropped to the
floor, obediently, to comply, kissing the toe of her foot in broad
daylight. Actually, I lie, it was chandelier light, but you get the
picture. I was shocked, amused and intrigued all at once! As were my
friends.
The opportunity to learn more presented itself when I was invited
to a birthday party of one of the Dominatrices. It was held on
Fitzroy’s Gertrude Street – a night fuelled by ‘dirty Russian martinis’. I
met around ten Dominatrices, all of whom worked in the same
dungeon. What startled me was learning about their backgrounds and
‘other’ occupations. One was a court and police translator who spoke
seven languages. One was a former children’s educator. One was a
trapeze artist in the circus. Another was studying Chinese medicine
and acupuncture. While another was studying permaculture and
irrigation of desert environments. These were the kind of women you
would love at a dinner party. Intelligent, articulate and compelling,
with an open-minded and independent perspective on the world.
Fascinating.
I asked them about the history of the Dominatrix, how long ‘She’
had been around. They didn’t know themselves. One thought the
Dominatrix was a twentieth-century phenomenon, a kind of post-war
evolution that paralleled women’s sexual liberation. Another told me
it went back to Victorian English times and school discipline. I asked
if they knew of a book on the topic. Heads nodded no, no, there’s no
book.1 Shrugs of shoulders.
Some things happened within the intertwining period, not all of
which I am able to share due to contractual restrictions in a blue
folder. To provide some sense of background, however, my father had
cancer, and I was thrown deep into grief as it progressed and
worsened, while simultaneously seeking out for him the best medical
treatment available in the more specialised hospitals overseas and
offering all my emotional support as best I could. I had also moved
jobs and felt very unchallenged and underutilised in my new role. A
combination of immense grief in my personal life, and boredom in my
working life. Ripe soil for the growth of an unusual flower.
I had a blackboard in my kitchen with a quote from Katherine
Mansfield (the short story writer and expatriate New Zealander).
Eating my breakfast each morning, I would look up and ingest its
words along with my toast and coffee:
Risk! Risk anything!
Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices.
Do the hardest thing on earth for you.
Act for yourself. Face the truth.
If people spend their lives worrying too much about what other
people think, proximity to death breaks down some of those
absorptions. And as one of my senior friends told me, ‘we’re all
fertilizer for grass, in the end. You don’t regret things you’ve done in
life so much as things you didn’t do, the opportunities you didn’t
take.’
I wanted to take up the challenge, and write the book on the
Dominatrix. And as I was facing dark fears of losing one of my closest
family members to cancer, other worries such as what other people
would think began to pale in comparison of magnitude.
The appeal of the dungeon was that of an ‘other world’ realm.
Learning about the Dominatrix promised insight into matters of
submission, suffering, acceptance and the secrets of people’s deepest
desires. There was also something about the discipline and facing of
fear in the dungeon, which I wanted (or perhaps needed) at that time.
The decision to write on their craft would change my path forever,
leading me into a clandestine double life, of days spent at my job and
evenings spent learning about the arts of these women. A year of
corsets, cages, whips … and inevitably of death. After being soaked in
grief and loss, and processing through it, I finally found the courage
to begin living again. To throw in my boring unstimulating job, to
move to Europe and study a Master’s degree in the field I was most
passionate about to my core being, and to simultaneously complete
my research on the Dominatrix.
My university department turned out to be located on Gordon
Square, where the subversive Bloomsbury Group of artists and writers
once frequented. I was within a few blocks of the British Museum in
one direction, and the British Library in the other. I was never far
either from the London dungeons in Marylebone. Most were located
on a lower-ground basement level, metaphorically as well as literally
underground, shutting out sight, light and sound from the outside
world. In the evenings, London offered a myriad of fetish events,
crossing over into subcultures of the Gothic scene, masquerade
parties, Torture Garden, play parties, Rubber Balls, Social ‘Munches’
and ‘Crunches’ (as they are variously known).
Through these interconnections, I had privileged access to all the
study material and personalities I could wish for to embark on my
project. I became friends with some of the world’s most famous
Dominatrices, and well regarded within their social circle.
My university studies and book were two distinctly separate
projects. Or at least so I thought. For as I came across the ancient
Goddess of Mesopotamia in my studies, I also came to encounter a
‘Dominatrix’ Goddess named Inanna. She was the patron deity of the
world’s major early city, Uruk (also known as Warka). It is from here
that the world’s first writing system has its origins, and early
monumental-scale architecture. In a case of the ‘Dominatrix and the
City’, Inanna activated sexuality, virility, fertility, bounty and battle
success for the benefit of her city. Her religion supported the
development of craft wisdom in Uruk, and within mythology she
acquires all the ‘mes’ for her city – the civilisation powers, which
included areas of wisdom, battle arts, craft knowledge, writing, and
extended to sexual arts. Human civilisation as we know it, was bound
tightly to a Dominatrix Goddess.
Inanna was depicted with the symbol of coiled reed columns linked
to the storehouse and sheepfold, and was connected to the star of
Venus and star-rosette, and to the lion. In ancient texts, Inanna (or
Ishtar as she is known in Akkadian) has a mysterious implement
called a keppû, used in rituals that appear to relate to domination
display. Then there is the hymn to Inanna as ‘Lady of the Largest
Heart’, in which Dominatrix rituals take place, involving gender
transformation, punishment, pain, lamentation and ecstasy. I could
hardly believe what I was reading. This hymn was linked to a
historical woman, whose name is recorded in the first-person, she
speaks, ‘I Enheduanna …’ This woman, Enheduanna, was a powerful
high En-Priestess, as well as the daughter of King Sargon, and thus a
princess. She was also devoted to the Goddess Inanna, and she seems
to have either written poetry or edited poetry in dedication to Inanna.
If the former, that she wrote the hymn (as many experts believe),
Enheduanna is the world’s first recorded author known in history.
Later religious practices to the Goddess Artemis Orthia of Sparta
featured whipping as part of initiation rites of young men.
Flagellation rituals appeared to have formed part of a number of
fertility and initiation rites within the ancient Mediterranean, and a
winged Priestess is depicted whipping a female initiate on the walls of
the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii.
Educated on the sacred roots of the Dominatrix rituals from my
studies, I sought to research the secular professional craft within
history. This proved initially to be more elusive than I imagined.
Dominatrices operate ‘between the cracks’, and no signage ever
marked their dungeon door. They are anonymous and pseudonymous,
adopting a Mistress ‘stage name’, and an alter ego with it, a super-self
rather than a ‘false’ self. Upon retirement, Dominatrices disappear
into thin air, or so it would seem. Shutting-up shop, with no contact
address nor ‘real’ (legal) name to track them down under. In the
1970s era of fetish magazine advertising, their photographs and
names are at least preserved in this medium, but before this time
there are few records of their existence. Many of the purported
images of early Dominatrices of the twentieth century turned out to
be just women staged in poses and scenes for commercial
photographers producing erotica and fetish images for sale.
Real Dominatrices of the early- and mid-twentieth century kept a
very low profile. Advertising was through little cards for a Dominant
Lady placed in tobacconist windows in Soho, and in telephone boxes.
Referrals were passed on by whispered world-of-mouth amongst
fellow seekers of female authority. Some Dominatrices risked
published advertisement in print medium, and where they did so,
they would veil their occupation in carefully selected language,
marketing themselves as a ‘Strict Disciplinarian’ School Mistress or
Governess.
One of the most useful leads to finding out how these women
practiced their secretive craft came from fetish magazine editors, who
had visited them and were connected with their clients within the
underground scene. One magazine editor, David Jackson, worked on
a unique archive that he calls the ‘Domina Files’, documenting
knowledge of early Dominatrices, most of whom were deceased.
Without Jackson’s effort, knowledge of these women would otherwise
have been lost to history, most particularly those early practitioners
of the 1950s and 1960s in the days before the fetish magazine
industry advertising had got into swing.
In England, the practicing Dominatrices would send clients to John
Sutcliffe of AtomAge for fetish attire and have custom catsuits made
up, in the same workrooms that constructed outfits for the television
series, The Avengers.
In the US, the small number of practicing Dominatrices were
known to slaves by discreet word-of-mouth. Contacting a Dominatrix
in real life to arrange a session involved ‘real cloak and dagger stuff’,
as one slave put it. Practitioners and their clients were often linked in
a web of interconnected private circles and acquaintances, by
clandestine meetings and underground mail-order magazines – whose
editors were frequently persecuted or prosecuted in the era. The US
Postal Service and law enforcement worked side-by-side in their
‘obscenity’ investigations.
One Dutch Dominatrix in the US, Monique von Cleef, found herself
the subject of a collaborative postal service and police operation raid
on her house in Newark, New Jersey, just days before Christmas of
1965. The raid would make front-page headlines around the US, with
photos of detectives brandishing Von Cleef’s whips for the camera.
Her client list was handed over to the FBI, and rooms of possessions
carted off. Von Cleef was sent to jail for four months, but later won
the case before the Supreme Court, which found the police had
abused their powers in their search-and-seizure.
By this time, Von Cleef moved to The Hague, which was one of the
capitals of female domination in the 1970s, catering to the politicians,
diplomats and lawyers located in or visiting the city. Dominatrices
elsewhere adapted to local conditions and law enforcement, variously
taking out a window in a sex strip, differentiated in their offerings
and well covered-up in their fetish clothing, surrounded by whips and
equipment. Some preferred to locate themselves away from the
mainstream sex industry, discreetly based over a shop or in a
residential location, with the space and privacy to have a large fit-out
of customised bondage furniture and specialist equipment.
The twentieth century was a very interesting era, during which the
term ‘Dominatrix’ was first coined and taken up into popular use. The
occupation itself, however, went back much further in history. Only
how to trace it? After making enquiries, I was soon on the trail of
prints and ‘forbidden books’ of the seventeenth to nineteenth
centuries, which are the main source of fragmentary information on
the ‘Governess’ Dominatrices of the period.
Many of these erotic books incorporating flagellation were
collected by Henry Spencer Ashbee. He was a man who appeared to
the outside world to be the consummate Victorian gentleman, but hid
a secret erotomania. Indeed so extensive was Ashbee’s collection of
erotica, that he was compelled to take out rooms in Gray’s Inn Square
in Holburn to accommodate his numerous volumes. Ashbee went on
to author and privately publish a bibliographic index of erotic books,
titled Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) under
the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi. It contains some of the most
important historical material on the Dominatrices of the era.
Upon his death, Ashbee bequeathed his books to the British
Museum. His collection of ‘forbidden books’ went into the museum’s
infamous ‘Private Case’. To access the ‘Private Case’, however, one
used to have to be an upper-class gentleman. Women and the lower
classes were protected (i.e. banned) from the Private Case books, as it
was believed they would corrupt. However, in more recent decades
and changing social values, the books were moved across to the
British Library’s ‘Rare Books’ collection, where I sought them out.
Although technically accessible to the public, Ashbee’s own
personal copy of his Index Librorum Prohibitorum is a restricted-access
item, due to its fragility, age, rarity and condition, rather than its
taboo contents. I had to apply for special permission in writing from
curators to view the book. Being that I was only too aware of the
importance of viewing this volume, I wrote a substantive access
application, outlining my research interests and academic credentials.
Thankfully, the British Library consented several days later, and a
viewing time slot was designated to me.
One must strip oneself of all possessions, bags and coats, before
entering the British Library’s Rare Books Reading Room. Entering
only with a clear see-through plastic bag, laptop and pencils (no
pens), past security guards at the entrance and exit. Books are called
up from the deep, via computer catalogues, and retrieved from the
vaults. After anticipated waiting, they are eventually delivered at a
counter desk, an altar, for collection. If the book is particularly rare
or valued, it can only be viewed at designated desks, under security
camera surveillance.
Travelling from a nearby dungeon to the British Library Reading
Rooms emphasised for me the fetish qualities of rare books; similarly
kept underground, precious, material in their qualities, leafed,
touched and treasured.
Ashbee was in fact a book fetishist, let’s not mince words, along
with, I suspect, most of those working in the British Library, drawn to
such a profession. I was converted to their religion that day, turning
the pages of Ashbee’s own beautiful volume of the Index Librorum
Prohibitorum, with an important handwritten letter by Frederick
Hankey interleafed in its pages, describing all the Governess
Dominatrices of the era preceding. A drawing of a whipping
apparatus, designed by Governess Dominatrix Theresa Berkley, is also
reproduced in Ashbee’s book.
It was an exquisitely poignant moment, reading about historical
Dominatrices, in a book that had, for decades, been denied from
access to women, lest it corrupt. Oh the irony – a bit late for that, I’d
say.
I also located an important book from an earlier era of the
eighteenth century, in which ‘beautiful ladies’ were offering
Fashionable Lectures Delivered With Birch Discipline, in roles of Step-
Mother or Governess within theatrically staged role-plays. In a clever
form of marketing tie-in, female flagellants were promoted by the
book. Its frontispiece contains the names of 57 women, many of
whom went on to become the most famous courtesans and beauties of
their era in England. Courtesans such as Kitty Fisher, Fanny Murray,
Lucy Cooper, Nancy Parsons, Peg Woffington, to name but a few.
These ‘birch disciplinarians’ became well known and immortalised by
artists in paintings and prints, which hang in public art collections
and stately homes around the world.
With flagellation prints sourced from the British Museum and even
the Library of Congress in Washington DC, my book was beginning to
take shape. It was also turning into one of those projects that had you
any idea of the work involved, one would never have started. The
topic was made all the more challenging by the fact that there was so
little written on the Dominatrix, and therefore so much of the
research was original. There were numerous books on other subjects
such as the Japanese geisha or the French courtesans. Why was there
so little on the Dominatrix?
The reason I’m sure – aside from the research challenges – is
because of the secretive, subversive and taboo nature of the
Dominatrix’s domain. The Dominatrix is an archetype of female sexual
power, and those three words together form one of the most loaded
groupings imaginable, in a world dominated by big patriarchal
religions such as Christianity and Islam, which have sought to enforce
women’s obedience, submission and modesty.
The moral conventions restraining and safeguarding women’s
sexuality have played out largely in parallel to private property and
patriarchal control, designed to guarantee certainty of paternity and
investment in offspring. Such codes are inherently territorial. They
are based around land and property, of which women were
considered to be property. Patriarchal religion reinforced moral codes
aimed at ensuring women’s chastity before marriage, fidelity within
marriage and submission to her husband, while the obligations on
males were the reciprocal exchange of security, protection and
invested provision of his wife and family. Women were meant to be
somewhat weak and submissive creatures, and men to be strong
providers; this created unnatural pressures on both, repressing
natures and desires. The suffragette movement to establish the vote
for women was perceived as revolutionary and subversive in its time,
challenging long-established gender and power positions.
The Dominatrix upholds the woman in control, wielding her sexual
power over men, who are at her mercy. The long history of the
Dominatrix suggests that there is something very important, and
necessary, to her role in society. The image of a powerful sexual
woman to worship. Dealing with fetish, receiving and embracing
alternative sexual identities, overturning and offering relief from fixed
social roles, holding knowledge on psychological states of submission
and ecstasy.
The Dominatrix operates along civilisation’s fault lines, dancing
along the liminal edges where its floating crust drops into a bubbling
magma of underground desire. A chaotic and flowing heat, which we
seek to suppress within society and within ourselves, frightened by its
power and potentially destructive properties. (We paint it as Dante’s
Inferno, a fiery hell, we rightly fear to read.)
We need, however, an amount of heat, gases and minerals to be
brought to the surface we inhabit. And indeed the Dominatrix taps
into this world of suppressed desires and identities, relieving its
pressures. She not only plays out fantasy, but raises jewels of wisdom
on self-knowledge, suffering, ecstasy, acceptance, mercy and wisdom.
She unites the heavenly with the base, for there is equally the earthy,
bodily, sexual and the human, in her work.
The Dominatrix applies a combination of intuition and insight into
her practices. By her open mind and heart, she attracts a variety of
followers with different nuances. She draws upon her deep
understanding of the psyche, sexuality, human desires and needs,
along with her practical skills, expertise, specialist tools and
equipment to perform her craft.
Before I could complete the book, I had to sit with and consider
how to describe her practices in a manner more cohesive than an
alphabetical A to Z index, or dropped into the catch-all term of
‘BDSM’. What I came up with, after much careful consideration, was
the classification of ‘Seven Realm Arts’. As best I was able, these
practices go to the heart of the Dominatrix’s craft.
So taboo are these, that when it came time to take the book
forward to print, publishers wanted to expurgate significant sections
by way of censorship. Doubts were raised over whether it would be
possible to obtain permissions from the world’s highest museums to
reproduce artwork from their collections in a book on the Dominatrix.
Publishers also didn’t want to incur the costs associated with image
permissions and colour plates.
Disheartening though this was to hear, I pushed ahead with the
project the way I originally conceived of it. I applied for permissions
to reproduce the illustrations and important archival material from
each museum in turn. I found an independent private publishing
company, with whom I had an affinity on vision and aesthetic. And
one by one, each and every museum I sent a request for imaging
permissions, accepted my proposal.
This meant the book could go ahead with all the important
artworks and historical material, gathered from the British Museum,
British Library, Iraq Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge,
Oriental Institute of Chicago, Yale Center for British Art, Penn
Museum, and so on. These sit alongside the vintage fetish images of
historic Dominatrices, and contemporary art on the modern-day
Dominatrix to elucidate her practices. Driven by a conviction that it
was an important publication to exist in libraries and in the collective
knowledge pool, it has come to be printed with the material it
deserves to contain.
Amusingly and ironically, it’s also ended up as a ‘forbidden book’.
Like many of the historical forbidden books, it has been privately
printed with colour plate images, risqué and subversive content,
under a pseudonym (of Anne O Nomis, a wordplay on ‘anonymous’).
The print edition revives qualities of the traditional craft of the
book, and its delicious tactile appeal, quarter-bound in arlin. It should
be well suited to libraries, collectors and book fetishists alike. I’m sure
Ashbee will be smiling contentedly down from the heavens with
delight. (Or waving up from hell, where he’s enjoying himself,
whichever the case may be.)
It is a fitting end to this journey, and I want to express a huge
thank you to everyone involved in aiding me to see the book into
existence.
I dedicate the book to all Dominatrices, their whip-wielding
forebears throughout history, and to those who have laid themselves
bare at Her feet.
Anne O Nomis, 2013
Endnote
1 This is the first book published on the history of the Dominatrix.
Some of the most utilized books on BDSM practices are:
Wiseman, J. SM101: A Realistic Introduction (US: Greenery Press,
1997) and Miller, P. and Devon, M. Screw the Roses, Send Me the
Thorns: The Romance and Sexual Sorcery of Sadomasochism (UK:
Mystic Rose Books, 2002). On the topic of female lifestyle/domestic
domination, see Powers, Mistress Lorelei, The Mistress Manual: The
Good Girl’s Guide to Female Dominance (US: Greenery Press, 2001)
and Sutton, E. Female Domination: An Exploration of the Male Desire
for Loving Female Authority (Lulu Books, 2003). An academic
sociological perspective on the professional Dominatrix was
recently published by Lindemann, D. Gender, Eroticism and Control
in the Dungeon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
A Warning About Language
This book includes adult themes in relation to sexuality, fetish and

practices of BDSM (Bondage and Discipline [B&D],
Domination/submission [D/s], and Sadism and Masochism [S/M]). It
is suitable for mature, open-minded readers. Some of the writing is
inevitably erotic or explicit in content.
In defiance of the conventions of English language, you will see a
lot of capitalisation in the spelling of Dominatrices, Goddesses, ‘Her’
and ‘She’. This may be jarring for some, irritating to others, regarded
as incorrect by many. The capitalisation, however, is intentional. Just
as the Christian ‘God’ is capitalised, so too are the ‘Goddesses’ here.
One of the challenges of writing a book about Dominatrices is that
the English language does not have feminine equivalents for some
words that exist in masculine form. In English, we use the word
‘mastery’ to refer to the command and possession of skills, and the
person who achieves this is a ‘master’. The word ‘mistress’ does not
have the equivocal meaning in English, nor is there a word
‘mistressery’. (And perhaps there should be!)
You’ll see some ‘odd’ looking ideas and expressions, and
translations from ancient languages that have been flavoured by
different views on female power and sexuality than your own. In
some cases, ancient words don’t have a nice, simple equivalent in
modern-day English. (In ancient Sumerian, for example, ‘Nin’ means
Lady, Priestess, Proprietress, Mistress, Queen [in approximate
translation].) I’ve tried, where possible, to explain these as best I can
in the language that’s accessible. I make no apologies, however, for
the initial jarring effect of reading about women who are capitalised
with power.
Eventually, you shall submit to ‘Her’ language and control over this
book.
Chapter I
The Ancient Dominatrix Goddess and

Her Priestess Initiates
Dominatrix rituals date back thousands of years, to sacred practices of

Goddess religion. Archaeologists have uncovered texts written in
cuneiform script on clay tablets that describe rites carried out on
initiates involving gender transformations, punishment, pain and
ecstasy. These rituals were practised in honour of a ‘Dominatrix
Goddess’ named ‘Inanna’ (‘Ishtar’ in Akkadian). She was a Goddess of
‘fearsome divine powers’, who held domination over libido, vigour,
allure, and battle power.
The ancient hymns exalting the Goddess Innana’s Dominatrix traits
are linked back to an historical high En-Priestess named Enheduanna,
who was the daughter of King Sargon, and lived around the time of
2285–2250 BCE. She speaks in the first-person within one of the major
Dominatrix hymns, and is believed to be the first author recorded in
human history.1
The Goddess Inanna, who is honoured in the hymns, was an ancient
Goddess of the grainhouse and the Star of Venus. She promoted
vigour, fertility, production and reproduction, increasing population
and success in ancient civilisation – the first writing system and
monumental architecture emerging from the Goddess precinct.
This is the story of civilisation that you weren’t taught at school …
a tale of the Dominatrix, sex and the ancient city.
The Dominatrix, Sex and the (ancient) City

The body of ‘Dominatrix literature’ comes in the form of religious
hymns to a Goddess named Inanna. She was the major female deity in
ancient Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers, in what is modern-day Iraq. This region was part of the ‘fertile
crescent’, where civilisation flourished, and the hallmarks we
associate with civilisation developed: writing, administration systems,
monumental architecture, complex irrigation systems, grain surpluses,
a city-sized population (upwards of 50,000).
Inanna held reign over the major city of the time, the city of Uruk
(also known as ‘Warka’, and ‘Erech’ in biblical texts). At around
3000 BCE, Uruk was at its peak. Its population had reached city size.
Within the city’s central heart was the Goddess Inanna’s precinct,
known as the ‘Eanna’, where the temple buildings were located and
the city’s administration and crafts carried out. It is from the
Goddess’s Eanna district that the world’s first writing system
emerged. It was used initially for administration, and as it developed
– for recording king lists, religious hymns, myths and the ‘Epic of
Gilgamesh’. It was also in the Eanna district that archaeologists found
the first examples of monumental-scale architecture.
Most people are, however, unaware that these ‘hallmarks of
civilisation’ developed from a Goddess-held area – a Goddess whose
power was sexual. It is attributable to the conservative ‘leftovers’ of
Victorian ideology and the clash of religious values in the major
modern religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) that this story is
not well known or told.
Archaeologists have excavated parts of the ancient city of Uruk (or
Warka), and amongst the finds there was the first life-sized sculpture
of a human face ever found. It was the marble head of a woman, a
sculpture that was named the Lady of Warka. This ‘Lady’ is believed
to represent the Goddess Inanna herself (see Figure 1).
Dumuzi as king.
Inanna was not some throwback to an ‘uncivilised’ era. The reverse
is in fact true – Inanna made civilisation possible. What drove
production and reproduction in the ancient city was vigour,
domination and erotic allure. Men brought offerings of food and
tributes to the temple district. There were healthy grain surpluses and
livestock were robust and productive. Precious stones and resources
were brought to the city from far away, crafts were nurtured beside
the Goddess, and wonderful festivals and celebrations attracted
people and invigorated its inhabitants. In the Eanna district of the
Goddess, civilisation was nurtured with erotic vigour.
A vessel known as the Warka Vase depicts scenes of offerings made
to her temple. It resides in the Baghdad Museum, but is in pieces,
having been stolen during the chaos of the Iraq War in 2003, and
placed at number one on the ‘Most Wanted Antiquities List’.2 It was
later returned in an amnesty but broken into 14 pieces. (The Lady of
Warka was also stolen, and was found buried in a farmer’s backyard
under a foot of soil. Thankfully it was not damaged, only requiring a
clean after the ordeal.)
A photo of the Uruk Vase before the theft shows bounty production,
offerings and tribute brought by naked men to the Goddess (see
Figure 2). (Modern-day Dominatrices reading this book are no doubt
nodding their heads in approval at the thought of naked men made to
labour and bring tribute to the Goddess. The contemporary language
of money and gifts brought to Dominatrices is actually called ‘tribute
to the Goddess’.) On the bottom registers are plants and sheep. On the
uppermost register is the presentation of offerings to the Goddess
Inanna and the figure of a woman who is probably the high En-
Priestess. The two pillar-shaped forms that curl off at the top, behind
the priestess, are symbols that stood for the Goddess Inanna.
reed.) This symbol linked the grain house with the vaginal tract, to be
filled, with seed, with milk, with plenty. There was a correlation
between filling up the storehouse, and provision of m’Lady – to bring
her what ‘She’ desires.
Goddess of the Storehouse: Milk and Grain and Plenty

The origins of Inanna are as Goddess of the sheepfold storehouse and
as the radiant star of Venus. The Uruk Trough in the British Museum
depicts this connection (see Figure 3a).
The entrance to the sheepfold storehouse is depicted in imagery on
the vessel’s side, with sheep entering and lambs emerging from either
side. Projecting out from the top of the hut is Inanna’s ancient symbol
– the reedposts with spiral ends. The shape also recalls the rising
ascension of the Venus star, and the form of the female vaginal tract.
It is a shape that was familiar from birthing of sheep and knowledge
of sexual intercourse. The sprouting seed, as it comes up from the
soil, forms this shape. The female vulva and vaginal tract, the storage
house and sheepfold, were interwoven concepts. On the side of the
vessel, is the ‘star-rosette’ symbol of Inanna. It is an amalgamation of
the Venus star and a flower in bloom. It is depicted on the side-view
of the ritual trough-shaped vessel, along with sheep and the reedpost
(see Figure 3b).
in which Inanna plaintively asks ‘Who will plough my holy vulva?’.
Dumuzi, the shepherd god, answers to her call: ‘I Dumuzi will plough
your holy vulva’. ‘Then plough … man of my heart!’, she replies.
Archaeologists and textual scholars are in debate over whether there
was a literal performance enacting the sexual union of the King and
high En-Priestess at the climax of Inanna’s festival, or whether it was
an imagined mythological act.
Whether it was or wasn’t a ‘real’ live sacred sex act performed is
irrelevant to the underlying theme. Healthy vigourous sexuality, the
woman’s active part, desirous, wanting her vulva to be filled, was a
celebration of libido, (re)production and bounty.
Inanna ritually prepared by bathing, wearing precious jewels and
lining her eyes with black kohl, in erotic anticipation of the event.
Dumuzi brings offerings, and often there is butter and cream and
metaphors of milk-churning, the rhythm and energy of labour.
Lettuce sprouting is a metaphor for growth, erection, vigour and life.
The seed is planted. The tree is watered. The apple ripens. Seed and
fluid, action and activity with vigour ensures growth and bounty.
What happens when Inanna descends to the underworld is that all
sexual activity ceases on earth:
the bull would not mount the cow, the donkey would not impregnate the
she-donkey,
the young man would not impregnate the girl in the street,
the young man has slept in his private room,
the young woman has slept by herself.3
Inanna’s holy vulva, her erotic allure and glistening radiance, were
worshipped.
The celebration of powerful female sexuality may well go back tens
of thousands of years and longer, into prehistory. There are, for
example, Upper Paleolithic finds of small figurines that represent
voluptuous females, which date back to between 35,000 and
10,000 BCE. They are often referred to (perhaps misleadingly so) as
‘Venus figurines’. The reason they’re grouped together for discussion,
despite coming from sites scattered around Siberia and Europe over a
vast period of time, is because they share a number of attributes.
They’re large-bodied, voluptuous, with pendulous breasts, wide hips
and their vulva incised to denote the labia. Their head and face,
however, receive very little attention or detail. It seems that what is
important is their sexuality, their abundant female form. Some people
have presumed they’re pregnant, but this is not necessarily the case.
The body type differs from our modern culture’s emphasis on fit and
slender bodies as the model of beauty. In the Upper Paleolithic Ice
Age, this could well have been the body type of a woman who had
attracted good provision of food, enjoyed sex, survived and
flourished. The body of a matriarch – a figure of sexuality, fertility
and abundance.4
As there was no written language recorded so far back in history,
their meaning is unknown. There is, however, one image of a
voluptuous ‘Venus’ figure carved into a limestone rock, which may
provide some clue. She stands with an upraised horn – likely a
fertility symbol (see Figure 4). The rock carving is known as the
Venus of Laussel, named after the cave in France where she was found,
dating back to 20,000 BCE. The horn she raises resembles a
cornucopia – a ‘horn of plenty’ as it is later known. We don’t know if
it had the same kind of meaning so far back in prehistory. The horn is
shaped like a crescent and has 13 notches inscribed within it. This
could be an arbitrary number, but there are notably 13 lunar moon
cycles and menstrual cycles each year. The crescent moon is used as a
symbol, mainly by women, in ethnographic tribes around the world.5
Many Goddesses throughout history have also had the crescent moon
or horn as one of their symbols.6
well as birds of prey – with talons. The Anatolian Goddess Cybele, for
example, was associated with the lion, the hawk (as a bird of prey)
and the mountain. The well-known UK historian Bethany Hughes
describes the Goddess Cybele portrayed in a large sculpture, which
was once set into a niche within the mountain as ‘a kind of
Dominatrix, guarding and ruling over a vast landscape’.7 These same
elements that would characterise the Goddess Cybele seemingly
carried through to Inanna. She is represented by the fierce lion, the
bird(s) of prey, the mountains and entrance to the ‘Netherworld’.
One of the treasures of the British Museum is the Queen of the Night,
a baked clay relief, depicting a woman who is believed to be Inanna
(see Figure 6). The Lady wears the horned headdress of divinity and
holds a rod and reel in each hand, denoting her Goddess status. She
rides on a pair of lions. Her feet are those of a bird of prey, and she is
framed by a pair of owls who hunt nocturnally. The Goddess displays
a ‘fierce sexuality’, simultaneously powerful and alluring. Her breasts
are prominent in the relief plaque, and her nipples and pubic triangle
would have been highlighted by colour contrast in the plaque’s
pigmentation (which has been lost through time’s passage.) The
Goddess’s jewellery would have been coloured to evoke gold, lapis
lazuli and carnelian.8
her sexuality.
This image of powerful sexuality finds its literary counterpart in
‘Dominatrix literature’. Written as hymns to the Goddess Inanna, the
texts are linked to a woman named Enheduanna. They describe the
Goddess’s powers of domination, a mysterious implement called a
keppû – used in her holy ‘games’, and Dominatrix rituals involving
gender transformation and pain.
Enheduanna and the Dominatrix Literature

Enheduanna lived around 2285–2250 BCE. She is one of the earliest
women we know about on the historical record, and the daughter of
King Sargon. She held the powerful role of high En-Priestess to the
Moon God Nanna and female consort Ningal (meaning ‘great
Lady/Queen’). Enheduanna was also very much devoted to the
Goddess Inanna, and speaks in the first person within a hymn to the
Goddess Inanna. Further evidencing her role as author or editor, the
‘Temple Hymns’ that are associated with her name end with the line:
‘The compiler of the tablets was Enheduanna. My king, something has
been created that no one has created before.’11
Enheduanna’s powerful role is not doubted by anyone in
archaeology. She held one of the highest positions available in
religion, and is connected to a body of religious texts, copied out
repeatedly, long after her death. The main point substantially under
debate is whether she wrote the hymns herself as their author, or
edited existing hymns by re-crafting them, before bringing them
together as a body of work. Her style is so distinctive, that experts in
Sumerian language can recognise her expression.
There is an image of Enheduanna, in her role as high Priestess, on a
stone disc that archaeologists uncovered in the city of Ur (see
Figure 9). It was found in the temple of the Goddess Ningal. The
reason we know the disc is of Enheduanna is because it’s conveniently
inscribed. (On the reverse side, Enheduanna is recorded as the
dedicator of the object.)
The power of heroism, power of war plundering, power of making ritual
lamentations, power of managing celebrations, power of agriculture and the
sheepfold, power of awe, power of reverence, power of respect, the ritual
objects of power – the scepter, staff and crook, specialist priestesses and
priests, ability to ascend (into the heavens) and descend, craft of ritual
hairstyling, art of sex, art of kissing of the phallus, art of prostitution, power
of the holy tavern, power of making fire, craft of music, craft of eldership,
the craft of scribeship (writing), the craft of copper work, craft of leather
work, craft of building and basket weaving from reeds, power and
knowledge of giving wise counsel, power of judgment, and power of
decision-making.15
She takes off with all the ‘mes’ powers in her boat of heaven, and
once her father comes to his senses and realises he’s given her all the
powers, he sends his minister after his daughter to make her return
them. Inanna, however, holds her position staunchly. She tells the
minister that her father gave her the ‘mes’, holds him to his word, and
she continues onto her city of Uruk.16
By these means, Inanna and her city of Uruk came to hold all the
powers (in mythology). There was a historical basis of truth to the
myth. These ‘mes’ powers were the strengths and attributes that made
Uruk the powerful city it was.
Male historians tend to emphasise ‘grain surplus’, empire and metal
technology in their story of civilisation, and often neglect to see the
importance of rituals, celebrations, hairdressing, ‘holy’ taverns, the
power of sex, and … apparently, the art of the blow job. Sex was
made important to the ancient city, with a Dominatrix Goddess
symbolically holding its power.
The Warrior Goddess and her Dance of Domination

