What Lies Beneath The Pain Game
Interview With Cleo Dubois and Her Bottom, Lori

By Marianne Messina
MHDEKM@aol.com

First published in scarletletters on 11/10/2000
http://www.scarletletters.com/current/index.html

Sadomasochism offers a haven for tragic themes and epic struggles. The complexity of its interactions, even limited to the viewpoints of one sadist and one masochist, can be mind-boggling, touching on anything from chivalric trust to spiritual healing.

San Francisco Bay area S/M educator and long-time sadist Cleo Dubois’ classic video The Pain Game shows Ms. Dubois at work, topping in two extremely intense S/M scenes. Since these scenes are real and unrehearsed, the responses raw and not acted, this window on intimate interaction between sadist and masochist inspires questions about what the experience brings to each participant. I had a chance to put some of these questions to Ms. Dubois and a bottom named Lori, who, in the privacy of Ms. Dubois’ dungeon, has played out scenes like the powerful “bird/zipper” scene from The Pain Game. When I first thought of tragedy in S/M, I was reminded of a story Ms. Dubois (who often works with couples) once told about a wife so revolted by her husband’s fantasy that she refused to help him realize it. Lack of compatibility can clearly be a tragic element in relationships.

“I don’t think it is crucial for partners to be truly compatible in their desires,” Ms. Dubois reported. “There are other people to connect with and share certain fantasy realities with. But the relationship itself has to be able to support that kind of openness.” On the other hand, Lori adds, “I think acceptance is more key than anything else. If the partner does feel repulsed, left out, or inadequate, I see a great danger of other channels starting to be blocked. Or if one partner feels too much shame to let the other know, hidden desires can begin to block the open sharing and intimacy which I associate with a true partnership.” English literature’s quintessential romantic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, seems to concur: at the heart of tragedy is lack of communication.

“Honesty and gentleness with one’s partner are of the utmost importance,” Ms. Dubois suggests. “So are setting clear boundaries and keeping communication open. Not all can do that. Many choose not to open that closet door to their intimate fantasies. I find that really sad.  Since men are the majority of clients of professional dominants, I encourage them to come out to their mates slowly. I give them tools, proper books, etc. Many do not want to try. They’re too afraid of being judged and rejected -- even for craving a simple spanking or four-point restraint. What I do find is that sharing can and will lead to a greater intimacy.”

When you speak to players about the rewards of S/M play, you get responses that focus on the expansive nature of the experience: it’s an opening process, which can lead to a sense of freedom or even growth. “The healing and growth that I have experienced has to do with stretching aspects of myself and discovering new ones,” says Lori. Like Creed, the beautiful blond bottom in The Pain Game video, Lori has been both Top and bottom, controller and receiver. “I can experience and act from a place of my own power in a more expanded and comfortable way in having embraced my ‘Top energy’ side. The bottom side has softened my protective shield. I am more willing to be vulnerable and open to my experience in ways that I was not before. I am more able to take in experiences, both positive and negative, and channel them through me; whereas, before, I believe I was more apt to battle and wrestle them with my brain.”

In The Pain Game, Ms. Dubois attaches two rows of feathers to Creed’s back by means of clothespins, and when the two rows are in place, they present the visual effect of wings. Ms. Dubois considers this shamanic “bird scene” one of her favorites and performs it often, fondly referring to the bottom as “my bird.” Lori has also been Ms. Dubois’ bird, but she calls the scene a “zipper scene” because the feathered rows are ultimately pulled off in a single motion like pulling a zipper.

“The build-up that started with applying the clothespins,” Lori reports, “started me going into a trance type of state. With the release of the zippers, I experienced something like an explosion of fire, then waves of physical feeling, emotional feeling, and euphoria. Afterwards, there was an experience of floating, not so much in a soft way, but a soaring kind of high. In part, there are the physiological and spiritual components, which have to do with the opening of trust and channels of energy between Top and bottom, and with the entering of this trusting and open space within myself. There is the confrontation of fear within myself, and the conquering of the fear -- fear of pain, fear that I will not be able to handle what is being done, fear of disappointing. And with the conquering of this, there is the elation of letting go.”

