In New York, one dungeon offers a course where girls who love watching clients suffer can hone their sadistic skills. And for our subBizamissive writer Maki, dominatrix school was a window into a whole new world of pain

I have a week in NY. The air is buzzing with excitement, and the city’s hottest bars, nightspots, shopping districts and art museums are at my disposal. So how do I spend my holidays in this wonderful city? In a house of domination, of course.

Being naturally passive and submissive to my partner's desires, I was curious to see if I could feign dominance to a professional level, by learning the ropes from two of the US' top dominatrices, in one of NY’s top dungeons. Basically, I wanted to fake my way into becoming a dominatrix.

The word ‘dungeon’ doesn’t do this place justice. Rapture is a high-ceilinged house in lower Manhattan, taking up an entire third floor of a studio/loft space. It plays host to 14 ladies, and is made up of four rooms, each specially equipped to cater to its clientele's perverse whims.

Two rooms are ‘standard’ dungeons, another is a room equipped for shibari rope bondage, and another is a medical room. While it doesn't have the ostentatious atmosphere of other houses of domination in the city, such as Pandora’s Box, it’s clean and looks safe and sterile, which can’t be said about all S&M houses in NY, some of which have more of a crackhouse atmosphere.

Rapture also has a definite ‘no sex’ policy. They’ll abuse and beat you to a horrific pulp, but there’s no way these girls will entertain the thought of full-on fucking with clients.

Rapture’s tool box of sordid delights include an almost endless list of discipline implements; canes, floggers, bullwhips, single tails, crops, paddles, tools of torture such as candles, piercing equipment, electrocution devices, toys for humiliation such as fucking machines, and furniture of medieval torture chamber standards, including various racks, bondage beds, and set ups for rope play.

And now I’m going to get my hands on all of them by taking part in the only extreme dominatrix course in the world; intensive training that makes the Rapture girls among the best in the business.

Anyone who thinks being a dominatrix is a quick route to easy money is in for a rude surprise. This intensive course covers all aspects of the profession, covering everything from psychology and safety, to the technical skills required to use the tools, and how fill the hour or so the slave is prostrate by your feet. Marathon sessions can last for up to six hours.

Even looking at the description of the basic course was enough to make me think it’s probably easier to get a freaking Phd, and this is before we even get into the more esoteric play.

I could choose advanced courses in subjects such as Japanese rope bondage to courses that involve guest instructors, and outside courses, in subjects such as neuro-linguistic programming, and something involving an ex-Black Panther in ‘non-confrontational intimidation’. The mind boggles.

Enter the instructors, Ardenne and Mitsu, who are going to teach me the tricks of the trade. We’re doing a compressed version of a course that typically takes seven days; a week that starts with answering telephones and ends with training in advanced sex play such as electrics. Although, as I’m to discover, in the world of domination there’s no end to what you can learn.

Ardenne went to a Catholic school for 12 years. She discovered BDSM at 22, the year she lost her virginity. A year later she started work at Rapture. She was initially a sub, and gleefully tells us she started working at Rapture to get back at an ex. I make a mental note: don't cross this woman.

She looks like a Victorian ghost crossed with a Vargas girl, and has been called the “ultimate in decadent femininity” online, with a somewhat unnerving demeanour that makes you wonder whether you’re being mocked, even before she says anything.

Famous for her rope and whip skills, she tells me, “S&M is a lot about power, a little bit about pain. But my first idea of dominance and submission was from the The Arabian Nights. Harems, slaves… there’s so much kinky shit in The Arabian Nights; the queen sleeps with her black male slave and cuckolds her husband, the king. As a kid I was always fascinated by the idea of having slaves, and owning people. And I always thought whips were hot.”

Mitsu is uncanningly like Kill Bill's Gogo Yubari. She started playing at age 15, with a partner who was into bondage and had an interest in “age play and daddy power stuff”, but waited until college to go pro.

Looking like she fell out of an anime film, she sports a hard-to-read Japanese ice queen visage, and a lust for sadism that is, in a word, frightening. The look on her face while she is electrocuting her victim is simply deranged.

