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So here we have, Madam Mary, who's also a mistress, Mariah, which is the same person. Welcome. Um, So how long have you been involved in this industry? Um, I've been involved in the sex industry for approximately 14 years now. As a madam, I started out as a madam. Um, one of my personal strengths is people management. So I started managing brothels. Um, and then that evolved into becoming a dominatrix and having my own high [00:00:30] class brothel, which is where we are now. So it's a smaller group of specialised people. Um, but yeah, 14 years I've been involved in the industry. So what made you go into brothels instead of banks for managing people? Um, it was something that just happened. I I've always known since I was quite young, that I would end up working in the sex industry. I was brought up Catholic, um, a fabulously loving family. Um, but I always know. I always remember having a thing about nuns and priests saying about Mary [00:01:00] Magdalene being a prostitute. But Christ forgave her anyway. And I remember as a small child thinking, Well, what's wrong with that? So there was always this thing in my head that somewhere deep down I knew that I would end up working in the sex industry. I don't know how or why. Well, I do know how or why now, but, um, yeah, I've I've tried. I tried on many occasions when I was younger to get into the sex industry, first as a worker. But I realised very quickly when it said that all massages are done fully nude, that it wasn't for me. Um, and so many years later, I ended [00:01:30] up trying for jobs as receptionists, which again never happened for various reasons. And then finally, 14 years ago, I got into it, and here I am still in it, probably for the rest of my life. So when the other little girls wanted to be ballerinas and you know, firefighters and space men that you that was always what you wanted to do, I Well, I didn't necessarily want to be a prostitute as such, because I didn't really understand what it was, but I just always had the sense of that. There was some injustice. The [00:02:00] fact that Mary Male was seen as lowly, um, because she was a prostitute. Even though I fully didn't really understand what it was that a prostitute was. I just knew it was wrong how they were phrasing it and looking at it. So, yeah, I just, you know, one of those spooky things that has followed me through my life. Yeah. And did your folks know along the whole way Did you, when you were little, I said, this is what I want to do and said, 00, OK. No, I don't believe I ever voiced it to anybody because I don't think [00:02:30] it's when I look back on it that I remember those feelings as a child. I don't think I consciously went through my life thinking I want to be in the sex industry. I just knew that there were several times throughout my life when I tried to get into the sex industry. It felt it was just something that I knew was going to happen at some stage. And I just, you know, took opportunities as they arose to enter the sex industry. So what have been some of the responses of people, your friends or your family when you've told them what you do when they found out what [00:03:00] you. You do? Um, all of my friends think it's fantastic. Um, they've always loved the fact that I've been a madam because they know that whatever I do, I do well, and I'm also extremely fair. And, um, you know, they've always seen it as a good thing for the sex industry basically to have me and that, you know, I would be helping the sex industry be a better place. Um, and all of my friends have similar outlooks to me on [00:03:30] life in general. Um, and human rights and things. So, you know, they've seen it as a good human rights move. From my point of view, Um, my family, I have four older brothers. They all seem to think that I'm old enough and ugly enough to know what I'm doing. And, you know, they've never judged me for it. My mother was a little bit confused about it when my aunties and uncles would ask What's Mary up to her and mom would go, um, she's working in the adult entertainment scene. And because I sing, they'd all go. Oh, she's into her singing Finally. And my mother didn't quite. She doesn't quite understand [00:04:00] what I do now, but she is, you know, fairly aged. Um, and yeah, it's a bit confusing for her, but she certainly doesn't judge me for it. She knows again that I'm I know what I'm about, and I know what I'm doing. So she doesn't see it as anything bad. 2002 was a pro shoots reform act. Is that correct? Something like that. Something about prostitutes, reform, act, law reform, something along the lines. Um, and that was kind of, uh, you know, set as something that divided the feminist [00:04:30] community or or whatever in regards to people thinking, you know, that, um, sex work was inherently, I guess, oppressive to women and and you set set on a board or a parliamentary board After the reform was passed, Um, there was a five year it was a parliamentary review board. Just reviewing the laws and seeing how, um, how it worked. Basically checking up on things like bylaws. Because, of course, there were lots of knee jerk reactions from local councils and all sorts of people. You know, people living in the streets where there were street workers [00:05:00] writing, you know, getting petitions together to try and get the street workers kicked off the street and you know all those sorts of things. So the reform the review board was set up to monitor for five years, um, after the reform to make sure that everything you