The American Sideshow - Snapping Spines Since 1969
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The Queen of Pain
An Interview Exclusive
by Diana Grove
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Every October, American Sideshow feels the need to wax our whips, starch our corsets and dust off our ball gags. We like to think it’s in honor of Halloween, the only holiday that allows us to wear a leather face mask without being arrested, but perhaps it’s more than that. Perhaps we all have a desire to dress up like a dominatrix from time to time and unleash a serious case of ass smack…or maybe we’re just in it for the natty cat suit.
To help shed some light on the matter, we were lucky enough to interview Mistress Emanuelle, a professional dominatrix living in The Big Easy. We met at Mojo Coffee House in New Orleans’ Lower Garden District where she revealed some of the tricks of her trade.
Warning: The following interview contains graphic material involving corporal punishment, bloodshed, slavery, extreme bondage, and Japanese men impersonating chickens.
American Sideshow: I think we all have a vague idea what a dominatrix is, what’s your definition?
Mistress Emanuelle: “Well, a dominatrix can be male or female, but mainly female. She’s a person who has a financial agreement with a client and there’s a whole range of activities that takes place - from corporal punishment to infantilism to kidnapping - but it’s consensual.
A.S. Are there different types of dominatrixes?
M.E. “There are pro doms - which are professional dominatrixes, and lifestyle doms. Lifestyle doms will often be in a relationship with someone and have sex with them, like boyfriends. Professional doms, a lot of times, whatever they do in their private life, doesn’t have anything to do with their work.”
A.S. And you’re a pro dom? How did you get started in this line?
M.E. “Yes. I was back from France and living in New York. At the time I didn’t have papers, so I was looking for a waitressing job and I answered an ad in the Village Voice. But when I called, a woman with a heavy French accent said her secretary made a mistake and it was in the wrong category. She said, ‘We’re opening a dungeon, are you interested?’ Out of curiosity I said ‘Yes, I would love to check it out.’”
A.S. So it was a fluke? You were answering an ad to be a waitress and you ended up in a dominatrix dungeon? Did you need to apprentice?
M.S. “Yes, I was in a dungeon pretty much 5 days a week for a couple of months. But I’m independent now.”
A.S. I’m guessing most people don’t really know what a dungeon is? Is that a place that has individual rooms? Are there group activities?
M.E. “Um, it depends on who owns the dungeon – a dungeon is wherever a session takes place. It can be one room, it can be several rooms. Sometimes a client will like to have several mistresses at one time, and they pay accordingly.”
A.S. Now that you work for yourself, where do your sessions usually take place?
M.E. “I prefer to do it at my home, just for safety’s sake. I do outcalls to hotels, but they have to be really nice hotels, because there are a lot of security issues.”
A.S. “How do you know a client is safe?
M.E. “Well, I use to manage a couple of dungeons in New York and there’s a lot of gut instinct. You have to let them know this is strictly S&M and fetishes and there’s absolutely no sex of any kind. They have to give me their phone number, then I call them back and I make them confirm an appointment the day before. Actually, a hotel is the safest because nobody is going to want to create a scene. When I’m at my place, I always have someone who knows I’m doing a session. But it’s pretty much a gut feeling, sometimes you meet someone and you just say no.”
A.S. So you become a good judge of character?
M.E. “Yeah…yeah you do.”
A.S. Can you tell me about a typical session and what’s most requested?
M.E. “Well every dominatrix has their own specialty. I’m into corporal punishment, caning, degradation, humiliation. I won’t do infantilism, I just don’t get it. I get a lot of masochists and men who like to wear women’s clothing – and they come fully dressed too. I had a surgeon who looked so normal, but when he got undressed he had on the filthiest underwear. He had a g-string with ‘bitch’ stitched on it with garters and stockings.”
A.S. What did he want you to do?
M.E. “Oh, he pretty much wanted me to cane him, whip him, humiliate him, tell him ‘You’re such a little slut. Get on your knees…’”
A.S. What’s the difference between Sadomasochism and Bondage and Discipline?
M.E. “Sadomasochists are not into humiliation or role play, but they like pain. So they can take 200 hits of the cane on their behind, be lacerated, bloody, and get great pleasure out of it. In Bondage and Discipline there’s less pain. It’s restrictive, but you’re not talking about blood or extreme pain. It’s more about being totally controlled. But there’s a lot of overlap between the two.”
A.S. Clients request to be beaten until they bleed?
M.E. “Some of them, yes. And some of them want to be pierced.”
A.S. How do you deal with the safety issues of that?
M.E. “It’s very safe. I use latex gloves and everything.”