She tells me, “I get off on control. Activities such as behavioural modification, bondage and age play are opportunities to creatively manipulate a situation according to my preference. I'm obsessed with predicament bondage and electricity, and design my own contraptions to play with. My style is high tech, calculated, understated deviance.”

We start the course rather unceremoniously sitting in a waiting room, overhearing a telephone conversation reverberating down the corridor that goes along the lines of, “The only way you can worship my ass is by eating my shit.”

“You have to know the basics,” Ardenne suddenly snaps. “Psychology, safety, bondage, piercings, corporal, electricity, CBT [cock and ball torture] and anal play – these are the eight courses a girl has to pass before she can take on a session. Much of the advanced training is just lectures by request. Like, not everyone here has to know how to do a good interrogation scene according to military standards, but if someone wants to know it…

“You have to have an identity that is compelling, which is why I wear white and pink all the time. When I first came on the scene, I was the only domme doing that.“

When I ask her what people generally want, she replies, “A lot of people want a strap-on – it’s rare that we have a session where someone doesn't want something up his butt. And a lot of people want golden showers. But you can change the culture of what’s popular – I did that around this time last year with single-tails [thin whips].”

Humiliation is a big thing at Rapture as well, as Mitsu tells me. “There’s this guy that would come in, and he was like, “Look at what a fucking loser I am. I’m bringing my own vacuum cleaner in, and I’m going to fuck it in front of everyone.” And so he wanted everyone to come in and laugh at him for five minutes straight.

I know this other guy who’ll buy this expensive suit, and he’ll just have girls throw cream pies on him. But they all tend to be really cool people.”

Rapture owner, Collin, tells me, “Girls have to learn to look at behavioural ticks of submissives and clients so they can read what motivates them. Are they experience junkies? Someone compelled by command? Someone who fetishises an act or foreign object like feet or boots or whatever. That’s the key.”


The technical courses are carried out on one of Ardenne’s subordinates, a cheerful fellow called Paratoos who becomes our willing slave for the course and stares with doe-eyed admiration at Ardenne while she demonstrates play piercings, suspensions and fire play (which, as the name suggests, involves setting your partner alight).

Paratoos comes in with his back in a blistered mess, having done a session with Ardenne earlier where he played the part of a human pin cushion. He stands obediently as various tools of corporal punishment are inflicted on him.

Spending time with Ardenne and Mistu, and going through their cavalcade of lessons, it becomes fairly apparent that these women are doing more than going through the motions - they have an innate understanding in how to manipulate someone, and a knowledge of what to do once in control, as well as how to administer pain in a safe way.

Whilst not all the girls are inherently sadistic, they all know and understand how to control a submissive, whether it be for pleasure or pain, or a combination of both.

But when does a session go too far? “When a medical professional has to get involved,” says Ardenne. “And that could be emotional or physical. If you need to leave here and get professional help, the dom has gone too far.”

Mitsu adds, “It’s also when someone asks for something that’s beyond your technical ability. Like we have a guy that asks, ‘Can you castrate me?’, and I’m like, ‘You need to go to a surgeon for that.’”

MY WEEK

I’m probably the worst test subject for this, being submissive and laidback at best, and a complete space cadet at worst. I’m also fairly nonchalant, character traits that aren’t in line with dominance. Collin tells me, "With training, you can get the skill set to dominate. You just need a real desire to do it. It takes two things: the desire and the skill.”

Lacking the desire to do it I found that, even after being schooled, there are things that a dom course can’t instill in me, but these girls can it pull off: an ability to be on the ball, all the time, which also entails being verbally quick.

The knack of being psychologically intense, and to have a dominant presence. Getting enjoyment from being in control. To have the desire to ‘fuck’ as opposed to ‘be fucked’. To have the innate sense of responsibility towards a client who’s relying on you for everything during a session, in terms of his actions, desires and mental and emotional sanctity.

And… an ability to suppress a natural instinct to cringe when seeing a prostrate naked man with a hairy ass.