know worked well, um, and I was on that I was the only industry person that was working, that there were people who had been in the industry previous but weren't on the in the industry when they when they were on the review board. But it was a very interesting [00:05:30] thing for me. I sort of felt like a a lightweight because a lot of it was legal, you know, cos more council type stuff that I didn't really have a huge amount of, um, input into, But I enjoyed it. I learned a lot. And, you know, I'm sure I had some. I was of some help along the way. I hope I was. So what would you kind of say about, you know, people who would say that that sex work is is really negative for women, I would say, And you don't know what the sex industry is all about until you've actually worked in it. And [00:06:00] when you are positive about anything, then anything that that happens around you is going to be more positive. Anyway, um, I've seen the exact opposite with the sex industry. I've seen women who have had absolutely no control over their lives all of their life until they've come into the sex industry. Um, and then finally, they get to the stage where they are getting paid for having sex. They're getting adored by men. They're getting told how beautiful they are. Um, they do have control over their finances. They have control over when they work. [00:06:30] Um, there's a fantastic camaraderie. Um, that happens in the sex industry that, like I said, unless you've worked in the industry, you wouldn't see that it also has its downside, but doesn't everything. You know, there's always bad stuff going on in any industry. Um, I would say that I have seen more empowerment of women from working in this industry. I personally know that until I started being a dominatrix, which is about four years ago now, three or four years ago, um, my level of [00:07:00] self esteem was way lower. I am the cockiest woman you've ever met. Now I know how fabulously gorgeous I am and how powerful I am and that I am actually truly a goddess, and I mean that in a wonderful way. And that's through being a sex worker. And I wasn't a sex worker as a madam, but I am as a dominatrix. So I'm proud to say I'm a sex worker. So what do you think all the negative attitudes come from for, you know, women being sex workers or maybe anybody being sex workers For that case, um, the media, uh, people not understanding [00:07:30] what the industry is people taking what they want out of what they see about the sex industry, obviously the most seeing people in the sex industry. Street workers, they often look a bit tragic. They're often drunk on drugs, they often have pimps or minders. They sometimes probably turn up with black eyes. And, you know, I don't know, track marks. Um they are often women who can't or workers sex workers who can't get work in parlours because of perhaps, you [00:08:00] know, for for legal reasons, Um, and I think that people, that's what people say about the sex industry, that unless you've worked in a massage parlour then or in a in a brothel or in the areas of the industry that I work in. You don't actually know what a sex worker is. If I met someone, then not whenever I tell people I'm a madam or a dominatrix. People say you're not what I expected. Well, what do you expect? You expect what you see on the street, someone with a very short skirt. You know, ripped stockings, whatever that's, that's what people [00:08:30] expect. And that's why people have a negative attitude. And also because I think it suits a lot of people who have a negative attitude because a lot of women see, um, sex workers as a threat. If they know that their husband might be going to see a sex worker, then it's instantly a threat. I. I know women who have met sex workers at parties and things found out that that woman is a is a working girl and shuffled their husband away from them like a sex worker is going to want to have their husband for free. You know, it's like [00:09:00] if you're a chef, you're not going to go, want to go home and cook for everybody after work. It's just silly attitudes that people just because they don't understand because they don't work in the industry. So they people there needs to be more education about it. And that's why I love talking to people about it. That's why I am very open about what I do. Because whenever I tell people what I do, most people go. Wow, Is it true that And then I can dispel the bad myths. What are some of the bad myths that people have? Well, things like, Is it true that all women come from abuse? Or is it true that all sex workers are drug addicts? [00:09:30] Or is it true that, um, you know, girls get locked up and made to work 15 hour shifts? Is it true that they have to not use condoms? All those sorts of things, all sorts of silly little things that, you know, people hear from someone that are completely untrue. So a lot of kind of misconceptions and preconceived ideas about like sex trafficking. That is amazing when you see these things in the paper about women being sex trafficked. There was a an article in the newspaper about some women in northern England who had been trafficked from an Eastern European country. [00:10:00] And they were being rattled off in a pub. This was in a serious newspaper. I think it was in the Dominion transferred from some international paper and that these women were being were being sold off, not raffled off, but sold off. Um, it would have been a back. It was a back room in a in a pub or a hotel or something. They were being sold off to work as sex slaves, and they were being made