A.S. I’m guessing most people don’t realize this profession is legal, because there’s no sex on your part, right?
M.E. “That is true. But unfortunately, you do have prostitutes who do this, because it makes really good money. So sometimes you’ll get a client and they’ll ask for sex. That’s why it’s so important to say in advance, ‘I don’t do that - absolutely not. But I have no judgment call. We are a part of the sex industry, with nudity on the part of the client.’”
A.S. What type of person is generally your client?
M.E. (laughs) “’How are you doing your honor…?’”
A.S. A lot of judges then?
M.E. “Lawyers, doctors, judges, a lot of professional people - mainly because it’s expensive. You do get blue collar once in a blue moon – but I charge $300 an hour.”
A.S. Is that standard?
M.E. “Pretty much. In a dungeon it’s cheaper, $200. But you get younger women who don’t have as much experience. A lot of it is about being able to talk to a client and figure out what they’re into and a lot of 23-year-olds are not going to be able to do that, they just don’t have the life experience. And there is a visual aspect to this – which is not youth. Older women do better at this.”
A.S. What about people who can’t afford to spend that much? How do you think they fulfill their desires?
M.E. “They go to S&M clubs and hope they’ll meet someone who’s into the lifestyle. Or sometimes they’ll email me and say they’ll be my slave in exchange for services like being my driver, cleaning my house or being my maid - and I’ve had those. Being a dominatrix is a great position, you don’t have to lift a finger. I used to have someone who would come in and give me a rubdown, mop my whole place and dust. Another guy would come dressed in full livery – with driver’s cap, white gloves - like something from the 1930’s. I would call him and he’d pick me up, open the door and say, ‘Madame, where would you like to go next?’ I found out later he was married and an editor for one of the big men’s magazines.”
A.S. So a lot of these guys are married? Do you think they keep S&M secret from their wives?
M.E. “Yes. It’s a completely hidden lifestyle. Sometimes I’ll say to a guy, ‘Why don’t you just ask your girlfriend to do this?’ He’ll say, ‘Oh no, she’ll think I’m a total freak.”
A.S. Well, she may...
M.E. “She may. But at the same time, why not just say, ‘Hey honey, would you mind spanking me?’ I don’t find that very reprehensible.”
A.S. What do you think the psychology is behind being dominated? Why do you think your clients desire it?
M.E. “Well, I think the pat answer would be that they’re in jobs where they always have to be in control, so they like to be dominated. But I think it goes beyond that. It’s taboo. It’s also safe. We’re not prostitutes, so there’s no guilt associated with it if they have a wife or girlfriend. And it’s not something that pops up when they’re 30 or 40 - it’s something they’ve always wanted to do.”
A.S. So do you think childhood experiences shape a person’s sexual outlook towards domination?
M.E. “Absolutely. But we’re not talking about people who were abused. I’ve talked to a lot of people and abuse is not part of it.”
A.S. Does this field of yours ever get dangerous? Even with experience, do you ever feel insecure?
M.E. “No, no I don’t, I’m very careful. I’ve been doing this about 14 years now, and because it’s legal, you can call the cops. And I always have somebody close by who can come in two minutes, so that’s a safety.”
A.S. What is the strangest request you’ve ever had from a client?
M.E. “I think there are very few things I consider strange, but there was a German man who called and wanted to be kidnapped. So I talked to two of my male friends and asked if they would be up for it - and of course I’d pay them. They said ‘Oh we’ll do it for free. It would be hysterical.’ So the whole scenario was about grabbing him, throwing him in a truck and scaring the hell out of him.”
A.S. And did you do that?
M.E. “No, he chickened out at the last minute. Some do that.”
A.S. Does a kidnap client know when they’re going to be kidnapped? Is it kind of set up in advance?
M.E. “They do know. Unless you have someone who’s a regular slave – and you do tend to develop long term relationships. I mean, some of my slaves in New York I’ve known for years. We go to dinner, they know my real name – then you can do more stuff on the go.”
A.S. Can you tell me about some other unusual clients you’ve had?
M.E. “We used to have a Japanese client called Yoshi - they all use aliases. He would come in about once a month with items like tomatoes or hard-boiled eggs, a bouquet of flowers – usually roses, and a candle. He would see this dominatrix who was a friend of mine. During the session she would insert either the eggs or tomatoes up his butt, then she would call us in and say, ‘Ok Yoshi, do your thing.’ Then he would squat and make chicken sounds like, ‘boc, boc, boc, boc, boc’ - then lay the eggs, and he’d really be concentrating and very serious. When he was done she’d say, ‘Yoshi, that was very, very good.’ Then she’d take the bouquet of roses, stick them up his ass, with the candle, and light the candle and he would strut around like he had a tail.”
