The dominant narrative today about men, women, and power is that men prefer women to be subservient.
In truth, many men respect, love, and are excited by strong women.
Most people, regardless of gender, seem to desire a lover who can hold their own both in and outside the bedroom.
USA – A dominant narrative today about men, women, and power is that men prefer women to be subservient. But in my sex therapy practice, I frequently hear otherwise. Many men respect, love, and appreciate strength in women. They enjoy interacting with strong women, having sex with them, and fantasizing about them. But guys in my therapy room aren’t the only ones with these sentiments. Here are a few other examples.
Pornhub is the most popular English-speaking porn site in the world. It publishes an annual report categorizing who is searching for and watching what kind of porn. In the 2019 list of “porn searches that define 2019,” guess what slid in at No. 10? Femdom porn. In case you don’t know, femdom porn is exactly that—porn depicting a person identified as female assuming the dominant sexual role. Out of the hundreds of porn categories out there, femdom is strikingly high on men’s list of favs. If men really preferred passive women, it’s very difficult for me to believe this would be such a popular outlet for their arousal.
The simp phenomenon
Urban Dictionary defines simp in several ways, including “when a male is overly submissive to a female and gains nothing from it. So overly submissive that other guys cringe and feel ashamed when seeing them. This applies to males in relationships when they are so submissive that they say literally anything to be in favor with the female.” This phenomenon has been getting a lot of airplay in the last few years. “Simps” are considered hetero guys who take pleasing their dominant female partner very seriously. Again, not a group of men who we would generally describe as disliking powerful women. Instead, pleasing a powerful woman becomes a priority in their lives.
The younger guy trolling for older women
It seems increasingly common to hear stories of a 30-something guy on dating apps trolling for older women. So often when 40- or 50-something women enter the online dating scene, they are hit up by younger guys. Some women find it appealing and complimentary, while others find it offensive or pitiful. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that it’s hard to be a confident, independent woman on a dating site and not get this kind of male attention. Men who dislike powerful women would not seek to date or hook up with more mature females.
The sexual challenges of couples in long-term relationships
I work with many couples trying to keep their long-term relationship sexually satisfying. So often I hear hetero guys tell me they love their wife’s or girlfriend’s power and intelligence—they like the challenge of being with a strong woman both in and outside the bedroom. They are excited by a lover who knows what she wants in bed and isn’t afraid to get it—a woman who has sexual experience and isn’t shy or careful between the sheets. If anything, these men hope that their partners will gain sexual power from seeing me for sex therapy. In my close to 25 years of private practice, I recall very few men who felt their partners needed toning down in the bedroom.
Ironically, I often hear these same sorts of comments about power from hetero women in my therapy room. Women tend to want more confidence and assertiveness from their men in bed, not less. I rarely hear women say they want their partners to be more careful, more polite, or more passive between the sheets. Instead, I hear women wishing their hetero partners would take charge in the bedroom, lead rather than follow, and touch them with confidence and passion. It’s unlikely that I’m the only sex therapist hearing this message. Yet, sadly, this is not our cultural narrative, and it’s not how we are guiding men today.
Today, most people seem to desire a lover who can hold their own in the bedroom. Of course, there will always be a subset of people who identify as male and people who identify as female who prefer submissive sex partners. But I don’t hear most men (or women) say that they want more passive, subservient lovers. If anything, it’s the opposite. Let’s look at the facts and recognize that many modern men love and are turned on by dominant women. It’s time for our cultural narrative to reflect reality.
AUSTRALIA – SIDNEY -A deconsecrated church once used for “wild parties” organised by notorious Sydney dominatrix Gretel Pinniger will be turned into an entertainment venue, co-working space and cafe/bar under plans approved by the City of Sydney.
A 26-room boarding house will also be built behind The Kirk on Cleveland Street in Surry Hills “designed with the motif of a dragon in mind”, according to planning documents, to symbolise new life brought to the historic church building.
A local planning panel last week approved Ms Pinniger’s $5.6 million plans to redevelop The Kirk – despite objections from some residents concerned about the overshadowing, noise, privacy and parking.
Ms Pinniger said she hoped The Kirk would once again be a venue for musicians and artists where “we can have all the fun we used to have”.
Ms Pinniger is best known for her outrageous alter-ego Madam Lash, but she also dressed up as the Virgin Mary to become the Immaculate Lash. The reality, she said, was “I’m a bit of a recluse”.
“I’ve led a fortunate life, and I’d really like to share it,” she said. “I’d like to be remembered for the girl I really was. I’m an art lover by my own definition.”
Ms Pinniger said she had fond memories of “totally wild parties” at The Kirk, which was used as a gallery and concert space from the early 1970s until she purchased the gothic-style building in 1986, using it for burlesque shows and sex parties.
AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock was filmed inside the church in 1977, with Bon Scott standing in the pulpit.
USA – Julia Enright, 24, was sentenced to the maximum penalty under Massachusetts law on Friday for the 2018 murder of 20-year-old Brandon Chicklis, a former classmate and boyfriend.
Worcester Superior Court Judge Daniel Wrennsentenced the defendant to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years after hearing victim impact statements from nine of Chicklis’s family and friends, according to MassLive’s court reporterErin Tiernan.
One after another, each of the nine described the hole that was left in their lives following the young man’s brutal murder. And, in turn, each asked for the judge to return the harshest penalty against Enright.
Chicklis’s mother, Trisha Edwards-Lamarche, explained her grim and daily predicament, according to reports from the courtroom.
“Every day when drive to work, I get to choose: Do I drive by where she dumped my son’s body today, or do I drive by where she dumped his car?” the grieving mother told the judge.
“I love you Brandon, you’ll always be my bumble bee,” the deceased man’s grandmother, Louisa Rocha, said in court.
Chicklis was stabbed at least 10 times inside the Enright family’s Ashburnam, Mass. treehouse on June 23, 2018, the trial revealed. His body was found by a jogger on July 10, 2018 on the side of Route 119 in Rindge, New Hampshire, a town just across the state line from Massachusetts. The corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition by the time it was discovered — which became a key point of discussion during the trial due to Enright’s uncontested fixation with dead animals, decomposition, and death, in general.
During trial, one witness reportedly testified the defendant would occasionally try to speed up a dead animal’s decomposition by leaving its body out in the elements and wrapped up in a tarp. Prosecutors tried to use the testimony to suggest a parallel to how Chicklis may have been treated.
In her defense, Enright told jurors her occult-adjacent interests were a side effect of her then-obsession with shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
The trial also featured some focus on the defendant’s side business as a dominatrix – much to the defense’s chagrin and prior protestations.
Enright herself lodged an unsuccessful claim that she killed Chicklis in self-defense in response to an alleged attempted sexual assault in the treehouse. Jurors didn’t accept that version of the story.
Prosecutors argued the slaying was a “gift” for John Lind, the defendant’s then-boyfriend. Lind was indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury for accessory after the fact to murder, misleading a grand jury, and perjury earlier this year. Originally charged in December of last year, he is alleged to have shared many of the same macabre interests as the convicted woman.