Like Lori, Ms. Dubois is also familiar with both sides of power exchange. In her first bottoming experience, Ms. Dubois was asked to kneel and hold two swords for as long as she could. “When my arms could not handle them any more, I was ready to submit, to surrender. And there was no shame. Since, from my teens, I was always in charge, this was a great relief, a new feeling I so much needed -- consensual expression of S/M also became the key to letting go of old pains.”

Ms. Dubois has spent time in Malaysia studying body rituals that involve extreme piercing, often fastening objects directly to the skin. “I watched entire families support their sons and daughters as the young people offered their bodies to the ritual. When I returned to the U.S. , and with the intent of healing, I danced with bells, fruits, or balls sewn on my skin or I pulled against hooks pierced through the skin of my upper chest -- the heart Chakra -- centering on the sensations and letting them take me where I needed to go.” For her, this space is “a place of stillness where I am bigger than my everyday reality. Burdens of my inner busy mind stop. Beauty just is, and there’s a feeling of oneness with life.”

Having looked at these primal traditions, Ms. Dubois sees a much deeper significance in S/M practice than do many who might be called professional dommes. “Vision questing,” as Ms. Dubois thinks of it, “where mind and body get to surrender, is often my intent when I do body rituals (in which I am the Top and the bottom), like in the ball dance. If I am granted to open up to the powers that be, I am grateful for the experience. In the zipper scenes, the image that came to my mind has to do with Kali -- the destructive energy that is also loving -- and the removal of the ‘skin’ as a necessary part of growth and development.”

The bird/zipper scene from The Pain Game, then, has little in common with the traditional S/M video. “It brings up more of a primal sense or a primary sense of self, a stripping away of outer convention to a more elemental, exposed, and natural self.” It is hard for the uninitiated to think of pain, from which we shrink in normal life, in terms of an opening or freeing experience. A good part of this is due to the way pain and dominance are often connected to a certain “meanness of spirit.” So it’s important to see physical pain and emotional pain as existing on independent platforms, or coming from different places. It’s for this reason that the Top’s intent and the bottom’s willingness differentiate S/M from “real life” situations, and the mutually negotiated agreement between Top and bottom can cause a reversal.

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Cléo Dubois is a renowned BDSM educator, ritualist, Domina, community player and kinky educational video maker. Her Academy of S/M Arts focuses on teaching bondage and S/M to couples and  Dominants in the privacy of her dungeon and in seminars held at leather venues  and leather conferences.. She has been published in Different Loving, Random House, 1993, Bitch Goddess by Pat Califia, Greenery Press, 1997, Skin Two, Sex Tips and Tales from Women Who Dare by Jo-Anne Baker, 2001. She continues contributing to alternative and on-line publications. Her first docu/play film The Pain Game screened at the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2001, the N.Y. S/M film Festival also in Paris , Amsterdam and Berlin . It received an award from the society for the Scientific Study of sexuality.  Her second video, Tie me Up!, has gotten enthusiastic reviews in Skin Two, On Our Backs, Blowfish and elsewhere. Both films are being noted for their authenticity and for their ability to capture the energy, spirituality and joy of SM.

Ms Dubois in collaboration with Sybil Holiday will offer in San Francisco the second series of EROTIC DOMINANCE INTENSIVES FOR WOMEN. These comprehensive intimate four day courses- limited to 8 students - develop play skills & personal empowerment. August 7-10, 2003 (Players course); October 2-5, 2003 (Professional course) For more information visit her new  website  www.sm-arts.com

CONTACT INFORMATION

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts

http://www.cleodubois.com 

Tel:(650)322-0124

Cleo@cleodubois 

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Copyright 2003

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