Interview with Mistress Didi*, Fetish Therapist
By Scarlet Apron* May 07, 2008 The Phoenix.com/Erotic Enquirer

With a tongue sharp as a whip, sultry beauty and A+ smarts, instruction from Mistress Didi is no session as usual.  Empowered by the healing arts and her storied history as a private BDSM practitioner, the energetic native New Yorker is now concentrating on revitalizing NYC’s fetish and cross dressing scene with her classes, events and videos, such as Classic Cross Dresser™ Conservatory and Classic Fetish™ Therapy.  Not one to suffer dunces or apple-polishers easily, Mistress Didi aims to educate a new generation of subs, doms, kinksters-of-all-feathers in old school skill and etiquette.  Insightful and engaging, here we find the Party Domme at home, ready with a few well-learned lessons.  

Life as a child?

I grew up in a family of lots of women and artists which is why I’m a feminist and artist.  My mom was very political and I loved growing up marching on Washington in a time when people actually cared and marching mattered.

First inkling of kink?   

It was in kindergarten.  This little boy was annoying me and I have very little patience for those creatures, so I said to him, “you know, you need a spanking.”  And he said, “Oh yah? Well, why don’t you give me one?”  So, I spread him into position against the wall and told him to stay.  You know those paddle balls?  I pulled the ball off and just whacked him on his behind.  He was shocked.  I whacked him again and he totally got into it.  The kindergarten teacher watched for a minute before coming over and saying, “OK, we can’t play like that here.” 

How and when did you go pro domme?

I was in college.  I went to a party in a very bad mood and this guy came over and said, “I love your boots, may I kiss them?” I said, “You may lick the bottoms of my soles, but don’t slobber on my leather.”  He decided he was totally in love with me and I made him buy me and my friends drinks all night.  It turned out he was a CEO of a very high-powered corporation and he had friends and they all wanted to have the same domme so they could play.   So, for a very long time I had the same seven submissives.   When I did anything professional, quote unquote, it was a performance and all very private.  They even flew me to Monaco to do a scene at a funeral at the request of the deceased.

Whoa…

That is how the world used to be.  People offered me tributes for sessions.  It’s not like I got $200 an hour, my tribute was a trip to the Caribbean.  They came down, we played, and I stayed on the rest of the week.  They went back and gave me spending money.  And now with the hoochies and the sleaze-ification of pro domination and BDSM in the media and mainstream, I am not to be considered a pro domme.  I will not play that way.  That’s not playing, that’s sex trade.  And I have no problems with the sex trade people; just don’t call yourself a domme because you’re not a domme. They are sex workers.  They don’t have technique and they don’t have training.  They have no clue.

Where did you get your clue?

I grew up as a dancer and I’ve studied the body my whole life.  I’ve always been fascinated by what makes people tick. I’ve studied acupressure, acupuncture, all kinds of healing therapies.  That was my other life.  Suddenly, I realized there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain and crossing it thrills me.  I’m a Libra, so I have two sides that co-exist and we’re in a symbiotic relationship.  This confuses people because I’ll beat them, but then I’ll give them a cold remedy.  I believe the BDSM lifestyle is a healing therapy and it helps people evolve.   

You do a lot of community outreach, what’s your mission?

I want to change three things.  First, people don’t understand that BDSM is not sexual deviance. The dom/sub lifestyle isn’t about someone lacking something inside of themselves.  It’s about accepting oneself fully, exploring your self-acceptance and allowing yourself to evolve from that place further into self-love.  The kink is the icing on the cake of your self-love and acceptance.   Second, I want to dynamically present education to clear up the ignorance around the dom/sub relation.  People outside of the scene know nothing about it.  What’s worse is how many lazy people in the scene don’t bother to educate themselves either and then hurt other uneducated individuals.  Folks think subs are people with a history of abuse.  We know that isn’t true.  The third, really annoying thing is all these kinksters coming into the scene who actually believe they are gifted fetishists.  They offer nothing; are all about their own hype; try to top from the bottom; have no training; no concept of social grace; are obnoxious and in desperate need of attention.  The vast majority of these people are cheating on their relationships.  They claim they want to be subs, but they don’t go home to their wives to share this part of themselves.  They think their significant other won’t go for it.  First of all, you don’t ever actually know what another person is going to say.  To think that you do is your fantasy and not necessarily the reality.  I’ve trained people how to go home and slowly break their partners into the lifestyle.  My vision is that people won’t have to hide anything anymore.

What’s Classic Fetish™ Therapy?  How do you fix people?

I don’t look at it as fixing and broken.  I look at it as evolution.  We can’t be stagnant beings, just dying inside, like walking zombies.  But look at corporate America, that’s what you’ve got.  They go to a horrible job they hate, come home, deal with the family they didn’t really want in the first place but that they have from obeying social and religious conditioning.  They sit in front of the TV, eating crap and get up the next day to do it all over again.  Fetish is an outlet for creativity. Most people don’t know they have creative ways to express themselves.  If you let yourself have that thrill and be OK that you’re into it, the behavior takes on a different form than that of a taboo.  You’re not making yourself wrong for having this thrill, you’re making yourself right for owning your enjoyment of it and, of course, accepting responsibility to enjoy it safely. And the more you affirm yourself, the better person you become and that’s how fetish works, because it’s an affirming lifestyle.   You become a better person, which is going to benefit the world

How do you prepare for a scene? 