Lind first made waves in the case months prior.
In October 2021, Lind pleaded the fifth during one of Enright’s pre-trial evidentiary hearings when asked to account for what, exactly, moved his girlfriend to replace part of the carpet in the treehouse. Previously, he allegedly told police the textile had been replaced due to a sex act between the two that resulted in damage from human feces.
Evidence later suggested there was never any carpet in the treehouse before the murder at all. And, in the area where the carpet had allegedly been replaced, investigators found Chicklis’s blood and DNA.
“His DNA is in your treehouse,” a state trooper told Enright during her second interview with the Massachusetts State Police on the day she was arrested. “How could his DNA, his blood, be in your treehouse?”
She got up and tried to leave at that point but, from that point on, would remain in the custody of law enforcement.
As for Lind, during trial she testified he helped her get rid of the body.
“There is not a day that goes by that don’t think about this or don’t wish I could go back,” Enright said in a bid to lessen her sentence. “Maybe you need to hear me say this: I’m sorry to everyone. His parents, his siblings, his loved ones, my parents, friends, everyone.”
According to MassLive, she never said her victim’s name and only turned to slightly address his family in court on Friday.
“I want you to know how much I’ve thought about everything,” she continued. “I need you to know I mean it. I need you to know that every night I pray for my family. I’m praying for yours too.”
“I won’t lie and pretend like being with my family and loved ones isn’t the only thing I want,” she went on.
UK – A DOMINATRIX has boasted of a late-night visit by a jubilant Man City star after his team’s 7-0 spanking of Leeds.
See video and more larger photo’s on: Thesun.co.uk.
Mistress Estée, who hands out a good thrashing herself, claims she held the kinky session with the elite player at her red-walled dungeon.
She bragged of the encounter on her TikTok page saying: “When he wins 7-0 for Man City against Leeds then comes to me afterwards!”
In the video, the 21-year-old dominatrix, who has a large social media following, is seen dressed in a long black PVC dress, dancing provocatively to Rod Stewart’s hit Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.
The clip has been watched 1.3million times and liked by 63,000 people.
In another TikTok post, the English-born, half-French beauty, is seen in a sexy Santa outfit and says: “When he plays for Man City but comes to the theatre of dreams” — a cheeky reference to the Old Trafford ground of City’s rivals Manchester United.
The jet-setting Instagram model also poses in just a City home shirt in her dungeon.
She said the player, who featured in Tuesday’s thumping, drives a £150,000 supercar.
Her posts left fans guessing who the player might be.
In the comment section, one sleuth said the mistress had previously mentioned the nationality of the player over the summer, to which she teased: “Aaah, someone getting closer!”
Another commented on Premier League stars cheating on their Wags, to which she replied: “Yeah exactly but the wf/gf must not live up to expectations.”
The Sun has no evidence that a City player did in fact visit her dungeon, thought to be outskirts of Manchester, as she claims.
But she will certainly have tongues wagging at the Etihad.
City boss Pep Guardiola needn’t worry about the player catching Covid from Estée ahead of tomorrow’s match at Newcastle United — the 5ft 4in beauty showed off her vaccination card in one clip.
She runs several social media accounts and boasts tens of thousands of followers, but directs punters to her page on an adult site for her most X-rated content.
She regularly posts of her travels to the likes of Dubai, Greece and French Polynesia and wearing designer clothes and jewellery.
Estée is seen in a private jet and helicopter, and spends time on yachts and at huge mansions.
UK – From the tragic scenes which highlighted financial issues for pensioners – which left Edna eating a single piece of lettuce on a plate for her meal – to her lovable pooch Tootsie, Edna was an Emmerdale legend.
Actress Shirley Stelfox played her from 2000 until her death in 2015, appearing in a whopping 1,503 episodes.
But Shirley was a lot different to Edna’s stoic personality, and played a huge variety of characters throughout her incredible acting career, including taking on the role of a prostitute in George Orwell adaptation Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The actress tragically passed away from terminal cancer just four weeks after her diagnosis.
To commemorate six years since her death, Daily Star takes a look at Shirley’s life off-screen.
Rival soap stints
Emmerdale wasn’t the only soap Shirley appeared in – although it was her most legendary role to date.
In fact, her first ever small-screen acting role was in rival ITV soap Coronation Street back in 1960.
She played various Corrie characters over the years, the most recent being Shirley Henderson in 1990 – but she also appeared as a barmaid and video dating agency businesswoman.
Shirley even appeared in BBC soap EastEnders in 1999 – one year before she joined Emmerdale – as Jane Healy, Mel Owen’s mum who attends her wedding to Ian Beale on New Year’s Eve.
She was revealed to have been killed off 20 years later.
But Shirley actually had a spooky connection to one member of the Emmerdale cast before either of them signed up to the ITV soap.
She appeared alongside Elizabeth Estensen – best known for her role as Diane Sugden until she quit the soap earlier this year – in Noel Coward’s 1985 play Cavalcade.
As well as appearing in other soaps like Heartbeat, Brookside and The Bill, Shirley appeared in six episodes of Keeping Up Appearances as Rose in 1990.
However, she only appeared in one series of the show before being replaced by Mary Millar due to prior commitments.
Raunchy scenes
Although many fans will remember Edna as prim and proper, always hiding her hair beneath a tight hat, Shirley looked a lot different in real life.
She even played a prostitute, labelled simply ‘The Whore’ in the adaptation of George Orwell’s novel 1984, appearing in a cropped scarlet wig and black lace choker for the sultry scenes.
Shirley slipped into a strapless black dress which featured sequins and a plunging neckline for the shoot, donning a dark smokey eye make-up look with dark red lipstick.
She also appeared in comedy Personal Services as a whip-wielding dominatrix intent on helping to host kinky sex sessions for upper class folk.
And in real life, Shirley tended to wear her long blonde tresses loose and tumbling past her shoulders.
In hospital scenes where Edna was first seen without her iconic hat, the actress revealed she actually had to wear a wig.
She remarked at the time: “I had to cover my blonde hair with a wig because I only have a couple of grey hairs, even at 63!”
Tragic losses
Shirley was married twice in her life – first to Keith Edmundson for three years. The pair shared a daughter, Helena, before eventually gong their separate ways.
The star later tied the knot to fellow actor Don Henderson in 1979 – who was best known for his roles in shows like Red Dwarf and Doctor Who.
Shirley helped to bring up Don’s two children from his first marriage, and the pair were together until Don tragically died from throat cancer in 1997.
Speaking about what Don might have thought of her character Edna, Shirley told the Birmingham Sunday Mercury in 2004: “I can just see him now, roaring with laughter.”
But she explained that seeing Edna in a relationship of her own would have been too strange, explaining at the time: “It would show too much of her soft side and change her character. Edna was brought in to give Ashley and Bernice a hard time, and I think it’s very important to keep that edge.”