to do something like, Oh, God, we can't I can't remember. But we worked it out on something like having sex every 14 minutes, having a different client every 14 minutes. [00:10:30] And that's if there was no lunch break, No dinner break. You know, it was just impossible. But people, of course, read that and go, Oh, that's terrible. But it's so untrue, you know, it's if you talk to the Thai girls, obviously, if they they can't get a work permit to work as a sex worker in New Zealand. So if immigration raid, they're going to say, I was brought here to work in a restaurant. You send them back to their own country thinking you're doing something really good for them. They go back to their village. The village already knows they've been sex workers. They don't [00:11:00] want to know about them. They've lost their livelihood. They're always here working, sending money home to support their families. All the do good has come along and they get these girls sent home to nothing where they could be working here safely. It's just all wrong, you know. It's just all misconceptions. And so is there a real kind of conflation between sex trafficking bad, bad, bad and prostitution? Bad, bad, bad kind of thing. Um, I have to stop that there, because I'm not actually sure what conflict means squashing [00:11:30] together. Same. Same. OK, Um, yes, I yes. I mean, I'm sure there is. I know there would be sex trafficking. There are Children who you know, anyone who's under the age of consent should not be having sex for money, although often they go out and do it themselves because it's the only way they can earn a living. And what they're doing then is actually probably better than what they've come from. So, you know, go figure. But Children, being sex trafficked is not good, and I know it does happen. And I know that women being sex trafficked does happen. But the amount of it [00:12:00] that the media are always prattling on about does not happen. It's women who go into countries and want to work as a sex worker, but it's not legal. Generally you can't go into even in New Zealand, where it's legal to work as a sex worker. As I said, you can't get a work permit to work in the sex industry to come to New Zealand, right? So you can come here as a marine biologist or a banker or something. But you can't say I'd like to come to New Zealand and I'd like to be a sex worker Exactly. I'd like to earn some money and send it home to my family, and the way I want to do it is by being a sex worker [00:12:30] rather than working for minimum wage and exactly on a sewing machine or in a supermarket, or yeah, because then they're only going to have enough money to survive and not send any home I think that's the point. So you got into dominatrix's work about four years ago? What? What kind of brought that on? Um, I've always liked the clothing, but, um, I just It was just a natural progression. Really. I, um It just happened. It was just an an evolving of me. [00:13:00] Um, something I needed to do when I I set up a, um the MM Club initially about five or six years ago, around another dominatrix who I thought was wonderful. And she's very good at what she does. But, um, her skills are fairly limited. And I had a lot of clients who, um, would ask me if I would do sessions. Now, I used to train the assistant, dominate tricks, and I used to do all everything else apart from actually do the sessions. I never thought I could actually do it due to my Like I said before, self esteem [00:13:30] issues. Really, I just didn't think I could do it. I didn't think anyone would ever come back. I didn't think that they'd want to book me in the first place. Um, and so when the business actually went under, I made lots of mistakes the business went under and I had clients ringing me because I kept the work number on because I was still taking bookings for a couple of private ladies. And I had these clients ringing me and asking me, would I just do sessions with them? They would take me through it step by step. They would tell me how to do it, what they wanted. And please, would I do it. And I finally said yes. And someone made a booking with me. An out of town [00:14:00] client. He was coming to see me in, say, three weeks time. Every single night I woke up in a street in a sweat, thinking I can do this. What am I doing? You know, this is just silly. And then it I did those first few sessions and then they kept coming back and more people came. And here I am, sort of three years later from that as a successful popular dominatrix. Um, who has realised that it is definitely a calling for me, you know, just like being a good nurse or [00:14:30] whatever. Being a dominatrix is A is a calling for me because what I do, um, facilitates a lot of healing. A lot of stress relief. Um, all sorts of things. You know, I don't judge anybody for what it is that they want to come to me for. I have a lot of people ringing up and saying You're going to think I'm a bit strange now. I challenge anyone to make me think they're strange with what I know now. So, yeah, So it was just a natural part of my progression as a person to become a dominatrix. And now I get to wear the clothing whenever I want, [00:15:00] and, um and yeah, I love what I do. And I, you know, only find it more exciting when I do new things. And, um, yeah, it's only ever going to get better. And it is also something that, as a as a person in the sex industry, starting in my mid forties, is not something you would do if you wanted to be a full service sex worker. But being a dominatrix, it's worked perfectly for me because