A.S. Wow, a chicken fetish. Did dessert come with that?
M.E. “One client paid me and another girl to set up thirty pies and throw them at each other. He just wanted to see a cream pie fight. We were in jeans and t-shirts and we had plastic tarps everywhere. We were slipping and sliding - we were laughing so hard we felt like 6-year-olds. Later I found out this wasn’t an unusual request.”
A.S. Any good local stories?
M.E “I had a friend come to visit me in New Orleans. She’s not into this, but she knew what I was doing, and I was going to have a session with one of my regulars who had a foot fetish. It was New Year’s Eve and he took us out for drinks at the Spotted Cat and I told him to give her a foot massage. So in public, he took her shoes off and for two hours he rubbed them while jazz was playing in the background.”
A.S. Do you have any other clients who like to do things in public?
M.E. “In New York I had this slave who loved bondage, but also liked public humiliation. So once I tied ropes all over his body, made him put on a suit, took him to a bar, then I dropped stuff and made him pick it up and kiss my feet. Finally I said, ‘Go in the bathroom and take your ropes off.’ So he went in the bathroom and I heard this scream - and this was a really posh place – and a waitress came running out. It turns out he forgot to lock the bathroom door and when she walked in, he had his pants around his ankles with no shirt on, in full bondage, trying to take it all off.”
A.S. How did you resolve that situation?
M.E. “I just started laughing. I said, ‘I’ll meet you at your car. You deal with it.’”
A.S. Was this one of your clients that you had a close relationship with?
M.E. “We used to go to the horse races together. He worked for a big industrial firm and all of his colleagues thought I was his mistress - nobody could figure it out. I wouldn’t yell at him, but I’d order him around. He finally met a woman through a dating service who was into S&M. She wasn’t professional or anything, but he introduced her to me and asked me what I thought. I thought it was great and they’re married now.”
A.S. So you’re a dominatrix and a marriage consultant…do you ever feel like an actress?
M.E. “Yes, very much – between an actress and a psychiatrist. I was in therapy for years and my psychiatrist loved me talking about it. He said, ‘Did you ever think about going to school for psychiatry, you’d be great.’”
A.S. Previously you mentioned slaves, can you tell me anything more about that?
M.E. “Well, there’s financial slavery – men who like to be blackmailed. You have a session where you tie up a client and interrogate them. You say, ‘What’s your real name? Where do you work? What’s your phone number?’ They do sign a legal release that says it’s consensual, so there’s…you know…[nothing illegal going on]. A friend of mine did this. She came in, smacked the guy around, then left. One week later she called him up and said ‘Give me this amount of money.’ He said no, so she sent him a bright orange envelope at work with his contract and pictures of him. She said, ‘If by tomorrow you don’t give me that money I’ll send this envelope to all of your colleagues.’ He still didn’t respond. So the next day there were about 30 envelopes on everybody’s desk. He freaked out.”
A.S. What were in the envelopes?
M.E. “They were empty.”
A.S. And?
M.E. “And he loved it.”
A.S. Earlier you mentioned judges as clients, did you have any other men in high positions of authority?
M.E. “There was one guy who would come in every week and whine - even before he started the session. He was into piercing - and we’re talking 30-40 needles in his penis or nipples. But every time the needle would come, he’d cry out ‘Ow, it’s gonna hurt! It’s gonna hurt!’ I began thinking, ‘I bet this guy’s a doctor’- because he was doing the whole patient thing.”
A.S. And was he a doctor?
M.E. “Yeah, I came in one day and I had a problem with my back, so I was kind of limping. His whole persona dropped and he said, ‘Here, let me check you out.’ (Laughing) I just knew that guy was a doctor.”
A.S. Would you say being a dominatrix is a good, lucrative profession? To be a success, would someone really need to commit psychologically and be in the lifestyle?
M.E. “It depends. I always say never count on it permanently. It’s a great profession to travel with. I was in London 4 months and that’s how I supported myself. Most doms have higher educations – college degrees or PhDs, many have regular jobs, and the majority of them are in stable relationships. You don’t necessarily need to be in the lifestyle. There’s a lot of people that hate professional dominatrixes because they consider us not ‘in the lifestyle,’ but we always say that they’re just jealous because we’re making money and we’re better looking than them - a lot of them [lifestyle doms] are 300 pound women.”
A.S. What’s the most difficult aspect of your job? What would you consider a "hard day at the office?"