Health issues and death
Shirley suffered from bilateral amblyopia all her life, a condition of the eyes which means the brain fails to fully input sight from one eye and favours the other.
The condition left her short-sighted.
In 2015, Shirley was diagnosed with terminal cancer – and she passed away just four weeks later. She was said to have died peacefully at home with her daughter Helena by her side.
ITV executive producer John Whiston paid tribute to the star at the time, commenting: “The family here at Emmerdale are deeply saddened by Shirley’s passing. It is hard to imagine Emmerdale without her.
“We offer our condolences to Shirley’s family and share our feeling of loss with the millions of viewers who will miss Edna enormously.”
Her co-stars also paid tribute to their beloved colleague, with Donna Windsor star Verity Rushworth posting: “Thinking of the entire @emmerdale family and the loved ones of the legendary Shirley Stelfox. Taught me so much when growing up.”
Heartbreaking final scene
Edna was last seen on-screen on October 26, 2015 during a poignant scene with co-star Freddie Jones, who played Sandy Thomas until just before his death in July 2019.
Sandy had been lodging with Edna and decided to gift her a set of walkie talkies to chat to him when he moved out.
He told her: “I thought it’d be very strange for you to go back to living on your own again. But like this, we shall be only the touch of a button away.”
NORTH – IRELAND – BELFAST – Looking for holiday rentals during the festive season can be a real pain — but now there is a naughty little Airbnb listing which offers just that, and more.
Carnal Chambers sex dungeon in north Belfast is advertised on Airbnb and on social media as a fully-equipped BDSM house for hire.
It is owned and run by international dominatrix Mistress Royale who is currently advertising discounted rates for her services at the dungeon throughout the festive period.
The space is listed on Airbnb as a “unique and special” two-bedroom house complete with “an adult play space and a pink room for makeover and transformation”.
The listing also notes: “You can find a completely blacked-out cell with concrete floor for extended confinement time.
“This SM (sadomasochism) House is a mix of a comfortable stay and play where you can enjoy your time away from home along with fun, a bit of kink and holidays.”
With overnight bookings for the Belfast sex dungeon starting at £90 per night, Sunday Life went along to have a look inside the torture chamber and see what all the screaming was about.
Situated off the busy Crumlin Road in north Belfast, the unassuming residential property belies the world of sexual intrigue held within.
On entering the property, it looks like many other suburban Belfast homes with a kitchen-diner on the ground floor complete with rug and cosy fire.
However, on closer inspection, you’ll find a giant leather bondage throne tucked away in the corner of the room under a blanket.
The throne is a specially designed piece of kit which comes complete with an array of fastenings and straps which provide multiple ways in which to bind someone to the chair.
Perched atop the mantelpiece above the fireplace sat a number of penis cages, similar in use to a chastity belt for a woman, alongside a ‘lucky charm’ ornament, featuring a leprechaun and a horseshoe.
The rest of the ground floor was just as you’d expect to find in any family home except for the door under the stairs which led to the aforementioned confinement cell.
Roughly a foot wide and around five-feet long, the space under the stairs consisted of nothing but a concrete floor, some hooks in the wall and a dog bowl.
After peering under the stairs and resisting the temptation to climb inside the cell and shut the door behind me, it was time to go upstairs and check out the other rooms.
First I came across the adult play room which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It had one large dark red ‘gynaecologist chair’ in the centre of the room which doubles up as a spanking bench.
Sat in front of a large mirror, the chair formed the centrepiece of the room and was accompanied by a smaller black BDSM chair complete with wrist and head restraints.
The room also came complete with a mains-powered sex-machine, a six-foot tall St Andrew’s Cross restraint for torture plus a treasure trove of sex aids and equipment. Stacked on several shelves by the window were dozens of sex toys, including gimp masks, dildos of all shapes and sizes and a large rubber fist, as well as a number of wigs.
The shelves also contained assorted other items including bolt cutters, ties, wipes, puppy training pads and clingfilm.
The room was provided with extensive cleaning products and equipment and the Airbnb listing provides an “enhanced” cleaning service with every booking.
Finally, I poked my head into the makeover room which had a bed, a small restraint bench, vanity unit and a clothes rail, all lit up by multi-coloured disco lighting.
On the clothes rail were a number of costumes and uniforms, including nurse and maid outfits as well as a 1970s style blow-up sex doll.
The Belfast dungeon appears to have been operating since September, with dominatrix Mistress Royale advertising the house via its own dedicated Twitter account, the Airbnb website and her personal Twitter account.
She has shared pictures and video of her work and clients at the address on social media and has welcomed other dominatrices to the dungeon who have done the same.
On her Twitter profile she describes herself as a “BBW (big beautiful woman)” and an “international pro dominatrix” as well as specialising in “FinDomme (financial domination) and fetish”.
Elsewhere on social media, she describes herself as a “professional dominant, female supremacist, fetish model & performer, sex & kink educator, BDSM & fetish advisor” and “kink research pioneer.”
Aside from her Crumlin Road enterprise, she says she’s a model and performer working in Monaco, Jersey, Nice and London.
WORCESTER — Opening statements are expected Monday in the trial of Julia Enright, the Ashburnham dominatrix accused of stabbing a former classmate to death four years ago inside a treehouse that was outfitted with restraints.
The case is set to be called at 9 a.m. Monday in Worcester Superior Court after a jury was seated Thursday.
nright, 24, is accused of murdering 20-year-old Brandon Chicklis of Westminster, a former boyfriend, and leaving his body by the side of the highway in Rindge, New Hampshire, wrapped in trash bags.
Prosecutors allege Enright, a phlebotomist who had a side business as a dominatrix, lured Chicklis to a treehouse near her home and murdered him to satisfy a growing urge to kill.
The woman, 21 at the time, had a number of “deviant” interests, prosecutors allege, including sexual cutting and bloodplay. Eight days before Chicklis was last seen alive, Enright tried and failed to bribe Planned Parenthood to allow her to keep a fetus she aborted, they allege, so she could “play with” its bones.
Enright had a fascination with animal bones, prosecutors say, and routinely placed dead animals in bags or cages so she could use their bones to make art after they decomposed.
Authorities searching her home found vials of blood, a used condom collection, numerous knives and a “wet specimen,” prosecutors have said.
The prosecution and defense last month argued for hours about how much evidence jurors should be able to see. The defense argued much of it was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial under the law, while prosecutors argued it was relevant to, among other topics, Enright’s mental capacity and motive.
In rulings this week, Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Wrenn issued line-by-line judgments on much of the proposed evidence.
Because some of the rulings referenced evidence contained on specific pages of documents that have not been publicly released, it is not possible to glean from the rulings all the specific evidence that was approved or excluded.
The rulings do make clear that statements Enright made about her love of bone art, certain dominatrix photos, photos of knives seized from her room, and a red-ink drawing of a dominatrix and a person tied up would be admissible.
