I once had a photographer (not this one) tell me that I shouldn’t smile in these type of photos. I needed to look serious and stern. Authoritative. Like a Dominatrix is suppose to look. I thought for a moment and said, it sounds like I’m suppose to be mean, dissatisfied and have no sense of humor or fun. Seriously, where is the fun in that. I love what I do and I find it very funny. I’m also a happy person who thinks scowling is ugly. The things I am capable of doing to people are sometimes cruel but also ridiculously funny and lighthearted. This was a shoot with my first west coast personal slave. The first thing he said to me at a BDSM event in San Diego was, “you don’t look like a Dominatrix.” I wasn’t offended. He was young, wearing board shorts and flip flop like he just wandered in from the beach. And he had. I laughed and share with him what a Dominatrix looks like when your eyes are closed. I molded him like putty in my hands from that moment and he was mine. So were the lashes on his backside by the end of the night. He became one of the most intense masochists I’ve known.

Things are not always what they appear to be and they don’t have to have so many rigid definitions or stereotypes. I have never been afraid to redefine something that I am passionate about and feel is terribly misunderstood. Being a Dominatrix is a state of mind above everything else. Gary and Pierre Silva circa 1996