I’m actually an empath.  I connect with the lucky person who I allow to play with me and sense their energies.   I allow an energy transference of my energy into theirs and their energy into mine by teaching them to synchronize their breathing with mine.  It’s kind of like channeling; I’m always conscious of what it is that I want to do while being so connected to that person, it’s almost as if they are feeding to me where my kink can go and how far I can push their limits without damaging their psyche.  That’s thrilling to me and thrilling to them.  When I sense that a person is so shut down that they are not receptive to my energy, I won’t play with them.

How does being black effect your ideas of domination?

Interesting you should ask that.  It’s a quandary, in a way.  People have different expectations of you based on income or religion or size.  That’s the way it is.  As a black domme, I get a lot of crap from black women.  I get a lot of crap from white women.  I get a lot of crap from black men.  I get a lot of crap from white men.  I just get a lot of crap, in general, when people have certain ideas about a black woman and I don’t fit their stereotypes.  They choose to assume I’m one of those hoochies in the sex trade who’s gonna hang someone upside down and kill them.  But, that’s their fantasy; not my reality.  If they weren’t so lazy, they’d read about me on my website.

What do you enjoy about helping men effeminize?

I like to refer to it as ‘blossoming’ and getting in touch with the woman within because what I do is not a forced thing.   My process is something they allow themselves to experience.  It’s a beautiful, evolutionary process. Why should women have all the fun with hair, make-up, lingerie and all those joys?  There’s nothing better than being a woman.

Part two to follow.

For more information on Mistress Didi go to www.PartyDomme.com

Interview with Mistress Didi
Part two by Scarlet Apron May 30 2008, 09:44 AM The Phoenix.com/Erotic Enquirer

What can new subs expect to go through serving you?

I give an interview followed by a testing process, which lasts approximately three months when you are physically available to me on a weekly basis. My testing requirements change dependent upon a sub’s availability and abilities. I don’t waste my valuable time training someone to be a perfect submissive until I see they are worthy of my invaluable skills, which is determined by how well they are able to accomplish the tasks I set them to. I design each potential submissive’s tasks to address their abilities and test their limits to show them – and me – how they are able to rise to the occasion. I always include tasks that are not what one expects, such as the usual cleaning chores, but which stimulate the submissive’s creative and thinking processes. I create tasks within their means and fetishes, which creates great enjoyment for me in my own personal evolution as well. My testing period is in itself a training process which offers a path of self-growth and evolution, if the submissive is intelligent enough to recognize and appreciate this, whether I accept them into my service or not. I always work within a person’s financial means – I don’t want to cause damage by upsetting anyone’s life needs. We all “work hard for the money” and I have absolutely no respect for a submissive who will deny her or his family to accommodate my desires. I particularly have no respect for a dominant who would demand that kind of sacrifice from a submissive. That’s just plain ghoulish behavior and completely unacceptable. I believe in rewards rather than punishments for behavior. I don’t want to break the sub. I want the sub to submit to me willingly. When they are good, we both enjoy things they enjoy; when they displease me, they suddenly find themselves “without” – without play, without socialization, without every and anything that attracted them to me and my domain in the first place. I desire a submissive who is totally devoted to me being comfortable and happy, because when I’m happy everyone is happy, when I’m not happy, no one’s happy.

Worse scene offense?

To take a sub who hasn’t been released from his or her mistress, even to play with them, because that is disrespectful of someone’s property. Every other dom will snub you and you won’t be forgiven. People will hold that against you forever.

When you train a sub, what roads blocks do you come up against?

There was a female sub who would never come over to me and she finally told me why. She said, “I think I wouldn’t be beautiful enough for you.” because of my whole fitness lifestyle. I was so hurt because women don’t realize that we are beautiful in every way. That’s that. Men, it’s a different story. They think they can look anyway and do anything. And we’re supposed to be Barbie dolls to them and should be thrilled that they want to be in our presence. The road blocks are physical, mental and emotional, self-imposed restrictions. I train submissives to navigate through and around them towards healthy and happy goals. When subs come up against blocks, because I am a therapist, we sit down and discuss it and use techniques and homework to work through the limitations towards the true joy of service, and in particular, the joy of service to me.

What’s an example of a road block and some corrective homework?

