Source: EU.indystar.com
USA – INDIANAPOLIS – Melyssa Hubbard (nee Donaghy), a dominatrix turned political activist, was found dead Friday. She was 62 years old.
The cause of death wasn’t immediately available.
Hubbard first came to public attention in May 2003, when WRTV reported that she was working as a professional dominatrix out of her Meridian-Kessler basement.
The Dungeon Arts Reformatory offered consensual role-playing activities for clients, who knew Hubbard as Miss Maitresse Ann.
Police who looked into the operation didn’t find anything untoward. The publicity still hurt business, though, and Hubbard wrote in her memoir that she spent her newfound time on “activities that would advance (her) interest in personal freedom.” That led her to libertarian politics, she wrote.
Despite being publicly outed as a dominatrix, Hubbard continued engaging in Indianapolis’ fetish scene, organizing the Erotic Arts Ball and opening a bondage boutique in Chatham Arts.
In November 2004, a sheriff’s deputy came to Hubbard’s front door wielding a lawsuit filed against her by the city alleging that her boutique and in-home business violated city zoning law. She wrote that she confronted then-Mayor Bart Peterson at a press conference the next day.
Hubbard eventually agreed to shut down the Dungeon after more than two years of litigation. The boutique had closed before the lawsuit was even filed, according to Hubbard’s memoir.
After the lawsuit ended, Hubbard “killed off Miss Ann” and eventually took a job in advertisement sales at Angie’s List. Former coworker Karey Morris recalled Hubbard as a vibrant, loving presence who went out of her way to help new hires.
“The lore around her was awesome,” Morris said. She recalled that Hubbard’s desk was decorated with memorabilia from George Washington’s childhood home, fresh flowers and a leather riding crop.
Around the time Hubbard began working at Angie’s List, she began volunteering as an advocate for radical tax reform, proposing elimination of the IRS, income and property taxes.
More: Former dominatrix Melyssa Hubbard still speaks her mind
A 2007 property tax increase brought Hubbard back into the media spotlight — this time as a political activist.
“I’d always had a knack for getting people to move and gather at parties, fetish events, the Erotic Arts Ball — a political demonstration would be no different,” Hubbard wrote.
Hubbard was right. Her rallies against Peterson and taxation drew hundreds of supporters. She recalled in a 2013 IndyStar interview that someone in one of the crowds said, “we need a tea party.”
Sean Shepard, a longtime political acquaintance, recalled that one demonstration featured a giant handmade teabag. It was filled with tax assessments and then “steeped” in the Broad Ripple Canal.
Hubbard went on to found Indiana’s Tea Party, though she left after it was “hijacked by GOP operatives,” she told IndyStar in 2013.
After the publication of Hubbard’s 2014 memoir, “Spanking City Hall: Dominatrix to Political Activist,” she focused on “the simple life,” but she was never a simple person, according to her good friend Erick Faust.
“She loved the dive bars, but yet she could put on a feast fit for a president or coronation,” Faust said. “The dichotomies within herself were just amazing.”
Faust described Hubbard as fiercely loyal in her relationships and in her beliefs.
“Mely could make friends anywhere, and she could make enemies anywhere,” he said. “There was no in-between.”