Prosecutors have said the treehouse where the murder took place featured a system of restraints.
Also admissible are photos authorities took in Enright’s home of vials of blood, “specimens,” and a “dominatrix outfit and paraphernalia.” Photographs of “plastic tubs with animal carcasses in various states of rotting” will be allowed, too.
Excluded items include photos of “a bucket of organs” and “a number of carcasses with the organs showing, as well as a video of the same with the defendant licking blood from a body part and a photograph of someone holding an organ.”
Judge Wrenn also ruled that a number of writings and journal entries Enright made were not admissible. It was not clear from the ruling which specific statements were excluded.
Wrenn also issued rulings this week ordering some redactions to Enright’s police interrogation, including some questions or accusations from police he deemed unfairly prejudicial.
Wrenn said jurors can see Enright discussing topics that include certain sexual acts she performed with her boyfriend, she and her boyfriend cutting each other, sexual practices “including knife play” and her dominatrix business.
Enright’s lawyer, Louis M. Badwey, had argued those discussions should be excluded, saying there is no evidence Enright engaged in those types of activities with Chicklis.
Assistant District Attorney Terry J. McLaughlin had argued for their inclusion, noting that Chicklis had been stabbed as many as 13 times.
Enright’s boyfriend, John Lind, is expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to the stand at trial.
He has not been charged, and told Wrenn on the advice of a lawyer last month that he had a Fifth Amendment privilege given the anticipated nature of the prosecution’s questions.
Aside from the “deviant” information at issue in the trial, prosecutors have several key pieces of evidence, including DNA matches for Chicklis’ blood in the treehouse and in Enright’s car.
A 2015 graduate of Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School, he was working for a local HVAC company at the time of his death. He enjoyed camping, hiking and the outdoors.
UK – KENT – Melissa Todd is a bright, engaging, articulate, well-spoken married mum-of-one who attended Boris Johnson’s old college at Oxford University.
She is a newsreader for Thanet-based Academy FM, edits the Broadstairs Beacon newspaper and also runs a theatre company. Oh, and she’s a dominatrix who, not to beat around the bush, charges £100 an hour to give men a damn good spanking.
“I get some very very odd requests,” she admits. “I was told to park on somebody’s hands. I didn’t do that. I thought where the hell has that come from? I’m rubbish at parking.
“He wanted me to be in my car, singing along to the radio while he was screaming in agony. That was odd.”
And who are we to argue?
A stripper from the age of 19, Melissa made a career change 11 years later.
“By the time I was 30,” she explains, “I thought I didn’t want to become a ridiculously ancient stripper so I thought I’d hang up my g-string and pick up a crop and start whacking people instead.”
Today Melissa supplements her “one-to-one disciplinary sessions” with posing for photos or making videos of a very adult nature.
“I sound like this and I look terribly demure,” she explains in her middle-class tones. “I sound like an average mousey housewife.
“But there are so many negative stereotypes around sex work and it just seems to be getting worse and worse – ‘they’re victims, pathetic and corrupting society’, and all the rest of it, but they’re just people, with lives and stories.”
In an effort to try to challenge the perception of the sex industry Melissa has written a book – released on November 16 – called My Body Is My Business. Based around “a fictional framework”, it draws heavily on her own experiences.
Now 45 and having lived in Thanet since 2003, Melissa is bold and fearless in the career she has chosen. Incredibly, she even convinced her mother to follow in her footsteps.
“She was a dominatrix as well,” she admits.
“I corrupted her. She got made redundant in her mid-60s and thought ‘I could do that’ and she was really good at it. She was very good at role play too.
“I was working out of her house, as my son was a bit younger then, so she’d often hide upstairs with a baseball bat just in case, so she’d hear it all happening. And she thought ‘wow, this is brilliant – £100 an hour, why am I messing about?’ And they absolutely loved her.”
Speaking to Melissa is a rather disarming experience. The image of the exploited sex worker falling victim to the depravities of men seems a long way from what she has experienced and the genuine enthusiasm with which she speaks of her chosen career.
“I’ve honestly not seen any exploitation in 26 years,” she says. “I’m sure it’s out there, but its certainly not the only story.
“Most of the film companies I work for are all run by women – and that’s not a choice I’ve made. I’m happy to work with men, but all the spanking content is being made by women currently so I just don’t see any exploitation happening. It’s certainly not been my experience at all. And I think I would have seen it.”
To be clear, she offers “no sexual services at all” adding: “It’s just a good whacking. All the sex happens in their head.”
Happily married, her husband thinks her sex career is “hilarious”and her son – now an adult – is well aware of how his mum earns her income.
Yet safety remains a concern. She recently tweeted about one encounter with a new client: “Always an anxiety-inducing moment when a new man ties you up. This one decided to tell me he was a policeman just as he gagged me. Maybe that’s meant to reassure.”
In the light of the Sarah Everard case, it’s chilling in many ways.
“I was genuinely nervous,” she admits when I ask her about it. “I hadn’t seen that man before, so it was probably a bit idiotic really to allow him to tie me up. But he had worked with other girls that I knew. Of course you are putting yourself in a vulnerable position. I completely trusted him actually. And I wasn’t suspended from a ceiling so if I needed to get away, I could have wriggled free. It was mainly for a photo shoot.
“But there is always a bit of ‘oh Christ, is this is going to be the day I die’ but so far, those who like spanking tend to be lovely, they really do.
“It’s a fetish which tends to belong to clever, creative people, as obviously turning pain into pleasure takes quite a lot of brains and imagination. I’ve always been fine and hopefully will remain so, but yeah, I probably should have been a bit more sensible.
“It was only when he told me he was a police officer I thought ‘oh no!’. But he was lovely.
“Most of the problems I had have been with women. If I’m going to get any abuse it tends to be from women on stripper-grams. My agent always used to say if you need the loo on a stripper-gram job use the men’s as the women will punch you if they get the chance.
“I had stones thrown at me by women when I was working in Southall. Men are always very happy when you’re naked, is my experience; women are very cross!
‘Men are always very happy when you’re naked is my experience; women are very cross!’
“What’s the problem? I’m just making a living. I don’t know why they’re so unhappy.
“I’m not the enemy. There’s nothing special about me. I’m not particularly attractive, I breast-fed for four years so my breasts aren’t even worth seeing, I’m just using what I’ve got to have some fun and make a living. The idea I’m going to try and steal your husband is like a nursery worker wanting to steal your kid. You’re just using them for cash. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
Melissa got into the sex industry as a student.
“I was at Oxford University reading philosophy, politics and economics at Balliol College, Boris Johnson’s old college, and I just hated it. I didn’t fit in. I was a really shy girl from an Essex comprehensive and it just wasn’t the right place for me at all. You need to be very confident and out-there to do well at Oxford and that wasn’t me. So I decided to take a year out.