I can see myself being a dominatrix for probably another. I have another good 10 or 15 years. I mean, possibly if I have a Zimmer frame that [00:15:30] works very well. Um, so yeah, so it's just, like, say, a natural progression. Really? And I did get told by my spiritual woman a couple of years ago or a few years ago, before I actually started practising that, um, they being spirit, couldn't imagine a better person to be a dominatrix. And at the time I thought what I wasn't even intending to be one. Um, And she said men will come from all around the world and will pay large amounts of money just to see you. And it's in tiny, tiny ways. It's starting to happen. So I do think that it was me they were talking about, [00:16:00] Um and yeah, that makes it even more exciting, you know, on many levels, because it means like, oh, I'm doing the right thing. So yeah. So, um, your your business is called the MM Club. Yes. Yep. So that's what it would be under in the Internet in the Google the MM club dot com. Yeah, and so is is this. You know, there are a number of these clubs around New Zealand and Wellington or the MM Club, as we've set it up, is the only place of its kind in New Zealand. There are [00:16:30] other dominatrix practising, um, privately. There are a couple who are quite good at what they do, and there's many women who set themselves up as dominatrix who have absolutely no understanding what it is they're setting themselves up to do. So people are getting hurt and disillusioned. Um, not only them, but their clients. Um, so the MM Club is the only place physically of its kind with dungeons cross dresser room, um, offering the level and the amount of different [00:17:00] services that we offer. We have, um, a few people who who provide sessions we can provide most things. We always work within a very strict safety framework. So there are certain areas that we don't delve into because we do like scarification and blood sports and serious strangulation are areas that we don't really know enough about, to, um to be able to offer or to even want to offer. Really, because, you know, puts you on a very edgy sort [00:17:30] of thing. So people baulk a bit When you started getting into domina stuff and because there's, you know, there's a kind of there's lots of kind of, I guess, negative things about sex work. But I guess B DS M stuff and do stuff. We gonna bum it up another level. Were there what kind of responses were there? Most people, I think if you if if I said to someone like I used to tell people I was a madam, Um and so I was very honest about that and people would go, Wow, that's amazing. And ask questions [00:18:00] and things. And when I say I'm a dominatrix, people go, Wow, that's fascinating. Getting to beat men. You know, I bet that's a good way to take out your anger. So I don't have any anger. And it's really the worst thing you want is an angry woman with a cane in her hand. Um, but if I said I was a sex worker, if I said I was a prostitute, if I said I was a hooker, a whore, whatever you want to call it, I guarantee those attitudes would be like, oh, really very different, because as a madam [00:18:30] or as a dominatrix, it's It's kind of it's I guess it's almost the celebrities of the sex industry, whereas if you say you're a hooker. It's kind of like saying I clean toilets for a living. You know, I'm the lowest of the low in a lot of people's brains because And that's why why most sex workers don't tell people what they do because of those attitudes. And until more sex workers do start telling people, those attitudes won't change. So a little bit like coming out and lesbian and gay visibility almost exactly exactly. Because [00:19:00] you know you will find out who your friends are. If you come out, you know, as a lesbian, or if you come out as a sex worker or whatever, you will have people turn against you and you will have other people that you didn't even imagine will go good for you. So, yeah, I encourage anyone who hasn't got too much to lose or Children at school to come out about being sex workers because it's the only way the attitudes of people will change has has the law reform changed the attitudes? Um, it has slightly a lot [00:19:30] of people. The most common thing I heard when the reform went through was, Oh, thank God, At least now you have to pay tax. You know, the sex industries always paid tax. When I started as a madam 14 years ago, the IRD had printed forms with what you could claim what you could. You know how to do your tax as a sex worker. The inland revenue always want your tax. They don't give you a drug dealer, which, by the way, is still illegal. Um, they don't care. They want their cut of it. So, you know, that was like I said, that was the most common thing was people [00:20:00] were worried were just pissed off. Really. I guess that sex workers weren't paying tax. And quite possibly there's a lot of electricians out there that don't pay tax on everything they earn, you know? I mean, yeah, but the the attitudes, I think it it definitely has helped with attitudes, but it will take a long time for the stigma to drop. But the things that it has helped, of course, are the fact that now clients can be prosecuted for harassing sex workers to not use condoms, and they couldn't afford Yeah, and also as a madam [00:20:30] when I was interviewing sex workers or potential sex workers. If you had someone who came into your office in the brothel looking for a job as a sex worker. They were well educated. They were gorgeous. They were groomed et cetera. And they started asking you You'd