I got an email from some unknown guy today, with a URL in it. The sender wrote, (sic)

will U please treet me lik this?

Now, I hate one-line emails anyway. If you're going to email me – and you want an answer - do it in a proper letter form and for god's sake, sign a name to it. It doesn't have to be your real name, but give me something to address you by.

So there's no way I'm going to bother with someone who has managed to cram that many mistakes into just seven simple words. But I was mildly curious about the link, so I went and looked at the page.

It's an ad for a Mistress who does phone dominance. And to say that her style is rather…different from mine - well, it's like saying that rapper Lil' Kim has a rather different musical style than, say, Norah Jones.

This is a clip from the page…

"Prepare to be brainwashed and conditioned to the point that your every move and every decision requires MY APPROVAL. Once I get in your head, there is no escape from the evil that is Mistress (name removed). Without Me, you are nothing! At least giving Me every dollar you have will give your life SOME meaning. you're a worthless LOSER, a sick perverted PIG and I plan to exploit your weaknesses to get what I WANT. If you have to work as a fry boy at a burger joint for a second job then you WILL if that's what I command. I CARE ABOUT GETTING ALL YOUR MONEY, I DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU OR YOUR FAMILY!"

This certainly isn't the first time I've seen this kind of ad copy for dominatrixes. There must be a market for this attitude, or else they wouldn't be doing it. (The sender of this particular email does not seem to me like a client with the potential to be terribly lucrative, but hey, maybe I'm being a snob.)

And doing phone stuff is obviously different than in-person sessions. I can see where you'd have to amp up the attitude a bit.

But….Eeuuw. When I read that, I feel like I image vanilla people feel when they look at any BDSM text or imagery. It just seems so profoundly negative to me. I could not do a scene where I was really throwing that kind of energy at someone. I'm not that good an actress, and if there was ever someone I really felt that way about, I would not see him as a client. To me, if I truly had the attitude towards my clients that's portrayed in the ad copy above, I wouldn't feel any better about myself than I did about them. How could I?

I've done scenes - at the client's request - where I pretended to be angry, although I suspect I wouldn't always win an Oscar for my performance. What works best for me is if my client and I structure the role-play around something I can tap into some genuine personal anger about. One of my favorites: The strict Human Resources Director dealing with a male employee who's been sexually harassing his female co-workers. Even though I know it's a game, the concept of sexual harassment pisses me off, and I can focus that generalized outrage onto this nasty boy in front of me who's been groping his unwilling cubicle-mate.

By that logic, if you really wanted me to get pissed, I suppose wearing a John Ashcroft mask during the scene would be the way to go.

So, the "righteous indignation" style of anger? Mmm, yeah, I can get there, if someone asks. But sheer vitriolic acid? Nope.

Verbal humiliation play certainly has its place in BDSM…How many times have I called some bent-over boy a "dirty little slut" and watched him wriggle in mingled embarrassment and excitement? But just as there are physical lines you don't cross in BDSM, I think there are mental and emotional lines that shouldn't be crossed, too.