“I saw an advertisement in the Evening Standard saying ‘dancers wanted’ and promising up to £600 a night, no experience necessary. I thought that sounded perfect as I have no experience of anything, I love money and I like dancing. I was so green I turned up for the audition in leg-warmers. I thought it was going to be something like Fame.
“The auditions consisted of walking on stage, getting your breasts out and walking off again. There was no routine to learn. I didn’t get it that time, but the next time I got the idea – borrowed some stockings and underwear, went back on and got the job.
“I loved it. I loved the camaraderie, the sequins and the glitter balls and the champagne. And I never looked back.”
That first job was at the famous The Windmill strip club in Soho.
“It was only meant to be a year but I never stopped,” Melissa explained. “You just get used to the compliments, the fun and the money. Obviously, that was exciting. I never quite got to £600 – I used to chat to people too much I forgot to hustle. But I was making £200 a night, so that’s £1,200 a week, which in 1994 for a 19-year-old was an awful lot of money.
“I bought a house, I learned to drive, I gave my mum some money because she was skint. I just liked the lifestyle and enjoyed showing off.
“They had very strict rules in place, bouncers everywhere; when you did a table dance you had to be three feet away from the client and no touching. It was very hard to get into trouble really. There was a house mother who looked after us, made sure we didn’t get too drunk and gave us sandwiches. It was all terribly sweet actually.
“There were all sorts of women doing it. There were lots of Australian backpackers doing the world tour and financing it through stripping; lots of students and older women, single mums, women trying to set up their own business – there was someone trying to set up a florist company but she couldn’t make it pay so she was lap-dancing by night.”
So what did her parents make of her career choice?
“They were very relaxed about it,” Melissa remembers. “Despite my accent I don’t come from a respectable background, so there was no expectation I should do anything steady or sensible.
“My mum sang and danced in cabaret all over the world, and thought my making money by showing off was a very sensible plan. My dad drove a black cab and used to pick me up from the Windmill at 3.30am every night, where we would have a friendly competition as to who’d managed to collect the most cash during the evening – usually it was him!”
After moving to the Sunset Strip Theatre in Soho, Melissa met “a chap who came looking to recruit girls for spanking magazines”.
“He auditioned me in the back of a shop; he gave me a spanking and I thought this is quite fun,” she recalls.
And thus her move out of stripping and into the world of domination began.
Needless to say, she’s had some odd requests – other than the previously mentioned one about parking.
Does she sometimes wonder just where on earth these desires come from?
“All the time,” she admits. “If they just want a standard beating I get that because I like spanking as well. But I get some very, very odd requests.
“I genuinely like my clients. Many are my friends, we hang out, I’ve counselled them through the death of their parents and the birth of their grandchildren. I think it’s incredibly brave to come to a stranger and say ‘I’ve got this weird fetish, I need to do this, can you help me?’.
“I might just laugh, or not understand or get it wrong. It’s a privilege to help, genuinely. I know that sounds like a lie, but it’s true.
“Do I enjoy it? I love it. I really do. It’s really creative. I like performing. I like spanking people. It’s really fun. It’s like a therapy really. A release for them as well as for me – it’s just brilliant.”
And Melissa hopes her book will go some way towards removing society’s knee-jerk despising of those who work in the industry.
“I’m really hoping to challenge those stereotypes and see that sex is just fun,” she says. “It’s not terrifying, it’s not dangerous, I’m not corrupting the universe. I’m just having a laugh.
‘Sex is just fun. It’s not terrifying, it’s not dangerous, I’m not corrupting the universe. I’m just having a laugh…’
“It’s probably about 5% of my life and 5% of my clients’ lives. But it just gives a bit of glamour and glitter to what, let’s face it, can be a pretty mundane, tedious way of getting through it.
“It’s just a giggle. To take it seriously is insane.”
Melissa Todd’s book, My Body Is My Business can be pre-ordered by clicking here.
USA – American writer, professor Melissa Febos is best known for her debut book ‘Whip Smart’, a memoir which was published in 2010. In her memoir, Melissa opened up about her unconventional job as a professional dominatrix, a work which she did while she was studying at The New School. The book was critically acclaimed and it was followed by the essay collections ‘Abandon Me’ in 2017 and more recently ‘Girlhood’, which was published in India in September 2021 by Bloomsbury. While ‘Abandon Me’ was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, her third book ‘Girlhood’ became an instant bestseller in the USA. As the title suggests, ‘Girlhood’ is about what it really means to be female and what it means to free oneself from others expectations. “It is in part by writing this book that I have corrected the story of my own girlhood and found ways to recover myself. I have found company in the stories of other women, and the revelation of all our ordinariness has itself been curative. Writing has always been a way to reconcile my lived experience with the narratives available to describe it (or lack thereof). My hope is that these essays do some of that work for you, too,” Melissa writes in the prologue of the book.
American writer, professor Melissa Febos is best known for her debut book ‘Whip Smart’, a memoir which was published in 2010. In her memoir, Melissa opened up about her unconventional job as a professional dominatrix, a work which she did while she was studying at The New School. The book was critically acclaimed and it was followed by the essay collections ‘Abandon Me’ in 2017 and more recently ‘Girlhood’, which was published in India in September 2021 by Bloomsbury. While ‘Abandon Me’ was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, her third book ‘Girlhood’ became an instant bestseller in the USA. As the title suggests, ‘Girlhood’ is about what it really means to be female and what it means to free oneself from others expectations. “It is in part by writing this book that I have corrected the story of my own girlhood and found ways to recover myself. I have found company in the stories of other women, and the revelation of all our ordinariness has itself been curative. Writing has always been a way to reconcile my lived experience with the narratives available to describe it (or lack thereof). My hope is that these essays do some of that work for you, too,” Melissa writes in the prologue of the book. Read an exclusive excerpt from Melissa Febos’ latest essay collection ‘Girlhood’ here:
KETTLE HOLES “What do you like?” the men would ask. “Spitting,” I’d say. To even utter the word felt like the worst kind of cuss, and I trained myself not to flinch or look away or offer a compensatory smile after I said it. In the dungeon’s dim rooms, I unlearned my instinct for apology. I learned to hold a gaze. I learned the pleasure of cruelty. It was not true cruelty, of course. My clients paid $75 an hour to enact their disempowerment. The sex industry is a service industry, and I served humiliation to order. But the pageant of it was the key. To spit in an unwilling face was inconceivable to me and still is. But at a man who had paid for it?
They knelt at my feet. They crawled naked across gleaming wood floors. They begged to touch me, begged for forgiveness. I refused. I leaned over their plaintive faces and gathered the wet in my mouth. I spat. Their hard flinch, eyes clenched. The shock of it radiated through my body, then settled, then swelled into something else.
“Do you hate men?” people sometimes asked.
“Not at all,” I answered.
“You must work out a lot of anger that way,” they suggested.
“I never felt angry in my sessions,” I told them. I often explained that the dominatrix’s most useful tool was a well-developed empathic sense. What I did not acknowledge to any curious stranger, or to myself, was that empathy and anger are not mutually exclusive.