We’re having this conversation at the perfect time. A few years ago, a male wanted to sub to me and would not recognize that he needed to come to the fact that he was really a dominant personality -- and he wouldn’t be a good dom, either, because he wants everything to be done according to his pictures of what doming should be. He was instructed to call me at 7 o’clock everyday, whether I spoke to him or not. To show him his nature, I would speak to him two days in a row and then, let three days would go by without speaking to him. So, he decided to begin skipping days, giving the reason that since he could not speak with me, he thought I didn’t mean for him to call every day. I am very clear in my specific instructions and mean what I command. When I told him, I will speak to you when I want to speak to you and you are to call daily, period,” he threw a hissy-fit-temper-tantrum. Note: If I raise my voice, you’re dismissed. I made him see the reality that when he couldn’t have what he wanted, that he tried to find a way to punish me with bad behavior. The next step was to begin the process of identifying the causes of his behavior to bring him to the revelation of what he truly desired. We began with the question of “What do you think caused this behavior?” and continued through that process so that he could see he was topping from the bottom. He did not expect the training process to lead to a goal of letting go of his expectations and learning to trust. I had bets going on how long he was going to last. He lasted seven weeks. Recently, he sent me an email thanking me for helping him to begin on the path to finding his true nature as a dominant. That was nice and rather evolved of him.

Advice for young doms/dominas just getting started?

First, make a list of why you want to be a dominant; why you need to be one. Think of what being a dominant is going to give you. Then, look at that list and really think about everything on it. Are your expectations realistic? Will this make you happy? What will these things bring to your life? Second, get out, ask questions and introduce yourself to other dominant females, as many as you can, because you need a good strong base of what it is to be a fem dom before you can start hanging out with male doms. Far too many male dominants think that every woman wants to sub to them. They’re rude and disrespectful and always an asshole in some way. There are very few male doms that are super cool and I usually attract them to me. It’s about respect and that usually begins at home with a good mother. The next thing about new doms, no matter what you want to do, learn technique, read, take classes, take workshops, have personal sessions, learn some psychology, learn first aid, do whatever you need to do to be safe, sane and able to play in a consensual manner.

Just how intimidated is the average Joe by you?

They are not intimidated. They think they’re going to top me, every single one of them. I think it has to do with my size, I’m very petite. If I never said I was a dom, they would probably be subbing to me left and right. If you tell them you’re a dom, then they’re fascinated and they think “I’m going to show her, I’m a man!” And they can’t compete. I have very little patience for stupid men and too many of them are “below-average-Joes”!

Let’s get back to the scene at the funeral….

The deceased was very cool, had the coolest wife ever, and she actually honored his request that I do a strip tease and a trampling. That’s how I met him originally. I was partying at a club where everyone stripped for a contest to win $1000 dollars. So, I did a strip tease and then a trampling scene on one of his friends, who also offered himself for this final farewell. It was a tribute and that’s going to stay in my mind forever because between the looks of horror on the vanilla people’s faces and the looks of total appreciation on the fetish people’s faces, it was like something out of a sci-fi movie. It was very befitting to honor him that way.

What is the Classic Fetish™ Philosophy?

Classic Fetish™ is the appreciation of the passion of power-at-play expressed in ways that allow you to get in touch with that deepest part of yourself that makes life feel exciting, vibrant, worth living, complete. This appreciation is represented by the best inside of you, which you share with the utmost respect for the players in the scene. Fetish can save the world, I believe that. We could save people from blowing each other up, killing each other and everything if we would just learn to be comfortable with our self-expression. Our world doesn’t allow you to express yourself because everyone makes you wrong no matter what you do. Why is it wrong to like pain? Why is it wrong to inflict it as an art? If we stop judging self-expression, we’ll have more time for self-appreciation and the appreciation of the expressions of other people. And then we won’t find reasons to make war and kill each other, we’ll find reasons to make art and heal each other.

Your apartment is on fire, what do you grab first?

My dog. Absolutely. He’s a miniature pincher and a certified service dog. I trained service dogs (for people with disabilities) for a while but had to stop because I wanted to keep them all.

What’s your favorite toy?

Oh, I love knife play, but favorite toy du jour is My raw hide cane. I had a favorite hemp flogger and you know? Some idiot tried to smoke it!

Celebrity you’d like to dom?

There are so many…. I was gonna say Brad Pitt, but I would probably kill him over what he did to Jennifer Aniston. Denzel Washington…. OH BABY! But I wouldn’t dom him, that’s just not him. Helen Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. Good God Almighty!!! I want to tie that boy up, spank him and lick him like a lollypop. And you know who else? (Didi goes into detail for about five minutes on the celebs she’d like to dominate) …Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep. Ok, that’s all.

Book on your nightstand?

The complete collection of Philip K. Dick. And I just finished, for about the tenth time, Machiavelli’s The Prince. Very important book for doms.

CD in your CD player?

Oh God, I have over 500 CDs. I love music. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.

Places you hang out?

The Baroness’ Fetish Retinue, Bloomingdales. I love high tea or a nice piano or hotel bar.

Something people wouldn’t guess about you?

I cry at movies. I cry at everything. I am the biggest water works in the world.

Food you can be seduced with?

Chocolate and good champagne.

Your motto?

Don’t start none, won’t be none.

For more information, go to www.ClassicFetish.org.

*  Scarlet Apron is a fetish journalist by night, domestic diva by day and a bondage model in between. She is happily married and lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Contact Scarlet Apron at  myspace.com/scarletapron with fetish news and events.