(with a Whip?)
Inanna’s domination was aimed over various men, gods and foreign
states. One of the ancient sacred texts on Inanna’s powers of
domination over the mountains of Ebih, in which she is depicted as a
Warroriess Dominatrix and likened to a roaring lion, reads:
Goddess of the fearsome divine powers, clad in terror, riding on the great
divine powers. In heaven and earth you roar like a lion … Like a huge wild
bull you triumph over lands which are hostile. Like a fearsome lion you
pacify the insubordinate and unsubmissive with your gall.17
Inanna as a ‘Dominatrix Goddess’ forces men and mountains to bow

down to her in submission:
Since they did not act appropriately of their own initiative, since they did
not put their noses to the ground for me, since they did not rub their lips in
the dust for me, I shall fill my hand with the soaring mountain range and let
it learn fear of me … I shall storm it and start the ‘game’ of holy Inanna.18
Inanna has a very special ‘game’ or ‘dance’, which was held as

being sacred and holy. It involved a mysterious implement called a
keppû. It’s mentioned in a number of texts, and for a long time this
keppû has baffled scholars.
It was mistakenly thought to be a skipping rope, based on a glyptic
scene that shows Inanna holding up what was thought to be a
skipping rope, arced over her head. This, however, turned out to be
completely wrong. The supposed skipping rope was actually a
depiction of Inanna as a young woman raising up her skirt. The
purported skipping rope was actually the hemline of her dress
raised.19 (Ah yes, Inanna was certainly a ‘cock tease’.)
So it was back to the drawing board for archaeologists; and the
mystery thickened. One of the leading scholars in translating ancient
texts, Pirjo Lapinkivi, noticed that the keppû was used with the verb
šutakpû – meaning ‘to make bend, to make whirl around’. It was used
in the Goddess’s playground, or playspace.20 Stephane Dalley
proposed that it may be a ‘whip(ing) top’.21 The object, however,
seemed to have also been brandished as a weapon.22
Any Dominatrix reading this book, is going to be more or less
squealing ‘it’s a whip!’, or similar domination implement. A modern
Dominatrix indeed wields whips, floggers, cat o’ nine tails, canes,
tawses, paddles, all referred to as her ‘toys’. Her domination activities
are described as ‘her play’, and her dungeon chamber is referred to as
her ‘playspace’.
Is the Goddess Inanna’s mysterious keppû implement a whip (or
museums and private collections around the world may reveal the
solution, and there is still much to be revealed under the sands of
Mesopotamia in future archaeological digs.
In the meantime, though, no doubt Dominatrices will be placing
their bets.
Dominatrix Rituals of Gender Transformation, Ecstasy

and Pain
The sacred rituals of Inanna resemble practices of modern-day
Dominatrices, which include gender transformation ceremonies,
punishment, pain, ecstasy, lamentations and bringing about altered
states of consciousness.
The Hymn to Inanna (or ‘Lady of the Largest Heart’) reads:
To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna
[your powers].26
The Goddess reportedly had the power to transform men into

women, and women into men. These practices were not just
mythological, but actually practiced.
The transformation of gender is very interesting, as modern-day
Dominatrices also engage in practices of ‘forced feminisation’, ‘sissy-
training’ and other play around ‘gendering’. These often take place in
a feminine ‘boudoir’ space – equipped with wigs, make-up, frilly and
‘slutty’ female clothing, jewellery, hosiery, high heels and boots. The
Dominatrix offers a ‘safe place’ with an open mind and heart that
welcomes all gender identities. People with transgender identities
(who identify with or wish to be the opposite gender), as well as
those with transvestite desires (who desire to wear the attire of the
opposite gender), often seek out the Dominatrix for her skills in this
area. The Dominatrix also undertakes ‘forced feminisation’ and cross-
dressing, or mixing of male and female elements – androgyny, to
emphasise that her realm is outside of social restrictions and
normative gender roles and pressures.
Betty De Shong Meador describes Inanna’s gender transformation
rituals as honouring the ceremonial aspect of persons of ambiguous
gender identification. She notes that the young woman in the gender-
crossing ritual is described using the Sumerian word ‘la-la’, meaning
‘the vigour of a young man in his prime’.27 Inanna’s temple personnel
included people who were androgynous and sexually ambivalent,
28
eunuchs, hermaphrodites, transvestites and sexual submissives, who
all had a place within the Goddess’s heart. Some were seemingly
given roles as singers, entertainers and drummers in service at
Goddess festivities.
The passage of the Hymn to Inanna, which documents the
Dominatrix rituals is partially broken. From what we can make out,
the Goddess opens ‘the door of wisdom and makes known its interior’.
It reads:
Those who do not respect her suspended net do not escape … when she
suspends the meshes of her net. The man she has called by name she does
not hold in esteem. Having approached the woman, she breaks the weapon
and gives her a spear. The male gîšgisagˆkeš, the nisub and the female gîšgi
ritual officiants, after having … punishment, moaning … The ecstatic, the
transformed pilipili, the kurgâra and the sagûrsagˆ … Lament and song …
They exhaust themselves with weeping and grief, they … laments.29
Is the ‘suspended net’ a bondage suspension net (as used by

modern-day Dominatrices), or is the line merely metaphorical?
Translators are not sure. Elsewhere the hymn is certainly full of the
visual imagery of domination. The Goddess Inanna is described as
‘The mistress, an eagle that lets no one escape’, and as ‘a huge shackle
clamping down on the gods’.30
She dominates the gods within the hymn, who are forced to bow
down and abase themselves before Inanna, kissing the earth and
prostrating before the Goddess.31
The ritual described is imbued with pain and ecstasy, bringing
about initiation and journeys of altered states of consciousness;
punishment, moaning, ecstasy, lament and song, participants
exhausting themselves in weeping and grief.32 These are states that
modern Dominatrices use to bring about cathartic release, along with
a wash of endorphins, emotions and ‘sub-space’ experienced as going
on a journey or as flying.
The En-Priestess Enheduanna, speaks dramatically in the first
person within the hymn, proclaiming devotion: ‘My lady … mercy …
compassion … I am yours!’
She makes a plea for mercy from the Goddess, noting, ‘my body has
experienced your great punishment’.33
Enheduanna’s ‘punishment’ has long been assumed to relate to
oppression or expulsion from the temple, but does Enheduanna
actually refer to physical punishment and pain? Unfortunately a
significant chunk of the text is missing from breaks within the clay
fragment. (The word ‘mercy’ is the most common plea used by slaves
within Dominatrices’ sessions, and is commonly used as the
negotiated ‘safe word’.)
Blood sacrifice is a rite of religious devotion and transcendence of
the body that is performed cross-culturally around the world. In the
Christian tradition, flagellation and ‘mortification of the body’ were
practiced in monasteries by monks and saints.
Modern-day Dominatrices utilise floggers, whips, needle and
bloodplay to push their subject into acceptance of pain in devotion
and submission. People undertaking these practices experience an
‘endorphin high’, in which they feel as though they’re flying or
floating, leaving their body, and going on a journey. They also often
report a sense of cathartic release, ecstasy and processing of wisdom,
revelation and insights, which can occur over several days after the
experience.
In Mesopotamia, ritual dress pins may have been used for piercing
the flesh. There were numerous dress pins made in silver and gold
found in the ‘Tombs or Ur’, and strangely, some two millennia later,
similar dress pins were found at the site of the Goddess Artemis
Orthia in Sparta. It is interesting that this same site held ceremonies
involving the whipping of young men in honour of a Goddess …
The ‘Whipstress’ and the Mysteries

A ritual called the diamastigosis (flagellation) was performed on young
men (ephebes), in honour of the Goddess Artemsis Orthia of Sparta.
The ceremony was an initiation, described here by the historian
Pausanias:
By them stands the priestess, holding the wooden image. Now it is small and
light, but if ever the scourgers spare the lash because of a lad’s beauty or
high rank, then at once the priestess finds the image grow so heavy that she
can hardly carry it. She lays the blame on the scourgers, and says that it is
their fault that she is being weighed down. So the image ever since the
sacrifices in the Tauric land keeps its fondness for human blood.34
The Goddess’s name ‘Orthia’ meant standing upright, straight or

erect. This may have been the statue of the Goddess, which was
upright erect, or it may have also had a connotation to the sexual
arousal she invoked. Ithyphallic sculptures with erect penises were
excavated at the site, alongside the dress pins, masks and female
figurines.35
Amongst the finds were small lead votives depicting a Warrioress
Goddess with arrows visible on her back and a headdress (see
Figure 14). Another figure depicts a woman with wings holding an
implement that was probably a whip, based on the historical accounts
of the flagellation ceremony (see Figure 15).
‘Philommedes’, which can be interpreted as sexy ‘smile-loving’ or
37
‘testicle-loving’. Her origins hint at the word-play and association
with semen – she was born fully formed from the ‘aphros’ of sea foam
of the castrated genitals of Uranus.
The female poet Sappho wrote in devotion of the Goddess
Aphrodite from the island of Lesbos, talking about Aphrodite’s ‘hard
pains’:
Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind (inlaid throne),
child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
O lady, my heart.38
The Overthrow of the Priestess and Goddess Figures

It would be impossible to discuss the subject of the Dominatrix
Goddess and not address the influence of the patriarchal religions of
Christianity and Islam, in which female sexuality was made passive,
controlled and in service of the husband. Whereas for thousands of
years various Goddesses had held power over sexuality, fertility and
allure, which was celebrated in the ancient world, these Goddesses
were soon to be killed off by male-dominated monotheism. With
them, the powerful Priestesses were also overthrown.
In the Bible, the Priestess Jezebel is symbolically cast out of the
window, a ‘painted woman’ (2 Kings 9-30). Archeologists have
recovered sculpted female heads from a drain in Jordan, and the
‘woman in the window’ appears as a motif in Nimrud ivories and in a
maquette of a temple building in Cyprus. It appears that the Goddess
religion associated with Astarte and other sexual Goddesses of the
Eastern Mediterranean once had female heads mounted
architecturally within the window frames of the temple. These
sculpted female heads would have been decorated with precious inlay
of lapis lazuli and other stones, beautified and made sacred.
These Goddesses of sexuality and their Priestesses, played an
important role in the celebration of allure, vitality, fertility and union,
which were an important part of ensuring cities and civilisations were
vital, productive, blossoming, producing and reproducing. The
Goddesses and Priestesses were, however, overthrown by the
establishment of religiously institutionalised patriarchal male control
over private property and male bloodlines. By controlling female
sexuality, whereby women were property passed from father to
husband, legitimate offspring would be ensured along with guarantee
of paternity. Chastity before marriage was enforced. Adultery and
sexual acts outside marriage were punished.
Women came to be excluded from high positions within clergy.
‘Priestesses’ have been unheard of in the Western world and the
Middle East for centuries, with the Anglican Church being one of the
few that allows women as priests – and not without controversy.
Meanwhile religious advice and rulings issue forth from male priests
and clerics on topics from contraception and abortion to limitations
around women’s clothing, and obedience and submission to husbands
in marriage.
The Dominatrix poses threat to the social order – to male
dominance – at the same time, she arouses. When I came to write this
book, I was interested in the taboo effect of the word. Indeed it was
kind of a taboo of a taboo (of a taboo), layered up and upon itself.
On the one hand it is the woman cast as harlot, as sexual, as
prostitutional and as upfront. (In illustrations, too, she is facing,
upfront and confrontational.) On the other, she is not appeasing and
submissive to male authority. She is demanding and seeks to be in
control herself. Using her powers of beauty, allure and wisdom, she is
most terrifying to men because they fear losing control and being
brought down by their desire for a woman.
The powerful history of the Dominatrix Goddess and Priestesses
reveals how important she was in the emergence of cities associated
with early civilisation and literature. The high Priestesses embraced
sexuality’s mystical wisdom and power, held knowledge of altered
states of consciousness, of gender play and submission; and variant
forms of sexual identity were embraced within their practices. People
of ‘third gender’, who were otherwise shunned by society, were
provided with a role and identity. Her festivals were colourful and
celebratory, drawing people to the city from afar, bringing with them
their craft knowledge and material resources set up in proximity to
the temple. The practices of the Dominatrix Goddess invigorated the
people from deep within their loins. She encouraged union and
fertility, production and abundance, Warrioress powers, to the benefit
of the city and for a flourishing civilisation.
Endnotes
1 Hafford, B. ‘Ur Digitization Project: Item of the Month June 2012’
(Disc of Enheduanna) Penn Museum (2012). Available online at
(http://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/ur-digitization-project-
item-of-the-month-june-2012/); see also: De Shong Meador, B.
Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart, Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess
Enheduanna (University of Texas Press, 2010); and De Shong
Meador, B. Princess, Priestess, Poet: The Temple Hymns of Enheduanna
(University of Texas Press, 2010).
2 See: Iraq Museum Database
(http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/Iraqdatabasehome.htm)
and Emergency Red List of Iraqi Antiquities at Risk
(http://icom.museum/resources/red-lists-database/red-list/iraq/).
3 Lapinkivi, Pirjo, ‘The Descent of Inanna to the Underworld’, The
Neo-Assyrian Myth of Istar’s Descent and Resurrection (Helsinki: Neo-
Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2010), p. 31; Black, J., Cunningham,
G., Robson, E. and Zolyomio, G. “Inanna’s Descent Into the
Underworld”, The Literature of Ancient Sumer (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006).
4 The term ‘matriarch’ should not be read as upholding the belief of
ancient matriarchy. It is still very unclear as to the structure of
societies within the Upper Paleolithic period, and whether
they were matrilineal or not.
5 To give but one example, the Ede tribe of Vietnam use a crescent
moon, breasts and star as symbols in their matrilineal culture. The
symbols of the crescent moon and breasts are, for example, carved
into a ladder to the longhouse of a powerful matrilineal family at
an outdoor exhibition at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in
Hanoi. The Ede culture is matrilineal, with children taking the
name of the mother’s family. The woman initiates marriage by
deciding who she wants to marry, and her husband goes on to live
with the woman’s family.
6 The Goddess Astarte is represented with the crescent or ‘double
horn’. Many other Goddesses who have the crescent symbol are
moon Goddesses – Artemis, Luna, Diana, etc. The Mesopotamian
Goddess Inanna-Ishtar is associated with the crescent moon shape –
the ‘boat of heaven’ – linked to her sex. Indian Goddesses Durga
and Kali have the crescent as one of their symbols.
7 Hughes, Bethany, When God Was A Girl (London: BBC, 2012), DVD.
8 The British Museum has once undertaken a digital reconstruction of
the plaque with painting, showing a dark background, and the
Goddess’s skin painted and jewellery picked out. Interestingly,
though, even this reconstruction sanitises her erotic power and
presence, in which her nipples and pubic triangle were once
strongly emphasised in paint contrast. Her vulva was sacred, and
repeatedly referenced in the ancient literature. It would have been
painted in a dark colour for emphasis, as can still be discerned in
the Musée du Louvre’s Ishtar Vase.
9 ‘Inanna’s Descent Into the Underworld’, Black, J., Cunningham, G.,
Robson, E. and Zolyomi, G. (2010).
10 The arrival of Aphrodite was not purely an import of a new
religion, but a union between pre-existing Goddess worship on the
island, meeting with Eastern belief systems, ideas, artifacts and
customs. Like Inanna-Ishtar, and the Phoenician Goddess Astarte,
Aphrodite would also be associated with the star of Venus,
sexuality, jewellery and the art of adornment and allure.
11 The ‘Temple Hymns of Enheduanna’ are viewable in translation on
the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of
Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
(http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.80.1#): ‘The
compiler of the tablets was Enheduanna. My king, something has
been created that no one has created before.’ (Lines 543–44).
12 The attribution of the object as a ‘fly whisk’ may need to be
reviewed. Fly whisks are ceremonially used across cultures around
the world, and are identifiable in the British Museum’s The ‘Garden
Party’ relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal scene (ref. no.
ME 124920). Many items have been identified from Victorian times
onwards as being ‘fly whisks’, which may have been other objects.
For example, whips are recorded in use for Ishtar rituals (see Figure
12: gypsum wall panel relief from the reign of Tiglath-pileser III,
which shows a lion-cloaked figure with an implement – seemingly a
whip – in a celebration procession) (British Museum, ref. no.
136773).
13 The Oxford translation uses the term ‘genitals’ rather than ‘vulva’.
See ‘Inana and Enki’ online at Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian
Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
(http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.3.1#).
14 ‘Inanna and the God of Wisdom’, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and
Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (New York: Harper and
Row, 1983), pp. 16–19. See also: ‘Inana and Enki’, ETCSL.
15 Author’s own adaption working from translations of Wolkstein, D.
and Noah Kramer, S. ‘Inanna and the God of Wisdom’, and ‘Inana
and Enki’, ETCSL.
16 Ibid.
17 Emphasis my own. ‘Inana and Ebih’, ETCSL, Faculty of Oriental
Studies, University of Oxford (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/etcsl.cgi? text=t.1.3.2#). Also available in translation in
De Shong Meador, B. Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart, Poems of the
Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna (Texas: University of Texas
Press, 2000), pp. 89–102.
18 ‘Inana and Ebih’, ETCSL, lines 33–40.
19 Dalley, S. (2000) Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood,
Gilgamesh and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
p. 130 n. 80; Lapinkivi, P. The Neo-Assyrian Myth of Ištar’s Descent
and Resurrection The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, pp. 49–54.
The old translation was that Inanna’s Game was competing with
skipping ropes, but as argued by Dalley (and Laprinkivi) this was
based on a misinterpretation of a glyptic scene, and it is now
thought that the keppû, which has been translated as skipping rope,
is in fact a whipping top or whip.
20 Lapinkivi, P. The Neo-Assyrian Myth of Ištar’s Descent and
Resurrection, p. 47–48.
21 Dalley quoted in footnotes of Lapinkivi, op. cit.
22 In ‘The Exploits of Ninutra’, the character named Lugale-e says:
‘Do not lift your arm to the smiting of weapons, to the festival of
the young men, to Inanna’s dance (ešemen inanna-ke).’ See lines
135–37, cited in Lapinkivi, P. The Neo-Assyrian Myth of Ištar’s
Descent and Resurrection, p. 50.
23 The relevant objects are Penn Museum’s Ishtar lion object (31-43-
425, field number: U.16910a)
(http://www.penn.museum/collections/object/196231); and deity
with whip object (31-43-455, field number: U.16487)
(http://www.penn.museum/collections/object/48366).
24 Wall panel relief, 730–727 BC, reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, from the
Central Palace at Nimrud, British Museum (ref. no. 136773). See
Barnett, R. D. and Falkner, M. ‘The Sculptures of Tiglath-pileser III’
(London, 1962), pp. 9–10; and British Museum website:
(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection online/collecti
objectId=369051&partId=1&searchText=136773&page=1).
25 Kemp, B. J. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization (London:
Routledge, 2006). (See, in particular, figure 47, p. 138. Formalised
images of the God Min as fertility god, adding to the ideal
anthropomorphic image of god, the elements of the erect penis and
brandished flail derived from the Coptus Colossai.)
26 ‘Lady of the Largest Heart’, or ‘A Hymn to Inana (C)’, available at
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental
Studies, University of Oxford (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.07.3#). (‘A Hymn to Inana [Inana C]’, see
lines 115–31.)
27 De Shong Meador, B. Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart, Poems of the
Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna (Texas: University of Texas
Press, 2000), p. 162; and see section more generally on
‘Androgyne’, pp. 162–67 (and references).
28 Ibid.
29 ‘Lady of the Largest Heart’, or ‘A Hymn to Inana (C)’, ETCSL,
Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
(http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.07.3#). (‘A
Hymn to Inana [Inana C]’, see lines 80–90.)
30 ‘Lady of the Largest Heart’ or ‘A Hymn to Inana (C)’, see end
section: lines 1–10, 29–38.
31 Ibid., see lines 99–114.
34 Pausanias III, 16: 10-11
(http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias3B.html).
35 The historian Pausanias discusses a biannual festival involving
ritual whippings in aid of women’s fertility, practiced on Alea
(where there were sanctuaries to the Ephesian Artemis). ‘In honor
of Dionysus they celebrate every other year a festival called
Sciereia, and at this festival, in obedience to a response from
Delphi, women are flogged, just as the Spartan lads are flogged at
the image of the Orthian goddess.’ (Pausanias VIII, 23:1,
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html)
36 He refers to them as being at the sanctuary of Aphrodite Urania in
Cythera, a temple of Aphrodite on Acrocorinthus’s summit, and at
an ancient temple to Aphrodite with an upper storey in Sparta. See
Pausanias III, 23:1; II, 5:1; III, 15:10.
37 Hesiod, Theogony, 195-200 in particular, and see Cyrino, M. S.
Aphrodite (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 39–40.
38 Carson, A. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Virago Press, 2002),
p. 3, 357.
Chapter II
The Female Flagellant Governesses in

the Seventeenth to Nineteenth
Centuries
The earliest documentation of the secular Dominatrix profession is

found within rare books of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries,
which reveal the identities and set-up of the women who ran
flagellation establishments within England. From early flagellation
brothel ‘Whipstresses’ to famous courtesan ‘Birch Disciplinarians’ and
the ‘Governesses’ of the golden age, the occupational craft developed
with elaborate tools and equipment, and was paired with refined
skills and knowledge. Their profession was set up to cater to the
fantasy desire of erotic domination by a powerful sexual woman, who
was trained to be a strong disciplinarian figure. These female
flagellants were savvy erotic entrepreneurs of their era whose
clientele included the elite of the British aristocracy, politicians, and
yes – even royalty.
It was to ‘Her’ that men reported, to worship and be disciplined by
a superior woman, to be bound and punished, and put to pain and
release; it was with ‘Her’ that they could share their non-normative
longings and desires – in the company of someone with an open
mind.
This chapter examines the male desire that informed the craft, the
development of the niche occupation, and complex set-up and skills –
informed by accounts in ‘forbidden books’ held within the vaults of
the British Library’s Rare Books collection, and from risqué prints of
the era.
The Fantasy of ‘a Phyllis’
The fantasy that informed the profession is the erotic image of the
superior woman in a position of sexual power. Within art, this fantasy
of female domination over a man was embodied by the popular
Renaissance image of Aristotle and Phyllis. The image is one of a
woman riding on a man’s back, from the story of the famous
philosopher Aristotle dominated by Phyllis, the paramour of
Alexander the Great.
The story seemingly developed out of the thirteenth-century Middle
Ages. Its narrative follows the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle as
teacher of Alexander (the Great), who taught Alexander that he
should abstain from amorous relations with women, as they were a
distraction from the serious work of great men. As a result, Alexander
spurned his favourite lady, Phyllis.
She got her comeuppance. Moving in proximity to the great
philosopher, her womanly charms proved too much for him. Aristotle
became completely besotted with Phyllis and made amorous advances
upon her, even though she was the lover of Alexander, his student.
Phyllis shrewdly responded to Aristotle’s sexual desires for her:
This I will certainly not do, unless I see a sign of love, lest you be testing me.
Therefore, come to my chamber crawling on hand and foot, in order to carry
me like a horse. Then I’ll know that you aren’t deluding me.1
Aristotle came to Phyllis on all fours, as she requested, and she rode
him on his back, like a horse, making him a subject of ridicule. The
Great Aristotle was brought down to a lowly position by a woman in
his desire.
Phyllis exemplified the archetype of the Dominatrix. The image was
supposed to serve as a parable, a lesson on the power of a woman’s
erotic pull, and the consequences of succumbing to this. But the
theme also provided a philosophical ‘excuse’ to make or hold an
erotic image of female domination, for private erotic pleasure.
The theme proved very popular within the Renaissance period.
Numerous artists took up the subject in paintings and engravings.
There are household objects fashioned with this scene, such as metal
besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to
associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I
can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being
else.2
The symposium of men take on board this explanation,

understanding that for Socrates, his wife Xanthippe is like a high-
mettled steed horse. (Today we might use the analogy of a woman
being like a high-maintenance car.) She is strong, passionate, a
virago, and Socrates prefers a woman like this, with some ‘spirit’, a
dominant woman.
Xanthippe’s name in Greek is derived linguistically from the ‘horse’
(or yellow horse), with connotations of good breeding, which may
also have made the substitution more fitting. She is referred to in
William Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew, written around
1590–92. The play’s main character, the difficult and spirited
Katherina, is likened by Petruchio to ‘Socrates’ Xanthippe, or worse’.3
Other names used to refer to a shrew are ‘termagant’ and ‘virago’ –
both of which are applied to Dominatrix-styled female disciplinarians
in erotic literature and prints on flagellation.
The Dominatrix figure captured the imagination of a particular
portion of the population. Certainly men whose sexual fantasies lay in
this direction, if not women also who liked the idea of dominating. It
also drew the attention of those who felt most threatened by this
power exchange, for whom the image indexed their own internal
anxieties and desire–belief system in tumult.
The positioning of a woman above a man was at odds with social
norms (imposed by patriarchal religion and a class-based society), in
which women held a different status and position from men. Women
were, in generalised terms, supposed to be submissive and obedient to
their husbands; while men were supposed to be dominant an in
charge.
The Dominatrix archetype overthrows social norms and
conventions, upholding a female position of superiority and power.
The man is made submissive and obedient. He finds both sexual
arousal and fulfillment in this role, in submission to a powerful
woman, and in the safety and structure of discipline and devotion.
It is this scenario that the occupation of the Dominatrix turned
itself to and crafted, as a niche specialisation within the erotic arts.
Leveraging off ‘erotic capital’ and the economics of supply and
demand, the Dominatrix occupation begins with a consciousness of
desire-demand. Women recognised the demand for the role, and
pursued their curiosity and interest to learn more about a role they
saw themselves well-suited to; a way to cater entrepreneurially.
The Dominatrix as a profession is a knowledge most often passed
down by apprenticeship, with an experienced Dominatrix acting as
teacher and mentor. It can also be developed afresh by a woman who
learns of demand through would-be clients, men wanting her to enact
the role.
Within the commercial market, the Dominatrix role has come to
combine not only the power exchange of Domination/submission, but
also a wide range of knowledge on different erotic fantasy role-play
and fetishes, specialist practices with bespoke equipment, and the
almost ‘mystical’ ability to intuit a client’s deep-seated psychosexual
needs. In England, the form that domination most frequently took was
closely tied to the female authority figure who gave out school
discipline and flagellation, which came to be known as le vice Anglais
(the English vice).
Flogging Schools and their Cullies

The Dominatrix profession appears to have originated as a
specialisation within brothels, before becoming its own niche craft. As
far back as the 1590s, flagellation within an erotic setting is recorded,
as in this rather crude epigram by John Davies:
When Francus comes to solace with his whoore [sic]
He sends for rods and strips himselfe stark naked:
For his lust sleeps, and will not rise before,
By the whipping of the wench it be awakened.4
As clients would seek out flagellation and other fantasies within

brothels, a large number kept a few birch rods and whips to
accommodate the proclivities and desires of their customers. Some
women within brothels gained a reputation for their aptitude at
conducting scenarios. They were valued for their ‘command’ of the
rod or whip administered with an air of authority, and their refined
technique. ‘Flagellation schools’ came to be set up entirely in this
niche, devoted exclusively to domination, discipline and role-plays.
The women who took the Dominatrix role in the early English era
were referred to as a ‘Whipstress’, ‘School Mistress’ or ‘Governess’.
Shadwell’s Virtuoso (1676) features a man who is described as a
‘product of Westminster-School’, and still finds delight in birch. He
visits a ‘School-Mistriss’ [sic] ‘who keeps a very virtuous school for
the disciplining of hopeful towardly Old Gentlemen’.5 Another
historical source is Troth’s Knavery of Astrology (1680), which claims
that ‘of late years, there’s a neat Invention called Flogging, invented
on purpose to pleasure Old Fumblers, or weak Youngsters: what it is,
they may easily find at Betty B__’s School, or Moorfields.’6
Although flogging was claimed to be a ‘new invention’, it was the
word ‘flog’ that was new, rather than the act itself.
One of the earliest erotic prints in England is of a woman in a
dominant flagellating role, and making use of this new term, the
mezzotint is named The Cully Flaug’d [Flogged] (see Figure 19). Now
housed within the British Museum collection, the work is believed to
date around 1672–1702, engraved or after a painting by Laroon.7
Within the mise en scène, a young woman with her skirt hitched up
back, wields a rod of birches, poised to ‘flog’ an old man. He is bent
over a chair, buttocks exposed, with his face turned up; his gaze looks
to take in the teasy eyeful of her vulva on display to him. Her vulva is
not depicted in the print for the viewer to see, rather it is a fantasised
image for the viewer’s imagination.
social status, derived from insurgere (to rise up). Within the context of
the prose, the uprising stands for a rising erection.
‘Firk’ was an old English term that meant ‘to beat, whip, lash,
trounce, drub’,8 and in modern-day English ‘firk on’ is an imperative
form to ‘proceed on’. While ‘flaug’ was the alternatively spelt word
‘flog’, meaning to whip. At that time, ‘flog’ was a term relatively new
to the English language. The poem encourages the ‘Fair Lady’ to whip
on, with her correction and punishment of the man, to bring him to a
state of erection.
The prose also references Bridewell, the historical prison for
punishment of the disorderly poor in London during this era.9
Dungeon or prison ‘scenarios’ (role-plays) are a common fantasy
requested of modern-day Dominatrices. So ubiquitous is this scenario
that the fantasy ‘dungeon chamber’ has become the most common
playspace set up by Dominatrices to work in.
The relationship of the Dominatrix’s punishment and correction
scenarios as parallel to the historical prison or dungeon is discussed
within Ward’s London Terrae-Filius (1701). Ward discusses the case of
a Mistress of a flogging school who suffered a raid on her ‘Academy
of Titillation’:
the Whore-Hunting justice found the Lecher and his Whipstress hiding in a
closet, surrounded by a great number of Flogging Instruments, for the secret
flagellation of superannuated sodomites, ly’d with various ribbons of all
colours. The Rods, some consisting of finer Twigs, and others thicker,
distinguish’d from one another by the binding of the Handle, so that every
Beast, from the Buff-Hided Leather to the Lamb-Skin’d Cully, understood by
the Colour, how to call for a scourge that was the most agreeable to the
tenderness of his Curtis. This Professor of Flogging Science and her
companions were sent to Bridewell, that their lechery might be cool’d
according to their own Exercise, with a Bull’s Pizzle, or a Cat-of-Nine-Tails …
Bridewell itself is something of a flogging school.10
Ward draws attention to the irony that the ‘Mistresses’ of such

establishments risked being imprisoned and punished in Bridewell,
exposed to similar treatment that they would normally be
administering on their clients. Bridewell Prison carried out
institutionally sanctioned discipline, while the flogging schools
carried out erotically sanctioned discipline.
Men who enjoyed floggings were known as ‘cullies’ (or in the
singular, as ‘a cully’). In the New Canting Dictionary of 1725, a
‘flogging cully’ is described as: ‘a Naked Woman’s whipping (with
Rods) an Old (usually) and (sometimes) a Young Lecher’.11 A ‘cully’
was often portrayed as an old man suffering from erectile dysfunction
in old age, who sought a flogging to cure his impotence. The term
was used in this way to tease and denigrate men who held non-
normative desires, who wished to submit to a woman for discipline-
and-punishment fantasies. Wilson later addresses this stereotype,
quick to point out that the Governesses’ clients were not only elderly,
many were young as well, and what differentiated them was typically
their educational background – coming from an upbringing or
schooling in which corporal punishment was practiced. (A situation
that holds true today.) She writes:
It is very true that there are innumerable old generals, admirals, colonels and
captains, as well as bishops, judges, barristers, lords, commoners and
physicians, who periodically go to be whipped, merely because it warms
their blood, and keeps up a little agreeable excitement in their systems long
after the power of enjoying the opposite sex has failed them; but it is equally
true, that hundreds of young men, having been educated at institutions
where the masters were fond of administering birch-discipline, and
recollecting certain sensations produced by it, have imbibed a passion for it,
and have longed to receive such chastisement from the hands of a fine
woman.12
Flogging was thought to aid venereal functions, warming the blood

and increasing blood flow to the region, as well as arousal. A well-
known medical book on the topic of flagellation was titled, A Treatise
in the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs, translated from Latin De Usu
Flagorum in re Medica et Venerea (1639).13 It was written by the
German physician Johann Heinrich Meibom, and underwent
reprinting several times over, with introductory notes by Meibom’s
son and Thomas Bartholin. The text puts forward:
that by flogging of the loins, and heating the reins, the matter of the seed is
either quickened or increased, and how that should be performed by the
circulation of the blood in the reins … to have recourse with you to the
common cause, the heat of the blood, inflamed by flogging of the loins, to
increase the warmth of the reins, and provoke a venereal appetite.14
When this treatise was reprinted in English in 1718 by the

notorious Edmund Curll, the author’s name was changed to an
English equivalent (John Henry instead of Johann Heinrich), and a
surname given a Latinate twist (Meibomius instead of Meibom). Curll
also included an erotic flagellation scene as its frontispiece (see
Figure 20).
Any question of the intent of Curll to publish a purely
medical/scientific text is negated by the book’s erotic frontispiece.
The book had originally made its way over from Europe in the latter
part of the seventeenth century, circulating with and amongst a
number of books that featured flogging and domination, and which
raised consciousness of these activities and fantasies.
Another foreign import into England was the ‘whore dialogue’ of
Aloisiae Sigeae, written in Latin around 1660 in an attempt to conceal
its origins as purportedly Spanish – it was in fact written by a
Frenchman. It was republished in French two decades on, and soon
after in English, under the new title of: A Dialogue Between a Married
Lady and a Maid. The theme was an older woman educating a
younger woman in sexual matters, including flagellation and
contractual submission (which fills up a significant part of the book),
as well as other types of sexual knowledge. The English publisher
William Cademean was reportedly prosecuted in relation to this work,
illustrating just how risqué such publications were in this era.
Another subversive publication from France was Vénus Dans La
Cloître (c. 1682), attributed to Jean Barrin. It was translated in
English as Venus in the Cloister, and republished by Edmund Curll in
1724–25. This book, along with the Treatise in the Use of Flogging in
Venereal Affairs reprint, saw Edmund Curll in trouble with the law. He
was arrested and held, and eventually charged with ‘libel’, as there
was no ‘obscenity law’ that existed to charge him under at the time;
and so developed the form of obscenity libel.
In 1748, John Cleland’s book, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
(better known as Fanny Hill) was published in England, and proved
influential to the rise in flagellation and demand for the service in
England. The book featured its protagonist Fanny Hill accommodating
the ‘unusual’ desires of Mr Barville within one scene, by orchestrating
a flagellation and bondage scenario in which she both gives and
receives a whipping:
I led him to the bench, and according to my cue, play’d at forcing him to lie
down: which, after some little show of reluctance for form’s sake, he
submitted to; he was straightway extended flat upon his belly, on the bench,
with a pillow under his face; and he was thus tamely lay. I tied him tightly,
hand and foot, to the legs of it; which done, his shirt remaining truss’d up
overe the small of his back, I drew his breeches down to his knees; and now
he lay, in all the fairest broadest display of that part of the pack-view; in
which a pair of chubby, smooth-cheek’d and passing white posteriors rose
cushioning upwards from two, stout fleshful thighs, and ending their cleft, or
separation, by a union and the small of the back, presented a bold mark, that
swell’d as it were, to meet the scourge …
Seizing now one of the rods, I stood over him, according to his direction,
gave him, in one breath, ten lashes with much goodwill and the utmost
nerve and vigour of arm that I could put to them, so as make those fleshy
orbs quiver again under them15
The book’s author and publisher were arrested and charged, and
the book was withdrawn from print. It continued to circulate as a
‘forbidden book’, sold from beneath the counter and passed around
between acquaintances. Judging from the evidence of the day, it
seems that the book was also largely responsible for making
flagellation fantasies popular and driving the occupational role of the
Dominatrix who would cater to these.
Turning Flagellation into a Fashion