We are all unreliable narrators of our own motives. And feeling something neither proves nor disproves its existence. Conscious feelings are no accurate map to the psychic imprint of our experiences; they are the messy catalog of emotions once and twice and thrice removed, often the symptoms of what we won’t let ourselves feel. They are not Jane Eyre’s locked-away Bertha Mason, but her cries that leak through the floorboards, the fire she sets while we sleep and the wet nightgown of its quenching.
I didn’t derive any sexual pleasure from spitting, I assured people. Only psychological. Now, this dichotomy seems flimsy at best. How is the pleasure of giving one’s spit to another’s hungry mouth not sexual? I needed to distinguish that desire from what I might feel with a lover. I wanted to divorce the pleasure of violence from that of sex. But that didn’t make it so.
It was the thrill of transgression, I said. Of occupying a male space of power. It was the exhilaration of doing the thing I would never do, was forbidden to do by my culture and by my conscience. I believed my own explanations, though now it is easy to poke holes in them.
I did not want to be angry. What did I have to be angry about? My clients sought catharsis through the reenactment of childhood traumas. They were hostages to their pasts, to the people who had disempowered them. I was no such hostage— I did not even want to consider it. I wanted only to be brave and curious and in control. I did not want my pleasure to be any kind of redemption. One can only redeem a thing that has already been lost or taken. I did not want to admit that someone had taken something from me.
His name was Alex, and he lived at the end of a long unpaved driveway off the same wooded road that my family did. It took ten minutes to walk between our homes, both of which sat on the bank of Deep Pond. Like many of the ponds on Cape Cod, ours formed some fifteen thousand years ago when a block of ice broke from a melting glacier and drove deep into the solidifying land of my future backyard. When the ice block melted, the deep depression filled with water and became what is called a kettle-hole lake.
Despite its small circumference, our pond plummeted fifty feet at its deepest point. My brother and I and all the children raised on the pond spent our summers getting wet, chasing one another through invented games, our happy screams garbled with water. I often swam out to the deepest point—not the center of the pond, but to its left—and trod water over this heart cavity. In summer, the sun warmed the surface to bath temperatures, but a few feet deeper it went cold. Face warm, arms flapping, I dangled my feet into that colder depth and shivered. Fifty feet was taller than any building in our town, was more than ten of me laid head to foot. It was a mystery big enough to hold a whole city. I could swim in it my whole life and never know what lay at its bottom.
An entry in my diary from age ten announces: “Today Alex came over and swam with us. I think he likes me.”
Alex was a grade ahead of me and a foot taller. He had a wide mouth, tapered brown eyes, and a laugh that brayed clouds in the chill of fall mornings at our bus stop. He wore the same shirt for four out of five school days, and I thought he was beautiful. I had known Alex for years, but that recorded swim is the first clear memory I have of him. A few months later, he spat on me for the first time.
When I turned eleven, I enrolled in the public middle school with all the other fifth-and sixth-graders in our town. The new bus stop was farther down the wooded road, where it ended at the perpendicular intersection of another. On that corner was a large house, owned by Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. Early in his career, Ballard had worked with the nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and it was during his deep- sea dives off the coast of Massachusetts that his obsession with shipwrecks was born. Sometimes I studied that house—its many gleaming windows and ivy-choked tennis court—and thought about the difference between Ballard and my father, who was a captain in the merchant marines. One man carried his cargo across oceans; the other ventured deep inside them to discover his. I was drawn to the romance of each: to slice across the glittering surface, and also to plunge into the cold depths. A stone wall wrapped around Ballard’s yard. Here, we waited for the school bus.
I read books as I walked to the bus stop. Reading ate time. Whole hours disappeared in stretches. It shortened the length of my father’s voyages, moved me closer to his returns with every page. I was a magician with a single power: to disappear the world. I emerged from whole afternoons of reading, my life a foggy half-dream through which I drifted as my self bled back into me like steeping tea.
The start of fifth grade marked more change than the location of my bus stop. My parents had separated that summer.
My body, that once reliable vessel, began to transform. But what emerged from it was no happy magic, no abracadabra. It went kaboom. The new body was harder to disappear.
“I wish people didn’t change sometimes,” I wrote in my diary. By people, I meant my parents. I meant me. I meant the boy who swam across that lake toward my new body with its power to compel but not control.
Before puberty, I moved through the world and toward other people without hesitance or self-consciousness. I read hungrily and kept lists of all the words I wanted to look up in a notebook with a red velvet cover. I still have the notebook. “Ersatz,” it reads. “Entropy. Mnemonic. Morass. Corpulent. Hoary.” I was smart and strong and my power lay in these things alone. My parents loved me well and mirrored these strengths back to me.
Perhaps more so than other girls’, my early world was a safe one. My mother banned cable TV and sugar cereals, and made feminist corrections to my children’s books with a Sharpie. When he was home from sea, my father taught me how to throw a baseball and a punch, how to find the North Star, and start a fire. I was protected from the darker leagues of what it meant to be female. I think now of the Titanic—not the familiar tragedy of its wreck, the scream of ice against her starboard flank, the thunder of seawater gushing through her cracked hull. I think of the short miracle of her passage. The 375 miles she floated, immaculate, across the Atlantic. My early passage was a miracle, too. Like the Titanic’s, it did not last.
USA – CLEARED murder suspect Amanda Knox has told how she stripped to a thong before being whipped by a dominatrix on a cross.
She said she was doing research for a podcast and found it a “very, very positive experience”.
The American author, 34, was wrongly convicted and spent almost four years in jail over the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, 21, in Perugia, Italy.
Speaking in her latest podcast, she told how she took part in the dominatrix session while researching what “good sex games look like”.
She said: “A part of me was worried the tabloids would find out.
“That it would be yet another headline about Foxy Knoxy and sex games.”
UK – EXCLUSIVE: Mistress Sandy Star, 47, is a dominatrix who is also an ambassador for OnlyAccounts. Here she reveals her kinky sex tips for parents struggling to find time for the bedroom
Being a parent is challenging at times, especially if you have certain needs to fulfil.
And with the school holidays in full swing, when do you ever have time to do the dirty?
She’s known as a “MILF” in the sex industry, where scores of clients tune in to her content to satisfy their needs.
Now Mistress Sandy, from Hertfordshire, UK, has shared her tips for parents who can’t find the time for each other romantically.
“When kids are around it’s really hard, if an opportunity arises you have to take it with both hands – literally!
“Finding new places to have sex is fun, adventurous and feels a bit naughty… it can be a huge turn-on.
“Locking doors arouses suspicion and kids are very inquisitive humans!”
Although she recommends locking the doors, the dominatrix admits it’s not really her cup of tea.
Instead she enjoys having quiet sex which she describes as “being a fun and sexy challenge” in itself.
But while it’s important to be experimental with where you do it, Mistress Sandy believes you should be willing to do it anytime.
She explained: “Be willing to give it a go at any time of day – there are no rules when it comes to great sex.