M.E. “Uh…multiple sessions, too many demanding clients. You’re looking at their dirty laundry. If you do four hours with someone you’re looking at the kink and all of their darkest secrets and sometimes you feel dirtied up. It sucks the energy out of you. And a rough day at the office means 6 inch heels and a full corset, - it’s not the most comfortable clothing - I’m in full makeup, my nails are done, I’m perfect. But outside of it, I’m like - no makeup, my hair’s a mess, I don’t care.”
A.S. Are you in a relationship?
M.E. “Oh yeah, my boyfriend loves it. He laughs about it.”
A.S. Is he into it at all?
M.E. “No. None of my boyfriends have been into it. Except one…that was fun.”
A.S. Didn’t you find it exhausting to continue that after work? Didn’t you just want to say, “Hey, do you mind if I don’t whip you tonight and we just watch TV for a while?”
M.E. “Yeah…I did.”
A.S. There are plenty of social prejudices regarding Bondage and Discipline, what would you tell someone who thinks it’s a sickness or psychological disorder?
M.E. “I don’t think it’s a sickness or disorder. It’s much more common than people think. I’m always suspicious when someone says, ‘Oh, that’s disgusting.’ I wonder ‘Is it disgusting because you’re fascinated by it?’ I think it’s actually pretty safe because people do it in an environment where it’s consensual, they have a safe word, they can re-enact their fantasies, and they’re not subjecting anyone else to it. They don’t harm anyone. It can be a disorder in some cases if they harm themselves. There are some people who go to extremes, like scarring. I mean they end up in the hospital.”
A.S. Have you ever dealt with people like that?
M.E. “Yeah. I just refuse to, I have my limits. If I do any bodily harm, they may have bruising for a week.”
A.S. You say you’ve traveled with this profession. Do you find cultural differences from country to country?
M.E. “Yes. In Europe, it’s Northern Europeans who are into this, they value discipline and they love going to doms - same in Japan. In England, they’re really into caning, corporal punishment – they love it. The British are very rigid in their scenarios. You rarely see Italians or the Spanish. They seem to be much more in touch with their sensuality.”
A.S. What about Americans?
M.E. “Americans run the gammit. They like to switch around, figure out what they like. A lot of them will take a lot of pain. Actually, the people who took the least amount of pain were the Dutch. Maybe that was my bad luck, I found it frustrating. They were like, ‘Ey, ey, ey, that is too much!’ We used to have a lot of Hassidic Jews come in the dungeon in New York. It was interesting, a lot of them would pick black mistresses. Oh and there was one - he would pick the blondest mistress and she would have to be dressed in leather from head to toe with a cap and pretend to be a Nazi camp commander and whip him around. Some doms refused to do it, but that was his fetish. Finally, a Russian woman said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ She didn’t have the guilt.”
A.S. What do you like to do in your spare time?
M.E. “Well, I do regular work. I do photography and video and I just finished a production manager job. I like short-term contracts, 6 months at the most. I haven’t done any doming in the last 5 months, but I’m going to start again.”
A.S. Ok, here’s a question we’re all dying to hear, what’s better, leather or latex?
M.E. (laughs) “I’m allergic to latex. I used to have great outfits - like a full nun’s regalia, but I wore it too much. One morning I woke up and I was covered in hives. I had to go to the hospital and the doctor was like, ‘What’s your line of work?’ So I had to give away all of that. I like the look of latex, but it’s really uncomfortable - you sweat like crazy. Leather is much nicer, but it’s more expensive.”
A.S. If somebody is curious and wants to experiment with B & D, how should they begin?
M.E. “They should go to one of the websites like www.MaxFisch.com and research a dom and check out their reputation, then ask for a recommendation. Because there are some doms who steal…or they’re hookers.”
A.S. It would make sense to develop a long-term relationship with a dominatrix you trust. There was a documentary by Nick Broomfield called "Fetishes," I found it riveting. Did you see it?
M.E. “Yes, that’s where I started out - Pandora’s Box. I know all of those women. I was working there as a dom at the time, but I refused to be in the documentary because there were too many set ups. One of the doms who was doing the piercings - he flew her in from L.A. and I think she was his girlfriend. He wanted very specific scenes, so there were a lot of fights.”
A.S. Again, the notion of acting. I know performers often get addicted to being on stage and getting energy from a crowd. When you don’t work, do you ever miss it and feel like you’ve gotta have a session?
M.E. “You do get high off it and feel exhilarated, but it goes in phases. I haven’t had a session in four months because I’ve been working a regular job - I was a little burned out. But now suddenly my regulars are asking if I’m coming back. So now I feel like, ‘Yes! I’ve gotta get back, I need to whip somebody!’”