An English engraving dating a few years after the notorious book
Fanny Hill came out depicts a female authority figure wielding the
birch rod (see Figure 21). She is attired in a dress and corset, which
accentuate her fine figure. The man is in fashionable upper-class
clothing of the era, with his bottom exposed and lined by marks of
the rod. The fire burning in the centre of the scene acts as an elegant
metaphor for the warmth invoked in effect by the woman bearing the
rod.
Passions, or to say by what Method, this uncommon way of receiving
pleasure operates: we must therefore refer the Solution of this paradox to the
Royal Society and the College of Physicians, & should those learned Bodies
fail of success, the dernière resort of our Hopes must be the deep
Hebdomadal Researches of the Robin Hood Society.
The Robin Hood Society referred to, was a private club whose
members were amongst the aristocracy. The engraving found its way
into the Library of Congress collection in Washington DC. The upper
classes were amongst the Dominatrix School-Mistress’s biggest clients,
the men for whom she flexibly offered a range of role-play scenarios
to their fantasies. Although the School Mistress role was undoubtedly
the most popular, she could alternatively play the role of Mother,
Step-Mother, Aunt, Governess; or Lady Justice in judicial
punishment.17 Playing the Fair Lady of medieval romance, or a
dominant Venus with a whip, were all possible fantasy scenarios.
The ‘role-play’ variations of the profession are demonstrated by a
book remarkable for its era. The small, underground publication,
reportedly printed in France (to avoid trouble with authorities in
England), was titled: Fashionable Lectures: composed and delivered with
Birch Discipline, by the following and many other beautiful Ladies, who
have filled with universal approbation, the Character of Mother,
Stepmother, Governess, Ladies Maid, Kept-Mistress, Housekeeper, &c, &c.
(c. 1761).18
It was published under the guise of being lectures or theatrical
plays, but was in fact a veiled advertisement of ‘Birch Disciplinarians’,
listing in its frontispiece some 57 women’s names. It reads as a kind
of ‘who’s who’ of some of the most famous courtesans and ladies of
their era, such as Fanny Murray, Nancy Parsons and Kitty Fisher – to
name but a few. (See Figure 22.)
posthumous acknowledgement of her fine ‘services to birch
discipline’. Or perhaps she had paid for the privilege of inclusion
before her untimely passing.
Not all the women on the list were dedicated full-time
Dominatrices. Some were actresses and prostitutes branching out
(indeed ‘birch-branching’ out) in response to the increased demand
for discipline and flagellation services, which were so fashionable in
the era.
The following is the offer of temptation made to the book’s
reader/purchaser:
All those purchasers of the Lectures, who have made a curiosity to judge of
their effect when delivered with propriety, will be referred to a lady of
distinguished personal and mental accomplishments, who, on proper
compliment being made to her, will deliver any one of the Lectures, with all
the eloquence and energy of impassioned voice and action happily united.
The lady has a house of her own, and her lecture room is furnished with
rods, cat-o’-nine-tails, and some of the best prints on flagellation. The lady
has a stout woman in her house, able to take a man on her back when he
chuses [sic] to be treated like a schoolboy; and she and her maid are willing
to be passive sometimes in the use of the rod, when required. Price of the
delivery of the first Lecture, a Guinea – every lecture after, half a guinea, and
half a crown to the maid if employed as a horse on the occasion.
N.B. Single gentlemen, who are fond of representing school-boys, waited
on by mistress and maid at any hour, before they are up in the morning, at
their own houses, where the delightful divertissement of being taken out of
bed, horsed and whipt for not going to school, will be played out to
admiration.19
A stunning mid-eighteenth-century marketing tie-in for the Birch

Disciplinarians of the era. Savvy entrepreneurs? That they were.
Some of the ladies went on to become famous courtesans who
published memoirs (or had biographies published about them). A
number of these women were painted by talented artists, such as
Nathaniel Hone, George Willison, James Northcote and Sir Joshua
Reynolds (see Figures 23, 24 and 25).
be attired in the ‘Kitty Fisher style’ of dress.
Numerous prints and paintings of these women are found in art
galleries, museums and stately homes throughout the UK and in the
US, and if one traces the ‘accession line’ of just how some of these
paintings came to be in public galleries or museum collections by way
of their provenance and ownership, one often arrives at an
aristocratic patron of the lady concerned. (I offer no speculation as to
the sexual proclivities of these contemporaries’ great-great-great
grandfathers.) Thousands of inexpensive prints and engravings were
also run-off, and made accessible to the masses.
A scandalous poem entitled An Essay on Women (a pornographic
parody of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Men) was dedicated to Fanny
Murray. The poem was read out in sections to the House of Lords,
where it was found to be obscene. It was linked to John Wilkes, who
may or may not have been the work’s true author, but it, in any, case
led to his social downfall.
Kitty Fisher’s name was immortalised within the famous nursery
rhyme:
Lucy Locket lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it;
But ne’er a penny was there in it
Except the binding round it.
These ‘fashionable ladies offering birch discipline’ also had, in

many cases, connections to members of the Beefeater Club in Dublin
(of which Peg Woffington was president), and to the English Sublime
Beefeater Club, which met at Covent Garden Theatre. Some of these
women appeared as (masquerade) nuns at the ‘Monks of
Medmenham’, a private club established by Sir Francis Dashwood,
and later referred to as the ‘Hellfire Club’. It was attended by John
Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich (whom Fanny Murray was for a
time Mistress to) and its meetings were held around this period at the
thirteenth-century Medmenham Abbey in Buckinghamshire, and
referred to as the Monks of Medmenham.22 The club also had a
connection to West Wycombe, where Dashwood had his residence
and had caves dug out, and where Benjamin Franklin would come
and stay when he was visiting England. Some of the alternative
names for the club allude to Wycombe, such as ‘The Friars of
St Francis of Wycombe’, and its members were rumoured to include
some names of very well-known nobles and politicians. The artist
William Hogarth painted Dashwood as a Franciscan friar, and
Benjamin Franklin is also reported as having attended Dashwood’s
club, although there is no hard evidence to prove this either way.
Just what went on at the club meetings? Delicious debauchery
seems certain, but the exact nature of its rituals are the stuff of legend
and rumour. Costumes, including masquerade as monks and nuns,
were reported. Indeed there is a print of Fanny Murray with her
signature cap, holding a mask with the British Museum collection,
and a painting by Henry Morland entitled The Fair Nun Unmasked
illustrating the costume worn at these parties, with mezzotints made
after the painting (see Figure 26).
to acknowledge particular ancient Gods and Goddesses in accord with
the dates of classical-themed pagan festivities, and had sculptures of
Venus and other deities in his residence.
The connection between these ‘Fashionable Ladies’ to private club
members, gives some indication of the client base these women had.
Not all of their clients necessarily received birch discipline, however,
and some were more likely to have been giving it out than receiving.
The birch disciplinarians offered what is known as a ‘Switch-Mistress’
service in modern-day terms. This meant that they were able to give
out discipline, or receive it, by negotiation in role-play scenarios.
Amongst the English upper classes, going to visit a female flagellant
School Mistress establishment had become de rigueur. Domination,
bondage and flagellation fantasies were discussed between friends
and acquaintances, and the ‘Birch Mysteries’ were a part of the lives
of private society members. Fine School Mistresses’ names were
passed on by referral, and well-patronised.
The fashion for flagellation provided a market for flagellation
books, featuring scenarios in school settings and aristocratic boudoirs.
In England, series of books were published such as The Exhibition of
the Female Flagellants books, printed around 1777 and 1785 as Part I
and II. The precise dating of these books is very difficult to ascertain,
as such ‘forbidden books’ were printed with false imprints and dates,
pseudonymous pen names for the author, and publishers would
frequently move address to avoid detection.
The Golden Age of the Governess

The passion for flagellation and ‘Female Flagellants’ did not slow
down, and by the turn of the century, ‘Governesses’ were whipping up
a storm in London. No less than 20 splendid establishments are
documented to have existed by the 1840s, and were supported
entirely by flagellation practice.24 These were ‘Houses of Discipline’,
which were distinct from brothels. In the Preface of the book The
Venus School-Mistress, a woman named Mary Wilson describes the
qualities of a (Dominatrix) Governess:
Those women who give most satisfaction to the amateurs of the discipline,
are called governesses, because they have by experience acquired a tact and a
modus operandi, which the generality do not possess. It is not merely the
keeping of a rod, and being willing to flog, that would cause a woman to be
visited by worshippers of the birch: she must have served her time to some
other woman who understood her business, and be thoroughly accomplished
in the art. They must have a quick and intuitive method of observing the
aberrations of the human mind, and be ready and willing to humour and
relieve them.25
The author appears to have been a Governess herself during this

26
era, and a colleague of Mrs Theresa Berkley. She hit the nail on the
head (or the birch on the bottom) as to what it is that makes a great
Governess. The ‘art’ of the Governess was in the intuitive
understanding of the psychology of her clients, alongside the mastery
(or rather, the ‘Mistressery’) of her technique. The knowledge and
approach of a good Governess was acquired via an apprenticeship to
an experienced practitioner.
Wilson lists a number of names of well-known Governesses of the
preceding eras. Mrs Chalmers and Mrs Noyeau who had formerly
been two of the most experienced governesses, and by that time were
retired from business. The late Mrs Jones of Hertford Street and
London Street, Fitzroy Square; the late Mrs Theresa Burkley; Bessy
Burgess of York Square and Mrs Pyree of Burton Crescent.27 The
Governess Dominatrix had become a relatively well-known
occupation, and one which in this ‘golden era’ had been paralleled by
a marked professionalism in set-up and equipment.
The late Theresa Berkley who died in 1836 was one of the most
famous English Dominatrix Governesses, singled out by a number of
writers. She had her discipline establishment at Charlotte Street (now
Hallam Street), off Portland Place in Marylebone, and seemingly took
the profession of domination to a whole new level in England. She
designed a specialist flagellation frame with bondage fixing points in
1828, which was known as ‘The Berkley Horse’ (see Figure 27).28
traces, battledores, made of thick sole-leather, with inch nails run through to
docket, and curry-comb tough hides rendered callous by many years of
flagellation. Holly bushes, furze brushes, a prickly evergreen, called butcher’s
bush; and during the summer, glass and China vases, filled with a constant
supply of green nettles, with which she often restored the dead to life. Thus,
at her shop, whoever went with plenty of money, could be birched, whipped,
fustigated, scourged, needle-pricked, half-hung, holly-brushed, furze-
brushed, butcher-brushed, stinging-nettled, curry-combed, phlebotomized,
and tortured till he had a bellyful.30
Although Theresa Berkley was predominantly a dominant

(i.e. Dominatrix) Governess, she was also a ‘Switch-Mistress’, who
would on occasion submit, to an extent, to receiving punishment from
her clients as well as giving it. However, ‘if they were gluttons at it’,
as Wilson notes, Theresa Berkley ‘had women in attendance who
would take any amount of lashes the flogger pleased, provided he
forked out an ad valorem duty’. The names of the women who
received punishment at her establishment were: ‘Miss Ring, Hannah
Jones, Sally Taylor, One-eyed Peg, Bald-cunted Poll and a black girl
called Ebony Bet’.
The system of apprenticeship at Berkley’s establishment meant
women could work for her while learning the craft. They would gain
knowledge of the psychology, role-play scenarios, equipment and
techniques, before going on to become a Governess themselves.
Hannah Jones, for example, is listed as one of the women who
received punishment at Berkley’s house. She went on to become a
Governess under the name Griffiths.31
What did it take to become a great Governess Dominatrix, besides
learning the skills of flagellation, bondage and role-play? Wilson
speaks to what made Mrs Theresa Berkley a woman who was ‘in
every way adapted to her profession’:
She possessed the first grand requisite of a courtesan, viz, lewdness: for
without a woman is positively lecherous, she cannot keep up long the
affection of it, and will be soon perceived that she only moves her hands or
her buttocks to the tune of pounds, shillings and pence. She could assume
great urbanity and good humour; she would study every lech, whim, caprice
and desire of her customer, and had she the disposition to gratify them, her
avarice was rewarded in return.32
The term ‘lewdness’ embodied a genuinely held open-mindedness, a
libertine attitude to eroticism. This mindset, alongside the
understanding and intuition of the minds of her clients, were an
important part of the Governess’s approach, just as much so as the
technical skills of birching and so forth.
Another major source of information on the Governesses of the era
comes from Henry Spencer Ashbee’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(‘Index of Forbidden Books’), published in 1877 under the pseudonym
of Pisanus Fraxi. Ashbee was to the public’s view – a consummate
Victorian gentleman. In his private life, though, he hid a secret
‘erotomania’, collecting numerous editions of erotica, and even taking
out rooms in Gray’s Inn Square to accommodate his collection.
Ashbee is also believed to be the pseudonymous ‘Walter’ of the book
My Secret Life, based on a man’s sexual development and adventures
in the Victorian era.33
Upon his death, Ashbee bequeathed his enormous collection of
books and erotica to the British Museum. The erotic material would
go into the infamous ‘Private Case’ of the British Museum, where its
contents were ‘protected’ (i.e. restricted) from women and the lower
classes, for it was believed in this era that they would corrupt those of
weak mind and constitution. As the social attitudes changed in more
modern times, the forbidden books of the ‘Private Case’ were moved
into the Rare Books collection of the British Library, where they can
now be viewed.
Amongst the Rare Books collection is Ashbee’s own copy of his
Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which devotes a significant portion of
space to discussing the topic of ‘Flagellation’. Ashbee’s sources were
the Venus School-Mistress ‘Foreword’ written by Mary Wilson
(previously discussed), and a handwritten letter from his friend and
crony in Paris, Frederick Hankey. This original handwritten letter is
still preserved in Ashbee’s own personal copy of his Index Librorum
Prohibitorum, and is one of the main sources of information on the
(Dominatrix) Governesses of the era.
The book is restricted from access, not from women and lower
classes, as was historically the situation when it was in the ‘Private
Case’, but due to its rarity and fragility. A page of this letter shows
Hankey’s hard-to-read handwritten scrawl (see Figure 29). The letter
is dated 26 May 1875, and its contents appear to be in response to a
request from Ashbee to write to him with information on the
flagellation establishments and the women who ran them.
Although it is difficult to decipher the handwriting, a fine attempt
is made by Ian Gibson in his biography of Ashbee, The Erotomaniac.34
The full letter of Frederick Hankey (deciphered by Gibson) reads:
The first establishment known by me over the last fifty years where the
practice of the rod was carried on to a great extent was held by Mrs Collett
in Tavistock Court, Convent Garden, from whence she removed into the
neighborhood of Portland Place – and then to Bedford Street, Russell Square,
where she died – George the 4th is known to have been in her house – She
brought up a niece in the same line, and who as Mrs. Mitchell carried on a
great business in the same line, in various places, and finally in St Mary’s
Square, Kennington, where she died.
Then came Mrs James who had been maid in the family of Lord
Clarincade – she had a house in Carlisle St, but eventually retired from
business with a good fortune, a villa at Notthing Hill [sic], and a house in
Quebec Street – with pictures and jewels without end.
No one ever surpassed in this particular line Mrs Theresa Berkley who
lived and died in Charlotte St, Portland Place, no.28 – A few days after her
death her brother who had been a missionary for 30 years in Australia
arrived, and found that she had bequeathed to him 12,500 pounds in the
funds, besides other property – but when he learnt the source from which it
had been derived he renounced all claim and immediately went back to
Australia – In default the property was to go to Dr. Vance of Saville Row, her
medical attendant, but he also refused to administer, the whole was
escheated to the crown – She never destroyed a letter, and Dr Vance as
executor received several boxes full, which he allowed the writer to examine.
They were of the most extraordinary character, from the highest personages,
male and female, in the land –
Mrs Potter carried on a good business a few years ago near Tottenham
Court Road, but being sentenced to imprisonment for getting some young
girl birched by one of her customers was ruined – There were several others
whose names and addresses I forgot – all made fortunes –
The only establishment I know of now is in the Regent’s Park, a lovely
little villa presided over by a well-educated lady, well versed in birchen
mysteries.
Her clientele is small but select, consisting of a few persons belonging to
the highest order of society –
The birch at most of these places was provided by one Mrs Potter living at
Walworth –
In my experience I have known personally several ladies of high rank who
had an extraordinary passion for administering the rod, and that with
merciless severity – I knew too the wife of a clergyman, young and pretty,
who carried the taste to excess – I have known only one who liked to receive
it, and she was quite of the lowest order – when excited by drink she would
allow herself to be birched until the bottom was utterly raw, and the rods
saturated in blood, she crying out during the operation, ‘Harder, Harder’,
and blaspheming if it was not well laid in – At the establishment I have
named in Regent’s Park, there come two very young girls who go through all
the phases of a school-mistress and whip fearfully severely –
The programmes sent by ‘pupils’ are extraordinary – some like to be
whipped as children across the knee – some on the back of a servant, others
to be strapped down –
A friend of Hankey who had been a governess in a family in England, used
the rod most cleverly – she is French, but is going to be married next week,
and to the loss of the lovers of the discipline.
I could give many anecdotes connected with this business. I write in post
haste, starting today for Paris.35
writing about them in his completed book, suggesting his own
personal knowledge of the topic also. These included Mrs Emma Lee
(real name Richardson), of 50 Margaret Street, Regent Street; Mrs
Phillips of 11 Upper Belgrave Place in Pimlico; and Mrs Shepherd of
25 Gilbert Street. Ashbee notes that he could list a number of other
Governesses currently operating, were it not indiscreet to do so. It is a
tribute of respect that clients kept their Governesses’ confidences, not
making references to their name until after they were retired, or had
passed away.
Biblio- Icono-graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books is
a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Catholic Church’s own list of
forbidden publications – also named Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(Index of Forbidden Books). Amongst the Catholic Church’s ‘forbidden
books’ over the years (and right up until the 1960s) were titles by
Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo,
Immanuel Kant, David Hume, René Descartes, Voltaire, Casanova,
Francis Bacon, Balzac, Émile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, Marquis de Sade,
Madame de Stael, Alexandre Dumas, John Stuart Mill, George Sand,
Martin Luther, Jean-Paul Sartre, through to the feminist Simone
de Beauvoir. With the benefit of hindsight, these ‘forbidden books’
made up a list of the most innovative and independent thinkers of
their era. At the time, though, their work was perceived as a threat to
the Catholic Church’s doctrine and ideology.
The frontispiece to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum references this
history (see Figure 30) of banning and burning books. In general,
that which a person or institution bans, burns, locks away, censors or
marks with a red ‘X’, they simultaneously mark as holding power.
Those who most busy themselves in banning books and information,
index their own belief system in torrent and contradiction at odds
with reality. They censor what echoes with some kernel of truth, and
with it an immense power, conflicting with or contradicting the
ideology that they seek to impose – by force – on everyone else.
Censorship appears to have claimed as its victim the memoirs of
Theresa Berkley. Her autobiographical papers, which were to be
published, are noted in several historical sources, and were reportedly
destroyed. Their publication had been keenly anticipated, with the
Venus School-Mistress book featuring an advertisement for the book ‘in
the press’:
The Autobiography of the late Theresa Berkley, of Charlotte St, Portland
Place, containing anecdotes of the present Nobility, and others, devoted to
erotic pleasures, with numerous plates.36
The memoirs were also elsewhere referred to as the ‘Berkley

Papers’, as Berkley had reportedly kept all her ‘papers’, which
comprised several boxes full of letters sent to her from her willing
slaves and students-for-punishment – these were noted as including
‘some of the highest personages of the land’. All references to names
were to be removed for publication, with Mary Wilson noting, ‘no
nobleman’s or gentleman’s name will be exposed’.37
Upon Berkley’s death, these boxes of her papers passed to her
38
executor Dr Vance. Publication was, however, reportedly held up at
Dr Vance’s request. His death was expected to ‘enable the firm, who
39
hold the copyright of her autobiography to put it to press’.
Ultimately, though, the papers were reportedly destroyed.
The factors that played out in these events are the subject of
hypothesis and speculation. Theresa Berkley evidently trusted in her
medical attendant Dr Vance to have appointed him as the executor of
her will. It may have been that Dr Vance was a private supporter (and
possibly client) of Berkley’s during her lifetime. Upon her death,
however, it would appear that he sought to distance himself from her
occupation. When Theresa Berkley’s brother, a missionary residing in
Australia, turned down the fortune of £12,500 left to him by his sister
(upon learning ‘its source’), it ceded to Dr Vance, who turned down
the money also.
Berkley was seemingly betrayed posthumously by Dr Vance, whose
behavior appears to reveal two faces; the private face looking in
admiration and support of Theresa Berkley – and the public face
looking with concern to his reputation and the judgment of others.
Perhaps others were also pressing on Dr Vance during his lifetime.
The ‘nobles and highest personages of the land’ who were amongst
Berkley’s clients, may have wanted to avoid the publication of her
autobiography, for fear of being identified by the ‘language, style and
40
sentiments’, and thus embarrassed by their private desires. Or
perhaps the threat of persecution or prosecution influenced
Dr Vance’s directive to suspend publishing, as the publication was,
after all, intended to include the print of a man being birched naked
on her Berkley Horse with his ‘embelon manualized’, amongst other
illustrations.
The only fragments seemingly left of Berkley’s autobiography and
papers are those left in their description made by others. It is always
possible of course that somewhere in England, tucked away in a
cupboard, a person connected in this chain, related to the typesetting
and printing, has a salvaged copy or printer’s proof tucked away,
despite all the material being supposedly destroyed. We can but hope.
One letter from her papers was reproduced as a ‘unique exemplar’
within the ‘Preface’ to The Venus School-Mistress. According to Wilson,
the letter was by a ‘very good-humoured and tolerant Catholic’, a
gentleman ‘who used to bring chains to fasten his neck, hands and
feet more securely to the horse’. He writes:
Dublin, Jan. 1834.
Dear Madam,
I am the most incorrigible “naughty boy”, and have been flogged by the most
noted governesses in London, without having my vices scourged out of me.
The gentleman who goes by the name of Brunswick recommended to me Mrs
Brown, and she had a pretty strong arm. He they call “Bawdy Blue Eyes”,
sent me to Mrs Wilson, of Mary-la-bone, and she was no chicken at it. Old
Jaunay, of Leicester Square, the hotel-keeper, proposed Ms Chalmers, and
she is a very experienced hand. Mr Plume invited me to dine with the
Stranger, and Mr G at the genteel and elegantly furnished residence of
Madame Noyeau; but even her tall and robust figure could not make a
sufficient impression on my backside; he they designate as “Sheep Face”,
wished me to try Jones, of London Street, but she and all her helps were too
drunk to break a rod on me. Captain Johnson insisted on my visiting Betsy
Burgess, who is certainly clever, but who has left the Diable au Corps. Lord
A__y sent me to Gordon, but she had lost Mrs Potter’s address, and was out of
rods. Brookes, the bookseller of Bond Street, gave me the card of Mesdames
Collet and Beverley, and surely I found them as knowing dames as any in
London; but even their united energies have left me unconquered. I have
now, my dear Madam, got a recommendation from your particular friend,
the Earl of G__e, who has made my blood boil with delight, by describing
your horse and charming apparatus, for tickling the tobys of us naughty
boys. I shall be with you early in February, as the Earl and myself are
coming over together, on our parliamentary duties; but to prevent no
misunderstanding, I send you my ten, beforehand:
To be well secured to the horse with the chains I bring.
One pound for the first blood drawn.
Two pounds if the blood runs down to the heels.
Three pounds if it reaches my heels.
Four pounds if it flows to the floor.
Five pounds if you cause me to faint away.
I am, my dear Madam,

Yours most incorrigibly,
TROBENIUS O’FLUNKEY
O’Flunkey’s letter gives some indication as to how the Governesses

got ‘word out’ to prospective clients; by way of word-of-mouth
amongst hotel keepers, aristocracy and acquaintances who shared a
love of the birch and of the female authority figure.
The Dominatrices not only left their mark on the bottoms of
nobility, they also left their mark as talented practitioners and savvy
businesswomen of their era. Developing their business establishments
with specialist tools and equipment, and honing their craft, they
acquired and passed on their knowledge to trainees as a batten of
erotic female wisdom.
These were no ‘fallen women’, but erotic entrepreneurs. They
achieved wealth by the arts of their courtesanerie and domination,
and were significantly ‘in command’ of their lives, their sexuality,
their skills and their own crafted self-image.
Endnotes
1 Anonymous Latin text, quoted in Halldór Smith, J. E. ‘Phyllis Rides
Aristotle’ (2013) (http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2013/04/phyllis-
rides-aristotle.html), 2 April 2013.
2 Xenophon, Symposium, ch. 2, sec. 10.
3 Shakespeare, W. The Taming of the Shrew, Act I, Scene 2.
4 Cited in Jones, M. ‘Print of the Month: The Cully Flaug’d’, British
Printed Images (BPI)
(http://www.bpi1700.org.uk/research/printOfTheMonth/december
December 2007.
5 Shadwell, ‘Virtuoso IV’ in Williams, G. A Dictionary of Sexual
Language & Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature (London,
1994), pp. 513–14.
6 Troth, T. The Knavery of Astrology 12 in Williams, G. A Dictionary of
Sexual Language & Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature
(London, 1994), pp. 513–14.
7 Jones, M. ‘Print of the Month: The Cully Flaug’d’, British Printed
Images
(http://www.bpi1700.org.uk/research/printOfTheMonth/december
December 2007.
8 Oxford English Dictionary: ‘To beat, whip, lash, trounce, drub’, citing
British Apollo, no. 9. 3/1 (1708), cited in Jones, M. ‘Print of the
Month: The Cully Flaug’d’.
9 See for example: ‘Bridewell Prison and Hospital’, London Lives
1690–1800, Crime, Prison and Social Policy in the Metropolis
(http://www.londonlives.org/static/Bridewell.jsp).
10 Ward, London Terrae-Filius l 22 in Williams, G. A Dictionary of
Sexual Language & Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature
(London, 1994), pp. 513–14).
11 New Canting Dictionary in Williams, G. A Dictionary of Sexual
Language & Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature, pp. 513–
14.
12 Wilson, M. ‘Preface by Mary Wilson’ (this edition dating between
1836–77), Venus School-Mistress or Birchen Sports (Birchopolis,
1917), p. 5.
13 Meibom, J. H. De usu flagorum in re Medica et Veneria, lumborumque
& renum officio De Usu (1638) reprinted under the English title: A
Treatise of the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs (Birchgrove Press,
2010).
14 Bartholin, T. in Meibom, J. H. A Treatise of the Use of Flogging in
Venereal Affairs. (NB: The original Latin text was published in 1639,
translated and reprinted in English in 1718 by Edmund Curll, and
many other times.)
15 Cleland, J. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure or Fanny Hil, reprint
(Wordsworth Classics, 2001), p. 161.
16 See text below ‘Flagellation’ print, Figure 13.
17 See Thomas Major print book illustration (1763), after Gravelot,
from the British Museum collection (ref. no. 1857,0217.83).
18 Fashionable Lectures: composed and delivered with Birch Discipline, by
the following and many other beautiful Ladies, who have filled with
universal approbation, the Character of Mother, Stepmother, Governess,
Ladies Maid, Kept-Mistress, Housekeeper, &c, &c. Originally published
c. 1761, and republished 1872 by Library Illustrative of Social
Progress no.7. J.C Hotten Publishing, London. Also cited in
Hurwood, B. J. The Golden Age of Erotica (Sherbourne Press, 1965),
p. 162.
19 Emphasis my own. Hurwood, B. J. The Golden Age of Erotica,
pp. 162–63.
20 Dabhoiwala, F. The Origins of Sex: A History of the World’s First
Sexual Revolution (Penguin Books, 2012).
21 Ibid.
22 Mannix, D. P. The Hellfire Club: The Underground Classic (I Books,
2001); Ashe, G. The Hellfire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality
(London: Simon and Schuster, 2001); Lord, E. The Hellfire Clubs:
Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies (Yale University Press, 2010).
23 The Nocturnal Revels of King’s Place and Other Modern
Nunneries, Containing Their Mysteries, Devotions and Sacrifices
(London, 1877).
24 Wilson, M. ‘Preface by Mary Wilson’, p. 6.
26 Mary Wilson has been assumed to be a pseudonym, but in fact a
‘Mrs Wilson’ is noted as a governess during this period, with a letter
sent by a client reproduced at the end of the Venus School-Mistress
‘Preface’ by Trobenius O’Flunkey actually makes reference to a Mrs
Wilson of Marylebone.
33 Walter My Secret Life (1877); see also: Gibson, I. The Erotomaniac:
The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee (London: Faber and Faber,
2001).
34 Gibson, I. The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee,
pp. 45–47.
35 Gibson, I. The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee,
pp. 45–47. NB: The author has personally examined this letter, for
which a page of has been reproduced here for the first time.
36 Noted in Ashbee’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877), footnote 64.
38 Wilson says Dr Vance is of Cork Street, and Hankey says Vance is
of Saville Row and was Berkley’s medical attendant. (It is possible
he moved from Cork Street to Saville Row, and so both sources may
be correct).
Chapter III
The Bizarre Dominant Ladies of the

Twentieth-Century Underground
Discreet Dominatrices and their Vanishing Acts

In the mid-twentieth century, professional Dominatrices undertook
their practices in a very discreet and underground manner. Indeed,
they were so discreet – that they’ve made themselves very difficult to
trace. Almost nothing exists of them within the historical record.
Their marketing was mainly in the form of whispered word-of-mouth
amongst lovers of dominant women and fetishists. In the 1950s–60s,
their advertising consisted of ephemeral little cards placed in the
windows of tobacconists in Soho and in telephone boxes.
EX-SCHOOLMISTRESS (degrees) gives private education tuition general
education subjects, afternoons and evenings. Difficult pupils specially
welcomed. Strict disciplinarian.1
Words like ‘strict’, ‘firm’, ‘control’ and ‘disciplinarian’ were used to

indicate the advertiser was a Dominatrix flagellation specialist.2
Some were known by a name; Miss ___ or Mrs ___, but it was usually
a false name they had adopted. In fact, in some cases a Dominatrix
would use an array of multiple pseudonyms.
Most Dominatrices worked out of a private apartment. They would
keep a wardrobe of ‘bizarre’ fetish attire for themselves and their
clients, along with a few pieces of custom furniture and equipment
for bondage and discipline. In some countries, most particularly in
Northern Europe, Dominatrices would operate in red-light districts,
differentiated from prostitutes by their thigh-high boots, dominant
stare and whip in their window display.
Trying to track these women down in the era prior to fetish
magazine publications proves to be a challenging task. Upon
retirement, a Dominatrix would typically sell off her equipment and
simply disappear. It didn’t take long for her name to be taken out of
currency, unknown to the apartment’s new tenants. No forwarding
address was left, nor was a ‘real’ name known by which she could be
traced. In fact all that was left behind to show for her former
existence was her image and memory in the mind of her colleagues,
clients and women who apprenticed under her. Her former equipment
and clothing would also often continue in use by those she had passed
it on to.
Few avenues are available for researching these early ‘bizarre’
fetish Dominatrices of the twentieth century. Thankfully, however,
fetish magazine editors David Jackson (of DDI magazine) and Bert
Wibo (of Massad magazine) had met some of these early Dominatrices
in the mid-twentieth century, or had heard a lot about their
operations through their acquaintances. Recognising the future
importance of this material, Jackson put together what he called the
‘Domina Files’. These files comprised valuable biographical
information on early Dominatrices, providing details of where and
when they had operated, their set-up, and vintage photographs taken
of them.
The other source of information on early Dominatrices is found in
newspapers, from the odd occasion when a Dominatrix made the
headlines, such as following a police raid. Most famous was the case
of the Dutch Dominatrix, Monique von Cleef, who had her home in
Newark, New Jersey raided just days before Christmas of 1965. The
story made headlines across virtually every region of the US, making
her a notorious celebrity. Von Cleef was jailed, but in the end won a
US Supreme Court challenge, finding that the police had abused their
powers in their search-and-seizure. She moved to The Hague, set up a
new ‘House of Pain’ and co-authored a biography of her life (see later
section in this chapter).
Before discussing the stories of these mid-twentieth-century
Dominatrices, it is important to note that many of the photographs of
Dominatrices circulating on the Internet are not real Dominatrices at
all.
Elegant Posers and the Bizarre Dominatrix

