BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
February 16, 2013
Toronto dominatrix whips clients into shape for 20 years
Source: Thestar.com. - The Star - Canada
CANADA - TORONTO - Mizz Barbie ties up, whips, humiliates and fulfils her clients’ strange desires. While the practice is becoming increasingly mainstream, it still straddles the line between legal and illegal.
The metal kitchen chairs with soaring backs, just like the ones in Alice in Wonderland, did seem an odd decorating choice, particularly with bright pink boas draped over top.
But it was the medical equipment in the kitchen that really tipped me off that this was no ordinary condo. There, beneath a large pane of glass, was a stretcher doubling as a dining table.
“It’s actually a post-mortem table, for autopsies,” she later explained in a Yonge St. coffee shop, a candid conversation that prompted many to glance up from their laptops or openly stare.
“And those chairs, as soon as you walk in, they’re there to tell you you’re just a little man in a big place.”
Of all the ways to meet a dominatrix, I encountered Mizz Barbie Bitch while working on a story about condo living. I needed to interview and photograph a woman who lived in a downtown condo, and a tight deadline had me canvassing for a willing subject at the nearby park on a dark, rainy night.
Mizz Barbie, as we’ll call her (she has asked that her real name not be used for security reasons), was outside with her Doberman, and was surprisingly happy to oblige. After a few awkward moments in her home - finally broken by Mizz Barbie admitting “there’s something you should know” - I discovered that it was also a dominatrix dungeon.
Her home-cum-house-of-horror is appointed with a custom-made pink coffin, chains and leather, all manner of masks, including KISS and Jar Jar Binks, and that dining room stretcher, among other oddities. A good hostess, she gave us a tour, apologizing bashfully for the laundry drying on the same stand where she kept several of her whips.
It was clear this woman had more to talk about than condo living.
For 20 years, Mizz Barbie has worked as a dominatrix, tying up, whipping, humiliating and fulfilling strange and quirky desires.
Now 42, she got her start in the industry in her early 20s through a boyfriend who worked as a stripper and did BDSM (bondage, discipline, submission and sadomasochism).
She was a young single mom working in audio engineering, but was curious about her boyfriend’s line of work and its subculture. Her career began when she tagged along on a house call he was making.
Mizz Barbie admits she didn’t know what she was doing at first, but says she went with the flow and learned along the way. She and her boyfriend worked together at first before she assumed her current identity and set out on her own.
Precisely what that work entails depends on the client. In her 2012 book Dominatrix: Gender, Eroticism, and Control in the Dungeon, Danielle Lindemann defines professional dominatrix work as clients paying for “the experience of being physically or verbally humiliated, flogged, spanked, whipped, caned, slapped, kicked in the groin, urinated on, ‘forcibly’ cross-dressed, tied up, treated like pets, and to play out a variety of sadomasochistic or fetishistic ‘scenes.’ ”
“Hell has no fury like Mizz Barbie’s. Looking for new submissive slaves to play with, egos to annihilate and wills to crush,” reads her ad on an adult website.
Clients are often tied up, sometimes for long periods of time. Bondage has become an art unto itself; the types of knots, the materials used and where a tie is on the client’s body can vary the experience.
She has one client who likes to roll around on the ground in either chili or black forest cake. He obsessively cleans the floor before.
She gets as many as 30 requests a week and charges $225 an hour, the average session lasting one to two hours. She claims her clients are typically 45- to 65-year-old white men, “usually in a position of power,” including lawyers and judges.
While researching her book, Lindemann interviewed 66 pro-dommes working in New York and San Francisco, and said most of their clientele were also high-status men. She calls it the “Spider-Man’s uncle” phenomenon - referencing the “with great power comes great responsibility” quote commonly associated with the comic book superhero’s Uncle Ben - and has speculated that these men seek out a dominatrix for a brief reprieve.
“My theory is that these men come in just to have the burden of that responsibility taken away,” Lindemann said.
Contrary to the common assumption, pro-dommes usually don’t have sex with their clients or even remove their clothes.
“Don’t ask, don’t think about it, don’t try, OK?” Mizz Barbie said. “That’s not what it is. This is an art.”
But sexual titillation and satisfaction is a big part of what is being sought. And while dominatrix work is not typically prostitution, it still straddles the line between legal and illegal.
Brenda Cossman, a University of Toronto professor who teaches sexuality and the law, said such activities might still be considered sex work, even if there is no intercourse.
In 1998, dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford was found guilty of running a common bawdy house and slapped with a $3,000 fine. As a result of a court challenge which involved Bedford, the common bawdy house law was ruled unconstitutional last year. The Supreme Court of Canada will hear an appeal.
There are also legal issues for BDSM between partners, since much of the activity can cause bodily harm and constitute assault.
Courts are still trying to decide if consent can be a valid defence for assault, Cossman said. Some courts have ruled on injuries resulting from a bar room brawl or a hockey game, and decided consent can be a defence for assault if there is “some high purpose being served,” she said.
In the United Kingdom, a case involving gay men and sadomasochism went all the way to the House of Lords.
“One of the House of Lords dudes said you can consent to assault for a manly pursuit, that included things like rugby or boxing,” Cossman said. “Sex? Not too much.”
While the legality may remain questionable, there is no doubt BDSM has gone increasingly mainstream, thanks in large part to the erotic fiction trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey.
The blockbuster has become synonymous with sexual deviance, and though many pro-dommes say its depiction of BDSM is inaccurate, the books have far more people talking about whips in the bedroom.
The normalization of BDSM could in turn change the way society views the dominatrix. Despite the fact that many of the pro-dommes she interviewed were highly educated and socially integrated, Lindeman said they are often seen as anti-social freaks.
“The biggest misconception is that they are subversive, on the periphery of society, and that they are dangerous in some way,” she said.
Mizz Barbie said she has always been open about her line of work. Her two children, now adults, have known since they were young. Now she gets them tickets to the growing number of Toronto sex trade shows, which feature clothing, toys and services.
Amy Muise, a sexuality researcher at the University of Toronto, said when popular culture embraces something previously considered taboo, it provides an avenue to begin talking about personal desires or problems.
Viagra, for instance, suddenly made it OK for men to talk about erectile dysfunction, she said. Fifty Shades of Grey has done that for certain sexual fantasies.
“Maybe it makes it a little bit more OK for a woman or anyone who had these kinds of desires to talk about them,” Muise said.
That helps explain why more couples are seeking out Mizz Barbie’s services. She said the single biggest change she has seen over her 20 years has been the increase in heterosexual couples.
“At the sex shows, it was amazing how many couples were coming up to me. The typical house mom is getting into this lifestyle,” she said.
She sees “at least” one heterosexual couple a week and the session is more of a lesson in BDSM. Sometimes the woman is trying to learn the techniques, other times it’s the man.
Mizz Barbie said there is simply a new curiosity about her line of work. Just recently, she got talking with a group of middle-aged women at the bar, and mentioned she was a dominatrix.
“They were riveted, and it was questions, questions, questions. They said, ‘We’re not letting you go anywhere.’ ”
See larger photo on:
www.thestar.com.
Note:Website Mizz barbie:
www.mizzbarbiebitch.com.
