Bonding is a show on Netflix which tells the tale of a young dominatrix in NYC and her gay best friend Pete from high school who she hires as her bodyguard and assistant. It’s a quirky story and full of nicely done humor and visually appealing scenery. I was late to watch it and review it, but I saw an enormously negative reaction to it from my dominatrix peers.Â
With an evening free, and the episodes being under 16 minutes, I decided to binge watch this and see what I thought. Who better to watch and review a show based on a New York City dominatrix/college student, than a Mistress who recently was a full-time New York City dominatrix/college student (and still visits and works there)? I definitely kept it in mind that it was a show and most likely not going to be extremely accurate. After watching it, I came to the conclusion that they did have a right to be a little upset over a few moments, but I noticed that much of their criticism came from aspects of the show that they completely misunderstood. Spoilers ahead!
Tiff is a young college student, (probably in the 20-23yr old range) just like I was in 2007 when I was working at a commercial dungeon in midtown Manhattan, going to college only two blocks away. She moonlights as Mistress May and she (like myself in 2007) works at what we call a “commercial dungeon” which is a dungeon that has a staff of women that a manager or dungeon owner hires and book sessions for. At least, that is what it seems like. The show makes that unclear. I’ll explain later.Â
In the first few sentences that she ever utters, she says “No, I am a Domme, not a prostitute. NOT that there’s anything wrong with that” in response to her best friend Pete asking her if she has sex with her clients. This was very touching to hear for myself and I hope for other people, for two reasons. The first reason is that almost all of us (save for a few) in the United States do not have sex with our clients or do anything directly intimately sexual in nature with them (things you would hire an escort for). Unfortunately, we are often misunderstood and always lumped in the same categories as escorts when it comes to how society and law enforcement sometimes sees us. We often face the same social stigmas, and same injustices that escorts operating illegally (even sadly, legally) face. So her saying this, shows that our job is a bit different, to millions of viewers who watch the show. She also says “I’m a sex worker.” This is also important because we ARE sex workers of some form.
Asking us if we have sex with our clients is the first thing that every single one of our friends and family members ask us, because that is how little of this industry people know of. I cannot tell you how many men out there are caught seeing a pro Mistress by their wives and their wives truly believe he’s having sex with this Mistress and will not believe otherwise because she has no idea what we really do. We do not see anything wrong with women who have sex for money, it just does make things difficult for us when we are associated as operating as such, in terms of keeping ourselves legally safe, and like I said before, it would be nice for the world to be more informed on what it is that we actually do.Â
The second reason why I loved this line is because of the part where she says “NOT that there’s anything wrong with that.” We all truly feel that prostitution needs to be decriminalized nation-wide. Too many people associate escorts with being dirty drugged up people who who disgusting and immoral acts and are less than human and do not deserve fair treatment or protection from harm, rather that we should do away with it all entirely. This is a completely false stereotype and one which causes harm and abuse. Escorts are targets of rape, harassment, assault, even murder. They are also of course, targets of underground sex trafficking. We need to change how society views these women in order to change the wrongful stigmas attached to them and keep them from being harmed. I don’t want to turn this blog post into a different topic entirely, which I easily can right now but I will stop here and get back to the show. So thank you Netflix for this line, as short as it was. It made my heart happy.Â
This is where the show differs between real professional BDSM in NYC and fiction. At the end of the show, she goes on an outcall with someone who said that they called her dungeon to book her and the dungeon phone operator assisted him in this booking. This is how a commercial dungeon operates, a client calls and speaks to someone who books appointments, the phone person sets up the appointment. This alludes to the fact that she works at a commercial dungeon space. Many years ago, I was working at one of the only dungeons at the time that did outcalls, so I have a good understanding of this. However, they would have never done that with a client that they didn’t already know extremely well or had perfect references, and not for any promised amount of money from the client. This situation would have never happened. Only a young Mistress who was trying to work for herself and not for a dungeon, and was very naive would have done something so dangerous and stupid. The only thing right about this situation was that she had security with her, (her friend). I went on outcalls ONLY with a security person who had access to where I was, and again, only clients who were extremely well-vetted.Â
Her hiring her friend in the first place was a complete mystery too. A commercial dungeon also provides a body guard, or simply the safety of a group of staff watching over you, as seen in episode 1, where her dungeon did have an actual body guard throwing out a client who did something inappropriate and put his hands on a Mistress. So if the dungeon had a body-guard, and a staff, why did she need to hire one? Giving her body guard bestie 20% of her earnings after a commercial dungeon takes 60-70% on average of your earnings already, would have been crushing to her income to say the least. She didn’t work at my dungeon because no one ever had a gay best friend body guard, so that meant she worked at one where she made $70 per hour a session. Why would she hire a body guard and give him 20% of that?