The elegant early twentieth century photographs supposedly of
Dominatrices that circulate all over the Internet, are almost all a
beautiful fantasy illusion of models staged in Dominatrix role, posing
for commercial fetish studio photographers.
One of the main operators producing images of domination around
the art deco period was the Biederer Studio and its successor Ostra,
based in Paris. Run by Czech photographer Jacques and his brother
Charles Biederer, who immigrated to Paris in 1908 and 1913
respectively, their studio evolved from conventional imagery to soft
erotica and what may be called ‘fetish photography’, much of which
dates to the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s (see Figures 31
and 32).
staging, costume fetish and erotic attire, such as leather, corsets,
fully-fashioned seamed stockings, lingerie and boots. They catered
well to the market for fetish erotica. In the late 1930s, the Biederers
set up a publishing house named ‘Éditions Ostra’, which produced
albums of photo series sold in sets, including outdoor narrative
photography, studio sets, erotic photography for book commissions
and commercial work for Yva Richard’s mail-order line of lingerie,
fetish and bondage products. The Ostra Studio also produced a short
film entitled Dressage au fouet, which featured a lingerie-clad woman
4
whipping another lady, and early stag films.
A few of their photographs are identifiable from the monograph
‘JB’ (for Jacques Biederer) or ‘B’ (for Biederer), or feature the name
‘Ostra’ or a question mark inside a triangle. The vast majority of the
Biederer and Ostra Studio fetish images were, however, unsigned,
discernable only from their stylistic signature, as well as their familiar
furniture, props and models.
There is a tragic end to their story reported – that the brothers, who
were of Jewish descent, perished at Auschwitz. The Biederer/Ostra
legacy, whose work was a large influence on fetish artists, including
John Willie and Irving Klaw, was to live on long after their death.
Thousands of the studios’ images continue to circulate, and have been
brought together in a wonderful French-published volume entitled Les
Éditions Ostra: L’âge d’Or du Fétichisme.5 The images themselves have
helped form and inform the fetish image of the ‘Dominatrix’ for the
twentieth century.
The other part of the fetish Dominatrix image legacy derived from
the French photos was ‘Yva Richard’, or rather L. Richard and his
seamstress (and exhibitionist) wife Nativa. They evolved their
business from selling lingerie and costumes, into the more lucrative
trade of fetish clothing, photographic sets, bondage and discipline
implements, and equipment. Ostra Studio produced their mail-order
catalogues, and erotic fetish photography was also sold by Yva
Richard.
The model for the photography and catalogue was Nativa herself, a
full-figured woman, who would reportedly use pseudonyms such as
invitation-only private club, referred to as the ‘American Social
9
Circle’, made up of underground fetish enthusiasts. Like the Monks
of Medmenham or Hellfire Club in England, it is difficult to testify
historically to rumour and reality surrounding the club, regarding its
activities or membership. In August 1935, however, Guyette was
caught up on charges for sending lewd publications and material
through the US Postal Service, and reportedly sent to jail for one year
10
and one day.
The cumulative impact of the circa 1930s fetish material, of
Biederer/Ostra Studio, Yva Richard, Hans Rehfeld and Charles
Guyette, was the creation of a fetish style – a legacy that exists up
until this day.
Although their names remain relatively obscure, the fetish
magazines and illustrators who were to follow in America are very
well known. These include John Willie (the pseudonym of John
Alexander Scott Coutts) of Bizarre magazine (1946–59). Willie was
responsible for creating the fabulous damsel-in-distress, ‘Sweet
Gwendoline’, and the secret agent in Dominatrix role, named U69.11
Much of Willie’s artwork features a woman dominating another
woman, who is typically tied-up or restrained, and often gagged (see
Figure 40).
in the nineteenth century the female flagellants Governess
Dominatrices wore fashionable clothing and costumes, and met
requests of individual clients for fetishes such as fur, long gloves, lace
lingerie and so on; the twentieth century saw the Dominatrix donning
the ‘bizarre’ attire to create her look and identifiable role. The new
wardrobe of the Dominatrix was leather corsets, thigh-high leather
boots, leather gloves and high-heel stilettos. As latex/rubber became
a new material used for clothing, this, too, was fast added to ‘Her’
visual vernacular.
Naming the Dominatrix: Adoption of a title to their

craft occupation
The term ‘Dominatrix’ itself was only applied to the occupation in the
late 1960s, in a context of pulp paperbacks on the ‘bizarre sex’
underground, and was popularised in film.
One of the first of these pulp paperbacks was Michael Leigh’s
paperback book, The Velvet Underground (1963), which explored the
subculture of underground ‘bizarre sex’ activities, in a mock-shock
journalistic style (see Figure 42).14 The book inspired the name of
the American band The Velvet Underground, whose members included
Lou Reed. Reed wrote the song ‘Venus in Furs’ referencing Leopold
van Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novella Venus in Furs. The song’s lyrics
were about a Mistress and slave relationship, and made reference to
the worship of leather boots and to whipping.
Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girl-child in the dark
Comes in bells, your servant don’t forsake him
Strike dear Mistress, and cure his heart.15
who ran their domination businesses in London, New York, The
Hague and Herbertstrasse during the mid-twentieth century. These
women came into contact with magazine editors and fetish clothing
designers, and were at some point photographed.
The early images of the 1950s and 1960s are predominantly black-
and-white or sepia, up until the advent of colour film and polaroids,
after which time there are faded photographs and scans from
magazine articles, copied and re-copied, which still survive. The
resulting record is fragmentary, incomplete and non-linear in
chronological time. However, what it does do is provide us with
‘snapshots’ of Dominatrices in time, space and place. Paired with
second-hand accounts of those who once knew them, we have a small
peephole into how these women operated in their era and
geographical location, in a subversive career of female domination.
1960s England: Miss Doreen of London and Miss

Anne of Kent
England in the 1960s was still very conservative when it came to
professional domination. Much of the information of the Dominatrices
from this era comes second-hand from accounts of John Sutcliffe (of
AtomAge magazine) and other magazine editors he knew. Sutcliffe
was in a privileged position to know about Dominatrices of the 1960s
era, as he was the main fashion designer of ‘bizarre attire’ to whom
Dominatrices would go to for their custom-made clothing.
Sutcliffe was a former aircraft engineer with an ‘attachment’ to
leather, diagnosed as a mental illness in the era in which fetishes
were regarded as a psychiatric disorder, with attempts made to ‘cure’
him.17 He subsequently suffered a marital and mental breakdown,
moving out of his house with little money to his name, and became a
wedding photographer to make ends meet. He was also a keen
motorcyclist, and the story goes that he took a lady friend on his
motorcycle, when the heavens opened, leaving her soaked wet. So
they went searching for motorcycle leathers prior to the next outing.
Unable to find anything suitable for women, Sutcliffe reportedly
purchased a dozen skins of red leather from Soho, and made her an
18
outfit himself on a sewing machine he borrowed from his landlady.
The resulting red motorcycling leathers, with a wide belt and large
press studs, apparently delighted the lady for whom they had been
made. When another friend saw the unique creation, she too wanted
a custom leather outfit, and so was born the idea for a new company
19
registered as ‘a manufacturer of waterproofs for lady pillion riders.’
He had hit on a niche market, creating motorcycle leathers for
women (including female rally drivers), as well as making form-
fitting catsuits and bizarre fetish pieces for private individuals in
leather and PVC.
Sutcliffe’s creations are said to have influenced Jim Bates’ design of
the catsuit worn by Emma Peel’s character (played by Diana Rigg) on
the television show The Avengers, which may have even been made in
20
Sutcliffe’s workshop. As for Sutcliffe’s own design work – he
undertook costumes for the stage version of The Avengers and
designed the all-in-one leather outfit for Marianne Faithful’s role in
The Girl on a Motorcyle (1968).21
Sutcliffe’s designs were popular with wealthy clients who were
enthusiasts of bizarre fetish attire and, of course, the Dominatrices of
the era. One of the most sought-after discipline ladies, according to
Sutcliffe, was Miss Doreen. He personally visited her at her West End
flat that had a bespoke dungeon room (which Sutcliffe thought was
amazing for its time).
According to Sutcliffe, Miss Doreen’s room was specially
soundproofed for discretion, and housed a padded pillory, whipping
bench and a bondage chair, upholstered with sharp spikes.22 She also
had an impressive collection of whips, alongside her other pieces of
discipline and punishment equipment.
including large sizes for men’s feet to fit her clients. She would take
relish in teaching clients to walk in a lady-like fashion in the pencil-
25
thin-stiletto heels. One of the rare vintage photos of the era shows
Miss Doreen cutting an attractive silhouette, hands on hips, gazing
towards some of her shoe collection, while herself wearing a pair of
killer stilettos.
She was reportedly ‘pure Dominatrix’ in her services, which never
extended to sexual or escorting services. Described as ‘all come on,
but no-touchie-touchie’, she was regarded as being a true craft
Dominatrix, talented and professional, and very discreet.26 She didn’t
share anything of her personal life with her clients, and reciprocally
kept their discretion and privacy.
Miss Doreen closed her business down in the late 1960s, selling off
her clothes and equipment to her apprentice Nadine Day, before
disappearing off the scene. She had some kind of illness. Cancer was
rumoured, but it is unknown exactly what ailment Miss Doreen
suffered. She is believed to have died around 1973, and is
remembered by those who knew her as one of the best Dominatrices
who ever practiced, albeit unheard-of outside the underground circle
of submissives, bondage and discipline and cross-dressing enthusiasts
who knew her.
Another English Dominatrix who had connections to AtomAge’s
John Sutcliffe was Mistress Anne, who practiced in the underground
fetish scene from around 1968. She lived on a semi-rural street in
Kent, and was both a ‘lifestyle’ and semi-professional Dominatrix,
dominating her husband in her personal life and also taking paid
sessions with clients. Taking the dominant role in her relationship,
she would have her husband sit passively in the passenger seat while
she drove about Kent and direct him in servitude to her, making
dinner and attending domestic duties.27 He no doubt gratefully and
excitedly enjoyed being erotically dominated by his tall and ‘in-
charge’ wife.
An old rustic carriage house, serving as a garage on their property,
was converted into a dungeon for Anne. Tall hedges screened the
walkway between the homestead and the carriage house, providing
privacy for her husband and submissive clients to move between the
28
two buildings in fetish attire. The dungeon housed pieces of
equipment, which included a St Andrew’s Cross, a bondage horse, a
stretching rack and a suspension system. Her collection of whips,
crops, canes, cuffs and other SM and bondage devices was kept in a
side cupboard. In Anne’s specially soundproofed dungeon playspace,
she received around two or three paying clients a week, fulfilling her
own thirst to dominate and contributing towards the household
expense bill. Submissive businessmen would hear about Anne through
the underground of fetish and domination enthusiasts.
In around 1970, Mistress Anne’s devoted submissive husband
wanted to have a special fetish outfit made for his wife. They
approached John Sutcliffe to undertake this task, and collaborated on
the planned design. The resulting shiny wet-look, head-to-toe outfit,
made AtomAge history. It was beautifully detailed with mock lacing,
patent leather belt, wet-look gloves and a shiny hood with cat’s eyes
cut out. Anne was featured modelling the outfit in Issue 3 of AtomAge,
resplendent in high-heel boots with spurs, elongating her already-tall
frame (see Figures 49–51).29 She was transformed completely, and
became an icon of ‘bizarre’ style.
wanting her contact details. He obliged as a favour to the Mistress.
Fielding an incessant deluge of enquiries, however, Sutcliffe came up
with the AtomAge ‘Contact System’, by which he enabled fetish
enthusiasts to get in contact with each other discreetly.
1950s, New York and New Jersey: Anne Laurence,

Jean Fischer and Monique von Cleef
The 1950s was the era of the housewife, and was a largely
conservative environment. The congressional hearings on anti-
Americanism and the ‘Black List’ had its effects on anyone who might
be deemed ‘subversive’, who was connected to the entertainment
industry or was involved with or knew people within the Communist
Party. Editors of fetish magazines were at risk of prosecution or
persecution under ‘obscenity’ laws. There was a real fear in the air,
accounted for by those within the underground scene. Whether
paranoid or not, it made many people guarded and careful about their
dealings with a Dominatrix. There was quite a tight circle of people
with shared interests in fetish and domination who socialised together
at private parties.
Anne Laurence was a professional Dominatrix who was known
within the New York circle. She operated very discreetly through the
1950s and early 1960s from a comfortable Uptown Manhattan
apartment. Amongst her close friends were Bill Fischer and his
Dominant wife Jean, of Ossining, who were good friends with fetish
artist John Willie, acquaintances of Irving Klaw, Leonard ‘Lennie’
Burtman and Eric Stanton.30 Everyone knew each other by only one
or two degrees of separation, it would seem. Bill and Jean Fischer
would visit Burtman’s apartment, where Anne Laurence and Jean
would ‘Double-Domme’ together, ganging up on slave clients for extra
fun.31
Jean Fischer was not only close friends with John Willie, but also
appears to have impacted Willie’s image of the Dominatrix. In one
beautifully rendered artwork, the Dominatrix wears Jean Fischer’s
very distinctive wide-sleeve gloves and shoulder-length brown hair
magazine publishers, who seldom had any idea who the
model/Dominatrix was, and would use the photographs for
illustrative purposes, almost any way they wanted and without
concern for signed release forms. Photographs of Laurence appear in
publications by Burmel Publishing, House of Milan and Jennifer
36
Jordan titles without attribution.
Another Dominatrix in New York around this era was a pretty
young blonde Dutch Dominatrix named Monique von Cleef, who
arrived on the New York scene in the early 1960s. She came into
domination from a background in nursing, which is a useful (and
quite common) background occupation for Dominatrices, and was
photographed for Leonard Burtman’s magazine Bizarre Life in 1963.
The images were shot in his Manhattan apartment, with Von Cleef
wearing the same borrowed leather attire that would be worn by
Tana Louise and other models in Burtman’s magazines (see Figure
57).37
Photographs of police detectives brandishing Von Cleef’s whips ran
in the articles, alongside images of Von Cleef herself. The police
reportedly hauled off some two carloads of her whips, chains, leather
cat o’ nine tails, steel bracelets and leg irons. Von Cleef, although
jailed, would later win her case in the Supreme Court a few years
later, which found that the police had essentially abused their powers
of search-and-seizure. The court cases make fascinating reading,
highlighting the questionable activities in the police ferreting out
‘furtive and ingenious activities’, including those of ‘lewdness’ in
private.
Ferret Detectives and ‘Furtive Ingenious Activities’ of

‘Lewdness’ in Private
The men who targeted Monique von Cleef were a joint force of the US
Postal Service ‘obscenity’ division, working with the US law
enforcement police detectives. In the state of New Jersey, ‘acts of
lewdness’ were criminal, including those in private.
Detective Lieutenant Magnusson was part of a special investigation
division that dealt with ‘obscenity’ in the day’s definition. Their job
was to ferret out pornography and material on sexual ‘aberrations’, as
they regarded them, including homosexuality, transvestitism,
voyeurism, sadism and masochism. Magnusson had reportedly been
assigned to the obscenity division for eight years, and had
participated in almost 600 ‘obscenity’ investigations.39
The investigation of Von Cleef was reportedly spurred by the
publications Flair and La Plume, which were connected to James
Beard, who Von Cleef worked with, and which bore her discreet
advertisement:
N.Y.C – Exotic Miss, 30 years, 36-26-36. Extremely interested in rubberwear,
satin, French lingerie, discipline, etc, ; Anxious to experiment. Will
correspond with all. Write descriptively. Photo appreciated.40
The advertisement was accompanied by a photograph of Von Cleef

and the reference number 174 (used for discretion and privacy within
the mail contact system, for readers who wanted to make contact
with others who shared their special [fetish] interests).
Laying a trap for Von Cleef, the postal and police team sent in
Detective Magnusson as a pretend submissive client, who wrote to her
requesting a paid consultation, making an appointment for an hour
and a half of discipline.
The court testimony speaks to Von Cleef’s empathy and sensitivity
for those with fetish and submissive interests.41 She welcomes her
guest, greeting him with his anonymous name as ‘Mr S’. She takes his
coat, pours him a drink, and helps to try and relax and open him up
to her about his interests. When he won’t share much with her, saying
he had to be discreet, Von Cleef says, ‘How can I help you if you
won’t tell me about yourself?’ She asks him about his childhood and
adolescence, and when he first started liking to be whipped. Detective
Magnusson replied that he had an experience with a girl who he went
out with and engaged in flagellation with, to a point where he would
become sexually aroused, and would consummate the normal sex act.
To which Von Cleef clarifies, ‘Well I won’t have intercourse with you’.
She differentiated herself as a Dominatrix in her services, setting the
boundaries of her role.42
After discussing her personal background, her interest and
experience in female domination, she handed the police detective a
pair of women’s high-heel shoes, and tells him that she wants him
wearing them and kneeling in submission when she comes back in the
room. ‘I’m the boss’, she reportedly said before leaving the room. She
went on to adorn herself in black high-heel shoes, net stockings, and a
‘tight-fitting rubber apparatus, which would resemble a bathing suit’,
according to Magnusson’s report.43
The police would bust into Von Cleef’s house soon after, putting her
under arrest. Although no search warrant had been issued, several
policemen proceeded to search her entire house, of 16 rooms, for a
period of about 3 hours.44 Amongst their ‘haul’, the ferret detectives
seized copies of Flair magazine, membership lists and member
photographs, filing cabinets with thousands of private names and
addresses, 4,500 pieces of correspondence and private photographs of
Von Cleef along with cartons of unopened mail.
On the third, upper floor of the house, the dungeon room, which
she called ‘The Tower’, they seized seemingly everything but the
chains attached to the ceiling. Von Cleef evidently had a terrific
torture box – which drew particular police analysis and attention. She
also had red rubber garments, chains, paddles, whips, straps,
straightjackets, padded clothing, belts and restraint devices, and
handcuffs, which would be entered into evidence. From a
neighbouring small room, they seized rubber and leather garments.
The various items would later be described and commented on in
trial, with two psychiatrists testifying for each side.
As part of the Superior Court case, one of the most remarkable
points made, of consequence to everyone’s private acts, concerned a
statute that delineated offences not only for public lewdness, but also
private lewdness.
‘Lewdness’ was defined as ‘the irregular indulgence of lust, whether
public or private.’ (State v. Baledino). It included acts committed in
private with another person, which tended to ‘debaunch the morals
and manners of the people’, even when no one else was witness to the
act.45 The Superior Court found against Von Cleef, for ‘occupying a
place for the purposes of lewdness and assignation’, in which the
inflicting or receiving of pain for sexual gratification was ‘lewdness’.
Flair magazine’s correspondence system for BDSM and fetish
enthusiasts also came under court scrutiny, with far-reaching
consequences for many people. Hundreds of people’s names, those
who sought to join the private Flair Club, had their application forms
introduced before the court in the Von Cleef trial. A ringed notebook
containing master files of names and addresses of correspondents
from various states, sometimes accompanied by photographs, was
also entered into evidence.46 These were names of otherwise ordinary
Americans, who enjoyed Domination and fetish in their private lives,
revealed in court. Private letters addressed to ‘Mistress Monique’ were
introduced as evidence, written by ‘slave’ men, who wrote
declarations of wishing to do anything their Mistress or Queen
desired.
One can only imagine the emotions of all the people affected by
Von Cleef’s court case, who had written to her with their most private
desires, or to others in private via the Flair correspondence system.
Seeking people who shared or understood their interests and
understood them, they found their private correspondence used as
evidence in a court trial. Their private passions were essentially
damned (and slammed) as being ‘lewd’, ‘sexual aberrations’, and as
‘deviant’.47 Publications dealing with fetish or sadomasochistic
activity were similarly deemed ‘obscene’. (E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of
Grey would have garnered her big trouble had it been published in
the 1960s!)
Von Cleef, who was jailed for her ‘crimes’, would later say of the
raid that she was herself a ‘typical Aquarius, and they are always fifty
48
years ahead of their time’. History, as it turned out, would prove
her correct. Partial redemption was in even closer sight, with Von
Cleef winning the Supreme Court case in 1969, which found the
police search-and-seizure unlawful. And, by around this era, Von
Cleef had zipped out of the US and set up in the Netherlands, in The
Hague.
The Hague, 1970s: Monique von Cleef, Sadom Bea

and Mistress Kenny
Amsterdam had the reputation as one of the most sexually permissive
cities in the world, but it was The Hague that was known for
Dominatrices. It was full of Von Cleef’s ideal clients: lawyers,
ambassadors, diplomats and politicians. As Mistress Michelle Peters
recounts:
She [Von Cleef] said she met slaves of all types and all sorts, but wouldn’t
discuss who they were, especially the Americans. But she did say the Hague
was full of politicians and because they were so nearby and the embassies
and so … Then stopped, I guess that answered the question.49
Monique von Cleef’s Dutch ‘House of Pain’ was set up in a lovely

house on Laan van Meerdervoort. The location was just North of Den
Haag’s Central station, and a short way down the same road from the
Peace Palace.50 The set-up was described by Peters:
The house itself is like most others on the street, a whitewashed, four-storey
stone building. The first floor includes her living quarters and a reception
area where she interviews new slaves. The second storey is devoted almost
completely to a dungeon and it is filled with the tools of her trade. The third
floor is off limits, but I can tell you, it’s her boudoir. The fourth floor and
final floor was used for storage, now converted into another dungeon,
complete with a jacuzzi. And at any given time you will see slaves busy
cleaning house, serving guests, providing excellent domestic help.51
Von Cleef was keen to capitalise on her fame, and worked on a

biography of her life with Lyle Stewart, which was published in 1973
out of Syracuse, New York, entitled The House of Pain: The Strange
World of Monique Von Cleef, The Queen of Humiliation: An
Autobiography and a Message to All Human Slaves.52 It was the first
legitimate book to be published about a Dominatrix within the
English-speaking world. As a result of the publicity and her earlier
North American court cases, Von Cleef became a celebrity
Dominatrix. Devoted slaves flocked to her from around the world, and
fledgling Dominatrices who wished to apprentice under her, put in
their time at the ‘House of Pain’.53 The house had a reputation for
accommodating heavy masochistic sessions, humiliation sessions (for
which Von Cleef was renowned), cross-dressing, medical-themed
BDSM scenarios and fetishes. An actual real-life castration was also
rumoured to have been performed on a slave who had long desired to
be a serving eunuch.54
Figure 61 Sadom Bea, The Hague (c. 1970s).
Her colleague, Mistress Kenny, had a flat on Columbraast from

which she worked mostly during the evenings and weekends, while
58
simultaneously juggling a daytime career in the ‘normal’ world.
Mistress Kenny’s background was in the field of medicine and clinical
care, not dissimilar from Von Cleef’s background in nursing. It is no
surprise to hear that the Columbraast flat was kept clinically clean. It
was also reportedly well equipped for its era, but basic by today’s
59
standards (according to a magazine editor who visited her there).
After years of sharing a space, Mistress Kenny moved to Rotterdam
in the early 1980s, and set up her own one-room playspace. It had
faux red-brick finish on the three walls, and aluminium foil on a
fourth, with a large, old-fashioned wagon wheel secured to the wall,
and a heavy wooden bondage cross. Racks of paddles, canes, crops,
bit gags, straps, cuffs and hoods were set up, reflecting Mistress
Kenny’s interests. She reportedly had a creative imagination for
making the most out of her space and equipment with her Dominatrix
skills. She was featured on the cover of DDI magazine in this space,
wearing space age-looking silver boots and clothing, and a cat’s eye
mask for anonymity (see Figure 62).
In the St Pauli district of Hamburg in Germany, Dominatrices have
long taken up window positions on the famous cobblestone red-light
strip of Herbertstrasse (Herbertstraße). The street still exists in the
same function to this day, divided off by a large screen, carrying a
message prohibiting young people from entering the strip.
In the era of the late 1970s, a Dominatrix named Brita Schmerse
had prime position on the Herbertstrasse. Working from the first
window in the first house, just after the barrier entrance, Schmerse
worked the night shift, while her colleague, Red Lola, took the day
shift. Schmerse’s role as Dominatrix was visually (and symbolically)
differentiated from surrounding prostitutes by her distinctive attire.
Whereas neighbouring windows feature women in skimpy lingerie
and bikini pieces, Schmerse would be dressed in black leather or
black and red rubber (depending on her mood), paired with front-
lacing thigh-high boots, and a dangerous-looking whip.61 ‘Zey are gut
for ze business’ (they are good for business), she would say, with a
glint in her eye.62 Her equipment helped perform the role of
theatrical prop, symbolising the ‘play’ on offer.
Although a half-dozen Dominatrices would work on the
Herbertstrasse, with a competitiveness and pecking order that goes
with the territory, Schmerse was apparently the alpha Domina of her
day. She had all the confidence, experience, attire and aloofness for
the role. A few black-and-white photographs of her at work survive,
depicting Schmerse ‘in action’ with a slavegirl (see Figure 63).
accommodate a Dominatrix’s equipment, it would require strategic
placement to accommodate items like a whipping cross, bondage
platform and a bend-over punishment bench within the flats of the
Herbertstrasse. Often equipment would be multi-functional and
versatile, with a smaller number of whips and implements of good
quality. A Dominatrix in this environment had to work her space well
to ensure it didn’t cramp her style – quite literally. (The expression
goes, ‘it’s barely enough room to swing a cat – o’ nine tails’.)
It may have been the confines of a small space and sharing with
other Dominatrices across shifts that led Mistress Gaby to move to a
new, larger location on Stressemanstrasse around 1982. However, she
reportedly returned to the Herbertstrasse a few years later, in 1984,
but left a year or two later, selling up her equipment to another
Dominatrix, and disappearing.
The windows offered Dominatrices relative freedom and transience
to enter and exit the industry, with equipment readily shared or
passed-on. Unlike the investment and commitment required by a
private flat set-up with extensive equipment, the Herbertstrasse
allowed women to dip in and out of domination.
One such Dominatrix who appeared and disappeared, perhaps to
aid her university studies until a particular point in time, was Nicole
de Carje. She was strikingly attractive, and would wear a long wig,
with strong make-up and a leather cat’s mask disguise (see
Figure 65). In 1982 she was located at the first house on the
Herbertstrasse, in its third window.63 A prime position, any man
entering around the barrier would be struck first by her eyes, looking
out from her mask. Dressed in tight leather, with shiny black leather
boots, arm gauntlets, with a whip draped over her stool, on view and
yet hidden, she achieved the perfect Dominatrix effect – of concealing
and revealing.
De Carje’s room was accented with red. She had a versatile
bondage table, operating dual purpose as a stretching rack, as well as
a whipping bench and St Andrew’s Cross. Her small equipment
included whips, paddles, bondage cuffs, enema gear and rubber
aprons, and she reportedly only worked a few nights a week, here and
discreet private flat, from a shared space, or from a red-light window,
the ‘picture’ that emerges from behind their faded images and story
fragments is one of self-determination.
The occupation of the Dominatrix involves an investment; in
financial terms, in training and skill acquisition, and in weighing up
the risks and stigma that may come about from operating a business
in fetish and BDSM, in consideration of their own values and belief
systems. For the conservative context of the 1950s, 1960s and even
later, it was a brave and bold career choice.
Whereas ‘sex work’ was often framed in broad terms as inherently
exploitive, connected to dialogues of human trafficking, drug-taking,
gang and mob cartels, and control, the stories of Dominatrices
provide a far more complex picture of women in sex work.
Women in the mid-twentieth century carved out a career and a
craft for themselves, in their choice of professional domination. Not
only were they Mistresses in fantasy role-play, but Mistresses of their
own lives and careers, at a time in which their choice of occupation
was considerably taboo.
It is also noteworthy that the twentieth-century Dominatrices were
both formed by – and helped inform – the ‘bizarre’ fetish style.
Although their attire was influenced by the photographic and
magazine images of the dominant woman in ‘bizarre’ style, they also
influenced the emerging style in various ways. Anne Laurence’s
commission of a head-to-toe outfit (in which she was actively
involved in the design process with John Sutcliffe of AtomAge) saw
her co-create herself as an icon of ‘bizarre’ fetish fashion. Or in the
case of Jean Fischer, whose distinctive gloves, style and attitude
appear to have influenced one of John Willie’s own images on the
Dominatrix. Fantasy informed reality, and reality in turn informed
(and fed) fantasy. The bizarre underground that the Dominatrices
inhabited and lived would impact the music industry, the fashion
industry and erotic imagery forever onwards.
Endnotes
1 Henri, E. J. Kiss of the Whip (London: The Walton Press, 1961),
p. 136.
2 Ibid.
3 Dupuoy, A. Les Éditions Ostra: L’âge d’Or du Fétichisme (Éditions
Astarte Publishing); See: http://www.editionsastarte.com, 2007.
4 See Biederer Brothers short film under Ostra, entitled Dressage Au
Fouet on Archive.org website
(http://archive.org/details/1930sFrenchFetishStagFilmSmWhipping
5 Dupuoy, A. Les Éditions Ostra: L’âge d’Or du Fétichisme.
6 With great thanks to J. B. Rund of Belier Press in the US, for
assisting with this information.
7 From email correspondence with Mr J. B. Rund of Bélier Press, 14
August 2013.
8 See ‘Charles Guyette’ at Spanking Art website
(http://spankingart.org/wiki/Charles_Guyette).
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Bizarre Magazine was published between 1946–59, with issue 2
being the first issue released. The Dominatrix of ‘Sweet
Gwendoline’, U69, has her name censored to U89 in some versions.
A very good book is Belier Press’ publication, The Adventures of
Sweet Gwendoline by John Willie, which provides an accurate
account of John Willie by J. B. Rund, and sets straight much of the
incorrect information that circulates on the internet, as well as
reproducing the relevant artwork to a high standard. There is also a
Taschen publication: Kroll, E. (ed.) The Complete Reprint of John
Willie’s Bizarre (2 volumes) (Cologne: Taschen Books), which
reproduces Bizarre Magazine issues in ‘almost’ complete form, and
helps make these out-of-print issues available to all. (See the
perfectionist J. B. Rund’s critical review of its few errors at:
http://www.belierpress.com/www/review.html)
12 See The Complete Reprint of Exotique: The First 36 issues, 1951–1957
(3 volumes) (Cologne: Taschen Books).
13 From email correspondence with Mr J. B. Rund of Bélier Press, 14
August 2013.
14 Leigh, M. The Velvet Underground (USA, 1963). The book was
republished in England as Leigh, M. The Velvet Underground
Revisited (1967), and a year later re-released under the title Bizarre
Sex Underground (1968).
15 Lyrics from ‘Venus in Furs’ song, by Lou Reed, for The Velvet
Underground (band).
16 Rogers, B. Bizarre Lovemakers (New York, 1967), cited in Oxford
English Dictionary under ‘Dominatrix’. It is unclear whether this is
definitively the first use of the term ‘Dominatrix’, as there are
hundreds of underground publications that are unsearchable
through in-library resources. However, by examining newspaper
terms for ‘Dominatrix’, frequent use of the word occurs only after
1967, increasing after the film release of Dominatrix Without Mercy.
17 Trunk, J. ‘The Rubber Man: The History of John Sutcliffe and
Atomage[, Dressing For Pleasure: The Best of AtomAge 1972–1980
(eds Murray, D. and Sorrell, S.) (London, UK: Fuel Books, 2010),
p. 7.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Hodgkinson, H. ‘King of Kinky’, The Guardian, 11 September 2010,
(http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/sep/11/john-
sutcliffe-fetish-wear).
22 Jackson, D. ‘Miss Doreen’ in ‘The Domina Files’, Domination
Directory International Magazine, p. 88.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Mistress Anne in Jackson, D. ‘The Domina Files’, Domination
Directory International Magazine, pp.144–45.
28 Ibid.
29 Sutcliffe, J. AtomAge magazine (Volume 3) (London, UK, 1970).
30 Jackson, D. ‘Jean Fischer: John Willie’s Favourite Dominatrix’ in
‘The Domina Files’, Domination Directory International Magazine ,
pp. 60–61.
31 Ibid.
32 Jackson, D. ‘Jean Fischer’ in ‘The Domina Files’, Domination
Directory International Magazine, pp. 60–61
33 Jackson, D. ‘Anne Laurence’ in ‘The Domina Files’, Domination
Directory International Magazine, p. 93.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Jackson, D. ‘Monique von Cleef’ in ‘The Domina Files’, Domination
Directory International Magazine, pp. 18–19, 112–13. (See page 19.)
38 Bakersfield Californian, 22 December 1965; some of the other
newspapers across the US that carried the story on Wednesday, 22
December were: ‘Torture For Thrills Set-Up Uncovered’, Capital
Times (Madison, Wisconsin); ‘SADISM FOR SALE: Torture-Thrill
House Raided’, The Morgantown Post (West Virginia); ‘Bizarre
Torture-for-Thrills Den Uncovered: Many Sex Sadism Customers
Said Well-Known Clients’, Brownsville Herald (Texas). Other articles
ran in: The Daily Courier (Conellsville, Pennsylvania); The Berkshire
Eagle (Pittsburg, Massachusetts); Raleigh Register Beckley (West
Virginia); The Independent (Pasadena, California); ‘House of Torture
Raided’, Daily Review (Hayward, California); News Journal
(Mansfield, Ohio); El Paso Herald Post (El Paso, Texas); Sandusky
Register (Sandusky, Ohio); ‘Torture for Thrills Operation
Uncovered’, The Daily Interlake (Kalispell, Montana); ‘Nationwide
Torture-for-Thrills Operation Uncovered in Mansion’, The Port
Arthur News Port Arthur (Texas); Kingsport Times (Kingsport,
Tennessee); Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), and so on.
39 State v. Von Cleef, Et Al., Case 102 N.J. Super. 102 (1968) 245 A.2d
495, State of New Jersey v. Monique von Cleef and James Albert Beard,
Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. Argued 27 May
1968; decided 2 July 1968.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid
43 Ibid.
44 Monique von Cleef v. New Jersey (1969), 395 U.S 814 (89 S.Ct.
2051, 23 L.Ed.2d 728), Monique von Cleef v. New Jersey, No 837.
Decided 23 June 1969.
45 State v. von Cleef, Et Al. Case 102 N.J. Super.102 (1968) 245 A.2d
495, State of New Jersey v Monique von Cleef and James Albert Beard,
Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. Argued 27 May
1968; decided 2 July 1968.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Mistress Michelle Peters ‘Monique von Cleef 1925–2005’ (viewable
at:
http://content.worldgroups.com/groups/Custom/M/MMPLibrary/m
NB: This quote may also have appeared in Monique von Cleef’s
Autobiography: Von Cleef, M. The House of Pain: The Strange World
of Monique Von Cleef The Queen of Humiliation: An Autobiography
and Message to All Human Slaves (New York: Lyle Stewart, 1973).
49 Mistress Michelle Peters, ‘Monique von Cleef 1925–2005’.
50 Jackson, D. ‘Monique von Cleef’, ‘The Domina Files’, DDI, pp. 18–
19, 112–13 (see p. 112).
51 Mistress Michelle Peters, ‘Monique von Cleef 1925–2005’.
52 Von Cleef, M. The House of Pain: The Strange World of Monique Von
Cleef The Queen of Humiliation: An Autobiography and Message to All
Human Slaves.
53 Jackson, D. ‘Monique von Cleef’, ‘The Domina Files’, DDI.
54 Anonymous sources, and see also: David Jackson article on Von
Cleef. Op. cit.
55 Von Cleef reportedly gave up her House of Pain to retire, however,
as Jackson notes, she went on to bounce around in locales
including Holland, Belgium, German and the USA in the 1990s,
moving to Ostende on the Belgian coast around 1998, and later to
Dusseldorf with a colleague named Lady Jane (ibid.). She passed
away on 4 February 2005 in Antwerpe from complications
associated with diabetes. See Bert Wibo’s obituary ‘Goodbye
Monique von Cleef’ at:
http://content.worldgroups.com/groups/Custom/M/MMPLibrary/m
56 She reportedly died in hospital of cancer in 1990. Ibid.
57 Jackson, D. ‘Sadom Bea’, ‘The Domina Files’, DDI, p. 93.
58 Jackson, D. ‘Mistress Kenny’, ‘The Domina Files’, DDI, pp. 28–29.
59 Ibid.
60 Entry was via a side door, down some stairs, to reach Mistress
Kenny’s reception and dungeon room. Here she would remain until
1997, retiring from the business for personal reasons after a long
career in domination, and selling her equipment to colleagues, but
retaining some of her wardrobe and small pieces for her own
collection (ibid.).
61 Jackson, D. ‘Britta Schmerse’, ‘The Domina Files’, DDI, p. 39.
62 Ibid.
63 Jackson, D. ‘Nicole de Carje’, ‘The Domina Files’, DDI, p. 87.
Chapter IV
The Contemporary Occupation and

