Source: Inews.co.uk
IRELAND – DUBLIN – In 1980s Dublin, Susan Bluechild’s mother found an unorthodox way to get financial independence. Now she is writing a show about how it bonded them forever
Most teenagers are embarrassed, or even repulsed, by the notion of anything sexual relating to their parents. But while Susan Bluechild didn’t exactly catch her mother in flagrante delicto, she did – at the age of 16 – find her wearing nothing more than a basque, stockings and high heels, brandishing a whip and lashing a middle-aged man dressed in a thong, who happened to be vacuuming the room at the same time.
“It was a bit of a shock, to say the least, because although she had talked about doing something like this to earn a bit of extra cash, I thought she was joking – so I was quite unprepared,” says the now 52-year-old.
“Apparently, she had decided to become a dominatrix as my parents’ marriage wasn’t great, my siblings had left home and she couldn’t find a job – so, having read, in various magazines, about a famous dominatrix called Lindy Sinclair, decided to try it herself.”
This was middle-class suburban Dublin in the 1980s and Bluechild says that after discovering her mother’s somewhat unorthodox method of earning a few extra pounds, she ended up becoming an accomplice.
“Not long after I walked in on my mum (who was 48 at the time) and her first client, I started assisting her,” says Bluechild, now a scriptwriter who lives in London. “We were very close and she confided in me that she had put an advert in a Dublin magazine with a PO box for replies.
“It wasn’t long before the postman was bringing bundles of letters and I started helping her go through them. I also used to hang around in the kitchen as ‘security’ so she wasn’t on her own and then I began serving tea and cake at the cross-dressers’ tea parties. There wasn’t any sex involved – just a bit of whipping and role-play. I would help insult clients (at their request) and occasionally give them the lash of a whip.
“So, I became ‘Mistress Elaine’ and helped mum in secret for three years. At the time, my dad – who worked for a building supplies business – had no idea what was going on, as she only did it during the week when he was out. He never did discover her secret, but later on after she died, he said that he had thought ‘something was going on’. He wasn’t sure exactly what, but turned a blind eye for a quiet life.
“He gave her £40 a week for housekeeping but she had her own bank account and with one or two clients a day, each paying up to £50, that was a lot of money. So we really took it seriously as there was no way she would have got another job paying so well. With the new income she was able to buy new clothes instead of ones from a charity shop, get her hair done and have dinners out. She told my dad that she had a part-time job selling perfume door-to-door and at one point, said that she pawned her engagement ring so we could go on holiday to Lanzarote.
“Having her own money really helped to make her feel secure and uplifted, which was also beneficial for our relationship.”
Susan says she was ‘very proud’ of what her mother was doing as ‘it took a lot of guts’.
“I always knew she was a daring, get-up-and-go person, but this was on another level,” she says. “I had a real respect for her as she was ahead of her time, particularly living in Dublin with all the influence of the church at the time, so considering that she was born in 1939 in a Catholic country, she was seriously thinking outside the box.”
She admits that the experience was an eye-opener and she had to grow up fast, but adds: “I had always been quite rebellious and forward-thinking, like my mum, so I think our relationship took on a new meaning. It probably strengthened it. I was really her only confidante and we were able to talk openly about relationships, sex, and how important it was to men.”
They kept it very quiet. “But we were both very careful about keeping it quiet. It would have caused such a scandal. I would also have been ostracised for it. It wasn’t the something you could tell your friends about.”
However, despite keeping quiet about it as a teen, she has now has written a TV pilot on the topic, entitled The Real Mistress Elaine, in which she shares what it was like discovering that her mother was ‘working from home’ – and how, several decades later, she taught her aunt how to do the same thing when she became destitute.
“My mother’s role as a dominatrix lasted a few years, stopping when my father had a change of job which meant they had more money coming in and my mother became ill so couldn’t do it any more,” she says. “Around then, at the age of 19, I went to London to start a singing career and it became a distant memory.
“But I entered that world again 30 years later, aged 41, after my mother had passed away – as her younger sister, 68 at the time, lost all her money when she got scammed by a young man, who used her as a meal ticket for his family. Prior to this she had been in an abusive marriage, so was finding life very hard, working as a carer in Hertfordshire on £10 an hour, and struggling to make ends meet.
“I told her my mum’s secret as I thought it might allow her to live a better life – and she was intrigued and willing to give it a try. Engaging in this work taught her that there were other types of men who would treat her with respect – they were in awe of her. Suddenly she wasn’t being treated like dirt and it was empowering – she could be herself and for once, this was recognised and she was rewarded for doing a job well.”
Susan helped transform her aunt’s life and between them they saw five or six clients a week at her aunt’s flat, for a fee of £250 an hour. If they worked as a duo, they charged £350 per hour. The pair also held cross-dresser tea parties, at £350 per head, sometimes earning over £1000. So, her elderly aunt went from earning £10 an hour to £500-600 per week, for just a few hours work.
But while the money was good and allowed Susan, who only did it part-time, a secure income while pursuing her artistic career, she says it was also quite tough.
“It took an awful lot of guts do this work as my mum and aunt grew up in a sheltered generation – but they didn’t do it because they had a desire to do so – the decision was purely financial.”
The singer, writer and actress says that while her mother, aunt, and even herself, benefitted from working as a dominatrix, so too did the men who were looking for an outlet for their own frustrations.
“I saw a genuine need in these guys,” she says. “They were intelligent and often lonely. I think they liked being dominated because their careers involved wielding power, so they wanted to feel the opposite. But some just wanted to talk, while others felt their relationships were too ‘vanilla’ and wanted something different. They came from all walks of life but were usually in ‘respectable jobs’ as company directors, judges or solicitors.”
Susan, who has since hung up her whip, says “the UK clients were a lot more precise than the Irish”. “Some liked to be spanked and whipped hard, and some wanted to do the cleaning, or ‘domestic servitude’, as they called it. It taught me that the human psyche is incredibly complex.
“My mum told me years later that she felt ashamed for exposing me to it. But I assured her that it didn’t affect me psychologically, and the money always helped so there was no need for shame. She did what she had to do and it all turned out well in the end.
“I’ve shared our story on my blog and podcast, have also written a TV pilot, and am preparing a one-woman-show for a London theatre, all of which shows there is a lot more going on in suburbia than you think.”
Find out more about Susan Bluechild’s story on her blog and podcast
