Lashings of Whipped Cream
» BDSM in Popular Culture
In New Zealand Sara Wiseman plays Mistress Dominique to critical and commercial success:
In Wellington she performed in front of “little old ladies who had a good laugh” through to a block booking of dominatrices who came to a matinee.
The dominatrices invited her to a party but she politely declined.
Similarly, Wiseman hung up on a gentleman who traced her hotel and telephoned to ask if she really was a bondage and discipline mistress because her performance was so convincing.
“We had every type of person you could think off come to see the show,” she says. “Hats off to New Zealanders for being so liberal.”
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While inviting the audience on a tour of her dungeon - kept separate from the rest of the house by a side door dubbed “the human cat flap” - Mistress Dominique shares her thoughts on her profession.
Described by Wiseman variously as funny, endearing and a very New Zealand story, it poses the question whether Dominique’s service is a luxury to fulfil a want or a necessity to meet a need.
Like Wiseman, Jones believes its continuing attraction - tantalising title aside - is a cocktail of voyeuristic curiosity and a genuine desire to understand more about a world kept behind locked doors.
It might be a leap from Mercy Peak’s amiable Dr Nicky Sommerville but Wiseman says that’s simply the job of being an actor.
Besides, she admits a dominatrix plays whatever character her client pays for.
“So it’s like acting - what are you trying to say here?” she laughs.
Wiseman watched and re-watched the documentary video Bound for Pleasure - “it was a very worn tape so it has obviously been taken out a few times” - and read instruction manuals written for budding dominatrices.
She talked to a handful of women in the business and was impressed by their professionalism.
But she says she is no closer to understanding the complex motivations of the clients.
“I guess they get something out of the experience they are not getting in other parts of their lives.”