She could have been an independent dominatrix, who worked for herself and simply rented space at the dungeon, and she liked having an assistant to help her clean up and so on. However, based on her very young age, basic BDSM knowledge, her saying to a client that he could leave the money with the front desk, and the man in the final episode hiring her through the dungeon for an outcall, this doesn’t seem likely. Independent dominatrices tend to be much more experienced, knowledgable, and definitely have more than 1 or 2 outfits, which is all we see her in, in the whole show. Speaking of those 1 or 2 outfits, she also seems to only own 1 pair of boots which she also wears through the entire show for every single appointment. This screams “brand new Mistress” to everyone in my industry, because most brand new women just do not have much for wardrobe yet. They don’t have the funds yet to buy a bigger variety of outfits which they slowly obtain as the months go on.Â
Tiff has her assistant best friend who is now going by his alternate name “Carter” inside the actual room in all of her sessions. While this would have been ok every once in a blue moon for a submissive who enjoyed being humiliated like her client Fred, as Fred did not mind if it was done by a male friend (and it if anything, enhanced the humiliation which Fred craved), this wouldn’t fly for most other appointments. People are shy, nervous and the last thing they want is another male in the room in 95% of cases.Â
I have had a male sub of mine piss on another sub of mine, and it was the very first time that he was doing it, so I really identified with the scene where Carter pissed on Fred for the first time. The funny clear raincoats for this scene were definitely the idea of NETFLIX to bring visual humor to the show, and not something we would actually put on. I thought it was cute and I appreciated the humor in it. Â
Tiff says in the show that she has had a sad past where men had looked to use her for sex. She was not physically or psychologically abused, she simply was stating that she went through something that most young women go through in high school, young horny men dating you to just to experience having sex with you. I don’t know a woman who hasn’t had this happen, and sometimes it can be quite upsetting, however that is when, as a young woman, you learn from this, and put up boundaries moving forwards in your life. Due to her past, she has her guard up and is more aware of how men talk to her as seen with the boy in her college class who is pursuing her (JUST LIKE EVERY SINGLE WOMAN TO SOME DEGREE?). I see this as a representation of her growing from her past and being wiser about other people. The BDSM community and some of my peers felt that it showed a damaged and abused woman who became a dominatrix, and publicly stated such, (which is often a wrong stigma and stereotype associated with our industry) but they truly didn’t get this right. Where was she abused? In your early 20′s, you are still haunted by the things that happened to you over the past several years, and sometimes still depressed over them as you are trying to grow up and figure yourself out and figure out how to move past what are probably the first several horrible things that happen to you in your life up until that point. I saw in Tiff, a woman who was very young and still a bit sad over those negative events, but who was getting over that and becoming wiser for it as she took charge of her life and was developing into a mature young adult. She was WAY wiser than the other young woman in her class who was basically just accepting the sexual coming-on from the college professor, and Tiff used her intelligence and strength to stick up for her.Â
Tiff also mentions in her class to her psychology professor, that role-play can be healthy and therapeutic. You could see her struggling on the inside with how awful he ran the class and how little he understood compared to how much she did in her young age. This is common among people in the BDSM lifestyle. We rarely have therapists who can assist us with life’s troubles when it comes to discussing kink aspects, because there is no education out there that they are taught about alternative lifestyles. BDSM and fetish has for years, been misdiagnosed in text books as a sickness, and sadly, was only recently changed. We all felt her pain, I am sure, as she struggled through being in this class.Â
Her client Fred, tells Pete who is now going by “Carter” that he tells his friends about what he does at dungeons with Mistresses. Pete seemed shocked by this, but Fred says “Why not? There’s nothing wrong with what I do” or something along those lines. This is not only something that people really do (telling their friends about this secret), but something that is becoming more popular and accepted. A couple I see told all of their friends that they have their Dominatrix (me) in their phone along with all of the other important things they need in their life such as their lawyer, their doctor and their gardener. A sub of mine and his partner both go and see Mistresses and talk about it, they’ve even gone together. Fred, despite being portrayed as somewhat goofy and weird, is giving the viewers a line that I feel is very important and that is for people to just have more acceptance, despite what they feel is weird or do not quite understand.
