A female friend of mine, who will remain unnamed, recently informed me of her new career as a dominatrix.  In the old days, if a man wanted a woman to tie him to a bed he had to go out after dark into the most dangerous places his city had to offer with large sums of money on his person and "ask around."  Even if the adventuresome tabooist was to find a lady of the night with which to begin negotiations, there was the danger of his wanton fantasy being met with ridicule and disgust. "You want me to do what?!"— and the wrong kind of slapping ensues. Even the most tartly trick can be prudish at heart. But, due to blessed technology, the increasing power of the Internet has revolutionized the sex industry. Times have changed.



My friend has been taking jobs off ad on Craigslist.org for a little less than a year, "but in my private life I've been doing the dominatrix thing for a while longer." She charges $250 an hour and works approximately eight nights a month in order to support herself and her 4-year-old daughter. She makes house calls but prefers the comfort of her own home. I asked her how she felt having Internet strangers come to her house, and she said, "One part of my safety versus prostitutes is that the men I'm dealing with are submissive. I do a lot of screening before I allow someone into my home."



If she doesn't feel good about someone she won’t work with him. "I have a pretty good judge of people’s character." If worse comes to worse, she assured me she had the tools necessary to deal with a rouge client. "Nothing scary has happened so far. The most unnerving thing I do is going to other people’s houses, but I've never had a bad experience. I feel great and fine and comfortable, none of my clients or their requests weird me out. This works for both of us because I'm providing something that is taboo. You can’t just ask the girl that you take home from the bar if you can shove her foot down your throat."



I asked her how long she thought she would keep it up and she didn't pause before saying, "Since its really hard to go from this kind of work to regular work for much less money, I think I will probably have some aspect of it in my life till I retire. Even if I have a straight job I will probably keep it as a cushion. Unlike strippers, a dominatrix can be old and get away with it. 90 percent of my clients are married businessmen. I know that I'm not a threat to their marriage. I'm something that they pay for, not some thing they have an affair with."



Unlike a prostitute, my friend does not have intercourse with her clients. She sees her service as a product that you can’t find anywhere else in our culture. She is clear with herself about her work being separate from her normal life, and had she not told me about her new career, I would have never guessed.