Arts of the Dominatrix
Taking a Taboo for a Walk

One of the most significant artists working internationally on the
subject of kink and the Dominatrix is Brooklyn, New York-based
photographer Natasha Gornik. She describes herself as a ‘professional
Experiencer’.1 She participates in the scenes she captures, eschewing
the traditional position of the photographer as objective and
removed. Her work is highly personal and engaged, and Gornik blogs
about her experiences in ‘a diaristic mix of my words and
photography which are about food, fuck and a couple of things in
between.’
An important body of images came about when Gornik arranged to
participate in photographing New York Dominatrix, Mistress Alex, as
she took her slave out to Times Square. What came out of that shoot
was not only taking the slave out for a walk, but taking a taboo for a
walk. For while fetish and BDSM activities have achieved more
mainstream acceptance and visibility in recent years, as fashion has
found influence from the vernacular (language) of the Dominatrix,
the blatant presentation of Her attire – in role, within a public setting
– remains a taboo. The resulting images from Gornik’s body of work
reveal the reactions of everyday New Yorkers whose path Mistress
Alex, slave and photographer cross, as they journey through the
underground tube to Times Square in the middle of downtown
Manhattan (see Figures 66 and 67).
Figure 66 and 67 Artist Natasha Gornik, Mistress Alex & slave I &
II, NYC.
Gornik’s blog of the event records ‘Exhibitionism’:

there is an excitement that had been building up during the weeks prior to
the experience and when Alex and i meet at the busy Italian market in the
Flatiron it sits in both of our eyes and we are hungry for it. at this point Alex
is not only a muse but a close friend so there is a level of understanding and
trust that i find to be key ingredients in this sort of photographic experience
and we head to the restroom to prep and it’s a madhouse in the market
humans like ants and once in she takes off her trench coat and underneath is
shiny and black and latex and tight and stacked knee high boots and she
visually screams dominance and everyone in the crowded room notices and i
feel the air shift it’s palpable and it clearly nourishes her hunger and right in
front of my eyes she grows four feet taller and towers over the glances and i
immediately get off on all of this and the feast begins right there in the
Eataly ladies restroom. on the corner of 23rd and 5th she has him put on a
black leather hood and a collar and we walk towards the subway and i can
sense the attention but I’ve now started to photograph and once that happens
it’s like my surroundings melt away and i zoom in on my subjects and it is
very busy in the city close to rush hour and we have chosen an
overpopulated path which gives us even more of a high and i am completely
focused on Alex and slave but can feel the energies from all who cross paths
with and we exit at Times Square which is beyond crowded and Alex and her
pet stop to look at my camera and i take a few photographs then pause and
look around for a moment and people are snapping photos of them with
their phones and the whole thing is so entertaining and we carry on up the
stairs leash from collar to gloved hand through the streets and land right in
the thick of it all and am not as interested in the reactions as i am in our
actions and she buys a hot dog from a street vendor and shoves it down his
throat as Mickey Mouse and Elmo pass out flyers to the Wax Museum and i
am fucking loving this.
Characteristically of Gornik’s work, her goal is not (merely) to

document, but to capture the essence and experience of the scene
through her camera. What is fascinating about the works is that
people wear elements of fetish attire as everyday fashion in New
York, without attracting a second glance. Costume-clad promoters
hand out flyers and are part of the place. A ‘Dominatrix’, however,
identifiable and recognisable by her attire of shiny black latex and
stacked knee-high boots, which (as Gornik put it) visually scream
dominance, walking a hooded businessman around on a leash,
attracts major attention and reactions.
Typically those who are most indignant are those who are
spontaneously aroused and then ashamed of their own lust (and its
implications for their erotic identity). Similar behaviour is seen
around homosexuality, with the most vocal anti-gay campaigners
often later realising and coming to acknowledge that they were
themselves homosexual. They ‘hate-on’ in distress over the
tumultuous combination of their own desire and its clash with their
religious or cultural values.
In the reactions of the bystanders, Gornik captures the fascination,
humour, amusement, shock, moral indignation, voyeurism, envy,
curiosity, avoidance. In front of her eyes and camera, the
phenomenon of people making themselves into tourists, spectators,
voyeurs.
The range of responses that the Dominatrix elicits, feeds her own
power, her enjoyment and satisfaction of drawing this alchemical
reaction everywhere she treads. On the surface, nothing about the
Dominatrix or her slave’s attire is that far from social acceptability.
Neither are naked. Both are completely covered-up. The slave wears a
classic business suit, which is the epitome of socially correct work
attire. The Dominatrix wears boots that, although once derived from
the ‘bizarre’ fetish underground, have since become a common
fashion staple. To pin-point the power of responses that this couple
draw, is to turn focus upon the signifiers their outfits hold in people’s
minds and imaginations – the latex, the hood, and so on.
Mistress Alex and her slave do not perform any overtly sexual act,
just interactions of Domination/submission. Mistress Alex walks her
slave on a leash, bosses him around, orders herself a hot dog from a
stand, and feeds some of it to her slave. It is the same behavior with
which New Yorkers treat their small children, or dogs, in Central
Park. So the social shock is in a ‘grown man’ being treated this way,
not in the acts themselves. This is seen as humiliating to a man’s
position, for a man is meant to be upheld and in charge, and
respected. The Dominatrix subverts and inverts this operation,
flipping it on its head. It is Her who is in charge and respected, and he
whose status is lowered. Not only does this visually occur in front of
the eyes of New Yorkers, but the ‘slave’ is clearly consenting to this
and enjoying himself.
Mistress Alex and slave both ‘stick out’ and are at the same time
completely at home in New York’s cultural geography. The point of
difference is, of course, that this kind of behavior and attire is
normally hidden away, behind closed doors. The Dominatrices of New
York operate from dungeons and domestic BDSM boudoirs, which are
most commonly unmarked, in discreet locations, known only to those
who frequent and inhabit their world.
Between the Cracks, and into Another World

The Dominatrix operates ‘between the cracks’.2 Most do not offer sex
(in the conventional sense of the term) as part of their services, and
thus do not fall into prostitution laws. Their practices exist in a grey
area, but do not usually attract the attention of the police. Most are
intelligent, professional, careful and ethical in their work. Only rarely
does a problem occur that attracts attention.
How Dominatrices operate, however, has a direct relationship to
jurisdictional laws and their enforcement. In places where sex work is
decriminalised, such as in the state of New South Wales in Australia,
Dominatrices work from either a large dungeon establishment, or
have the freedom to set up their own owner-operator business from
their home. Scarlett Alliance notes that ‘the law was introduced
because of corruption by police, and by removing police as regulators
has successfully addressed corruption.’3 (They add that in their view,
police are ‘inappropriate regulators’ of the sex industry.) The law
allows Dominatrices and other sex workers to access occupational
health and safety, and for sex education to reach sex workers much
more readily. A major report by John Goodwin with the United
Nations Development Programme (Asia-Pacific Regional Centre)
supports the decriminalisation model of places like New South Wales
in Australia, and New Zealand.4
In other jurisdictions where sex work is illegal, Dominatrices are
not covered by the terminology and are able to operate, in general
terms. While some contest the idea that sex work is driven by
demand, it is certainly true of Dominatrices. Upon researching the
Dominatrix history and how women take up the profession, a
common story echoed again and again is of desirous submissive men
wanting to pay a female acquaintance to dominate them. Fetishistic
men often want things such as opulent fur coats, or thigh-high leather
boots and catsuits, to fulfill their desirous needs. These cost
significant money to acquire. In addition, certain aspects of
domination require complex skills and techniques, requiring training
or experience to safely undertake. Bondage equipment is also
expensive, so it is easy to see how it has become its own specialist
profession. The Dominatrix profession was formed to meet the
significant (niche) demand.
Dominatrices in many cases provide ‘services’ that a man’s
girlfriend or wife do not want to, but which are nonetheless a deep
‘need’ in the perception of the man. As one submissive man put it:
I would try my best to bury my desires, to pretend they weren’t there, but it
inevitably would pop up and I would feel guilty, then I’d try and push it back
down again. But you can’t, you know? It’s part of who you are, a part of your
identity and being. I guess it’s a bit like someone who’s gay trying to be
straight. It’s difficult to live like that. It’s not honest or true to how you are.
So eventually I told my wife. I was terrified and expected her to want to
leave me. I expected the worst, and broke down and cried several times,
explaining it all to her, how it started, how if affected me. And surprisingly
she was actually really understanding. She’s not interesting in whipping me
or wearing leather herself, but she’s ok with me seeing a Dominatrix
professionally, as long as it stays within those confines, and I tell her when
I’m going. And it’s come as such a relief, to us both I think. She said she
knew, parts of it, from my reactions or snippets of conversations. Some parts
shocked her, and she had to get her head around. She says she’ll never
completely understand it, but she loves me and we’ll see how it goes. And we
both agree it’s gone better since. We seem to be in a happy equilibrium now,
and it’s been three years since I told her. Came out really, I guess it is.5
In some cases, men keep it hidden from their girlfriend or wife.

Some are single. Some identify as being submissive, slave or
masochist, some as a sissy, cross-dresser or other identification. The
Dominatrix provides an open mind and space to explore a wide range
of different identities, desires and ‘needs’. Her clients include
politicians, barristers, CEOs of companies, celebrity entertainers, blue-
collar and white-collar workers from all walks of life. She is discreet,
and keeps their privacy in confidence.
The Dominatrix typically operates with no signage on her door.
Tucked away, most typically in an apartment flat, or a large
‘establishment’ housed within a villa or industrial warehouse, which
appears to the outside to be completely ‘normal’. Clients in the
contemporary era obtain a Dominatrix’s information from websites,
contacting a Dominatrix or establishment via email or phone to
arrange a ‘session’ (appointment). She discusses the individual’s
desires, needs, and her own terms and conditions. Limits are
negotiated.
Many submissives reporting to see a Dominatrix describe the corner
they turn, the stairs they climb, the doorway they nervously stand
behind. The architectural approach forms part of their memory,
representing a gateway into another world. As they wait for the door
to be opened, they are on the threshold between their ‘normal’ life of
social pressures, and an altered universe that belongs to the
Dominatrix, in which they are in bondage to her and paradoxically
freed to acknowledge and ‘be’ their true (hidden) self.
That’s why the first moment is so important; while I don’t ever know exactly
how someone will be feeling when they walk in, I determine their headspace
almost immediately when they arrive. Because of this, that first moment is
always thrilling – for my slave and me both.6
The dominance and assertiveness of the woman enables the man

relief from his usual social role of having to make decisions. She
relieves him of responsibility. She directs his movements. Decides his
attire or nakedness, according to the type of session. Puts him
through acts and procedures according to her initiative. Explores,
plays, takes pleasure in the process and role. He is free to lose himself
in this ‘other world’, in submission to a powerful woman. He is no
longer John Smith, manager of fifth-floor subdivision of such-and-
such a company. For the duration of that time, he is only Mistress’s
submissive, slave, a schoolboy, or sissy-maid, as fitting his internal
identification. His ‘outside’ role is lifted off him for a period of
respite.
The Ideal Dominatrix and Dominatrix Ideals

Dominatrices come in all ages, races and body shapes. There is no one
‘type’ of woman who is a Dominatrix. In the course of undertaking
research for this book, the youngest Dominatrix I encountered was 21
years old, and the oldest was 76. (The median is around the 25–45
age bracket.) Ultimately, a Dominatrix’s success comes down not to
her age, but to erotic appeal and power, intuition of her client’s
needs, knowledge, skills, technique, wisdom, as well as pragmatic
marketing and client management.
Each Dominatrix assumes a name and self-crafted identity, which is
a usually a ‘super-self’ rather than a false self. She takes the traits and
ideas of a powerful woman that resonate with her, and fashions her
Dominatrix identity in a manner that is consciously attuned to male
desire, as well as her own.
Within the role is something of a mystic, and an expert on the
psychosexual realm, which draws influences from historical and
mythical realms. Often a Dominatrix’s chosen name will reflect this,
evoking her own romantic ideal of the dominant woman (and self).
(Discussed further in the Chapter V, ‘Seven Realm Arts – Art of the
Sublime and Powerful Woman’.)
The artist Kate Peters undertook an iconical series of photographic
works on the Dominatrix, which made headlines of newspapers
around the world.7 Her ‘Yes Mistress’ series came about following a
chance meeting with a Dominatrix, which sparked her interest (see
Figures 69–71). She wanted to see where it would take her, and if
she could make sense of their world and the complex issues raised.
Says Peters, ‘I wanted to create images that were open-ended and
evocative. Too look beyond the stereotypes to produce a series that
was psychologically compelling to the viewer. Role-play and fantasy
form a large part of the Dominatrix’ work and I have always admired
the way an actor can step into another role and then back to reality in
an instant … How much, if anything could I reveal from behind the
‘masks’ or is it the masks themselves that are more revealing?
As part of this body of artwork, Peters had taken portraits of these
women outside their dungeon world, placing them in a bright-light
and white-photographic-studio environment, she puts their
masquerade under the spotlight, shining light on their armour.
What Kate Peters’ Dominatrix portraits appear to reveal is that the
Dominatrix is not merely a woman dressed in rôle – she becomes the
woman she set out to play or ‘be’.
Many experienced Dominatrices will attest to this; that in time,
after more and more ‘sessions’, they were no longer providing a
‘service’ as a Dominatrix role, but that they became Her. That while
they could shed the role somewhat in their ‘normal’ life, out with
friends and family, that part of them was forever Her.
Initially, they change between themselves and their Dominatrix
role, like a mask adopted and shed. However, when left to develop
their Dominatrix practice creatively, given relative free reign to
evolve their own style, they came to relish parts of playing Her, and
gradually over time became more integrated. The assertive
dominance that was part of their role was used to enable
entrepreneurial or educational pursuits, as well as the counter-
balance of female nurturing that is also a part (an overlooked part) of
being a Dominatrix.
Peters’ portraits show women who are in command of their selves
and lives, Dominatrix and otherwise. Three portraits illustrated here
in this book, of Mistress Absolute, Madame Caramel and Mistress
Jezabel, are all experienced London Dominatrices who relish their
role. They are as comfortable under the studio light as within their
dungeon, and their individual fetish attire reflects their own tastes as
Dominatrices.
Mistress Absolute wears her favourite latex-rubber riding jacket
(from Breathless in London), with elegant cleavage exposing exactly
as much as she wants of herself, standing with hands on hips (see
Figure 69). Her Dominatrix identity is not far removed from her real-
life identity, both of which she approaches with confidence and a
healthy sense of amusement and humour. She is undertaking a PhD
on the subject of cuckolding, and has changed her real-life name by
deed poll to integrate her Mistress identity within the middle of her
name. Mistress Absolute is actively involved in the fetish scene clubs
and events (including running ‘Club Subversion’, and Dominatrix-
holidaying on ‘Domme Trips’ with colleague Dominatrices and their
slaves).
moral values, as well as to ignorance about what it is that a
Dominatrix actually does.
There are many stereotypes around Dominatrices, few of which are
true. Many may be interested to know that the only real trends that
hold true are that Dominatrices tend to be above average in
intelligence, open-minded, independent, interested in sexuality, and
hold strong ideals.
In a survey study by sociologist Danielle Lindemann, 39 per cent of
New York Dominatrices were found to hold a graduate degree or
higher.9 It is a cliché (but there is some truth in it) that many
Dominatrices either studied or go on to study psychology. Other
popular subjects are history, literature, gender and sexuality, and
health and medicine. Dominatrices with less privileged backgrounds,
which may have discouraged them from pursuing advanced
education, exhibit strong ‘street smarts’ and are generally found to
have a high IQ. Outside of academia, Dominatrices often study
sexological bodywork, tantra, Japanese shibari and Western-style
ropes bondage. The vast majority have medical training in
resuscitation and basic first aid.
A Dominatrix’s clients are by far and away male. Although a small
minority percentage are female or a couple. (see Natasha Gornik –
Realm VII image)
Dominatrices come into professional domination from a range of
backgrounds and jobs. There are four backgrounds that are most
common; a medical/therapeutic background, an
educational/institutional background, a theatrical/performance
background, or an erotic arts/sex-work background.
Around 5 per cent of Dominatrices are born males, and are
transvestite or transgender. They bring their own experience and
unique point of view to understanding gender and sexuality.
What is possibly most distinct about Dominatrices is that they are
open-minded and hold strong ideals. A much higher proportion than
the general population are vegan or vegetarian, and are so due to
beliefs around the treatment of animals. (As English Dominatrix
Mistress Absolute would say, tongue-in-cheek, ‘Well, I have to be nice
to something.’) Those Dominatrices who eat meat often do so with a
seemingly heightened awareness of the animal’s sacrifice for food,
and the ritual use of meat. With a tendency to like being in control,
this extends into the realm of food and what goes in their body. It
makes life interesting for the chefs and caterers of Dominatrix-
convention gatherings.
Dominatrices base their BDSM practices on ethical ideals, and
adopt practices that are ‘Safe, Sane and Consensual’ (SSC), or ‘Risk-
Aware Consensual Kink’, which is abbreviated to ‘RACK’. These
concepts are based on informed consent and risk-awareness.
Dominatrices seek to educate and inform their clients of risk, and
consider health and safety in their play. They also will often refuse or
modify particular forms of play in consideration of a person’s medical
conditions, medications, fitness level and age, and mitigate risk where
possible. As trust is so important to BDSM play, Dominatrices hold
themselves to a level of behavior and judgment that fosters trust.
Dominatrices discuss limits with their clients, as to what they are
not prepared to ‘take’ in sessions. This may mean avoidance of marks.
It may relate to levels of pain, to phobias, or to particular content that
a client is not prepared to receive. What is appealing, arousing or
productive at pushing boundaries in a session for one person, may not
be for another. For example, certain types of humiliation may be
deeply arousing and emphasise the Dominant/submissive relationship
for some, whereas for others it may be psychologically distressing in
the extreme and trigger childhood trauma. There is no ‘one size fits
all’ when it comes to dominating an individual.
A Dominatrix sets a ‘safe word’ with her client, which is commonly
a word such as ‘Mercy’, or uses the ‘traffic light system’ – in which
‘red’ means stop, ‘amber/yellow’ means nearing a limit and ‘green’
means everything is okay. As she gets to know her client well over
time, this system may become less relied upon, as she comes to
understand his limits, pain threshold, sensitivities and phobias.
The Tertiary Training and Schooling of a Dominatrix

To train as a professional Dominatrix takes a year or longer, and is
usually undertaken without pay. Those aspiring to the occupation of
professional domination most often take a formal apprenticeship with
a senior established Mistress, or within a discipline establishment.
Many outside of the world of BDSM find it surprising to hear that that
there is something similar to a university course in Dominatrixing.
The skills, technique and psychological understanding required by a
professional Dominatrix, however, certainly justify such a length of
apprenticeship, which covers areas of bondage, suspension, corporal
punishment, cross-dressing and transformation, and so on.
In Australia, aspiring ‘newbie’ Mistresses most typically intern at
one of the ‘houses’ of domination. One of the most highly regarded
and well-known of the large establishments was Salon Kitty’s in
Sydney. It has put through a significant number of successful and
talented Dominatrices in its 28-year history, and undertaking an
internship there garnered respect of colleagues and clients the world-
over.
Salon Kitty’s was established in October 1985, when a number of
Mistresses were looking for somewhere to carry out their sessions,
and came together with an entrepreneur in a Victorian mansion in the
old Victoria Street area of Sydney.10 Bondage houses had previously
been mostly ‘small seedy places hiding in the inner suburbs of
Sydney’. By contrast, Salon Kitty’s sought to have a stable and
professional establishment, coinciding with a new enlightenment
regarding psychosexual services in Australia.11
Some four years after its establishment, ownership was taken over
by Mistress Amanda Dwyer, who ran the establishment for most of its
lifespan (see Figure 73). She had apprenticed herself as a Mistress in
1986, and after a bout of overseas travelling, and operating in
Petersham, NSW, as both a Dominatrix and submissive, took over as
owner of Salon Kitty’s in 1989.12 Its location was moved to the inner-
city suburb of Surrey Hills in 1990, which was conveniently only
6 minutes by taxi from Sydney’s city centre.
only in respect of the training, but in surviving the ‘pecking order’
and power dynamics that go along with such an establishment of
dominant women, and the high expectations of the professional
apprenticeship. Women who wanted to apprentice would have to
formally apply and be interviewed to assess whether they were
suitable. Those who were accepted would often quit and leave only
part-way in, or be at some point fired and rehired by Mistress
15
Amanda Dwyer.
Salon Kitty’s closed down in 2013, when its owner Mistress
Amanda Dwyer posted, ‘no sickness, no sadness, no financial
difficulties, just time to move on to another phase of life.’16 Salon
Kitty’s equipment was sold off to other Dominatrices who worked
there and in a rather noteworthy auction held at Lawson’s. Under the
hammer were items that included studded leather hoods, framed
surgical instruments, cane jars, electric stimulator devices, metal
handcuffs, a cattle prod and electric dog collar, and Mistress
Amanda’s own box of whips.17
Training at Salon Kitty’s or other establishments typically involves
doing the legwork of cleaning and sterilising, running errands for the
senior Mistresses, and generally making oneself as useful as possible
in the hope that one or more experienced Dominatrices would take
the apprentice under their wing. Apprentices go into sessions of
experienced Dominatrices and assist them by passing equipment.
They observe all the goings-on, and soak up as much of the
information and techniques as possible. More formal training sessions
are conducted on how to use a flogger, how to cane, how to
administer an enema, how to use electrics devices safely, and so on.
Only in time are trainees gradually more involved in co-conducting
sessions alongside experienced Dominatrices, learning to ‘hold space’
in a mode of female dominance, participate in restraint, lowering of
the slave, psychological power-play and using the techniques and
skills they acquire during training.
Most trainees also learn by experiencing being a ‘submissive’,
receiving themselves the same types of treatment that Dominatrices
give out to their clients. This is a learning at-both-ends-of-the-stick.
They would be receiving the cane, as well as learning to cane
themselves.
Many trainees would also supplement their apprenticeship with
reading books related to BDSM activities and relationship dynamics,
watching activities and techniques on video footage, and actively
participating in the ‘fetish scene’ events.
As Domina V would relate:
My Mistress apprenticeship was an experience that I will never forget. I think
the fact I had gone through a hairdressing apprenticeship when I was
younger helped me understand the meaning of disciplined training. During
my time there, I saw many women come and go. Many of them never lasted
as their approach was too relaxed and it was hard work … but the Training
was second to none.
Domina V used her training to go on and become a highly

professional Dominatrix with her own beautifully equipped chambers
in London, and more recently in Brighton. In fact, Domina V would
use both apprenticeships – hairdressing and Dominatrixing – to
inform her practices, by operating (alongside her dungeon-based
practices) a specialist ‘Fluffy Boudoir’, which offers ‘a safe place for
sissies’ (see Figure 75). She brings her expertise at make-up, hair,
cross-dressing, gender transformation and the psychology of diverse
sexual and gendered identifications to bear on her sessions and craft.
there were used to help springboard her professional development,
and she went on to set up her own very impressive playspace close to
Sydney’s central business district, which reflects her own evolving
style and interests (see Figure 76). Her ‘Industrial Room’ is set up
with stylish 1950s-era equipment, including an authentic dentist’s
chair and surgical stainless-steel operating theatre. While her ‘Art
Room’ features a permanently rigged Japanese bondage ring and art
photography of the Mistress’s own Japanese bondage creations,
captured by photographer Lucas Messerer.
For both these Dominatrices, Salon Kitty’s was a stepping-stone on
their greater journey of learning and developing their own style and
interests within the array of activities and specialisations that exist
within the craft profession.
Down in Adelaide in South Australia, Fetish Palace (formerly ‘The
Purple Palace’) offers a rigorous two-year training course for aspiring
Dominatrices. As Mistress Electra Amore reports:
To train as a Professional Mistress is a two-year commitment, where the first
part of the first year is dedicated to learning the foundations of the industry
and basically at the beck and call of all who work at the establishment. It is
during this period that will determine if the chosen lady has the qualities
that are required to become a Professional Dominatrix. The second part of
the first year, the Mistress in training is expected to assist in sessions with
other Mistresses and start to conduct basic sessions herself. If by the end of
the first year all requirements have been met, then and only then is she
granted to use a title of her choice, but never before. The second year is a
period of time where mentoring is more prevalent than training, and this is
when the Mistress in training gets to establish her own style and conduct
sessions by herself.18
Fetish Palace’s rooms are specially equipped to offer the full gamut
of activities relating to the Dominatrix’s craft, from cross-dressing,
‘slut-training’, worship and elevation of the female, medical play,
dungeon and fantasy-themed scenarios, masochism and corporal
punishment (see Figure 77).
name has been around for a while, having seen her advertising for a
few years, before visiting her. Some share their recommendations by
word-of-mouth and through Internet forums. They also look to see
who the Dominatrix has as her contacts and partners on her website,
to gauge her professional alliances and allegiances to others who are
well-regarded. They examine her equipment and set-up on her
website, which give a possible indication of her professionalism and
commitment to her craft.
Playspace and Equipment

In the twenty-first century, the Dominatrix profession is an
increasingly sophisticated one in respect of equipment and set-up.
This has been brought about partly by the availability of BDSM
equipment in stores and online. Whereas it was once very difficult to
go about acquiring leather hoods and bondage equipment, the
Internet and international shipping has removed the barriers to
Mistresses setting up professionally.
Some Dominatrices set up within a domestic or ‘boudoir’ space,
which may be preferred for the femininity of the ‘woman’s space’ as
she likes it to be set up, and for its comparative sense of reality. These
are often set up with a desk or table to enable versatile scenarios such
as the Headmistress or Office Boss.
workspace. Some Dominatrices chose to emphasise the dramatic
mis en scène as moody and aesthetic backdrop, while others take a
pragmatic approach to their space as a workshop of trade tools with
racks of equipment laid out for easy access. It is not unusual for a
Dominatrix to spend tens of thousands of pounds in equipment and
attire.
The most common ‘dungeon’ colours are black, red, purple or
burgundy. These correlate to colour psychology and the arousing
effects of red-based hues, the sinister darkness of black, and the regal
and spiritual associations of purple-based hues. London artist Phil
Miller has undertaken a body of photographic work on the
Dominatrix’s ‘playspace’, revealing the intimate environments of these
women, not normally accessible to the outside world. His portrait of
Mistress Morrigan shows her in black Dominatrix attire, against the
atmospheric backdrop of her dungeon with rotating bondage wheel
and cage (see Figure 78). She stands with hands on hips, with
commanding body language. In other photographs from his series on
Dominatrices, Miller captures the hidden ‘Lady’s Lair’ located near
King’s Cross and St Pancras in London, with its bespoke equipment
and Orientalist décor (see Figure 79).
Figure 79 Dungeon Images, Artist Phil Miller, ‘Lady’s Lair’,
London.
Although each Dominatrix’s playspace is individual, there are some

trends that typify the set-up of the space. These reflect the practical
requirements of activities undertaken within a playspace, as well as
conventions that have evolved overtime. The most common pieces of
equipment are as follows:
Horizontal Bondage Bench

For laying a submissive client out horizontally and strapping him
down to. These are usually made out of steel for strength and support
of body weight, with fixing points of leather belt straps or rope to
restrain the submissive. Common variations include ‘stretching rack’
features, and upwards-extending steel framework to attach additional
bondage to, or to raise nipple clamps for pain or resistance, and to
provide a support frame for trampling on slaves in stiletto heel or
barefoot. Many bondage benches are padded with leather or vinyl,
which can be cleaned with disinfectant afterwards. Some are
upholstered as a ‘gummi-bench’ for latex-rubber play, to cater to
rubber fetishes.
Vertical-Oriented Frame
The most common of these is the ubiquitous St Andrew’s Cross, which
forms an ‘X’ shape that may also be angled, onto which a client is
restrained. (Its shape avoids the Christian ‘+’ cross of crucifixion.)
These are made of steel or wood, most commonly. Another popular
piece of vertical-oriented equipment is the whipping post, derived
from the historical device used for public punishment. Bondage
wheels are also popular, particularly in Asian countries in which the
large wheel of a cart was traditionally adapted to the dungeon
setting, and in more recent times has been developed into a
technically advanced, revolving bondage wheel. Some Dominatrices
also have a vertical ‘cobweb’ frame onto which a submissive can be
attached, playing on the role of the Dominatrix as female spider and
weaver.
Bend-Over and Kneeling Bench

The kneeling corporal-punishment bench (‘CP bench’) is a frame that
is designed to position the submissive’s buttocks in the air, at an
angle for punishment. (Sometimes these are also used for anal
penetration, however, with men it is more common to use a
‘gynaecological’ upwards-positioned bench, chair or sling for this
purpose, which is a more comfortable angle in general for anal play.)
These are often padded, with a leather or vinyl surface for comfort,
particularly on the knees. They typically feature leather restraint
straps or fixing points for rope. More traditional English-style benches
may do away with restraints in favour of the more realistic look of a
vintage gym horse. Variations on the bend-over bench include instead
a pillory, or ‘stocks’, to lock a victim’s head in place through a hole,
along with his wrists, for imprisonment and punishment.
Cage
Dominatrices often have one of a wide range of cages to suit their
purposes and space. These may be a large bird’s cage, a standing cell
cage, a horizontal full-length cage for sleeping and long-term
horizontal imprisonment, or a restrictive ‘puppy cage’, to name the
most common forms. Some cages are also designed for suspension, so
that the cage can be lifted off the ground with a ‘prisoner’ inside, and
the swinging nature of it increases the intensity of captivity. There are
also varieties of restraints such as manacles and shackles, which may
also be fixed to the wall, or steel head cages, and penis cages or
chastity devices, which utilise encaging. Steel metal is the most
preferred material in terms of cages, for its sense of cold strength and
inescapability.
Throne Chair
For the Dominatrix to sit on, as discussed in the following section on
the ‘Seven Realm Arts – Art of the Sublime and Powerful Woman’.
Bondage and Interrogation Chair
A strong chair with bondage straps for securing a submissive to it, in
seated position. These will often have a V-shaped base, so that the
legs are separated apart, enabling access to the genital and anal
region, and increasing the sense of vulnerability. Some Dominatrices
will have a multifunctional throne that converts into a bondage chair,
to make the most of a small space or limited pieces of equipment.
While others prefer to keep these chairs entirely distinctive
symbolically and functionally, keeping a regal throne chair for
themselves, and a scary-looking bondage-and-interrogation chair to
attach a slave to. The restraint chair is most commonly made out of
steel so that a slave who ‘bucks’ while in the chair being put to pain,
cannot accidentally tip the chair over. Well-supported framed wooden
chairs for this purpose and design do also exist.
Sensory Deprivation Box/Cupboard

This is a piece of furniture designed to imprison the captive in a small
space with psychological intensity, and deprive him of his senses of
sight, hearing, and so forth. An element of this effect is the dark-
cocoon or womb-like experience of sensory deprivation, which may
be amplified by soft cushioned walls that also effect the muting of
sound. Others are hard-surfaced and emphasise physical discomfort,
entrapment and punishment. The absence or distance from the
Dominatrix, of being ‘left alone’, may also be brought home. The
deprivation of senses enhances sensitivity and focus, so that touch, for
example, becomes more intense. The effects of sensory deprivation
can become more intense over time, producing altered states of
consciousness, meditative-like states, or paradoxically, increased fear.
In shamanic religion, shamans will often seek out a cave-like space in
preparation for rites of trance and ecstasy; the Dominatrix also plays
on this potential in putting her submissive into sensory deprivation.
Other pieces of equipment used by Dominatrices to achieve this effect
are body bags or sleepsacks, and restrictive hoods or gas masks.
Indeed as a small piece of equipment, leather or rubber hoods are the
most common form of sensory deprivation equipment. Modern latex-
rubber ‘vac beds’ are also popular, in which a person is sandwiched in
rubber with the air sucked out so that they are immobilised with just
an airhole to breathe through.
Suspension Frame/Point
Most ‘craft’ Dominatrices have some form of suspension frame or
suspension point. These are arranged with respect to the particular
space from which they session, as to what suspension frame type they
are able to fit within their room. Commonly professional suspension
is custom-made in steel to fit the stud height of the room. Some
Dominatrices may utilise an existing structural beam within the
internal architecture of the space. Whatever the suspension system, it
is often set up with help of a structural engineer or tradesperson, in
consideration of the required strength. The fixing point and
suspension set-up needs not only to far exceed the weight of the
person being suspended, but also consider the dynamic load of a
moving person. Consideration is given to emergency release systems,
to get a person down safely and quickly from suspension if required.
Along with the suspension frame or rig itself, is strong equipment or
special suspension rope and carabiners, which are engineered for
purpose. The equipment is regularly checked and replaced at a
particular point within its lifespan, for safety.
Gynaecological Angled Bench/Chair