give them your spiel about things without mentioning anything about actually having sex. And if they started asking things about condoms and sex, I always used to say, Are you a policewoman? Because if they were [00:21:00] allegedly, it could have been a myth, and I might have been setting myself up. But, um, if you asked them if they were a police woman and they said no and then that you, you know, went ahead as if they it was all OK, and then they arrested you. It was, um, entrapment allegedly. I don't know how true that was, but thankfully, I never had to find out. But, um because it it was always, uh you were always worried about talking about those things because it was illegal, you know, like we had. We used to supply condoms and and all, and lubricant and things in the in the brothels that I first worked [00:21:30] in. And then all of a sudden, the head of vice. The vice police was changing and he start. They started even before he got to Wellington, all the police that were working in vice started transferring out and new ones started transferring in to work with this guy. And, um, they were stopping our drivers. They were starting to do some, you know, sort of not harassment things, but it was verging on, like, you know what's going to happen. So we had to get rid of. I think we were the first brothel to start having boxes [00:22:00] of condoms and vending machines because we had to really get our thinking caps on to figure out how if the police came in and went into the rooms. You know, we we said the girls were in their massaging if they found that 75 year old man so handsome that they had to have sex with him, Well, that was their business, you know, It was a personal thing, and it covered us. Um, legally. But if there were condoms in the drawer Well, what were they for? If we were supplying them? So, you know, we had to look at different ways of of covering all that sort of thing up. So we supplied, you know, vending machines with chippies, chocolate bars and [00:22:30] condoms. Um, and, you know, that kind of covered us legally. But before the reform, those were the silly sorts of things that had to happen. It was still happening. You know, it. You're never going to stop it. It just makes it safer. You can talk to girls about safe sex or sex workers rather about safe sex. You can promote safe sex. Um, you just Yeah, it's just wonderful. It's just make It takes a whole layer of stress off for sex. People in the sex industry and for clients. You know, if you look at it and for wives of those [00:23:00] clients, because everything's so much safer, it's just silly to try and push it underground. So you always knew that you you're kind of somehow destined for this industry. Did you always You kind of identify as bendy. Have you always known you were a bit bendy? Um, I think I have. I did go through my stages when I was younger, thinking maybe I'm a lesbian. I did marry, um, a gay man, not because he was gay, but we actually married for other reasons, but we wouldn't have. I have always been a little bit sexually confused. Um, not [00:23:30] about my, um, tastes in people. I mean, it's people I'm attracted to, but so I guess I'm open in that. If I met someone who was a man and I'm attracted to that person, then that's fine. If it's a woman and I'm attracted to that person, I don't. You know, I don't have any judgement or fear of being attracted to a woman, so I'm definitely bisexual. I'm bendy. Um, yeah, I'm I just like people, really. And every and everybody's always been all right with that, or people think it's odd. [00:24:00] Or, um, again, I guess I'm very lucky, because all of my friends are extremely open minded. So, you know, I have had one or two naughty times with some female friends. Um, So who are they to judge? So I mean, I Yeah, no one that I know of has ever thought it was strange because most of my friends, I guess if they're not but bending themselves, then they're open, you know, open to the whole idea. There's a big stereotype [00:24:30] that, um kind of queers are really into or or or that kind of thing, are you? What do you reckon about that kind of crossover between? I think we have a lot more queer clients. Um, or I. I mean, I don't know, because I guess I don't really mingle in the queer World enough to to be able to to say, UNC categorically. But I I've I don't imagine [00:25:00] there would be a bigger, a larger amount in the queer community they would in a straight community. But like I said, that's you know, I know more about the straight community, I guess from a B DS M perspective than I do about the queer community. So don't quote me on that. Well, you have any any last kind of thoughts, or, um um I think I've terribly terribly remiss of me to have mentioned that we do cater for women. We [00:25:30] do cater for everybody. If someone wants to come along and experience something, then give us a ring. I'm very understanding and easy to talk to. And if we can't cater for you, you know we'll find someone who can. No one's ever going to be judged and I encourage people of all genders to come along. And if you are into B, DS M, that's what we're about. It's not about genders. It's about B DS M. We provide services and facilities for whoever wants to, you [00:26:00] know, take up the use of them in whatever way. Cool. Where can we find you? If you look on the Internet under WWW dot the MM club, that's THEMM club dot com So easily find a book? Yes. Thank you very much for your time and yarn with us. You're most welcome. It was nice.
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