Mia Voraz, an attractive 27-year-old brunette, is not your typical Louisville female. Four years ago she decided to take matters in hand, as it were, and become a professional dominatrix and set up her own dungeon, a Yahoo chat group and a Web site, www.willofthewhipsociety.com.
This week Voraz will demonstrate her talents at an Erotic Art Show and BDSM Play Party with other nationally known presenters at the Chez Moi Art Gallery.
Voraz inflicts various degrees of corporal discomfort and pain on her clients with a fully stocked dungeon of whips, floggers and torture devices. While her clients are mostly male, she occasionally works with couples.
“Sometimes people need a little instruction, whether male or female, on how to be dominant,” she says.
LEO was able to whip out a few questions for Voraz about her chosen profession and how it jibes with her personal life.
LEO: Did you have a lot of bad boyfriends?
Mia Voraz: I wouldn’t say bad boyfriends. In this culture, as a woman it’s hard to be sexual and retain your intelligence and integrity. Being a dominatrix allows me to have the best of both worlds.
LEO: You say that there is absolutely no real sex involved in your work. What do you do?
MV: Actually, what I’m doing is poking holes in another person’s sexuality. I’m wearing the stockings, the corsets and a lot of makeup. I’m there being sexy but not sexual with the other person. It’s more cerebral than physical.
LEO: What kinds of people use your service?
MV: It’s really vast. Every person is different that comes to me. Some are looking for a cathartic experience. Some are just testing themselves, putting their toe in the water. Maybe they saw something on the Internet that they think might be cool to try. Some people are interested in feet and not interested in pain at all. They want to smell my feet. That might be considered a cathartic experience for someone with a foot fetish.
LEO: Tell me about your dungeon?
MV: It’s separate from my house. It’s awesome. It has stone walls and looks like a traditional dungeon. We’ve got all kinds of toys — a spanking bench and a huge selection of whips.
LEO: Why so many?
MV: They all have different effects, and you want to expand your horizons with different tools. It’s like a vocabulary. The larger vocabulary you have the better story you can tell. In the dungeon we have all kinds of floggers, paddles and rubber instruments of torture, a gynecological examination table, a St. Andrews Cross and a traditional torture table.
LEO: You also have a special place in your dungeon for guys who want to be girls. What is it called?
MV: It’s a transformation room. A lot of these men are cross-dressers, so you help them change into what they imagine themselves to be. Maybe the end result isn’t all that pleasing, but with a little practice a lot of them get better.
LEO: What kinds of people use your services?
MV: Normally, when someone walks into the dungeon you wouldn’t know him or her from anyone else on the street. You wouldn’t look at them and think this person enjoys being spanked, whipped, etc.
LEO: But sometimes there are signs of what people do in real life.
MV: I remember looking at a man as I was smothering him with my foot and thinking, “This guy looks like a golfer.” And I asked him, “Are you a golfer?” And he said, “Yes.”
LEO: Do you think S&M is more accepted today than in the past?
MV: Of course, with all the attention and the movie about Betty Page and so forth, but there are still a lot of misconceptions about it. The biggest problem I encounter is that people think that I’m some sort of prostitute, but I don’t do anything that would come under that heading.
LEO: Do you enjoy your job?
MV: Of course I do. I get a charge out of it. Sometimes I find myself thinking about a session days later and kind of chuckle. I think I get to see sides of people that are usually hidden from view.
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