Tiff is a total bitch to Carter a lot of the time and really pressured him to do crazy things in the show, which he was initially very uncomfortable with such as making fun of Fred’s small penis. The BDSM community felt this was an awful representation of a Mistress. However, we are telling the story off Tiff and Pete. Tiff and Pete have history and Tiff and Pete know one another very well. We are not showing every dominatrix in the show treating people like garbage. Pete does stick up for himself eventually and says “you can’t treat me like you did in high school.” I also think that Pete needed to be pushed to do these things. He gets so happy when he rips Fred apart and sees how fun it could be to make fun of his penis, and he was on a roll with it grinning, and when he finally was able to pee on him he was thrilled as well and yelled happily “I’m peeing!” Tiff smiles as if she knew all along that he would enjoy this. This is actually, what professional Mistresses often do, when they know people really well, push them to trying something they are afraid of but that we know they would truly enjoy. At the end of the show, he wants to be her 50/50 partner, and do sessions with her as an equal. So her pushing him, was definitely something I saw that she knew he needed and that he would enjoy this. It also got him out of his rut with stand-up comedy and made him more fearless and happy, while also greatly inspiring his actual stand-up material. He was able to be brave with Tiff while dominating men along side of her and trying things he was afraid of, which helped him in other aspects of his life. THIS IS WHAT BDSM OFTEN DOES FOR PEOPLE.Â
What I didn’t like and do agree with everyone on, is that every client of hers was shown mostly negatively. Fred, while nice, is shown as goofy and weird. The first episode shows this giant groaning animalistic-man with no explanation of what is going on. The slave who comes by and cleans for her is in love with her and very rudely invades her date, not respecting her boundaries. A man who wrestles Pete in a session while dressed as a Penguin is a total jerk. The last client is a psychopath who tries to hurt her. The husband of the couple she sees gets punched in the face by his wife in order for him to be tickled, and both of them don’t seem to be very happy or healthy in their relationship with one another in that sense. While it was a very short show and you cannot show everything, I felt it still would have been better to mix in more positivity and people who don’t seem so flawed and messed up. It paints the picture that all of our clients are going to be totally nuts. This is not the case. Yes, we do get some crazy people but so does every job. That is not what goes down all of the time.Â
Tiff presents to the college psych class, her dominatrix self and explains what she does for a living and while we do not see it, we are assuming that she gets a chance to tell them how healthy engaging in role-play and BDSM is, something her jerk professor told her the opposite of several episodes ago. I also did this exact same presentation in my human sexuality class, and like her, I had every person in the class interested, delighted, and wanting to know more. I enjoyed this because it showed that people are more interested than we realize, more kinky than we realize and we should not have as much wrongful stigmas and shame associated with something that is actually very healthy and healing.Â
Other inaccurate things to add while they just came to me: No one wears dominatrix attire walking outside to the door of the person you are seeing at their home or hotel. You always change when you get there. This would bring unwanted attention and mortify your client. They would probably send you away and never see you again. She has a talk with Carter at her home where she ties up his hands. She doesn’t actually do a bondage tie. She could have learned an easy bondage wrist to wrist tie (a column tie) in about 5 minutes and easily done that on camera while acting as there’s just not much thinking to it once you know what to do. There are a few other instances, that I am sure that I am not thinking of off of the top of my head. No one working at a commercial dungeon would have been in their own pretty big apartment in New York City as that would have been extremely difficult to afford on a young dominatrix salary. Everyone of us had at least one room mate. If she did manage to afford it, she likely had financial assistance from her parents while going to school.Â