“If you have kids, try and find some time when they’re at school (this is a huge perk of working from home).
“Another advantage to day-time romps? Creators on OnlyFans are international and lots are active throughout the day!”
Mistress Sandy added: “If you like watching porn when you’re being intimate with your partner, this will provide you with an endless variety of videos.
“Plus, by searching for performers using OnlyAccounts, you can quickly find live creators who tick all of your fantasy boxes.”
RUSSIA – The founder of Russian protest group Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, has announced that she has started an account on OnlyFans, a paid membership site famous for empowering women to create and sell pornography of themselves.
In a Twitter post on Friday, Tolokonnikova simply wrote: “Crazy Empress.” According to her account on OnlyFans, a subscription to see the Pussy Riot leader’s racy snaps costs $10 per month.
The account appears to have been initially created in July, and thus far, membership grants access to 53 pictures and one video.
Tolokonnikova, commonly known as ‘Tolokno’, shot to international fame in 2012, when her band Pussy Riot was arrested after performing a punk song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The three performers – Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich – were charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and were eventually sentenced to two years behind bars. They were released in 2013 before completing their sentences after the Russian parliament signed an amnesty law.
Since she regained her freedom, she has continued to campaign, and even authored an autobiography.
OnlyFans was created by British entrepreneur Tim Stokely in 2016 as a means to help performers provide clips and photos to followers for a monthly subscription fee. In the years since, it has become incredibly popular for adult content and is now owned mainly by Ukrainian-American pornographer Leonid Radvinsky.
Last week, in an interview with Vice News, Tolokonnikova revealed that she would like to replace President Vladimir Putin as leader of Russia, and has already planned a run in 2036.
“For now, I’m not able to run for president because I’m a convicted criminal,” she said. “Even though I already served my time in prison, I’m still not allowed to take part in any elections.”
CANADA – A senior Metropolitan police officer who resigned from the force after having a ‘sex and whips’ romp with a dominatrix in the office, called a colleague an ‘Asian babe’ in a series of ‘racially and sexually explicit messages’, a misconduct panel heard.
Detective Sergeant Stephen Redgewell, 54, ‘abused his position’ as deputy general secretary and treasurer of the Met Police Federation by ‘behaving in a predatory manner’ towards a female colleague.
Among 2,000 texts shared between the pair over a two year period, a police watchdog found evidence that Redgewell sent ‘numerous racially and sexually charged messages’.
Redgewell is said to have made references to the woman’s race in a ‘sexual context, calling her an ‘Asian babe’ and suggested the woman should leave her husband’, The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found.
‘He also sent pictures of a sexual nature, non-sexual pictures of himself, photographs of an officer he referred to as a ‘Muslim babe’, messages relating to that officer’s race, and messages which can be categorised as anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic and sexist,’ the watchdog said.
The former officer resigned from his role at the Met Police in November 2018, after allegations emerged that he had sex with a ‘dominatrix’ in the headquarters of the Met Police Federation in Bromley, South London.
The misconduct hearing found Redgewell would have been sacked for the text messages to his colleague, between October 2015 and September 2017, if he were still a serving officer.
IOPC regional director for London Sal Naseem said: ‘At a time when a vulnerable colleague needed assistance, Stephen Redgewell, who had risen to the senior position of deputy general secretary and treasurer within the Metropolitan Police Federation, abused his position by behaving in a predatory manner.
‘This type of appalling behaviour corrodes the public’s trust in policing and I have no doubt will appal fellow officers, the wider policing community and members of the public.
‘The former officer abused his senior position to send racially and sexually explicit messages to a colleague when she was at her most vulnerable.
‘The colleague told us he manipulated her and made her feel dependent on him to the extent she had to engage with him in order to receive the assistance she required from the Metropolitan Police Federation.’
A police misconduct panel on Wednesday found DS Redgewell’s actions amounted to gross misconduct and said he would have been dismissed without notice if he was still a serving police officer, but will now be placed on the barred list.
Commander Paul Betts, of the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards, said: ‘The actions of former DS Redgewell fell well below the standards expected by the Met and the public we serve.
‘He abused his position as a federation representative to pursue a relationship with a female officer, who he was assisting with a work issue.
‘This unacceptable behaviour was compounded by the fact DS Redgewell knew the woman was vulnerable at the time.
‘The language used in text messages and conversations over the period of this relationship were also extremely offensive and have absolutely no place in the Metropolitan Police.
‘The Met has a zero tolerance policy for any behaviour that is racist, sexist or homophobic and it is right DS Redgewell would have been dismissed without notice if he had still been a serving officer.’
Redgewell quit the force in November 2018 after reports emerged in the Sunday Mirror about him having sex with a ‘dominatrix’ in the office of the Met Police Federation in Bromley, South London.
The Federation represents rank-and-file police officers.
According to the 2018 reports, Redgwell had kinky trysts with vampire-loving Denise Pearce, who admitted bringing ‘whips’ and being ‘more dominant’.
However the pair rowed after he refused to leave his family home, after promising to marry her at Dracula’s Castle in Romania, the paper reported.
UK – Unapologetic and unabashed, clad in a risque bikini with her jet black hair cascading down her back and bangs accentuating her long face, a brazen and playful smile complementing the jutted out pose, Bettie Page or the Queen of Pinups, is considered one of the biggest icons of women empowerment and the sexual revolution. Being a fascinating figure for the heterosexual male gaze, Page has also served as a symbol of liberation from inhibitions, self-love and body positivity, having a remarkable influence on young girls and women, making them a lot more accepting of themselves and their bodies. Although this beauty passed away in 2008 at the age of 85, her legacy continues to be celebrated today, making her one of the most posthumously influential people in the world. A pop-cultural icon, she has not only been the inspiration for singers like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyonce and Madonna but also for various avenues such as fashion, film, comics, shows and more, popularising the “Bettie bangs” and bondage culture.
Mark Mori directed a wonderful film named Bettie Page Reveals All in which Page serves as the narrator. Page, who can be considered a symbol of resilience, self-confidence and determination, had a very difficult childhood, being subject to constant abuse at the hands of her father. Despite being bogged down by neglect, abuse, poverty and oppression, Page managed to rise above the ashes, managing her responsibilities while graduating with top marks and earning a college degree at Peabody College before being the successful self-made icon she would subsequently become. Fun fact, Page was voted “Girl Most Likely to Succeed” at her high school which foreshadowed the immensely successful career she would soon embark on. Page had married William E. “Billy” Neal in 1943 but divorced after a brief conjugal period of four years in 1947. It was 1947 that changed the course of her life completely.