For anal play in particular, many Dominatrices have a gynaecological
bench or chair that is angled with legs in stirrups for access.
Alternatives to this include a suspended ‘sit sling’, which is usually
made of leather, and of adjustable height for anal play. These allow
access to the male G-spot through anal penetration and stimulation,
and the angled positioning with legs split open can leave the person
aflush with feelings of submission.
Medical Surgical and Simulated Torture Equipment

Many Dominatrices have a special medical room or area in their
playspace. This reflects both fantasy nurse and medical scenarios,
which emphasise the sense of ‘bodiliness’ (see Chapter V, ‘Seven
Realm Arts’), and provide an examination and procedure bench, and a
clinically sterile area for play. Some of the common medical
equipment used by many Dominatrices includes enema kits,
speculums, dildos, disposable sterile needles, Wartenberg wheel,
metal dental gags, professionally sterilised urethral sounds, catheters
and other such objects. Some will use a medical surgical bench,
dentist’s chair or gynaecological converting bench as the equipment
on which to secure a submissive ‘patient’ to. The psychological aspect
of play may also be emphasised through use of psychiatric restraint
equipment, straightjacket and bench restraints. ‘Quack’ medical
equipment is also often collected by Dominatrices. ‘Violet wands’ (or
‘violet ray devices’), for example, are electro-medical devices that
were designed to supposedly cure all range of medical ailments in
history (including the imaginary ailment of ‘hysteria’ in women).
They consist of a control unit with a set of contract breakers, a coil
and a capacitor, and a set with a variety of different-shaped glass
electrodes. These produce a distinctive violet–purple glow in the dark,
and produce a buzzing sound when in use, with a prickly sensation
and spark on the skin.19 The historical vintage machines need to be
safely reconditioned by an expert, such as a specially qualified
electrician, and regularly checked. Modern-day erotic electrics sets
have also risen in popularity, to such an extent that they are now
available from mainstream sex shops, with power boxes and a variety
of electrical conductive attachments and pads. One of the most
common items put to erotic use and simulated torture is nipple
clamps, which are often paired with weights (which may also be used
to weigh down a tie bound around the male genitalia at the base of
the testicles).
Corporal Punishment Equipment

Most Dominatrices keep a range of corporal punishment equipment,
derived from historical punishment purposes and from animal
training. These include whips, floggers, canes, paddles, straps (and
strops), tawses, riding crops, and so forth. Many attempt to reproduce
historically accurate implements from prisons or schools. (See
Chapter V, ‘The Seven Realm Arts’.)
Small-Scale Bondage and Restraint Fetters

One or more types of slave collar is one of the most common pieces of
a Dominatrix’s equipment used on her submissive ‘slave’. These may
be in leather (most commonly), thick-gauge rubber or metal. Some
types are designed to restrict the head and neck into a particular
position, known as ‘posture collars’. These may be used with a leash,
emphasising the training relationship in an animalistic fashion.
Other pieces of bondage equipment include wrist and ankle
restraints, most commonly in leather or steel metal (including police
cuffs or heavyweight shackle manacles). Metal spreader bars are used
to force the legs open. Leather or rubber straightjackets, or body suits,
are also popular to intensify the sense of entrapment and submission.
Mouth gags feature in a variety of different shapes and formats,
including ball gags, bit gags, inflatable gags, and so on. Front-bucking
gags are commonly used when a slave is laid out on his back, to
enable them to be quickly released from the front if he experiences
any breathing difficulties. A special safe-word signal (hand gesture) is
used to signify any problem when a submissive is gagged in such a
way that he is unable to communicate. A Dominatrix takes extra care
when a slave is gagged and bound not to ever leave the room with
him in that state, in case he gets into any difficulty.
Cross-Dressing and Exotic Costume

Most Dominatrices keep a substantial wardrobe both for themselves
and for their clients. This includes elements of lingerie, hosiery,
stiletto shoes and fetish boots, and garments in fetish latex rubber or
leather, such as skirts, catsuits, corsets, and so on. Costumes and
uniforms, such as French maid, school uniforms and nurse’s uniform,
are also common. An area of wigs and cosmetic make-up with packets
of eyelashes and sterilised brushes and applicators emphasises the
transformation of the ‘make-over’. These spaces highlight the
women’s arts of cosmetics, perfumes and tools of erotic allure.
This list is not intended to be fully comprehensive – there are
always pieces of individual equipment and sub-specialisations that
Dominatrices practice. It is intended only to give an idea of some of
the most common forms of equipment used by Dominatrices in
practicing their ‘Realm Arts’.
Endnotes
1 Natasha Gornik, see website:
http://www.natashagornik.com/about-contact/
2 Acknowledgement to David Jackson of DDI magazine who used this
phrase.
3 Scarlett Alliance (http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/laws/nsw/).
4 Goodwin, John. ‘Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific:
Laws, HIV and Human Rights in the Context of Sex Work’, UNDP
Asia-Pacific Regional Centre and UNFPA Asia-Pacific Regional
Office, in partnership with UNAIDS, Asia Pacific Network of Sex
Workers and others (2012) (viewable at:
http://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/hiv-2012-
sexworkandlaw.pdf).
5 In conversation with the author.
6 In email correspondence with the author.
7 Llewelyn-Smith, J. ‘Tough love: the lives and times of the
Dominatrix’ in the Telegraph 13 December, 2009.
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6798038/Tough-love-the-
lives-and-times-of-a-dominatrix.html) and Williams, H. ‘Unleashed:
The secret world of Britain’s Dominatrices’ in The Independent 20
November, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-
sex/fantasies-fetishes/unleashed-the-secret-world-of-britains-
dominatrixes-6263209.html)
8 In email correspondence with the author, Mistress Jezabel.
9 Lindemann, D. cited in Glass, C. ‘The Dungeon Economy’, New York
Press, 2 March 2011; see also her book Lindemann, D. Dominatrix:
Gender, Eroticism and Control in the Dungeon (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2012).
10 Information from Salon Kitty’s website
(http://www.salonkittys.com/salonkittys/about.shtml#aa).
11 Ibid.
12 In private email correspondence with Mistress Amanda Dwyer of
Salon Kitty’s, Sydney.
13 Earlier in her career Amanda Dwyer launched the Government-
funded Sex Workers Handbook for SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach
Project) contributing education and advice regarding safe practice
and hygiene issues in BDSM. She conducted workshops for SWOP
and other groups teaching sex workers safe BDSM practices. She
was ‘spokesperson’ for the New South Wales Parlour Industry
Association in the early 1990s, representing the sex industry in
New South Wales, and continued to be involved in this capacity as
a consultant to various members of Australian Parliament regarding
legislation issues.
14 In email correspondence with Mistress Amanda Dwyer of Salon
Kitty’s.
15 Personal research and acquaintance with numerous Salon Kitty’s
and ex-Salon Kitty’s Dominatrices.
16 Salon Kitty’s website (http://www.salonkittys.com/), accessed
August, 2013.
17 Lawsons auction, ‘Salon Kitty’s’ 12 April 2013
(http://www.lawsons.com.au/asp/searchresults.asp?
explicit=true&pg=1&st=D&sale no=7926A&ps=100&).
18 In private email correspondence with Mistress Electra Amore of
Fetish Palace, Adelaide.
19 See Nick and Morphia website for information on violet wands
(http://www.nickandmorphia.com/indexHow.asp).
Chapter V
The Seven Realm Arts
Dominatrices themselves will often offer an overwhelmingly long

A to Z list of areas and activities to which they cater for, listing every
kind of practice and fetish. Other Dominatrices specialise in particular
areas they enjoy and have specialist training and equipment to cater
to, focusing on a niche within a niche.
After watching and participating with professional Dominatrices
over the course of four years, a distinct pattern of practices emerged,
and variations on these themes. I have characterised these as the
‘Seven Realm Arts’ of the Dominatrix craft, as follows:
Realm 1
The Art of the Sublime and Powerful Woman
Realm 2
The Art of Lowering the Man to Submission
Realm 3
The Art of Bondage, Entrapment and Enclosure
Realm 4
The Art of Discipline, Training and Punishment
Realm 5
The Art of the Bodily and the ‘Out-of-Body’
Realm 6
The Art of Cross-Dressing and Subversion
Realm 7
The Art of Fetish and Fantasy
The images accompanying Realm 1–6 are by Lucina Nathanael and

Nuît d’Or, as visual artists, players and lovers, based in London. They
write:
Lucina Nathanael: “If it were presented as being based on an artistic

collaboration that would feel strange as somehow it is a half story. We
have collaborated artistically because it has become an expression of our
relationship. Our relationship became love born from an encounter, the
nature of which is a key theme of this book (male seeks out dominant
woman, the skilled dominatrix utilises her art and power, lowers the man
in submission etc. the ensuing relationship is based upon multiple
connections, the collaboration is one expression of and from within our
relationship).”
Nuît d’Or: “The genesis of our collaboration is twofold: As an artist and a

Dominatrix it very quickly became one of my endeavours to nurture and
mentor Lucina’s talent as a photographer. For my part, Lucina has been
my muse as well as my submissive/mentor/Lover and the images that
results from our sessions are ‘traces’ and ‘suspended moments’ in a
medium new to my practice as a visual artist.”
The Realm 7 pair of images are by Brooklyn NY-based artist Natasha

Gornik, documenting an intimate experience with Mexico city-based
Domme Jaguar & couple, of which I reproduce an exert of her
accompanying text:
Natasha Gornick: “Submission … the room smelled of sex afterwards and

no sex had been had it was the smell of submission and dominance and
wanting and receiving and giving and fetish and watching and intimacy
and trust and i sit here on my little green chair staring at the images on my
big computer screen and come across one and immediately i begin to ache
and pulsate and my eyelids grow heavy and my forearms limp and i get so
emotional and so immensely turned on and i go back to the moment when
i saw it with my eyes and my breathe had been heavy as was theirs and i
wanted it bad i don't know what …”
Realm 1
The Art of the Sublime and Powerful Woman
At the heart of female domination is the Dominatrix’s elevated status
and position of female authority. Dominatrices embody sublime
women, who impress their power, allure and special knowledge upon
men. (As the sirens call, ‘all that comes to pass on this fertile earth, we
know.’) The Dominatrix is, in a sense, a sorceress of the psychosexual.
The Dominatrix uses a name that is both a pseudonym, stage name
and alter ego. It protects her anonymity and real-life identity, while at
the same time it allows her to live out a super version of herself and
develop her Dominatrix identity.
Frequent titles include Mistress, Maîtresse, Herrin or Lady; formal
titles of Madame, Miss, Ms (or Mz); or of Domina, Goddess, Empress,
Queen; denoting a certain kind of emphasis within their role and
practices. Names chosen often have a flavour of the feminine
mystical, exotic or foreign elements, and an accent of power.1
In constructing a name, a Dominatrix may look to mythology, to
characters from literature and film, to names that relate to their
cultural affiliation, as well as examining the sound and written
qualities of their name. The capitalisation of the first letter of
Dominatrix is an all-important element of ‘Her’ address.
Along with her Dominatrix title and name, she constructs a self in
her adopted style, her photographic images and writing in self-
expression and self-promotion, in which she may emphasise particular
interests and skills, and draws clients into her web.
For the man’s part, in making contact with a Dominatrix, attending
her playspace and tendering tribute (money), he lays bare his desire,
and through his actions has acknowledged the power of the sublime
woman over him. He puts himself in her hands, in a gesture of great
trust.
The Dominatrix sits above him in status and power. She may
literally sit on a throne chair, emphasising her elevation. As a ritual
piece of furniture, the throne dates far back in history – to the seat
that Goddesses took in temples and sanctuaries in the Greek and
Roman world, and many other cultures around the world. Her
appearance plays with regal, reverent, authoritative and spiritual
associations, in which the feminine archetypes clang and chime –
Noble Lady, Empress, Warrioress, Goddess, Queen.
The ritual of a man presenting himself to a Dominatrix – feeling the
energy of her power in the room, kneeling vulnerable in front of her,
in a manner that subverts established social roles of gender – is
sufficient in of itself to cause effects of deep arousal and anticipation
in the man submitting. She typically orders the man to strip naked, so
that he is made completely vulnerable before her. His arousal on
visible display evidences Her power over him.
The Dominatrix tantalises the man. The word ‘tantalise’ is taken
from the character of Tantalus in Greek mythology, a man who was
punished with ripe fruit dangling just out of reach and in a pool of
water that receded when he went to drink it, for all of eternity. The
Dominatrix is similarly like ripe fruit just out of his reach; above him,
in close proximity that he can smell her, increasing his desire for her
ever more.
There are different forms of power that a Dominatrix exploits or
emphasises, whether her physical beauty, her womanly curves, her
physical strength, her mystical knowledge and ability to intuit his
desires and needs better than he, and indeed a cocktail of these
constituent ingredients.
The Dominatrix projects her force by way of her animal body
language and posturing. When she speaks, it is the voice of
dominance (whether loud and imperative, or confidently calm and
instructive). When she moves, it is with control of the interplay of
closeness and distance, the power of intimacy and the power of
longing.
Her heightened status may also be paralleled by height in physical
stature, by wearing high-heel stiletto shoes or boots, nullifying or
overturning the physical discrepancy between female and male
gender height. The shoe is also in of itself a fetish object, with high-
heel talon, which the Dominatrix uses to elevated effect.
Whatever she wears or whatever she holds, it is not only in the
equipment or attire itself, but the way in which she wears it and
possesses it, her confidence and internal strength, wisdom and beauty
reflected outwards, therein lies the Dominatrix’s power.
Dominatrix uses in her own realm to enforce submission.
The skilled Dominatrix can ascertain the position and status of the
male before her; via inspection, questioning, intuition and judgment.
She measures him up, physically and psychologically, analysing him
and calculating how she will play with him, use him and develop
him, and what she perceives he ‘needs’.
She holds the man under her spell, in waiting anticipation and in
trepidation, in burgeoning desire and devotion of being under female
power, authority and wisdom.
Realm 2
The Art of lowering the man to submission
Complimentary to the elevation of the Dominatrix as sublime woman,
is the positional lowering of the man, in service and obedience to Her.
There are a number of lower-status roles into which he may be cast,
and amongst the most common forms are as a submissive, a servant,
sissy-maid or a slave. Each individual’s psychology and the interplay
with a particular Dominatrix will work through the power dynamics
and role relationships that suggest themselves.
Important to note is the see-saw at play, swinging like weights of
justice. On one side of the scale, the Dominatrix emphasises the low
status of the man. On the other hand, she privileges him, by her
attentions and proximity, by investing her energy in training him. By
these means, he is a ‘privileged slave’. The art of the Dominatrix is in
the handling and balancing of these two elements, of status lowering
and proximity privilege.
Some of the methods of lowering the submissive include elements
of humiliation – an area that must be carefully and expertly trod, as
what is sexually arousing and exciting role-play to some, could be
genuinely hurtful and psychologically damaging to another. To what
extent and forms she lowers him in status, is a topic for intuition
and/or consensual agreement, and the submissive ultimately retains
power and consents to his treatment to the degree he can use a ‘safe
word’ (‘mercy’ or ‘red’ are commonly used to stop play), or indeed
walk out on her in as far as he is a client.
Using her intuition and communication, she evaluates how far in
which direction she can or should push him and play with him. Some
things that one individual would adore to perform, for another would
be deeply embarrassing to carry out, and for another too difficult, due
to different psychology mediated through the effects of upbringing
and culturally specific taboos.
On the mild end of the spectrum, she may be gently teasing and
taunting, verbally reminding him that he is her ‘submissive’ or ‘slave’,
needing to obey and prove himself to her. At the more extreme end of
the spectrum, a man may be put to very intense power exchange in
which he is degraded to a lowly status of contempt, which is suited to
those who would find this powerfully erotic and paradoxically
enjoyable.
Such play runs along not only individual lines, but also cultural.
Any experienced Dominatrix will anecdotally report, and the cliché
runs (but some truth lies in it, however politically incorrect), that
clients of Indian ethnicity often desire to be in servitude to wash,
massage and worship feet, as feet have special association in Hindu
culture as being lowly, and subservience is demonstrated by lower
castes, or towards those of seniority, gurus, Gods and Goddesses, by
touching the feet.
French clients may enjoy ‘puppy play’ in which they are treated as
a poodle or other dog, typically scolded and told off, but lavished
attention upon, culturally by women. A common fantasy in England
amongst a particular generation is public school role-play, derived
from genuine childhood and adolescent experience, to be treated as a
schoolboy, scolded and punished by a Head Mistress or Governess
figure.
Such desires make up only a small portion of play and subtypes of
client profiles, and should not be taken to classify a nation. They do,
however, offer insight in the degree to which elements of humiliation
are culturally based and inform psychosexual play.
Desire is rarely politically correct in its constitution. It grows in
excess upon the fertile ground of the forbidden, the feared, the
shameful and the taboo, in its local soil type. The Dominatrix
mediates elements of culture and time travel, drawing echoes of
voices and props from the past, into the present. She can sense
resonance within her submissive’s reactions, eyes, breathing, docility,
excitement and arousal.
The lowering and humiliation of the submissive is attendant to
reverse-ageing and a kind of infantalism. The Dominatrix positions
her submissive below Her to receive instruction and learning (as an
apprentice to their Superior, or a child to their mother).
In doing so, she dislodges him from normal everyday life seniority
and social roles, a lifting of responsibility and social expectations
placed on a man within his culture. Stripped of control and
autonomy, his sole purpose becomes receiving, listening, obeying,
responding, yielding, sensing, experiencing. He can enjoy the
presence of her femininity and sexuality, be aroused and feel himself
encased and immersed in her power.
His lowered role into subservience to Her is symbolised by the
Dominatrix collaring him, ritualistically, at the start of a session. She
may put him in a leather ‘gimp hood’, which aids depersonalisation of
the man into object and slave, achieving a powerful transformative
effect.
hand positioning has an historical precedent of showing the hands
without a weapon, made vulnerable, demonstrating subservience. In
religious ritual, the hands facing upwards towards the heavens (and
the Goddess) represent a readiness to receive and experience
connection with the divine.
A Dominatrix directs a man to submission not only in his posturing,
but in his actions. She may test him by putting him to work on labour
of low status (but in connection to her and serving her). She may
have her ‘lowered man’ peel grapes for her, and feed these to her. She
may make him keep her and any guests cool by fanning with a large
ornate fan, while dressed in slave attire.
She may have him serve her and her friends food or cocktails, or
answer the door in a butler costume or other attire. She may objectify
him by literally turning him into a piece of furniture to use, such as a
human table, or as a human footstool. She may position him in a
fixed pose and challenge him to hold himself frozen in the position, as
a sculptural piece of art, for display and entertainment.
She may use him as a ‘maid’, dressed up in apron and attire of her
choosing, set to tasks such as cleaning and dusting. She will then
inspect his work and adjudicate his performance and appearance. A
Dominatrix may have her submissive as a masseuse, setting him to
work massaging her shoulders and back, or her feet.
Aside from servitude, the Dominatrix emphasises his inferiority
physically, by walking all over him literally, trampling him. Some
Dominatrices are able to trample a man in their stilettos, with
reduction of their weight by holding onto support, and caution and
special knowledge used in the placement of their weight in relation to
their submissive’s organs and ribcage.
Some submissives even like to be wrestled by a strong Dominatrix,
and fantasise about being overpowered by a powerful woman. Using
her strength and holds, she forces him to yield, and in doing so she
demonstrates her physical superiority over him. The demonstration of
her superior strength typically occurs at the beginning of a session,
setting the tone for the loser male’s submission to the Dominatrix
winner.
A Dominatrix may emphasise her superiority in terms of mate
selection, by cuckolding her submissive, describing how he’s not
worthy as a sexual partner to her, and relating her exploits with
partners she desires and selects, who may be a strong dominant man
referred to as a ‘bull’.
Some submissives are aroused by being used as a financial slave
and ‘money pig’ to provide money and gifts for his superior
Dominatrix, to win over her attention and affection, her smile and her
delight.
Within heavy degradation play, some Dominatrices use a willing
and desirous man as ‘toilet slave’, which would be shocking to many
members of the public, but draws power and arousal precisely
because of the social unacceptability and taboo. For such slaves it is
the ultimate privilege to receive from a Dominatrix’s own body in this
way. In receiving her spit, or her urine (referred to as a ‘golden
shower’), and so on, he shares in that which has come from her
sacred body’s orifices.
Some Dominatrices may also use slaves for their own sensual
pleasure, by making them perform ‘oral servitude’ or to bring her to
orgasm. This is not an area that many Dominatrices partake in, due to
the intimacy of the act, and in more recent history the concern over
sexually transmitted infections had greatly altered the degree and
method to which this area of play is engaged on, diminishing its
popularity amongst most Dominatrices and increasing use of dental
dams (a thin tissue-sized sheet of latex spread over the vulva area), as
part of safe sex practices. More commonly, a slave may be ordered to
‘worship’ a part of the woman’s body, and to massage her feet, or kiss
her feet, or legs, as she directs.
The submissive may also enjoy having his lowered position
emphasised in front of others, or even in public. Some of the ‘special
events’ Dominatrices frequently organise are Dominatrix tea parties,
in which a slave may be mocked, ordered around, forced to obey and
please multiple Dominatrices, or be forced to interact with each
other.
Some slaves like to be publicly humiliated in front of others. Games
may be held such as mock ‘slave auctions’, or ‘Huntress/slave
hunting’ (a kind of one-way paintball). Or he may be publicly
dominated out shopping, at dinner or in a bar, ordered around and
made to drop and worship her foot with kisses.
His subservient position draws erotic frisson from the subversive
overthrowing of social norms, and by the display of unwavering
devotion to the sublime woman.
Realm 3
The Art of Bondage, Entrapment and Enclosure
Amplifying the power effects upon a submissive, the Dominatrix will
frequently use forms of bondage and entrapment – be they physical or
psychological in nature.
One of the most ubiquitous symbols of bondage is the slave collar,
which the Dominatrix puts onto her client, symbolising transition into
bondage. Alongside this, however, the Dominatrix obtains verbal
consent of his bondage and obedience to Her.
To be in bondage is not only to be trapped, but to ‘belong’ and ‘be
held’. There is a proprietary element to the act of bondage – ‘You are
mine now. You belong to (with) me.’
The bondage may be in this sense almost purely psychological and
symbolic in form, agreed on and understood by the submissive, and
be sufficient to hold and bind him to the Dominatrix and to her
realm. Often, however, more intense and restrictive forms of physical
and emotional bondage may be used by the Dominatrix (and desired
by her client). Fetters may be attached to the man – harnesses, wrist
cuffs, ankle cuffs and so forth, in materials as diverse as leather,
rubber, rope, silk, iron or chain.
Many forms of bondage are derived from prisoner contexts. Leg
irons and heavyweight manacles, which have traditionally been used
to keep high-value prisoners in inescapable bondage, have a strong
psychological effect, with the solid strength and coldness of iron upon
skin. Police and detainee handcuffs may also be used, held under lock
and key.
Leather can be used to fix a submissive to a piece of furniture or
equipment, such as a ‘bondage bench’ whereby he is laid flat and
secured, unable to move; strapped down, seated on an interrogation
chair, or kneeling and bent over a spanking bench, or standing with
legs spread on a bondage wheel or St Andrew’s Cross.
In such bondage, with freedom of movement constricted, the
submissive experiences a sense of helplessness and vulnerability,
which aids submission, so that he feels he has no choice but to let go
and accept his fate at the hands of the Dominatrix, to accept he is
completely at her mercy. The Dominatrix is able to inspect every part
of him, to toy with him, to apply stimuli in the form of pain or
pleasure, and being that he is in bondage, he is unable to stop her. In
bondage he accepts he is no longer in control, forced to acquiesce and
yield. While entrapped in bondage, he is paradoxically free(d). That
is, free to let go of work and family worries, concerns and stresses.
Free to focus on the moment, on his psychological and physical
responses and experiences.
Some forms of bondage involve what is known as ‘sensory
deprivation’ and encasement, shutting out or limiting input of the
senses of sight, smell, hearing and/or touch, creating a cocoon-like
effect, recalling the womb environment. One such piece of equipment
is a bodybag or sleepsack, typically made out of leather, or in thick-
gauge latex rubber. The Dominatrix zips the man into it, from feet to
head, and it may also have additional straps to belt around it or
secure it to a bench. A leather or rubber hood may be secured over
the head, with breathing holes through which the Dominatrix can
monitor her submissive’s breath, or even control his breath. The man
is made bound and helpless, contained within the tight materiality,
encasing him like a second skin.
He is free to ‘float off’ into ‘sub-space’ – as it is commonly referred.
Many report experiencing a sense of deep relaxation and peace
beyond anything they’ve felt before. Latex vac (vacuum) beds are
formed by sheets of rubber supported within a frame, so that the air
can be sucked out, with a breathing tube for the submissive to
breathe through.
Some dungeons are equipped with an elaborately constructed
sensory deprivation box or cupboard, with padding, airholes and
restraint built into its engineering, to put a submissive into. (It goes
without saying that such session types are not suited to those
suffering from claustrophobia!)
A Dominatrix may also manipulate the use of encasement bondage,
incapacitation and deep submissive states, to combine with
suspension. Alternatively ropes bondage and/or suspension may be
carried out while the subject’s body is otherwise exposed and
accessible. In either case, this is a realm in which the high expertise
of the Dominatrix particularly comes into play, with associated risk
and danger. Experienced Dominatrices mitigate this risk through their
knowledge in using extra points of securing to safeguard in the event
of any failure of equipment or rope. She may have emergency ‘quick
release’, from whence he can be taken down from suspension with
speed if necessary. Often she will ensure another person is present to
aid weight-bearing and support, or in case of the client passing out
and needing to be brought safely down.
The Dominatrix takes into account pre-existing medical conditions
that the client may have, any medications that a person might be on,
before agreeing to engage in such activities. She mitigates against
foreseeable risks, turning down if necessary a session request she feels
is inappropriate and unacceptable in its risk level for an individual.
She needs to understand human anatomy and location of nerve
endings. She watches closely for signs of circulation being hampered,
for coldness in the extremities, listens to the regularity of breathing,
and so forth, which requires specialised training in bondage.
There are several forms of ropes bondage, with the Japanese style
of ropes bondage (known as shibari) utilising an economy of knots in
order to maintain efficiency, rapidity and, most of all, spontaneity –
in the words of ropes artist Satomi Zpira.2 While Western styles of
bondage may be aesthetically more complex and involve more
complicated knots, she notes.
Ropes bondage has become increasingly recognised as an ‘art form’
in recent times. Its origins, however, were in ancient Japanese martial
arts of warrior samurais used for capturing and detaining opponents.
The martial art of Hojōjutsu, which developed during the Dark Ages
of the Sengoku Muromachi period (c. 1467–1600), developed rope
bondage techniques that used rope to maim and injure the captor,
creating permanent nerve damage (this is no longer the aim of
modern bondage, indeed nerve damage is specifically avoided,
regarded as reckless, dangerous and sign of a person not knowing
what they’re doing).3 In its contemporary use, rope bondage has
evolved to erotic restraint and pleasure, the psychological and
physical enjoyment of being in bondage (for the submissive tied) and
in weaving, knotting in aesthetic and rhythmic pleasure (for the
person dominating, roping and rigging).
Writer and sex educator Midori, notes that historically the Japanese
used bamboo rope because it was abundant, cheap, fast-growing, and
suitable for rope-making, whereas leather was a scarce commodity in
the island nation of Japan, and metal was not feasible in Japan’s
middle ages. The rope bondage tradition continued into the Edo
period, she notes, as a pragmatic method of criminal/prisoner
management, codified with subtle variations of rope colours and
methods of tying to reflect the rank of the captured, crime level, and
so forth.4
Eventually the Japanese entertainment Kabuki theatres – then
much bawdier than their modern-day association – would feature
sexual imagery (nureba) and torment scenes (semega), which filtered
into ukiyo-e artwork – or ‘images of the floating world’ and the art of
Seiu Ito. His artwork, influenced by a childhood fascination with
fairytales of captive princesses, combined with BDSM interests to
create photographic images of captive and punished women, from
5
1919. Ito’s imagery influenced generations of graphic artists,
photographers and ropes artists who followed, ensuring that Japanese
rope bondage entered the erotic arena, was absorbed into the
theatrical shibari performances and suspension shows in bondage
clubs, and into the BDSM scene. When the Japanese images of shibari
ropes bondage entered the Western world, it simultaneously entered
the vernacular and practices of the Dominatrix’s craft.
Fetish artist John Willie was one of the main figures responsible for
the propagation of ropes bondage images into the US through his
‘bizarre’ artwork and cartoon of ‘Sweet Gwendoline’ – who inevitably
ends up tied-up as a ‘damsel-in-distress’.6 Irving Klaw responded to
his clients’ desire for bondage images, producing photographic work
featuring the likes of Bettie Page tied-up in bondage. (The actual
7
tying-up was undertaken by Irving’s sister, Paula Klaw.)
The client desire to experience ropes bondage scenarios, and
Dominatrices’ own desires to experiment in this medium, led some to
seek out advanced tutoring in shibari ropes bondage by travelling to
Japan to learn from nawashi (bondage Masters), or from classes or
tutoring offered by local ropes artists within their BDSM
communities. This knowledge was adapted to their own professional
dungeon practices, and passed on to other Dominatrices.
Whereas the nawashi and ropes artists may practice their craft
mastery for demonstration and for performance on typically petite
Japanese female models, the Dominatrix’s use has some differences to
its method and purpose. The Dominatrix works with ‘everyday’ body
types, who may not be accustomed to bondage, and she is dealing
with different concerns in terms of safety, tolerance and weight. Her
approach may be technical, aesthetic and creative, but her focus is
also on the power-play and experience of her submissive being held
in ropes as her primary concern; bound and helpless, entrapped in the
Dominatrix’s ‘web’, she checks on her subject throughout.
Not all Dominatrices practice shibari or ropes bondage, which
requires great proficiency and training to practice – she may not have
access to expertise to acquire knowledge, or the area may not interest
her or she may prefer leather bondage or steel fixings.
Bondage may also be psychological rather than physical. There are
a number of niche forms of psychological bondage that clients seek
out, including consensual blackmail, binding contracts, erotic
hypnosis and mind control.
Typically a client will contact a Dominatrix specifically seeking to
be blackmailed, which plays into his erotic fantasy, whereby he
deliberately tenders private information about himself that he wants
her to use against him. This may be ‘invented’ (false) information that
he has constructed for the psychological battle without actually
posing real risk to him, but with the Dominatrix proceeding in the
assumption that it is, and both parties playing along. Or it may be
real information about him – his real name, where he works, his
home phone number – and typically the ‘stakes’ increase in time, as
further information which poses greater threat may be handed over to
her. The Dominatrix games with the power of blackmail over him,
providing a form of bondage to compel him to attend sessions,
perform actions, buy her gifts or pay her tribute. For her client it is
enormously erotic to feel under psychological control and compulsion
of the Dominatrix.
One of the reasons such clients seek out a Dominatrix for such a
service of ‘financial domination’ or ‘blackmail’ is that there is usually
greater underlying trust in the ethics and professionalism in seeking
out an established, well-regarded Dominatrix, as well as her
understanding deeply the psychology enjoyed in such game-play.
Typically, a blackmail slave seeks an intelligent and sophisticated
player, who can develop unexpected twists and turns in the power-
play, believable threats of exposure and stimulating challenges to
action for Her, leveraged off the blackmail threat.
In erotic hypnosis fantasies, the Dominatrix uses forms of ‘mind
control’ as her bondage medium. This includes techniques of deep
relaxation, altered states of consciousness and trance states,
manipulating the tone and rhythm of her voice, along with suggestion
and neuro-linguistic programming techniques, to help get him to act
and perform in a manner that She desires. Erotic hypnosis techniques
may loosen inhibitions and mental barriers, focus the submissive’s full
attention to a task or challenge, and take him to a deeper level of
obedience training.
A submissive may also be bound by contractual bondage, in the
form of a ‘slave contract’, in which the man signs his acceptance and
agreement to his ownership, servitude and service to the Dominatrix,
who is also put to responsibilities for her slave by the agreement. The
effects of the bondage may be strengthened and legitimised by him
signing in blood, with witnesses present, as part of a contractual
bondage ceremony.
One of the interesting things about contractual bondage is how
much of it aligns with the social construction of marriage –
highlighting, in fact, the ‘bondage’ of marriage. This may bring
discomfort to those who are themselves married, in recognising that
they have contracted themselves in bondage to another, which the
language and symbolism attached to marriage plainly reveals.
Marriage is jokingly talked about as a ‘trap’ or a ‘cage’. Wedding
rings are described as ‘the world’s smallest handcuffs’. While the
Spanish make play on ‘esposas’ – meaning spouse in singular form,
and handcuffs in plural form. A man’s bachelor party will often be
touted as his ‘last night of freedom’ out with the boys.
Frequently a Dominatrix figure (albeit more commonly a faux-
Dominatrix stripper) will be hired for a bachelor party, gaming with
notions of freedom, bondage and control. One of the most popular
humourous decorations for wedding cakes depicts a groom with a ball
and chain attached to his ankle, and a bride triumphantly holding the
key. It is interesting, too, that a common honeymoon gift is a pair of
pink fluffy handcuffs for the newly-wed couple to ‘play with’ the
sexual bondage of their newly formed marriage.
The true motives behind a socialised marriage are glossed over, or
sweetly frosted over, by the wedding ceremony ritual. In Western
society, the wedding is steeped with make-believe fantasies in
flowers, a white dress and multi-tiered cake. Beneath all the frosting,
lie desires – for public acknowledgment of commitment, elevated
status, contracting of sexual exclusivity upon the other, desire for or
legitimisation of children, emotional support, financial support, joint
property, avoidance of loneliness – which may only be sketched over
or lightly gestured at, and are rarely openly and honestly discussed.
By contrast, the Dominatrix forces honesty upon her slave to lay
bare his desires and motives. She constructs the form of bondage and
its structure in a manner suited to him, and to Her own desires and
willingness to accommodate, laid out honestly and openly.
Negotiation and discussion of boundaries precede or form a part of
the bondage agreement. The contract of slavery sets out the terms of
agreement for both parties, the expectations and roles to be played by
both, the ‘terms of bondage’, in an open and direct manner, mutually
consented to.
The Dominatrix recognises the double-sided aspect of domination
bondage. While it attaches and entraps the submissive, it also binds
responsibilities on the dominant party. The bondage places a ‘duty of
care’ upon the Dominatrix, to look after the submissive when he is in
states of vulnerability.
Some may be surprised to know that in a significant portion of
cases, the wife of a married client is often aware that her husband is
seeing a Dominatrix. Wives who know their husband well and
intimately are usually conscious of a ‘misalignment’ of sexual desires
within an otherwise happy marriage, and if not wishing to participate
or gratify their husband’s desires, may be relieved for their husband
to attend a professional Dominatrix for this purpose. It may be that
she turns a blind eye to it. Or it may be openly discussed and agreed
to in consideration of other factors that the wife gains from the
arrangement.
A wife may agree to her husband attending a Dominatrix once a
month within certain limits, on agreement that she has money for
spending on herself, controlling and benefitting from the
arrangement. There may also be reassurance of not breaching sexual
fidelity of marriage, as Dominatrices do not typically have sex with
their clients.
There are cases of wives even meeting to co-conspire with the
Dominatrix, planning the husband’s punishment or treatment in a
session, such as training him to be more attentive to his wife and to
help out more with the housework. As Alexandre Dumas wrote, ‘Les
chaînes du mariage sont si lourdes qu’il faut être deux pour les porter;
quelquefois trois.’ (Marriage is a chain so heavy that it takes two
people to carry it – sometimes three.)
Notions of sexual fidelity in bondage are also knowingly played
with by the Dominatrix (or by Dominant wives) via chastity bondage,
whereby the man’s genitalia is locked up within a chastity device,
such as a metal ‘cock cage’ or a moulded acrylic perspex device with
varying adaptable sizes of base ring to fit. The superior woman
naturally holds the keys, seeing that the submissive man is locked up
for a period of time until she chooses to release him.
A comment often made by the Dominatrix to another, is ‘if you
control the cock, you control the man’. The Dominatrix is
accomplished in the arts of controlling the man via tease-and-denial,
of restricting a slave’s access to touch himself or to experience an
orgasm, unless it pleases her and she directs it so.
This form of control may be emphasised by ‘cock-and-ball ties’, in
which the man’s penis and testicles are bound in string or leather, or
‘gates of hell’, with several rings in string or leather wrapping around
the penis at intervals along its length. The name ‘gates of hell’ comes
about because as the man becomes more aroused, his member
engorged, the rings or ‘gates’ become tighter, of his own making. A
leather sheath with pins, shoelaced around his penis, also achieves
the same, puncturing him only if he is over-aroused.
In denial and mounting frustration, his arousal builds, making him
ever more desirous and desperate to please, ensuring She holds him
under her power and control.
Realm 4
The Art of Discipline and Punishment
Amongst the best well-known practices of the Dominatrix are
discipline and punishment. Within the playspace of the Dominatrix,
social norms and law is substituted by the Dominatrix’s own rules and
expectations. Her position of power and prerogative rights are
emphasised by her authority and discipline impressed upon him,
which forms the structure for learning and obedience training.
Punishment can achieve several ends. It demonstrates the
Dominatrix’s prerogative rights and power as the authoritarian. It acts
as a consequence and deterrent to disobedience, incorrect or
inappropriate behavior. It effects retribution, and may also help
assuage the submissive’s guilt for letting the Dominatrix and/or
himself down, offering a kind of cathartic release in pain, wiping the
slate clean.
Forms of punishment bear resemblance to those utilised in
domestic settings, such as by parental figures, or in institutions such
as in schools, army and military, and in prisons. Punishment may take
the form of removal of privilege, isolation in a corner, cage or
cupboard, some form of humiliation or labour, the removal of
privileges, or in the form of corporal punishment and pain.
The Dominatrix is particularly associated with issuing corporal
punishment as a disciplinarian. It is a form of play that is particularly
arousing in some individuals who have internalised fantasies
involving punishment rituals from their childhood and adolescence,
which were mixed with attraction to a female authority figure who
they longed to be in proximity to.
Memories of corporal punishment from youth that ‘stick in the
mind’ are often described as being ‘thrilling’. The word ‘thrill’ means
to have a feeling of sudden excitement or pleasure, or a wave of
nervous tremor, and is derived from the Middle English term ‘thirl’,
meaning ‘to pierce or penetrate’.
The prelude to punishment, and act of punishment itself, flood the
body with a cocktail of body chemicals, hormones and endorphins,
and an emotional interplay of fear, excitement, trepidation,
humiliation and pain. If it is the buttocks that are punished, this
brings further a ‘taboo’ by involving and exposing a usually private
part of the body in play, to added psychological effect, and combined
with the experience of pain and increased blood-flow to the proximal
genital region. The effects are not only those experienced at the time,
but the lingering sensations, the psychological processing of the
event, and the teasing, intrigue and kudos of social peers around the
corporal punishment that was received. ‘How many strokes did Miss
give you? How hard did she draw it?’, as one former schoolboy would
relate.
In England in particular, corporal punishment is a particularly
popular element that men seek out to roleplay with Dominatrices,
who may play the role of Head Mistress, School Teacher, Governess,
Strict Aunt, and so forth. Role-plays are particularly sought out by
those who were exposed to corporal punishment in a domestic setting
or in school. This may involve implements such as the slipper (shoes),
paddle strap, wooden ruler, belt or cane. Spanking of the bottom is
also frequently used as punishment and/or a prelude or ‘warm up’
prior to the use of harder implements.
Functionally, the spanking helps prepare the bottom to take greater
pain in punishment by increasing blood-flow to the region, associated
with a pink ‘rosiness’. Dominatrices will sometimes describe the
laying down of a ‘base coat’ before a more serious implement and
punishment, such as a cane, is used.
While sensually, spanking involves skin-on-skin contact and a
closeness in proximity. An over-the-knee spanking in particular is
often deeply arousing because of the intimacy and subversiveness in
an adult context, of being laid over a woman’s lap, gazing at her legs.
When it comes to implements, there are a large number and type
that may be used, and the Dominatrix issues strokes with an
awareness and consciousness to their effects, to marking (or
avoidance of marks), and with a ritual around their application.
Typically the punishment of a particular number of strokes to be
received may be announced, such as six strokes in punishment for an
offence. As well as emphasising her judicial authority to decide on the
number, it aids the submissive in mentally preparing for his
punishment and the number he must get through, making it more
‘manageable’ for him to endure. Or, if a longer punishment is to be
administered, the Dominatrix will commonly work in ‘sets’ (groups of
a dozen, or groups of ten – if working in ‘decimals’), followed by a
pause, before the next.
She may have him count the strokes and thank her for each stroke,
or at the end of each set. And, if she wishes to be kind, the
Dominatrix may rub the bottom between sets, or use fake fur side or a
feather duster across the sore backside. This seemingly kind treatment
not only soothes and demonstrates caring (in contrast to the harsh
punishment), but helps re-sensitise his skin and nerve endings to
experience greater sensation, and stimulates the production of
endorphins.
Corporal punishment may be administered in the atmosphere of the
Dominatrix’s dungeon, or in a role-play such as a school punishment
scene, where the implements will generally be authentic to what was
historically used (i.e. the crooked school cane, ruler, etc.).
In Scotland, the ‘tawse’ was used by teachers to punish students
and to maintain order and authority in classes by its visible presence
as a threat. It was formed by a strip of leather divided into two (or
more) tails, in tan or dark-brown leather. The most famous maker was
J. J. Lochgelly of Fife, and this implement continues to be popular
amongst men from Scotland and with Dominatrices who
accommodate traditional corporal punishment (or ‘CP’ as it is
commonly abbreviated to).
The ritual and disciplinary elements of corporal punishment may
also be played out in contexts other than school scenarios, such as
domestic role-plays involving spanking, as well as the use of other
implements, such as a wooden hairbrush, wooden spoon, slipper or
belt. Common fantasies are those that are regressive in nature, such
as playing a boy caught masturbating and punished in a ‘Freudian
context’ by his mother, aunt or governess, or disciplined for not doing
homework, and so on.
Other fantasies bring corporal punishment into the contemporary
adulthood present, such as a female employer ‘boss’ bringing a male
employee into account for inappropriate behavior, such as sexual
harassment or lack of respect for female colleagues or employees –
which sets up a flavor of enforcing respect for women. Other reasons
for punishment may be continual lateness to work, a major error
being made, the misappropriation of funds, corporate espionage for a
competitor, and so forth, in which the man is threatened with either
being fired, reported to the authorities and exposed. The alternative is
subjecting himself to Her unorthodox regime of discipline and
corporal punishment, restoring an old traditional practice, which of
course he is forced to accept.
Institutional themes and regimes of discipline also appear
frequently cross-culturally, including prison scenarios or being given
the cat-o’-nine-tails on a ship taken over by female pirates. Another
fantasy association with female domination is of a man being
shipwrecked on an island inhabited by Amazonian women, who use
corporal punishment to keep a male slave force in obedience and
labour.
One rare but consistently encountered specialisation of corporal
punishment, which is set apart in its harshness and severity, is
referred to as ‘judicial punishment’. Typically such a judicial
punishment is specifically sought and requested by a client, who
contacts the Dominatrix, and will outline in script his desire for such
a session; which needs to be as authentic, accurate and well-executed
as possible, to meet his needs. Unlike normal sessions, it is common if
he is experienced that he requests ‘no mercy’ – the removal of a safe
word, which would normally govern sessions. He wants the
Dominatrix to see out the full punishment no matter what he says or
screams out to her, with inevitability of the full punishment, its
inescapability and realism. The ‘judicial punishment’ is typically
staged as a ‘special event’, planned and anticipated in advance, which
is part of the excitement and psychological preparation, and often
with additional attendees (such as the Domiatrix’s friends or
colleagues who are requested to attend) providing a ‘public spectacle’
element to the judicial punishment.
Ritually, the judicial punishment involves two parts. First, the
judgment and sentencing, in which the crime is read out, and the
method and number of punishment strokes announced. Second, the
man is brought back in to receive the punishment. Temporally these
are as two separate events, and may involve being put into a cell or
manacles and chains in between, in a different room, for a period of
time.
The sentence (usually pre-agreed ‘out of session’ communication in
advance of the day) may be, for example, 100 strokes administered
with a dragon cane. It is a very serious punishment, involving a high
level of physical pain, and must be seen as an ‘ordeal’ to endure. Such
sessions of judicial punishment are much rarer than other types of
sessions, and are a particular niche request, but are worth outlining in
contrast to others.
The talent of a Dominatrix is in her professional ability and skill to
wield an implement such as a dragon cane, ‘straight and true’, and
bring it down with confidence and force to a ‘judicial’ level. She is
tested in her competence as much so as her prisoner/criminal is being
tested in his endurance. It is in this sense a ‘peak experience’ for both,
for the Dominatrix achieving a brilliantly executed caning of so many
strokes, and for the man, in taking it. The event, typically attended by
others, and being spectacle, is relived in memory and fantasy for a
long time into the future by the receiver. As one Dominatrix put it,
‘He does it once, pays the price, and gets his kicks off of the memory
for a good five years’.
Such fantasies contain elements of masochism. The term
‘masochism’ was used by the Austrian psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing in
Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), and was derived from the name of the
author Leopold van Sacher Masoch, who wrote Venus in Furs (1870)
(about a man’s desire for, and relationship with, a dominant woman
wearing furs who would whip him). The term ‘masochism’ is in this
way a psychiatric term for a fantasy in fiction that its author shared
in real life. Frequently a masochist wants to be punished by a cold
desirous woman, so the story perpetuates. Her ‘coldness’ lies not only
in her ability to mercilessly punish the man, but in her seeming
obliviousness to his burning desire for her. (She is desirous to him,
but She does not demonstrate desire for him, thus she is ‘cold’.)
It could be argued that in punishing him violently, her violence
demonstrates passion. She remains stern, able to punish him
violently, and enjoys herself doing it. This is what the masochist
seeks, being punished by a cold beautiful woman who enjoys herself
punishing him. In receiving the punishment, he can lose himself in
objectification, to Her. He takes from her passion and enjoyment that
he means something to Her – for you have to care enough about
someone to be bothered in spending energy and labour to punish
someone. The more violently she punishes, he takes pride in bringing
such veracity out in her, and in her enjoyment enacted upon him. Her
strokes of the whip or cane (etc.) upon him are an extension of her
hand. A masochist doesn’t merely want pain; he wants invested
exertion of pain upon him.
An amusing part of the interplay between Dominatrix and
masochist, is that typically the masochist attempts to stipulate many
details and specifics of how he wants his punishment. This takes away
from the Dominatrix’s enjoyment in dominating, whereby she would
ordinarily create and control the punishment in a direction that she
desires and sees fit (albeit within negotiated boundaries).
Dominatrices often complain about how controlling masochists are.
‘He wants me to hurt him coldly, and enjoy myself doing it, but he
wants me to hurt him the way he wants, only this way, this hard, this
many strokes, no not like that, wearing this type of attire.’
While in this sense there is a clash of control, between the
masochist and Dominatrix, where they align and come to union is in
their mutual absorption and interest in the aestheticism, beauty,
staging, craft and execution of the punishment. The Dominatrix
enjoys the creative challenge and the opportunity to use her craft
talents and expert technique. While the masochist enjoys the
gratification of the carefully detailed and theatrical power-play and
punishment seen out, just so, to fulfill his fantasy in mind.
A masochist will, however, often critique a session, in a way that
no other type of client (submissive) would dare, and express
frustration with any small detail that is not as he envisaged, in turn
annoying the Dominatrix, a situation that can be quite amusing to
reflect upon as a battle.
Masochist: ‘Now that was a good session overall, but I would like you to
have more eye make-up, and hold your gaze longer in the mirror reflected
when you look at me, and then when you beat me I want you to do it more
like …’
Dominatrix: [interrupting him] ‘I’m the Mistress and I want to punish the
way I’m in the mood to, not the way you dictate me to according to your
rules. You wanted me to wear leather and to beat you hard and enjoy myself,
and that’s what I did! Stop trying to top from the bottom, and be grateful!
You want to be my slave, then you need to be more submissive and humble.’
Masochist: ‘I am grateful and humble. You’re beautiful, wonderful, oh the