Accurate things about the show. She is a young lady trying to figure herself out, as are most women are at her age, and are most young commercial dungeon Mistresses. A staff of people at a dungeon would love to be an audience to a friend’s practice stand-up routine. We often hung out with friends of staff and happily assisted them with projects if we had the time. We are all, after all, human beings and nice people. Commercial dungeons often have clients who do not respect boundaries and will wrongfully put their hands on Mistresses where they do not belong. We were often kicking out said rude men, just like in the first 30 seconds of the show. Commercial dungeons also do often entertain a vast range of fetishes and role-plays. Penguin suit wrestling isn’t far-fetched or hard to believe.Â
The inaccuracies make me wonder if this entire story on Netflix was just made up and only influenced by the creator having a dominatrix best friend who he sometimes hung around, or if it was mostly real somehow. Regardless, these aspects irked my colleagues due to the fact that we are just always misrepresented in everything we do that has ever appeared on television and in movies. Only the show BILLIONS which actually hired my incredible colleague Mistress Troy Orleans to teach the actor and actress how a real BDSM relationship would go (GREAT JOB TROY, IF YOU ARE READING THIS). Troy had gotten me hired as a consultant and performer for a very large Miami based event for famous photographer Steven Klein for his FETISH exhibit, so that way the photographer didn’t have to be humiliated over having a completely wrong representation of what fetish and domination is and give an authentic show. We all feel that Netflix still could have kept the humor, storyline and quirks that made the show pretty great, but could have been way more accurate by consulting an experienced New York city dominatrix or former experienced New York City dominatrix. There are so many of us, and we would have happily given advice and bondage lessons. I personally have been asked to speak at book signings, given speeches and so on. Many of us have done this. Many people were very upset because Mistress May, the fictional character was given a twitter handle to promote the show, whereas real-life dominatrices are fighting every single day to not get our accounts shut down, shadow-banned because of bad social stigma about what we do. It’s not Mistress May’s fault of course, and I do sympathize with my fellow sex workers on this. In one sense, I am glad that the show came out, because it gave us a chance to voice our opinions over our struggles and hopefully lead to some future changes taking place, as many news articles were using the angry tweets and blog posts of my friends and peers to show the world that we are treated unfairly.Â
A wrongful fact that I keep seeing all over the internet is people freaking out because apparently she is supposed to be the best dominatrix in NYC but she can’t tie a wrist tie and has 1 pair of boots and 2 outfits. They are taking this out of context. The dungeon manager tells the client booking the outcall that she is “the best in the city.” She’s a commercial dungeon Mistress and probably a fairly good one that they have, being she lives in her own NYC apartment by herself. She might be their top earner. Are there independent Mistresses with 20 years experience who would blow her out of the water? Of course, but he is calling a commercial dungeon and they are selling her for the session, she is THEIR staff. She might be THEIR top Mistress. So you have to realize that this is where the line of reference is coming from.Â
At the end of the day, I genuinely liked the show. I feel that many aspects about the show were done purposely for storyline and humor. Mistress May not having much of a wardrobe, and her corset not fitting quite right, I believe were to purposely show how young she was, same with her doing something stupid such as being tempted with money to go to the residence of someone for a session who is out to harm her. At least that is how I took it. She’s young and while she is intelligent in some ways, her youth is against her and flaws her/gets her into trouble.Â
I thought the show was comical, despite not being so accurate, and it definitely nostalgically brought me back to my 20′s and being a NYC dominatrix just a bit. If there is a season 2, I only hope that for the small details, they keep a professional Mistress on hand, as they would earn so much more respect from the (literal) millions of us kinky people out there. I personally could give them a million accurate easy ideas to add based on their storyline which would have been very effective. Other than that, I am happy to see a Season 2 and I believe that people who it angered should re-watch Season 1 later and look at it through fresh eyes.Â
It definitely makes me wonder if the book I am writing would be worth a show one day?
