INSIDE THE WORLD OF A DOMINATRIX: THE ART, THE LIFE AND THE WORK

Mistress O, professional Austin dominatrix, medical mistress and self-described fantasy executrix. Photo by Andrew Roberts.

Austin, TX - BDSM stands for Bondage / Discipline / Dominance / Submission / Sadism / Masochism, and encompasses a huge variety of unique and consensual practices and roleplaying desires.

The most popular image associated with the world of BDSM is that of the dominatrix, someone who physically or psychologically subjugates another person, usually involving whips, chains and the occasional comically absurd 12-inch-long silicone dildo in the shape of an H. R. Giger xenomorph.

In Austin, TX, one of these women (and owner of said xenomorph dildo) is Mistress O who has been working as a professional dominatrix and medical mistress for over eight years.

The following is a Q&A done with Mistress O in her own private dungeon and workspace. Some responses have been condensed and edited.

Q: First off, so how would you describe yourself and the service you provide?

A: “I describe myself as a fantasy executrix, I open up a space for people to express parts of them that have been repressed or that they want to explore. I create a safe space for them to explore themselves and provide a set of skills necessary to let them relax into an experience. Over the course of the years that I’ve been doing this, I developed this specific skill set that people seek out. They make a request and tell me what they are into, and I process and invent that into an hour, two hour or multi-hour scene that usually incorporates a huge amount of what they ask for. I am very much into knowing what a person wants, I want them to be specific and not just tell me, ‘oh just do whatever you want.’ Like, no, just tell me. There’s a lot of creativity in it, but I also just really like the structure of what someone really wants. I enjoy listen to people’s fantasies and then work them into a physical reality…it’s fun to make things that don’t exist, exist.”

Mistress O has been working as a professional dominatrix for over eight years and started her career while living in New York City where she first began to acquire her skills. Photo by Andrew Roberts.

Q: How did you get into BDSM and how did you first start out as a dominatrix?

A: “In terms of BDSM, I can’t say exactly how I got into it, I was just always kind of a freaky kid. I didn’t consider it to be sexual, I was making freaky art, weird costumes and just expressing myself in bizarre ways. I never really defined it as kink, especially at a young age. But I was designing weird costumes for performance fashion shows and so I was using a lot of kink elements, like weird corsets or I did a show where the theme was different fetishes, so it was clearly something I was interested in, but wasn’t something that I knew for certain that I was into. It wasn’t 'til I was like 18 or 19 when things start solidifying. I started doing domme work when I was 22 and living in New York City. At the time I was a struggling costume designer while work seven different other jobs at once, because stupid New York. I was designing another performance art fashion show that was really weird and kinky, and one of my friends told me [I] should peruse this. I wasn’t sure, because I’m not overbearing or specifically authoritative, and I didn’t think that I enjoyed giving people pain. She told me to just try it and see what it’s like, so I did what many other people did, answer an ad on Craigslist for a commercial dungeon in the financial district of New York. It was a fucking mess, they were just so sketchy.”

Q: Oh really, how so?

A: “They really just wanted to make money off of new girls, so they had absolutely no desire for retention unless you made it worth their while, like if you were desired by a clientele. But other than that, they did not care at all, they just wanted a cycling new blood dynamic. They especially wouldn’t invest in your training unless you seemed to be an asset for them. So, I got there and was tossed into a session, and I had no idea what was going on, it was scary and I didn’t know if I could do this. But after a couple of sessions, it just kind of clicked something and I realized that I enjoy this… After that I started being trained by the other experienced dominatrices who would bring me in for their sessions. I got a lot of my training from a very cool medical dominatrix who told me that I was very good with the medical aspect of BDSM, being so concentrated and meticulous. They also liked that I was doing this as some kid of power trip or ego boost, I definitely don’t do what I do for that; I’m there for the experiences, not the power trip.”

Mistress O (Left) specializes in 'Medical Play,' a subsection of BDSM focused on practices, environments and/or situations of a medical or clinical nature (Top / Bottom Right). Photos by Andrew Roberts (Left / Bottom Right) and Mistress O (Top Right).

Q: You mentioned medical BDSM, how did you get into that and what are some of the things involved in it?

A: “I got into medical play at the commercial dungeon and I started performing stuff like enemas on clients. From then, I began training with medical dominatrices and learning all the complicated skills in med play. I actually have a lot of clients who are doctors and they have trained me in some of the more extreme procedures like sutures. It’s something that I enjoy tremendously because it’s so delicate and complicated, and I’m a very detail oriented, meticulous person. I love the challenges of it. Medical play is some of the most advanced in BDSM and I feel very confident in my skills.”