look in your eyes – delicious! It’s just that if you could be more lingering in
your gaze, pause and then …’ (He is cut off by the Dominatrix shooing him
out the door, followed by frustration on both sides, softening to mutual
fondness on both sides, leading eventually to a compromise and the
scheduling of another session.)
A masochist may call himself a ‘slave’ to the Mistress, and aspire to

be bonded formally within in a slave contract, but a Dominatrix will
say he fails at being a ‘true slave’ because ultimately he likes to try
and control the fantasy. He wants to be at the Dominatrix’s mercy –
but in the way he fantasises of it. For this reason Dominatrices make a
particular distinction in describing a client as a masochist slave, as
opposed to a submissive or ‘true slave’.
‘Masochism’ is often joined to ‘sadism’ – as in the term
‘sadomasochism’, as if the two were a natural pair. They are in fact
two different species and not necessarily totally compatible or
complimentary, for reasons to be outlined.
‘Sadism’ was a term taken by Krafft-Ebing from the author the
Marquis de Sade, who derived libertine pleasure from inflicting pain.
The true sadist takes his pleasure in the absolute power and
dominance of inflicting pain on an unwilling victim.
A joke within the lifestyle scene of people who practice BDSM, goes
as follows: A masochist walks up to a sadist dominant, and says,
‘Punish me, hurt me, I want to be hurt!’. The sadist looks at him and
answers him – ‘No!’.
The butt of the joke (excuse the pun) is that the sadist derives his
pleasure from hurting an unwilling victim, and in the case of a
masochist who wants the pain, the sadist derives the greater pleasure
from the power in denying the masochist and choosing not to punish
him, in turn frustrating (and in this way hurting) the masochist.
Some of these issues are discussed in Gilles Deleuze’s essay on
‘Coldness and Cruelty’,8 however, the addition of the professional
Dominatrix’s craft interests is an extra facet that has not been
explored.
The part of the ‘sadist’ to which the professional Dominatrix may
be true to – is in taking pleasure in moments of absolute power.
However, these are ‘moments’ (or minutes) because the Dominatrix in
her professional mode is simultaneously absorbed and drawn back to
care, ethics, duty, empathy, monitoring and ‘checking in with’ her
submissive, poised to stop and attend him if he gets into trouble in
any way. Indeed being empathetic and intuitively reading and
relating to her submissive client’s desires, and knowing where a client
‘is’ in his level of pain, is part of what makes a good Dominatrix.
For this reason, it is rare to find a truly ‘sadistic’ Dominatrix, and
much more common to find a Dominatrix who has a ‘sadistic streak’.
That is, she enjoys ‘feeding off’ fleeting periods in which she can revel
in feeling absolute power and sadistic enjoyment. She may market
herself as – and pretend to be – a ‘pure sadist’, for the perceived
commercial appeal. What she really means is that she is capable of
hurting a submissive to quite a high extent, if that is what he seeks,
without flinching, and enjoy herself doing so.
A ‘true sadist’, however, would want her victims unwilling, and
would want to punish them in ways and to levels that they didn’t
want, without stopping to worry about their safety (which wouldn’t
see her stay in business for long). And indeed most Dominatrices have
equal parts of sadism and empathy, embodied by the ‘devil’ and the
‘angel’.
After all this talk of masochist and sadist tendencies, and the more
extreme end of the spectrum of play intensity, it should be
emphasised that the many sessions only have what could be deemed
as a ‘mild to medium’ level of pain. Some sessions between a
Dominatrix and her client even have little to no pain. Punishment
may take other forms such as chastisement and removal of privileges,
humiliation or labour – as the Dominatrix’s invented consequence for
a submissive’s misdemeanours.
Punishment may also be used only symbolically, or to ritual effect,
as in a role-play in which the cane strokes given are literally taps,
pretending a punishment has taken place. The idea of punishment can
also be used as a pretence to sensual treatment, such as a mild and
sensual spanking, for pleasure rather than pain.
A Dominatrix may also punish due to her desire on the day, to use
her slave (in a way he enjoys because he likes to please) in order to
relieve her stresses and as an outlet – in a controlled and responsible
manner ideally. Or to punish her slave as a ‘peak experience’,
whereby she is seeking to drive him into a deep level of submissive
state, ecstasy and endorphin rush.
Physical punishment is not a necessary element for all sessions (or
clients to receive), and it is often enough for her submissive to know
she could punish, in order to help further maintain her authority.
As schoolteachers in Scotland would find – having a tawse across
their shoulder visibly within eye-sight, was often sufficient to
maintain authority and obedience by itself, without the need to
necessarily wield it (unless ‘necessitated’ by bad behavior).
Dominatrices also use implements such as a riding crop as a part of
correction and training on men. Behaviour modification and
discipline training bears a close similarity to the methodology of
training other social animals. Within relationships and marriage, the
training of men is frequently related to in terms of training him to
help out with domestic chores, or training him to leave the (toilet)
‘seat down’. Women who take a more dominant role than what is
socially normative, may be knowingly said to be one who ‘wears the
pants within the relationship’, or that ‘she has him pussy-whipped’.
Due to Darwinian differences in genders and their alternative
evolutionary strategies at work (as well as hormonal differences and
drives, and social roles), women are in a particularly powerful
position to leverage training off men’s desires, and do so consciously
and unconsciously in human society. Indeed some evolutionalists
believe greater male investment and provision was leveraged off ‘sex
strikes’ to mobilise men to hunt and provide important protein for the
increasing size of the human fetus’ brain, and to the females upon
whom the young are so dearly dependent for a prolonged period of
time and learning development, compared with other animal species.9
Popular jokes and stereotypes play on men’s preparedness to alter
his behavior when in pursuit of a desired woman. In Alexandre
Dumas’s book, The Mohicans of Paris, an expression is coined –
‘Cherchez la femme!’ (Look for the woman!). Or in other words, if a
man is behaving strangely – look for there to be a lady or Mistress
behind his altered behavior. There will be a woman whom he seeks to
impress through acts of effort that are non-characteristic of his
everyday personality and patterns.
Mobilising men’s efforts and preparedness to change their behavior
when in pursuit of a woman’s affections (and gratification), is a large
component of what the Dominatrix works with in training him. By
degrees of tease-and-denial, she controls him, and keeps his efforts to
perform and please her refuelled anew with his lust. She is an expert
in degrees of partial gratification, amplifying the effect of the smallest
touch, the bestowing of permission to kiss the toe of her shoe, or the
hem of her seamed stocking.
Many Dominatrices ultimately get their ‘Cruel Mistress’ title not
merely from the pain they are capable of inflicting should they wish
to, but from the way they deny their submissive his gratification,
despite his intense longing. As with Pavlovian dog training, Her
presence has him salivating, anticipating the morsels that she throws
to him. She, however, leaves him longing, and wanting more.
Realm 5
The Art of Manipulating the Bodily and the ‘Out-of-
Body’
Some of the expert crafts the Dominatrix learns through
apprenticeship and training pertain to areas of sensory play,
simulated ‘torture’, medical play and anal play. There is a deeply
bodily and corporeal aspect to much dungeon ‘play’, to the
positioning of the body on various pieces of equipment, and its
subjection to examination and intervention. This accounts for much of
the ‘mysterious’ equipment in her dungeon and medical-room shelves
and cabinet.
The equipment and its uses draw from an eclectic range of sources,
including modern and vintage medical equipment and devices,
electro-sex-stimulation power boxes and attachments, Violet wands,
light and sound machines, nipple clamps, urethral sounds, dildos and
anal plugs, sterile disposable needles, medical latex gloves, catheters,
alcohol swabs, large boxes of pegs, candles for wax play, ice machine
– the list goes on.
There are several motives and aims at play in using such
equipment, in addition to masochistic desires already mentioned (see
preceding section on corporal punishment).
Firstly, pain exerted by the Dominatrix emphasises the man’s
vulnerable and helpless state, aiding his state of submission. He can
let go of worldly concerns and stresses and be pulled sharply into
focus and fear, and into the moment with his Dominatrix. While
simultaneously it evidences the Dominatrix’s power over him, to
violate normal boundaries, to inflict pain, indeed his life being in her
hands (and trust), in his corporeal and vulnerable state, escalating the
power exchange between them.
Second, there is an element of sensory play, of experiencing
different types of sensations on the body, whether it be pinpricks of a
Wartenberg wheel, hot wax dripped from a controlled height, use of
ice cubes on the body, a feather, electrics, insertions, and so on. These
serve to push a man into a passive experiential and
submissive/receptive mode, taking and experiencing what the
Dominatrix is effecting upon him.
Third, the combination of fear and bodily threat elicits a variety of
hormonal and biochemical responses within the body. This includes
the activation of the nervous system (intended to bring the body to
fear, fight, flight response) with cortisol and adrenaline, and
endorphins (endogenous morphine), bringing about feelings of
experiencing a ‘rush’, as it is frequently described. The biochemical
response combined with the psychological submission and fear
elements of such play, can combine to send a man into what is
referred to as a deep ‘submissive space’ – often abbreviated to ‘sub-
space’. Whereby common reports from the person afterwards are of
feeling as though they were ‘floating’ or ‘flying’, or as if they were
than others, and the effects may be amplified by other techniques of
sensory deprivation or sensory overload, and musical rhythm used in
conjunction.
Each Dominatrix has her own particular interests in relation to
equipment and techniques she likes to use. Some enjoy use of ‘electro-
sex’ boxes, with conductible rubber rings and insertables, and
increase the electrical current in a controlled and precise manner.
Some enjoy ‘play piercing’ – inserting disposable sterile needles into
and sideways, and out, within the upper epidermal skin layers,
stimulating nerve endings, for which they will often possess a
piercing or tattooists’ training or license. (These are not stab
piercings, and should not be experimented on by someone who
doesn’t know what they are doing, due to risks of an incompetent
person hitting an organ or artery, as well as blood-borne infections
and viruses. This should be done correctly with sterile equipment,
sterile alcohol swabbing, medical gloves, needles properly disposed of
in a sharps bin, and wound dressing gauze, etc. It is also important to
know if the person is on blood thinners or other medication, or is a
haemophiliac – which would bar against such play.)
Aside from the controlled pain potential of her specialised
equipment, there is also an emphasis on the corporeal – bodily –
including medical items and techniques. These include the
administration of enemas, to flush out the rectum and colon with
water, which can be put to an erotic effect, as well as enhanced
submission. Some Dominatrices are also trained in using urethral
sounds – sterilised and used with medical lubricant sachet to enter
the urethra, using the aid of gravity (rather than force) to sound the
urethra with increasing size sounds, until a maximum width size of
sound is reached. Some use urinary catheters to empty urine from the
bladder.
A surprisingly high number of Dominatrices have a nursing
background or medical training of some kind, in addition to their
dungeon apprenticeships.
Nipple torture (abbreviated to ‘NT’) or nipple play, in its milder
form, is a popular area for many clients – and Dominatrices. Aside
from the propensity to apply pain easily by clamping or twisting the
nipples, the stimulation of the nipple can bring increased sexual
arousal. These effects of nipple play are anecdotally reported to
increase in men with age, with many reporting greater pleasure upon
stimulation of this erogenous area.
Anal play is a popular activity for many men due to their biological
make-up, with prostate stimulation achieving erotic effect. This may
include the Dominatrix using a medical device such as an anal
speculum to carefully stretch and widen the rectum, or, using medical
gloves, she may engage in anal fingering, inserting increasing
numbers of fingers, and even – fisting. Alternatively, sterilised
insertables with latex condoms may be used to similar purpose,
including dildos, vibrators, or ‘strap-on’ dildos in which a harness is
worn by the Dominatrix to actively penetrate the submissive. Such
experiences may combine pleasure and pain, as well as feeling
psychologically aflush with the feeling of submissiveness and
‘sluttiness’, interfacing with feelings of shame or taboo from social
and cultural upbringing.
Gags may be used to fill the mouth and muffle sound and
protestation, enhancing submission enjoyment. There are a large
number of mouth gags – including ball gags, bit bags and dental gags.
Due to the risk of potential problems with breathing, a Dominatrix
ensures she can swiftly remove the gag if needed, and doesn’t leave a
submissive unattended while he has a gag in his mouth, or is in
bondage. If his ability to communicate his safe word is impeded by a
gag, the Dominatrix allocates an alternative hand gesture or some
other means of communicating that he is at a limit or in trouble. By
these means, there is an intimate connection and trust between
Dominatrix and submissive. Gas masks and forms of breath control
may also be used by an experienced Dominatrix to enhance control
over and awareness of his breath.
The range and areas of equipment and techniques that a
Dominatrix may incorporate are vast, individual, and continuously
being added to by new inventions or adaptions. It is stimulating for
both client and Dominatrix for her to ‘play’ with new ideas,
combinations and equipment, in a controlled, trained and risk-aware
manner. These types of activities, which are typically combined with
other related realms – such as psychological domination, restraint,
role-play, fetish, and so on – often develop into heightened
experiences of ‘submissive space’, physical highs, and altered states of
consciousness, such as trance states and ecstatic states.
The submissive often enjoys the sense of the corporeal, and of being
brought to focus on bodiliness and bodily sensation. There may also
be a regressive element at work, with the helplessness of a newborn
baby or infant, reliant on a powerful female figure to attend to its
body and survival. This element at its most explicit may see a client
request the sensation of being put in nappies, or some other element
of ‘adult baby play’. Even without such a specific interest, however,
there is a sense of freedom and peace that can come from
experiencing focus on bodiliness and body consciousness.
The intensity of what a submissive may go through with powerfully
executed sessions on the part of the Dominatrix, interweaving her
skills and timing to full effect, is comparable to what is generally
described as a ‘peak experience’. A spiritual dimension is often
ascribed, of feeling as if journeying in the heavens, and a strong
intimate bond is formed with the Dominatrix who acts as guide
through this process.
For the Dominatrix herself, it is a special kind of magical feeling to
be able to instigate such sessions and experiences with her talents,
and deeply gratifying to be present with the person in their
vulnerability and journey.
Some of the deeper sessions may characteristically involve more
time, and ‘aftercare’ given to helping the person come back down to
earth afterwards. Such deep sessions require greater financial and
time investment on the part of the client. It is a tribute to her art form
and its appreciation by her clients, that such experiences are made
possible.
Realm 6
The Art of Cross-Dress, Transformation and Gender
Subversion
Cross-dressing and gender subversion are arguably the most
commonly misunderstood areas of the Dominatrix’s arts and
expertise. Part of the reason that it is so misunderstood is that there
are many, many identities – in terms of title, role, gender
identification, level and extent of cross-dressing and transformation,
and so on.
These include – those who identify as a ‘sissy’, a ‘sissy-maid’, a
‘sissy-slut’, a ‘cross-dresser’, a ‘girl’, a ‘lady’, a ‘transvestite’ (or ‘TV’
for short), a ‘transgender’, a ‘drag queen’, a ‘lover of women’s
clothing’, an ‘androgyne’, a ‘eunuch’, a ‘lady-boy’, a ‘slut’, or a ‘forced
feminisation slave’. Some may identify with strictly one of these only,
while others may identify with multiple titles and categories.
The Dominatrix provides a ‘safe place’ for individuals to be able to
explore cross-dressing, sissification and different gender
identification, in a caring and understanding way. A person may not
feel they can comfortably explore their desire or identity, to cross-
dress or wear feminine clothes, due to a perception that it will be
seen as wrong, or stigmatised and badly judged by the society that
they live in, their family, girlfriend, wife, children, parents, work
colleagues and neighbours.
– whether very elegantly as ‘a lady’, or whether in a ‘slutty’ manner,
depending on the individual. The attire may be very refined and
ladylike, or sexually provocative and ‘slutty’.
Some cross-dressers seek to ‘pass as’ a woman in public by
undergoing a full transformation that is as realistic as possible. This
will typically include carefully applied make-up to cover chin
shadow, along with a wig in a popular women’s hairstyle. They will
be dressed in ‘everyday-looking’ women’s clothes, lingerie, breast
fillers (often referred to as ‘chicken fillets’ due to their shape and
texture, which fit into a woman’s bra to mimic breasts) and hosiery.
The look is finished off with classic women’s shoes (in a larger size to
fit). The aim is thus to blend in to a female role as much as possible,
to ‘pass’ as – to be ‘taken’ as – a woman.
Others identify as a ‘TV’ (transvestite), and want to be seen as a
man who is dressed as a woman. Typically they will relish the
exhibitionism of cross-dressing, wearing exaggerated make-up with
bold lipliner, dramatic false eyelashes and eye make-up, and big hair
with stiletto heels or boots. They will often want to fraternise with
other TVs, and enjoy socialising and attending parties as a TV. Often
they will adopt a ‘showgirl’ name, or a name that is dramatic or
glamourous, or even a feminised version of a man’s name.
One of the other distinctive roles that Dominatrices often facilitate
is the client who identifies as a ‘sissy’, in a feminised and submissive
role. One of the staples of the Dominatrix’s wardrobe for her clients is
a ‘sissy-maid’ outfit, which is a fantasy adaption of the classic French-
maid uniform. It may be black and white (traditional), or made in
pink or pastel yellow, with lots of exaggerated frills, skirt layers and
lace trimming. The sissy-maid will usually also wear frilly panties, be
given a very feminine name, and sent to clean or dust with a feather
duster, make cups of tea and other maid-like duties. The sissy-maid
will be scolded by the Dominatrix for doing things incorrectly, or for
looking too slutty, or, to the contrary, may be admired, taught to
curtsy and other acts that emphasise subservience and the sissy-maid
role. The sissy-maid is addressed as ‘she’ and with an adopted
feminine name.
There can be enormous relief in the removal of heavy gender
imposition, of hypermasculinisation, and it is interesting that army
personnel so frequently seek out cross-dressing when on military
leave. This may well be due to the artificially hypermasculine
environment, from which they seek rebalancing in the feminine
space, wanting to be put in frilly pink attire in a feminine boudoir
environment. Monique von Cleef, the well-known Dominatrix, also
noted how frequently engineers seek out cross-dressing or transvestite
transformations, which may be for a similar reason.
Aside from cross-dressing and sissy identities is the pure
carnivalesque and subversive ‘gender-fuck’ of the Dominatrix’s realm
arts. As part of female domination, a Dominatrix may demonstrate
her control and power over a man by forcing him to wear elements of
female attire, such as putting him in lace or satin women’s lingerie, or
high-heel shoes. She may paint his nipples with lipstick to rouge
them, along with his lips, in an act of intimacy and subversion of
gender roles. The message here is: ‘I control you, and I can do
whatever I want with you. You are in my environment now, on my
rules.’ In doing so, the Dominatrix plays with taboo and ritualistically
removing her client from the realm of the everyday world, and
through this she dislodges him from his fixed social norms.
The client may be given elements of the feminine, rather than made
completely feminine, so that the feminine elements coexist alongside
his male identity, making him a kind of androgyne. There is a deep
rebalancing in such gender-play. In Taoism and tantra, the masculine
and feminine elements are ‘yin and yang’, and mixed in union create
balance in the universe. Every individual may have elements of both
genders within them, in their personality and attributes. Society,
however, imposes an artificial binary allegiance to a fixed gender
identification and compliance with its attendant gender role. The
Dominatrix defies the social rules and artificial norms imposed on
individuals by mixing attributes and revealing both in her alchemy.
No part of social gender identity need be carried on in her space. An
individual is free to consider their sexual and gender identity and role
afresh, the weight of their socially expected role lifted off them.
The Dominatrix role is itself an identity that combines female and
male social attributes and attire. Although women have been enabled
to wear trousers or pants for more than the last century, prior to this
women were attired in dresses and corsets – trousers were men’s
attire. The leather trousers often worn by a Dominatrix, paired with a
powerful and ‘hard look’ (implying punishment), could be said to lean
towards what was traditionally a masculine social role. Wearing a
‘strap-on’, she further adopts the male appendage as phallus, secured
by harness on her body. To contrast, the Dominatrix’s lipstick and
make-up, her attire, such as corset, lingerie, stockings, high heels and
body-hugging clothing that show her curves, emphasise her feminised
form. Indeed the powerful woman has historically challenged
traditional gender roles in which women were to be submissive and
obedient. One can list strong women in history and mythology who
were identified for subverting social expectations of a woman’s role –
such as Margaret Thatcher (the ‘Iron Lady’), Virginia Woolf, Joan of
Arc, and so on.
Part of the Dominatrix’s play may also include the sexual
domination of her submissive by use of her strap-on, in which she
penetrates her client anally. Making her submissive ‘the bottom’, she
forces him into the submissive role, experiencing penetration that is
typically a large element of the woman’s sexual experience in social
norms – ‘to be fucked’.
The construction of the male anatomy means that the prostate can
be stimulated in a way that is pleasurable (the spot often referred to
as the ‘male G-spot’) via penetration and insertion of a dildo. The
Dominatrix is also typically proficient at adorning herself in rubber
gloves and digitally penetrating her submissive with her fingers. She
may even build him up to take a ‘fisting’ – in which the hand is not
generally positioned as a clenched fist, but instead the fingers left in
extension brought together in a bunch, for insertion of all four fingers
and thumb. This is achieved with careful training and a lot of suitable
lubricant to avoid tearing the anal passage.
In some countries, ‘poppers’ or ‘aromas’ (alkyl nitrites, sold in vials
at sex shops) are used to relax the anal sphincter muscles for anal
play. Legality of poppers varies by country. The effects typically last
for a few minutes, increasing feelings of arousal and submission,
alongside light-headedness. (Medical advice recommends that they
not be used alongside drugs such as Viagra (Sildenafil) or other
vasodilators, due to interaction, which could lead to a decrease in
blood pressure and, in rare instances, to stroke or heart attack. They
are popular also in ‘gay culture’.10) This book does not endorse the
use of poppers, which may increase risk and not be legal in some
countries, but merely outlines the realities, for the historical record,
of their use by some clients of Dominatrices (and in private
consensual BDSM play).
Due to the social stigma of a man being cross-dressed and receiving
anal penetration, some clients like to be forcibly cross-dressed by the
Dominatrix, and forcibly penetrated while secured in bondage and
made helpless. The ‘forced feminisation’ enables the client to disavow
responsibility for their desire, by which they are purportedly ‘forced
into it’.
Another type of play requested by some submissives is ‘forced bi-
play’, meaning forced bisexual interaction with other males. This type
of play enables a bisexual or homosexual individual to explore their
desire in a safe and supervised environment, and in a manner that
their psychological discomfort, sexual repression and guilt from their
social upbringing is alleviated by being supposedly ‘forced’ to carry
out play by the Dominatrix. The submissive can thus claim, ‘I did it
because she ordered me to’. Alternatively, activities that a submissive
would not willingly engage in, but pushes themselves to undertake,
can be evidence in proof of their total and absolute submission and
obedience to their Mistress.
The Dominatrix provides an ‘unfettered’ openness to gender and
sexuality identifications and play, in which her clients may be
loosened from the imposition and weight of male/female social-role
binaries and normatives, and liberated to explore their own identity
and desire within a safe environment.
Realm 7
The Art of Fetish and Fantasy
Virtually all sessions are driven ultimately by a play on fetish and
fantasy.
A fetish is something enchanting and bewitching, into which power
is invested – and can be touched. More specifically, an erotic fetish is
something that a person is aroused by and values highly, in a manner
that seems like an over-investment to others: ‘I know it’s only a foot /
stocking / rubber skirt … but all the same, for me it has this power.’
(As Octave Mannoni theorised, ‘Je sais bien, mais quand-même’.)11
Some of the most common fetishes of materiality are shiny rubber
latex or leather clothing. These become like skin, a second skin. Fur is
also a popular fetish (made famous in Von Sacher Masoch’s book,
Venus in Furs), as is cashmere – both are part of the animal’s coat –
with qualities of softness, texture and bodily warmth.
Foot fetish is enormously common, although its specificities differ:
some like caressing and kissing the shoe and stiletto, others like
stockinged feet. Some like naked clean feet, others are thrilled by the
idea of dirty feet that have walked through dirt, or sweaty feet that
have been cramped up in shoes all day, walking around getting hot
and smelly.
A fetish is not only an object, but may be a story with dramatic
punctuation – a fantasy that has sensory punctuation as its sharp
(arresting) shock. For example, a fantasy role-play may involve a
story that climaxes with the cane across the bottom (for a cane
fetishist), the application of heat or being burnt (for a heat fetishist),
being pinched on the arm (for a pinching fetishist) or having balloons
popped against the body (for a rubber balloon fetishist). In all such
cases, it is not merely the thing-as-object upon which the fetish is
based (the cane, the hot iron, the woman’s fingers, the balloon), but
its ‘porterage’ – the wearing and wielding, held within a narrative
drawing ever close, and punctuated at its climax with lingering after-
effects, and retelling again and again.
similarity of structure, materiality, elevation and overinvestment,
which reveal the power it holds over them and which they invest in
it.
There are several ‘causes’ of fetishes that can be deconstructed.
These are substitution, classical conditioning, imprinting and
neuronal cross-links in the brain’s structure, much of which can occur
at a young age and often pre-adolescence.
Sigmund Freud’s theory proposes that ‘the fetish is substitute for
the phallus’, in which fetish formation is linked to the infant boy’s
processing of the lack of his mother’s penis, and disavows his
perception. He substitutes the fetish as a ‘token over the threat of
castration and a protection against it.’
While some fetishes may well be traced back in such a way to
substitution, I remain unconvinced by the phallocentric summarising
of all fetishes as phallus substitution.
Fetishes are not necessarily brought about by the same process
structure or age or stage of development. One can ‘create’ a mild
fetish in a person via classical conditioning and association, which
suggests that the same processes may also be at play in earlier
fetishes.
Classical conditioning involves the association of one thing in
presence to (and linked with) another. The famous experiment on this
is referred to as ‘Pavlov’s Dog’, experiments in which he rang a bell
before presenting dogs with food. In time, the dogs came to be
conditioned to associate the bell’s ring with food about to be
presented, and so would salivate at the sound of the bell in
anticipation of food. If an object were connected to and associated
with a ‘thing’, particularly if that structure of gratification and object
were repeated, the object becomes a trigger for stimulating
anticipatory sexual arousal (equivalent to dogs salivating in
anticipation of food), and by these means becomes ‘a fetish’.
There have been submissive men who have become particularly
attached to their Dominatrix, and when she retires they want the next
new Dominatrix they visit for sessions to wear a wig replicating Her
hairstyle, the same choker necklace, or shoes, or gloves that their
retired Dominatrix used to wear. When the article is put on by the
new Dominatrix, it has an immediate power and arousing effect on
them. Interestingly this shows the elements of attachment, associative
conditioning, transition and substitution, which are being played out
and played with.
A fetish is often described as ‘kink’, and someone who has a fetish
(or fetishes) is described as ‘kinky’. This is an apt and intuitive
metaphorical description of what may in some cases involve neuronal
‘cross-wiring’ and ‘cross-talk’ in the brain’s circuitry. The well-known
neuroscientist Vilayaner Subramanian Ramachandran has proposed
that, as part of the brain’s cortex associated with the ‘map of the foot’
lies beside the ‘map of the genital region’, the frequency of a foot
fetish amongst the population may bear some relationship to the
proximity and cross-talk between these neighbouring areas within the
brain’s structure.12
Men are far more frequently reported to have fetishes than women,
which may not be due to what Freud believed (to the maternal
phallus disavowal), but rather to the differing brain structures of male
and female in respect of grey matter and white matter. Many may
find it interesting that while the 1990s school education slogan of
‘women can do anything’ (which emphasised gender equality
implying sameness of intelligence and brain), this simultaneously
downplayed differences in the human brain, its structure and
processing between males and females. Women have on average far
more white matter in their brain (ten times more than men) and more
tightly packed neurons, while men have more grey matter (6.5 times
as much as women). More scientific research needs to be done as to
how this may affect the development of fetishes developing
predominantly in men.
Cultural experience also heavily influences fetish, with
Dominatrices reporting a high proportion of their ‘foot slaves’ being
of Indian descent.
As mentioned earlier, in Hindu culture, feet and shoes are regarded
as unclean, being in contact with dirt and the earth, and furthest from
the heavens. Hindus avoid pointing their feet at anyone, or within the
temple – to spread their feet towards the altar or their fellow
worshippers. To touch the feet is to show inferiority, so students
touch the feet of their guru, the child to their parent or elder,
demonstrating obeisance and subservience. Shoes are taken off before
entering a temple, and swapped for wooden shoes, exchanging
unclean for clean to ritual effect. The feet of the holiest people, Gods
and Goddesses are sacred, and referred to as ‘lotus feet’. As
Dominatrices will report, Hindu clients most often visit them for
sessions dedicated entirely to ‘foot worship’, and to kissing, caressing
and massaging the sacred feet of the Dominatrix.
The cultural taboos and customs offer some insight into how
certain fetishes are more common in particular cultural upbringings
and backgrounds, and become woven within fetish and fantasy.
Observing many fetishes and hearing many narratives of fetish,
though each is individual, I have been struck with a patterning. That
pattern is:
1. An encounter(s) with an arresting sight.

