I spent the afternoon in a dominatrix’s dungeon, here’s what she taught me

“It’s compelling to see female authority so blatantly.”

Laura Roscioli is a sex writer based in Melbourne. Her column on Fashion Journal is here to make sex (and the conversations around it) more accessible and open-minded. She believes that the best learnings come from lived experience, and she’s here to share hers — and other people’s — with you. You can follow Laura on Instagram at @lauraroscioli.

It’s a sunny Tuesday in Melbourne and I’m on my way to a session with a dominatrix. As the car pulls up in front of an extremely familiar apartment block, I check her message again. ‘My sub will be in the studio when you arrive, ready to serve’, it read. ‘Call me when you arrive’.

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Dominatrix Vera Beaufort opens the door and greets me with a kiss on the cheek. She’s a ravishing sight, dressed in a tight black dress that falls below her knees, sheer black tights and signature black patent Louboutins with the pointed toe. Her dyed blonde hair is blown out into a soft Marilyn Monroe shape and her make-up is precise without being overdone. She looks like she’s stepped straight out of a Helmut Newton photograph.

“This is Object,” she says, gesturing towards a naked man in a latex hood lying face down on the floor in the corner of the room. “He’s going to be serving us today.”

I’ve long been fascinated by the dynamic between dominatrix and sub, but I’ve never witnessed a private session firsthand before. The visual language of it intrigues me: polished leather, black corsets, the high-fashion cleanliness of it all. The extremity of dominance and submission playing out in such a controlled environment.

But beyond the look of it, I’m interested in what draws people into these spaces in the first place. What is it about these environments that feels so freeing for some and so taboo for others?

Dominatrices occupy a specific place in the cultural imagination. People tend to project a lot onto women who wield power so directly, particularly when sex is involved. Depending on who you ask, a dominatrix is either a symbol of female empowerment or a cautionary tale of female excess.

We’re far more comfortable with female submission than female dominance. Even now, telling someone you’re going to meet a dominatrix tends to provoke a particular response: fascinated discomfort.

Vera speaks about sessions like a director speaks about theatre. There are arcs, tones and escalating tensions. “It’s all part of the choreography,” she tells me. “The anticipation. The not knowing. The waiting.” It occurs to me how much BDSM is about creating atmosphere and tension, the moments in between.

Her space is dressed in deliberate darkness. Whips, floggers and paddles hang neatly against the wall. A spanking bench sits in the centre of the room. Candles burn throughout and jazz hums softly in the background. Floor-to-ceiling charcoal curtains block out any trace of natural light. This is clearly a space for worship. The room feels less dungeon-like than I expected. More cinematic.

We sit down and Vera stomps her heeled foot, which the sub knows means it’s time to serve. He crawls over to us. “Pour Laura and I a drink,” she orders.

His hands and feet are bound together with leather cuffs and silver chains, so he clanks as he crawls between our coups, filling them with fizz. “Don’t spill any,” she says. The table is laid with snacks that Object has bought for us to eat while we taunt him, Vera tells me. Squares of dark Lindt chocolate. Raspberries and strawberries. Crackers and soft cheese. The whole thing is oddly civilised and, dare I say, glamorous.

Later, Vera would tell me that “mundanity isn’t really my favourite place to be,” describing BDSM as a way of accessing something more surreal, more heightened. Watching a naked man in a latex hood carefully pour us drinks with a glint of fear in his eyes, I begin to understand what she means. It’s… invigorating.

“Read out your mantra for today’s session for Laura,” Vera demands. “He’s been ordered to memorise it,” she adds, turning to me.

“Mistress Vera, I place myself in your hands and in service to your guest. I am here at your will. I am here to use as you see fit. Under your grace, always.”

“Good,” Vera says, clapping her hands once. Object immediately crawls back into his face-down position in the corner of the room.

Their dynamic is evident in the way they move through the room. Vera stands tall with a commanding presence, a light taunt in her voice, a polished mean-girl laugh each time he fumbles. And Object, almost entirely silent, moves only when instructed, even while fucking himself with a bright pink dildo.

Oddly, I feel comfortable in the space. Vera moves between different pieces of equipment, constantly checking in on his limits. She starts with a whip, then a paddle, before asking me to choose something. I reach for a bright red flogger because it matches my top, but it proves too soft for Object’s pain threshold.

As I watch her circle his body, first on the spanking bench and then against the wall, it feels almost like watching a dance. Or a mating ritual. The cape and the bull. The lioness and its prey. She lifts her arm to whip his naked body with a technique that is at once effective, controlled and careful, her own body moving through sleek, regal lines like an expensive sports car taking sharp corners.

It’s mesmerising to watch. She reminds me of a painter, letting instinct and the mood of the day move through her like improvisation, each strike landing with the confidence of someone making art in real time.

She talks to me throughout. We chat, we giggle. I ask questions about what she’s doing. What’s that called? Do you have a favourite piece of equipment? And it all feels decidedly normal. Like two friends catching up over drinks.

What strikes me most watching her work is how natural she seems at it. I try to imagine myself in her position. Whether I could ever command a room with this much conviction. Whether I could look another person in the eye and instruct them to surrender so completely. I can’t deny that part of me really enjoys it, I can feel my cheeks flush each time she laughs at her sub and makes knowing eye contact with me. It feels good to hold power over people, over men. But I suspect I’d need to step into a character in order to exercise it so consistently.

With Vera, there’s no sense of performance in the way I had perhaps unconsciously expected. No sudden slipping into character. Her humour still comes through. Her softness does too. The session doesn’t feel like watching somebody become a dominatrix, but more like watching someone access a part of themselves that already exists.

“I think that’s what surprises people,” Vera tells me. “They think you disconnect from who you are and step into another world. But for me, it’s not a role at all. It’s some innate part of myself that I’m fulfilling.”

It’s compelling to see female authority so blatantly. Exercised not in the diluted, socially-acceptable way, but directly. Physically. Psychologically. Vera says she’s always been naturally drawn towards leadership and guidance, “married with a pretty heavy form of sadism,” she laughs. But she also believes BDSM requires a level of emotional intelligence many people underestimate.

“You have to really understand emotions, reactions, how to read a person, to have this kind of exchange,” she says. “I think women are generally more emotionally intelligent than men.”

And there is a lot of emotional intelligence involved in this exchange. Before every strike, Vera checks in on limits, reactions and body language. Throughout the session, she’s constantly calibrating, reading him, adjusting. It feels far less chaotic than many heterosexual dynamics I’ve witnessed outside of BDSM spaces. More clear, communicative and intentional.

For Vera, the work is something she also needs. “Being able to drop into the surreal every couple of days is important for me. It’s not just work. It fuels a part of my own psychology too.”

And yet, beneath the glamour, there’s something surprisingly sincere about it. The dynamics may be heightened, stylised, aestheticised almost to a theatrical point, but the desires underneath them feel undeniably human. To surrender, to control. To be catered to completely.

Keep up with Vera here.