Q: Why do you think people are drawn to BDSM?

A: “BDSM is a somatic processing experience. Sexuality is a wonderful way to engage with your innermost self and share it with others. The body and mind interact in interesting and engaging ways in BDSM, it can be like a drug or like therapy. The deep emotional release it can trigger lasts days, months, even years.”

Q: What’s the difference between being a dominatrix and an someone like an escort?

A: “So, both are sex workers and there is a lot of crossover. There are a lot of dommes who do provide full-service work, but there’s also this mentality of ‘oh, you can’t do this and call yourself a domme’ and that is not true. You can do whatever you want and call yourself a domme. If anyone tries to police you, then screw them, no one is making you do anything. I guess the big difference between the two is that I have the privilege to deny certain sex acts, while other sex workers don’t always get to have that. I was actually talking to a friend about this, because she was concerned about dommes using the word ‘whore’ to describe themselves. Dommes don’t do full-service work, full service being the term for escorting or acts that involve more overtly sexual acts. There are some dommes who use it, but I think that’s a problem because we don’t face the same difficulties that full-service workers do. We have a lot of privilege in our work, and it’s problematic for dominatrices to claim a lot of the oppression that other sex workers and other people in the sex industry have to face. It’s important to be accountable to your privileges. Like, yes, I am in the sex industry, but I and the rest of us need to be supportive of folks who face much greater obstacles.”

Mistress O's dungeon is stocked with various whips, tools and furniture (Left), along with unique accessories including a converted closet that now acts as a cage (Right). Photos provided by Mistress O (Left / Right).

Q: How many sessions would you say you do in a week?

A: “I do four to seven sessions a week, more than that and I’m exhausted and lose quality in my interactions.”

Q: What do you do to prepare for a session?

A: “I usually arrive at least an hour before a session, I prepare the space and make sure everything is clean and in its right place, I get dressed and made up and then I look over the session notes. As a nonmonic device, I recopy [my notes] into a book so I don’t have to check at my phone during the time. So, I’ll look over someone’s request, the basic scene stuff and then I’ll prepare myself mentally. It doesn’t take me a full hour to get ready, it’s mostly just the mental preparation and just being in the space.”

Q: You mentioned that you need to mentally prep. Does this work ever get emotionally taxing for you?

A: “This work can be incredibly taxing, but also incredibly releasing, it can really go from one extreme to the other. Depending on the person it can be rewarding, or it can be exhausting and can really take it out of me. It all just depends on how the scene is going and my level of investment. In generally, even when I’m having fun, I can still be wrecked afterwards.”

Mistress O's medical cabinet holding various medical grade tools and unique toys used during scenes (Left / Right). Photos by Mistress O (Left) and Andrew Roberts (Right).

Q: What do you do afterwards?

A: “I do a lot of mid-day sessions, that’s easier for me to recover from afterwards and allows me to do the clean-up, which is a big part of the come-down for me. I’ll clean and put everything away, it just helps closes up the box so to speak, then I’ll usually just go about my day. I find that evening sessions are more difficult for me mentally, because I feel like I’m less pumped up and can just really take it out of me. What I’ll usually do is go home and need a lot of physical attention from my partner while watching movies, and just generally not socialize with people. But other times when I finish a session, I’ll want to go out and party, it just really depends.”

Q: What would you say is the biggest misconception about being a dominatrix?

A: “I think the biggest and kind of most dangerous misconception, especially for those looking to become a dominatrix is that you have to be an actually sadistic. The thing is the dictionary definition of sadism is a non-consensual giving of pain, so to do this job you can’t actually be a sadist. You need to be hyper-aware of consent and very caring of people, both their physical and mental well-being, and not at all making it your own ego trip. That’s where dommes get dangerous, when they are investing their own ego into their work. For me, when I’m doing a session, I’m not doing it to feel better about myself or fulfilling a lack for me. You are there to be in a consensual space and if you are going through stuff, go to therapy, don’t take it out on your clients.”

Q: Have you ever felt persecuted for being a dominatrix?

A: “Generally, when you do sex work, it’s going to happen and it’s annoying. It’s especially hard on stuff like social media, like on Facebook and Instagram sex workers are constantly getting their accounts deleted for really no reason. Anybody who does sex work is generally going to experience some form of repression in the way of platforms and advertising, especially now with companies becoming very hard on us.”

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: "I guess you're interested in finding a domme, do your research and make sure you know what you want beforehand, because there's nothing more frustrating for us when someone doesn't tell us everything they're curious about. I've seen it all, be as forthcoming and as blunt as you want to be."