2. The experience is thrilling and chilling, with physical and
emotional resonance (often accompanied by report of making
them feel ‘funny’, stimulated, aroused).
3. Re-play and repetition fixation, at the sight (and site) of the
reaction and the ‘thing’.
4. Response and gratification from reliving the thrill reinforces
and reassures its effect.
5. The power of the formed fetish and its effects are venerated,
and take hold in the imagination, and are sought out in
proximity to desire.
In noting this ‘pathway of the fetish’, the Dominatrix herself can

become an embodied fetish; an arresting (and threatening) sight,
overseeing a thrilling and chilling experience with resonance. In time
the sight of the Dominatrix is enough to provoke a ‘fetish effect’ in
her client. By adorning herself in materiality that is favourable to
fetish – ‘second skin’ rubber or leather or silk stockings, high talon
stilettos and wielding sharp implements, she combines materials of
comfort with sharp points of danger and threat. She uses a man’s
individual fetishes as a power, and she develops further narrative
layers around fetish and fantasy.
As a man is so thoroughly ‘wrapped up’ in his own fetish, which is
an admitted over-investment and over-valuation (compared to its
everyday value to others), he may often feel alone and long to share
and explore his fetish with another. It is one of the reasons he seeks
out and is relieved to be in the company of a Dominatrix. She not
only adopts play with his fetish, but she holds up its power, sees its
magic, and he feels understood. While others don’t see it, She sees
and understands It.
Closely related to this is the art of developing scenarios and
narratives around the fetish – ‘the fantasy’. This is something that the
Dominatrix is often very adept at – creating a ‘romance of the fetish’,
which is the fantasy role-play. In the fantasy, the fetish is showcased
triumphantly, interwoven into a scene of verisimilitude and narrative
plot.
Some fantasies directly replay experiences and adaptations of
experiences involving the fetish. Corporal-punishment school
fantasies in which a schoolboy is punished by the female teacher with
a cane, with her hair in a bun, pencil skirt and white blouse, looking
stern. A boy is caught masturbating to a naughty magazine by his
Governess, and punished with an over-the-knee spanking, with her in
pencil skirt and suspender stockings, which he gazes upon as he is
punished.
Other fantasies are, well, more fantastical. An alien rubber-clad
cyborg kidnapping a man and performing a medical examination and
experimentation on him, stupefying him to be her human guinea pig.
Or a man beached on an island occupied by Amazonian-like women
who sleep in silk cocoons and keep men as slaves.
It is no surprise then that fetishes occur so frequently in films. The
rubber-like shiny wet skins of aliens and womb-like cocoons (as
sensory deprivation spaces) depicted in Alien, the Barberella fur (and
torture scenes), the leather catsuit of Emma Peel in The Avengers, the
bondage garrotte chair wielded by a woman in James Bond.
The Dominatrix is herself an embodiment of the male (submissive)
fantasy, formed and informed by his erotic imaginings, which fund
her professional pursuits and arts as well as the material, costumes
and equipment of her play.
While much of female domination emphasises the Dominatrix’s
power, her autonomy, her control over play; her client holds the
power both to ‘opt out’ or cease the session by use of a safe word, and
to vote with his feet in terms of who he sees and seeks out. A
Dominatrix for this reason must always keep his fetish and fantasy in
mind as an important part of her power in play.
Or, as one Dominatrix will frequently say to a trainee intern: ‘Never
forget a man’s fetish. Re-invent it again, play with it, uphold it, and
never tire of it … because he never will!’
Endnotes
1 Wilson, A. ‘German dominatrices’ choice of working names as
reflections of self constructed social identity’, Sexuality and Culture,
vol. 9, no. 2 (2005), pp. 31–41 (see p. 40).
2 Satomi Zpira in interview and performance on Friday, 18
December, at La Domaine, Lyon, France (viewable on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0o7zVo2Pbo).
3 Satomi Zpira in interview and performance on Friday, 18
December, at La Domaine, Lyon, France (viewable on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0o7zVo2Pbo) and Midori The
Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage (US: Greenery Press, 2001), p. 14–
16.
4 Ibid., p. 15.
5 Ibid., p. 16.
6 See for example: Bizarre magazine (1946–52) and letter from John
Willie dated 28 February 1950[?], pp. XIII–XVII in Willie, J. The
Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline (New York: Bélier Press, 1999) with
Introduction by J. B. Rund.
7 See Leonard, G. and Klaw, P. ‘About Irving Klaw: Interview with
Paula Klaw 1980’, originally published in High Society (1980)
(republished at:
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/05/interview-about-
irving-klaw-interview-with-paula-klaw.html).
8 Deluze, G. ‘Le Frois et le Cruel’, Présentation de Sacher-Masoch
(Editions de Minuit, 1967); republished in English as: Masochism:
Deleuze / von Sacher Masoch (New York: Zone Books, 1991).
9 See for example Knight, C. Blood Ties: Menstruation and the Origins of
Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).
10 Romanelli, F. and Smith, K. M. ‘Recreational use of sildenafil by
HIV-positive and -negative homosexual/bisexual males’, Ann
Pharmacother, vol. 38: 6 (2004), pp. 1024–30.
11 Mannoni, O. ‘Je sais bien, mais quand-même …’ Clefs pour
l’imaginaire ou l’autre scène. (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1969), pp. 9–
33.
12 Ramachandran, V. S. and Blakeslee, S. Phantoms in the Brain:
Probing the Mystery of the Human Mind (William Morrow
Paperbacks, 1999).
Afterword
Ascent from the Underworld
Having spent much of the last four years in the ‘underworld’ of

Dominatrices’ dungeons, and the dark and artificially lit interiors of
museums and libraries, I have finally drawn to the end of my journey
documenting the history and arts of the Dominatrix.
After all that I’ve learnt about their world and their practices, the
Dominatrices have lost nothing of their mystique. I have great
admiration for these highly independent, talented, and free-thinking
ladies who have made domination their professional craft occupation.
In the few years since I began my journey, the dungeons of Fitzroy
(where I began) have since all moved or closed down, as has Sydney’s
Salon Kitty’s, signalling something of an end of an era in Australia.
Like all endings, it is a beginning, too, with new houses planned to
open, and the next generation of Dominatrices rising up the ranks to
influence the emerging ‘scene’.
Professional domination has become as ‘out’ as it has ever been, as
is ‘fetish’ attire, with the likes of Rhianna and Lady Gaga wearing
latex rubber in their music videos and on stage at award ceremonies
and live performances. Fifty Shades of Grey (which I have
embarrassingly not yet read!) came along some years into my
journey, and seems to have made erotic submission into a mainstream
female fantasy. Yet so little has ever been written on the subject of
the Dominatrix that few were aware of the professional occupation
outside of the stereotypes, nor the arduous training or complex
practices that these women set themselves to undertaking.
In many ways, professional domination poses a challenge to
feminists who advocate an anti-sex-work perspective and would
sweep over sex work as inherently exploitative to women. As this
history shows, the craft of domination seems to have grown out of
rituals and worship of a powerful Goddess, to whom men brought
tribute and offerings of devotion. The practices of submission, pain
and ecstasy were seemingly overseen by powerful priestess figures.
Amongst the earliest texts associated with a recorded author was
‘Dominatrix literature’ to the Goddess Inanna, linked to the high En-
Priestess Enheduanna, as recorded on clay plaques. Later in early
Greek history, we have intriguingly beautiful fragments of poetry on
papyrus, in devotion to the Goddess Aphrodite by the female poet
Sappho (from the island of Lesbos in the Mediterranean). The names
of these influential women were known long after their deaths.
After the overthrow of the Goddesses by patriarchal monotheism,
the sacred ‘women’s knowledge’ was carried into the secular practices
of female sex workers. They appear to have been ‘erotic
entrepreneurs’ and open-minded craftswomen, who tailored their
operations, tools and offerings to the deep desire of men to submit
themselves to a powerful female authority figure. The Dominatrix
profession may have grown out of conventional brothels, but it
appears to have quickly evolved into its own highly specialised niche.
For professional Domination is not about sex per se, but tuned to the
psychosexual realm, releasing the pressure and repression of social
identity, and enabling free exploration of an individual’s submissive
self.
Reading about some of these women in history, and their ingenious
self-marketing and manipulation of their own self-constructed
identity, one can’t help but feel some admiration for them. From the
‘Whipstresses’ who kept colour-coded handles of implements to aid
their clients calling for the correct rod, to the ‘Birch disciplinarians’
seeking to gain some control over their own self-image and the
images of them with aristocratic patrons (which made them amongst
the first ‘celebrities’ in the eighteenth century), and to the golden era
of the Governesses such as Theresa Berkley, who invented equipment
suited to (whipping) purpose. These women achieved financial
independence and class mobility in an era in which few options were
available for women other than to ‘marry up’ or pursue long hours
working in labour-heavy jobs.
They provided an erotic service, yes, but they also developed a
highly specialised craft with its own special competencies, techniques
and knowledge. And ‘play’. The word ‘play’ is particularly important,
for it points to the intuitive, responsive, experimental, theatrical,
transformative nature of their work. Observing ‘sessions’ from the
inside, it soon became apparent just why no one had broached the
Dominatrix’s occupation, or set to record its complexity and depth.
There is a lot of ignorance about what it is that the Dominatrix
does, and she is subject to a lot of stereotyping. If there is one thing
that comes across in looking at Dominatrices, however, it is their
individuality and self-crafting of identity. While catering of course to
erotic and commercial demand of male fantasy, Dominatrices actively
construct their identity, which resonates with their own personal
sense of the powerful sexual woman. They choose a pseudonym,
fashion their Dominatrix ‘self’, set up equipment in a way that suits
their own preferences – for function, display and access of their
‘tools’, for moody aesthetic, as an ‘otherworld’ space and as
transformative theatre. Each brings her own interests and passions to
bear on her professional practices.
When people think of a ‘Dominatrix’, they think of a black-leather-
clad bitch. And while certainly Dominatrices do wear such attire and
can act the ‘bitch’, the history shows that the ‘bizarre’ style only came
about in the twentieth century, some hundreds of years into the
Dominatrix’s history. While in this day and era, you’re just as likely to
find a Dominatrix in colourful latex rubber that suits her personality,
in a uniform that takes her amusement, in Victorian corsets and
seamed suspender stockings, in domestic or office attire, or anything
else that She damn fancies. Dominatrices do keep in mind their
clients’ fantasies, but there is a generous amount of her own personal
taste in what she wears and her wardrobe selection.
Is the Dominatrix a feminist archetype? Well that may be perhaps
going too far. She is, however, certainly not the exploited ‘victim’ that
the feminist writers would cast all sex workers as. Interestingly,
Dominatrices are also highly represented in sex-work advocacy and
rights. In South Australia’s campaign for decriminalisation of sex
work, many of the women working with sex workers’ groups are
practicing or former Dominatrices. While in Canada, the major
constitutional law challenge to sex work in the case of Bedford v.
Canada featured the Dominatrix applicant Terri-Jean Bedford (aka
Madame de Sade) alongside two other sex workers, and she regularly
appeared in the Supreme Court fully dressed in her fetish leather with
a riding crop. The applicants in the case argued that the law deprived
sex workers of their right to security by effectively forcing them to
work in secret.
Dominatrices are used to habitually challenging male authority,
displaying their own power and strength, and it is this experience that
many have said has helped give them the confidence to be involved in
challenging people’s perceptions about sex work and to fight for laws
that would give all sex workers rights to a safe and healthy
workplace. They say that the models that criminalise sex work merely
drive it further underground and into the shadows, where sex workers
are unable to go to the police with any concerns or violence from
clients as long as their work is illegal. Many sex workers have
personally experienced police corruption, blackmail and stigma.
There have been incidents in parts of Asia where women carrying
condoms are arrested and have the condoms used as evidence of
prostitution in legal proceedings, and so have had to go about their
work without carrying condoms for fear of the police.1
Around the world, sex workers seek decriminalisation and human
rights to which all occupations are entitled. Although Dominatrices
do not in general offer sexual intercourse as part of their services,
they are nonetheless completely aligned with other sex workers in the
fight. That fight is for a consenting adult to choose what they wish to
do with their own body, to be able to undertake their work in a safe
environment, have access to occupational safety and health, to pay
taxes like any other citizen, and be able to contact the police without
fear of prejudice, persecution or prosecution.
While anti-sex legislators argue that decriminalisation of sex work
supports human trafficking, these are as separate from each other as
consensual sex is from rape. One is the choice of an individual as to
what she or he wishes to do with her/his own body. The other is the
trafficking and violation of the individual without consent.
Dominatrices and other sex workers advocate an ‘empowered model’,
which emphasises the right of an individual to choose what they wish
to do with their own body and freely access information and support,
free from stigma and oppression.
The risk of exploitation is found in other forms of labour, such as,
most recently featuring in headlines – the textile clothing workers of
Bangladesh. The solution is not to outlaw textile workers. It’s rather
to ensure fair pay and good conditions, to ensure access to agencies
who can help safeguard workplace health and safety of all workers.
As anti-sex-work reformers claim that all sex work is inherently
exploitative, the stories and lives of Dominatrices show that to the
contrary, female sex workers can be savvy erotic entrepreneurs, who
are drawn to the occupation by their interest in sexuality, their open
mind, the opportunity to operate their own independent business and
to profit from their craft and labour.
Dominatrices do not invent the need or commercial demand.
Submissive men intently seek out the understanding Dominatrix who
can cater to their desires and ‘true identity’.
The Dominatrix undertakes this role in a dedicated manner and
professional approach, with special equipment designed to take the
weight of their clients, and tools tailored to their job that are as
specialised as in any ‘craft’ occupation. Interestingly, too, although
there is much emphasis on the Dominatrix’s ability to inflict pain, of
equal or greater importance is her ability to grant mercy. She is
conquerer, yes, but also redeemer and healer.
Clients interviewed in the course of this research talked about
going away from a Dominatrix session feeling at peace, revived,
relieved, released. They spoke of having been taken on a journey,
over multiple sessions, of learning more about themselves, about their
desire, about the nuances of their minds and bodies, and gaining
wisdom and insight from their experience. The less prescriptive they
were, the more they tended to get out of the experience. By sharing
their interests and experiences but opening themselves up to new
experiences as trust was forged, they enabled the Dominatrix free
reign to intuitively taken them somewhere new. The term ‘going on a
journey’ was used repeatedly, again and again, by different clients the
world over.
A great level of trust is placed in the Dominatrix by her charges, a
trust which she holds sacred, with most being very caring and ethical.
(Although there are inevitably a few bad apples out there.) It is an
aspect of the Dominatrix’s work that is rarely recognised, her
compassion and mercy, which goes alongside the stereotypical
‘sadistic bitch’ image.
As I neared the end of writing this book, it was in Hanoi in
Vietnam, on sabbatical, that I encountered the Goddess of Mercy
(Kwan Am or Guanyin), who has ears to the suffering of all, and
hands reaching out to help. I found it rather ironic that this book
would begin with the Dominatrix Goddess Inanna excavated from
deep beneath the sands of ancient Mesopotamia, and end with the
living deity of the Goddess of Mercy.
The plea for ‘mercy’ features in BDSM sessions, in literature, and
forms the ‘safe word’ for many slaves around the world who cry out,
‘mercy Mistress’! The Dominatrix is the archetype of an all-powerful
female who shows not only cruelty, but also compassion and mercy.
It is my hope that this book – despite its flaws, difficult language,
its hurried private-print schedule squeezed in between academic
semesters – will nonetheless help to fill the current void in knowledge
on just what it is a Dominatrix does and her long-sacred history. As
much as possible I have included original sources and references to
enable others to undertake their own research in and contribution to
this rich subject area (which has been previously neglected and
buried quite literally within the underworld). From beneath ancient
sands, museum storage, library vaults, archives from the fetish
underground, brought to the surface, it has been an ‘ascent from the
underworld’.
As this book goes to print I am about to make a migratory flight
across hemispheres and into the upperworld light of day. Like all
journeys to foreign lands, you inevitably acquire some souvenirs on
your trip. Within my own baggage are certainly a few items brought
back from the world of the Dominatrices. (Let’s just hope they make it
past the airport security baggage personnel.)
If anyone out there reading this book is sitting on the ‘buried
treasure’ of Theresa Berkley’s supposedly destroyed Memoirs or any
other important document hidden away, please do not hesitate to
contact me anonymously with material you may wish to share. This
book may serve to ‘rattle a few cages’. And I would relish to update
the publication in ten years time and with more information and
images which may be held privately in people’s attics, boxes and
antique cupboards.
Until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed this special collection of images
and knowledge on the historical Dominatrix.
Anne O Nomis, 2013
Endnote
1 Goodwin, John. ‘Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific:
Laws, HIV and Human Rights in the Context of Sex Work’, UNDP
Asia-Pacific Regional Centre and UNFPA Asia-Pacific Regional
Office, in partnership with UNAIDS, Asia Pacific Network of Sex
Workers and others (2012) (viewable at:
http://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/hiv-2012-
sexworkandlaw.pdf).
Acknowledgements
To David Jackson from DDI (Domination Directory International)

magazine, who used the term ‘between the cracks’ to describe the
way Dominatrices operate, and who provided me with wonderful
source material from his decades of knowledge and from the ‘Domina
Files’ he has constructed. And to Bert Wibo of Massad magazine also.
Thank you Mr J.B Rund of Bélier Press, for sharing with me the
superb artwork of John Willie on the subject of the Dominatrix, and
for allowing me to include this in my book.
To David Wengrow from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, the
one who proposed applying my archaeological study and knowledge
of the ancient rites to the modern-day Dominatrix, as well as pointing
me in the direction of the Ashmolean Museum’s Min sculptures.
Thanks to Stephanie Dalley for email correspondence and translation
referral on Inanna’s keppû (which I will pursue further as a topic in
my academic studies soon).
Thank you to the staff of the British Library Rare Books collection,
including Helen Peden (curator of Printed Historical Sources 1801–
1914) for kindly allowing me access to Ashbee’s own annotated copy
of Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) for my
research. To British Library Imaging Services, and Alex White for
imaging assistance in items I selected on England’s history of female
flagellant governesses.
Thank you to Maureen Goldsmith at Penn Museum for helping me
obtain the wonderful image of the ‘Disc of Enheduanna’, and to
Monica at the Oriental Institute in Chicago for assistance with the
‘Cylinder seal of Inanna/Ishtar’. To Chris Sutherns for assistance on
obtaining images from the British Museum collections, of which
several works from various periods are here illustrated. To Bruce
Marchant of Reel Poster Gallery, and Andy Johnson of AJ
Photographics in London, for the wonderful vintage Maitresse print.
A thank you to the wonderful Mistresses who helped in their
various ways with my knowledge, and my sincere apologies if I have
left someone off this list in error or strained memory. In Melbourne,
Australia – to Darren, Mistress Cleo, Mistress Electra Amore, Mistress
Victoria, Mistress Vervain, Mistress Syrine, Mistress Violet, Mistress
Magenta, Mistress Tova, Lady Ambrosia Noire, Mistress Amara Dolce,
Mistress Kay, Mistress Vianne, Mistress Vera, Mistress Elizabeth,
submissive Isabella and Mistress Alex Vicia. And to cedric, who
doesn’t really deserve mention being unworthy as he is. To Mac. In
Sydney, Australia – to Mistress Tokyo, Mistress Amanda Dwyer and
the wonderful women of Salon Kitty’s who I met during my visit
there, including Mistress Orlarne, Mistress Saskia, Mistress Imperia,
Mistress Devonia, Mistress Phaedra, Mistress Tahlia, Mistress Coco,
Mistress Pearl, Mistress BelleStar, Mistress Minette and Mistress Eris,
and not least Leslie – ‘Mistress of phones’. To Cuntress Gabrielle in
Adelaide, who with Mistress Electra make a wonderful duo at the
Fetish Palace. To Maitresse Danielle in Cannes. To Lady Riva in
Warwickshire. In London – to Maitresse Nuit, Mistress True Severity,
‘Mistress’ Jean (you know you should be), Mistress Absolute,
Domina V, Mistress Jezabel, Mistress Alice Malice, Miss Myers,
Mistress Eva Meinhof, Mistress Fiore, Mistress Kulit, Mistress Leia Ann
Woods, Goddess Sophia, Mistress Morrigan Hel, Miss Greta Muse,
Mistress Akella, Mistress Heelena, Mistress Arella, Mistress Vanessa,
Mistress Claudia, Goddess Cleo, Madame Caramel and Mistress Esme.
To Mr G (Agent G), little john, Scottish hugh, odysseus and to james.
To Madame deSade (Terri-Jean Bedford) for her fight in Canada. To
the workers fighting the cause at SWAGGER in South Australia. To
Catherine Healy in New Zealand for her support, and to the workers
and women fighting everywhere for their right to work within their
craft, without prejudice or harassment.
To my wonderful friends Sophie, Mesh and Steven for their tireless
support of my work and spirit. To my scene friends – Sir Stephen,
Evie, Andy, Lil Miss Anna, Jonathan and co. To Claire.
And last but certainly not least, to my copy editor Bianca, to my
publishing company Mary Egan Publishing in New Zealand – my
fabulous designer Anna Egan-Reid, ‘Wonder-woman’ administrator
Sophia Egan-Reid and to their ‘mother Goddess’ Mary Egan.
underground ‘scene’ over a four-year period.
She is currently writing two books of fiction, and plans to continue
her studies to obtain a doctorate specialising in ancient Near Eastern
material culture, ritual and mythology, and the origins of early
civilisation.
Nomis lives between Melbourne and London.

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Figure 1 The Lady of Warka from the City of Uruk (Warka)

Figure 2 Warka (Uruk) vase

Figures 3a and 3b Detail from The Uruk Trough

Figure 4 Venus of Laussel

Figure 5 Seated Female with Lionesses

Figure 6 Queen of the Night

Figure 7 Reconstruction of Jewelry from Tombs of Ur

Figure 8 Cylinder seal depicting Ishtar

Figure 9 Disc of the High En-Priestess Enheduanna from Ur

Figure 10 Clay cuneiform tablet of Hymn to Ishtar

Figure 11 Figure on a lion in Ishtar lion plaque

Figure 12 Celebratory Procession

Figure 13 God Min from Coptus in Egypt

Figures 14 and 15 Lead votive figurines from Sanctuary of Artemis

Figure 16 Winged priestess wielding a whip in Pompeii

Figure 17 Aquamanile water jug in the form of Phyllis dominating

Figure 18 Socrates & Xantippe

Figure 19 The Cully Flaug’d

Figure 20 Erotic flogging scene

Figure 22 Fashionable Lectures Delivered with Birch Discipline

Figure 23 George Beare, Portrait of Peg Woffington

Figure 24 Nathaniel Hone, Portrait of Kitty Fisher

Figure 25 George Willison, Nancy Parsons in Turkish Dress

Figure 26 James Wilson, The Fair Nun Unmask’d

Figure 27 The Berkley Horse, designed 1828 by Governess Dominatrix

Figure 28 Detail of putti flogging against a ladder

Figure 29 Page of handwritten letter from Frederick Hankey to

Figure 30 Frontispiece to Index Librorum Prohibitorum – Index of

Figures 31 and 32 Models for Jacques Biederer, Paris

Figures 33 and 34 Model Nativa in photographs for Yva Richards,

Figures 35, 36, 37 Models in pony-play for Charles Guyette, New

Figure 38 and 39 Vintage image of couple modelling for Charles

Figure 42 Martin Leigh, The Velvet Underground (1963)

Figure 43 Bruce Rogers, The Bizarre Lovemakers (1967)

Figure 44 Myron Kosloff, Dominatrix (1968)

Figure 45 Maîtresse film poster (1975/6) designed by British artist

Figures 47 and 48 Miss Doreen in her West End flat (1960s)

Figures 49, 50, 51 Mistress Anne of Kent, UK

Figures 52 and 53 Jean Fischer of Ossining, New York

Figure 54 Artwork of Dominatrix with distinctive gloves resembling

Figures 55 and 56 Anne Laurence, Upper Manhattan

Figure 57 Dutch Dominatrix Monique Von Cleef, New York

Figure 58 Front cover of Bakersfield Californian on the police raid on

Figure 59 Signed photograph of Monique Von Cleef in her ‘House of

Figure 60 Monique Von Cleef in The Hague

Figure 61 Sadom Bea, The Hague

Figure 62 Miss Kenny, The Hague, on the cover of Domination

Figure 63 Brita Schmerse, Herbertstrasse, Germany

Figure 64 Mistress Gaby, Herbertstrasse, Germany

Figure 65 Nicole de Carje, Herbertstrasse, Germany

Figure 66 Artist Natasha Gornik, Mistress Alex Goes to Times Square I

Figure 67 Artist Natasha Gornik, Mistress Alex Goes to Times Square I

Figure 72 Artist Stuart Pearson Wright, Portrait of Mistress Jezabel

Figure 73 Mistress Amanda Dwyer, Owner of Salon Kitty’s