In the 1940s, with the advent of laws that made nudity and pornography a criminal offence to prohibit them, “camera clubs” came into ostensible existence. Under the pretext of promoting artsy photography, they sold pornography under-the-counter. Page had an encounter with NYPD officer and avid photography enthusiast Jerry Tibbs who advised Betty to style her hair with bangs in front; this later became an iconic look for Page. Tibbs helped her make a pin-up portfolio free of cost. Soon, Page entered the wondrous world of “glamour photography”, where she became one of the most sought after camera club models due to her bold poses and lack of inhibition which was a rare find in the erotic industry. Having worked initially with Cass Carr, Page gradually began working with Irving Klaw. The latter was responsible for Page’s popularity as a bondage model.
“I wasn’t trying to be anything. I was just myself.”
Clad in sexy lingerie, Bettie Page would even comply to “special order requests” that were usually hailed from high-profile socialites, judges, doctors and more. She would indulge in various fetishistic positions which included “oops-I-dropped-my-panties” scenarios or that of abduction, slave-grooming, bondage, spanking, handcuffs and more. The preference lay in “passive” helpless girls who would stare on like a virgin nymphomaniac. Page shone through in these crude postures; she would oscillate back and forth between being a playful minx to a “stern dominatrix”. Despite being restrained or ball-gagged, the look in her eyes would subvert the general expectations that people had from the models; she was always in charge irrespective of the kind of clandestine feature she posed for. As Buszek said, “she was a partner in the process, not someone who was being exploited”.
Seductive and bold, Page came to be known as ‘The Queen of Curves’ and ‘The Dark Angel’, having won the title of ‘Miss Pinup Girl of the World’. However, Page quit modelling shortly after due to the “concocted witch-hunt” that was a result of society’s orthodox and repressive McCarthyism towards sex and nudity. A teenage boy reportedly died of accidental autoerotic asphyxiation and then-Senator Estes Kefaveur, a radical opposed to the “indecency” projected by nudity and gambling, and his committee, drew an expansive link between her bondage modelling and the boy’s death, trying to convey Page’s contribution in “juvenile delinquency”. Shortly after, page vanished from the face of the modelling industry causing a severe blow to Klaw’s business. She became a devout Christian, attending church services. As Page has been quoted saying in the film: “I don’t even believe God disapproves of nudity. After all, he put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden naked as jaybirds.”
Page’s retirement, however, ushered in a new dawn of a sexual revolution in the United States, where people began raising their voices against the “repressive sexual authorities”. With the beginning of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s as well as the sexual revolution, Page has been credited for being the flagbearer of the latter, propagating the tenets of being a sex-positive feminist. An actual badass, Page never believed in concealing her bodily imperfections. She loved embracing her own flaws which were quite revolutionary and ground-breaking. She served as a perfect foil to the common mentality where women had to be the epitomes of perfection. Her unconventional beauty included “imperfect teeth and a slightly droopy eye” and curvy stature, which made her even more desirable. Exuding raw charm and confidence, Page was a different kind of sexy.
“I love to swim in the nude and roam around the house in the nude. You’re just as free as a bird!”
Bettie Page championed the cause of nudity. She loved embracing effort bare all not only for the sake of her profession and others’ entertainment but also for the sense of freedom and empowerment she derived from it. She wanted “to be remembered as the woman who changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form” and boy, she did. She had been arrested for public indecency while posing nude on a beach. She refused to let the court of law bog her down and pleaded not guilty until she wore them down. Page also firmly disapproved of calling a woman’s body indecent. It was quite an irony to see how women’s bodies were used as commodities to please the heteronormative desires but would be shunned if used for personal pleasure. Page, who was the perfect example of a “virgin nymphomaniac” with the look of sex and innocence in her eyes, became the symbol for female sexuality triumphing over anxiety and insecurity. Embracing the female form the way it is was quite alien to women before Bettie Page showed them the way. As Angelica Luna had been quoted saying to The Atlantic, “Step down, Marilyn. You had nothing on Bettie”.
Bettie Page was soon “penniless and infamous” before her sudden resurgence which throned her as the queen she is. Her comeback story is inspiring and reeks of vibrance, exuberance, resilience and strong will. Despite the insurmountable obstacles that adorned her path, including her 10-year saga with schizophrenia, sexual assault as well as tumultuous personal life, Page managed to stay afloat in this vicious industry, with pride and courage. She was quite shocked and overwhelmed to know how celebrated she was even today. “It makes me feel wonderful that people still care for me… that I have so many fans among young people, who write to me and tell me I have been an inspiration,” she once said.
Page, who was also a talented artist, was her own hairstylist and often made her clothes and bikinis during shoots. The scanty and risque bikinis were quite scandalous and unseen at those times, disrupting the taboo norms, Bettie continued being the renegade, indulging in whatever she felt comfortable in: “I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me.”
Powerful and charming, Bettie Page defines brilliance. “Young women say I helped them come out of their shells,” she was quoted saying. The world, especially women, owe a lot to Page for being the pioneer of feminism and sexual freedom. Page’s carefree smile and mirth in her eyes, displaying her well-endowed pubic hair or while being bound, exudes sensuality and courage and the courage to embrace the body. Bettie Page should be relentlessly celebrated for being a product of rotten childhood trauma to a lovely and confident body that refused to be exploited by the male gaze and being an inspiration for women all over the world.
“I was not trying to be shocking or to be a pioneer. I wasn’t trying to change society or to be ahead of my time. I didn`t think of myself as liberated, and I don’t believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn`t know any other way to be or any other way to live.”
LUXEMBOURG – A Luxembourg City man who was approaching the end of a session with a professional dominatrix has begged her to escalate his pain by showing him local property listings, according to sources.
The man, who has been a renter since moving here nine years ago, visits the Kirchberg BDSM dungeon at least once a week.
On Wednesday, the hour-long session started with bondage and then moved on to the more painful practice of mocking the man about his small salary and inability to get a home loan.
As usual, this was followed by the dominatrix forcing the man to calculate all of the money he’s spent on renting over the past nine years.
While beating him with a leather snake whip, she forced him to repeat the figure – 160,920 euros – over and over until he could hardly breathe. Still, the pain and humiliation weren’t enough.
“Mistress Dawn, please show me the homes for sale in Luxembourg City,” he said. “I need it.”
After several minutes of pretending not to hear him, the dominatrix produced an iPad and scrolled through the local listings, slowly reading the enormous asking prices while the man moaned in agony. Still, it wasn’t enough.
“Mistress Dawn, on my street there’s a two-bedroom flat that sold five years ago for 450,000 euros,” he said. “I had thought about trying to buy it because it was the only place remotely in my budget, but I decided it was simply too ugly.”
“This morning, I noticed it was back on the market,” he continued. “Mistress Dawn, please, I need to know how much it’s going for today.”
The dominatrix patted him on the cheek, saying he had been a good boy and she didn’t want to hurt him anymore.
“Mistress Dawn, I’ve been a very bad boy and I deserve my punishment,” the man said. “Please, tell me the price.”
“It’s doubled,” the dominatrix said, causing the man to scream and howl. “To almost one million euros.”
“Bubble,” he said at last, using the safe word they had agreed would put an end to the torment. “Property bubble, Mistress Dawn. Property bubble.”
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