Datura has taught hundreds of Hasidic men how to twerk.

BDSM to alot of people can be quite mysterious and odd. But I bet alot of people you know that you’d never guess are into it. No one seems to talk about it in real life. So we interviewed Mistress Datura aka Rubber Creature to get to understand why someone is interested in such an activity and how it may seem harmful and dangerous on the outside but is actually a very intimate and nurturing act.

Could you introduce yourself? 
I’m Mistress Datura. I’m a professional dominatrix in New York City at Pandora’s Box in Chelsea. I’ve been doing this for about four years. My job entails providing fetishistic scenarios and also role play, sadism – anything, really, that someone wants to explore.

When did you realize you wanted to pursue a career as a dominatrix?
I first knew I wanted to pursue this profession when I was maybe 10-years old. I walked into one of my mother’s sessions. She was also a dominatrix when I was a child. I just saw that she was beating a man and it intrigued me and she quickly shooed me out of the room, shut the door, and then after her session she yelled at me for disrespecting her space. But after that, when I realized that you could actually make money doing that, I figured that was going to be what I was going to do.

But I was obsessed with corsets, latex pointe shoes, high heels – all of that from a young age and it just started developing more and more into a fetishistic interest. It happened when I was having a sexual awakening, which is the same for pretty much everyone’s fetishes. For some reason if you just encountered something, and you’re a child starting to discover your sexuality, it kind of sticks with you for the rest of your life. But as I got older, I started researching it more on the internet. I started finding communities. Once I was 18, I signed up for this website called FetLife. And basically it’s just the fetish and BDSM community, like social network thing. From there I started meeting people. I started practicing and when I was around 20-years-old, I finally felt like I was confident enough to pursue it. And since then I’ve been doing it and it’s great.

From a young age. That’s really cool. 
Yeah. I’ve always think quite a domineering personality.

Most adults I know don’t know what they want to do with their lives. What do you want people to know about BDSM? 
Well sadomasochism and BDSM in particular – that those of us who participate in it are not degenerates. We’re not evil people. We’re not out there to actually hurt people. It’s a very mutually beneficial exchange. There’s a lot of talk nowadays that dominatrixes are cruel, one dimensional creatures – and that’s really not the case. Like, I truly care about the people who submit to me and I value that they’re giving me their body and they’re trusting me with the life essentially. I just really wish people would understand that we’re actually nice people and it’s a very normal thing. You would be surprised at how many people are actually into this. A lot of the times they just don’t have access to the communities or know where they can see this out.

I imagine people who are not familiar would have a thousand things in their head of what they think it is, but probably are as far from the truth.
Very far from the truth. It’s more of a therapeutic exchange than anything. I would say most of my clients seek this out as an alternative form of therapy. Many of them have said that it’s been better than traditional therapy. They’re able to examine their actual interests and their psyche a lot better than just talking to someone. Sometimes you have to confront the thing that troubles you the most.

Yexplore traditional hypnotism and through trial and error I figured out what actually works for me. I am trying to pursue more certifications for it because that always looks better and perhaps the experts have something that I don’t know or I can’t access on the Internet.

Do you aim to take this further? Do you want to, like, travel the world? What comes next.
I mean I do travel with this already. I’ve worked all across the US um. I’m going to Berlin in the near future to do this forum. I am probably going to be doing this for the next 10 years or so. But overall it’s the best way for me to actually make money and provide a good life for myself and for the people I care about. So I just want to keep going at it, perfect my craft, keep getting better and then maybe eventually go back to university for computer science or something. Because at a point I think I will need a break from this industry. It’s very emotionally draining sometimes. It’s very unpredictable. Sometimes you make a lot of money, sometimes you don’t make money for weeks and it’s that’s kind of hard to deal with. And then with like current laws toward BDSM it’s just getting more and more dangerous to do any form of sex work because they’re just trying to find any reason to squash our industry – like even strippers aren’t really that safe anymore. So I’m trying to find an exit plan somehow, but I do enjoy this a lot.

Yeah, I agree. So as much as it’s a form of therapy for them, does it affect you and your mental health?

It definitely affects my mental health. It’s almost impossible for it not to. You’re having extremely personal connections with people. You’re doing very emotionally and physically charged things which may bring out emotions within yourself. I’ve had times where I’ve cried in the middle of sessions while my client was also crying too. When you give a very severe keening, making someone bleed brings something out in me where I feel almost bad, but at the same time it’s a nice therapeutic release within me too. And then also, to have like an actual submissive relationship, you must always be in contact with your submissives. You’re talking to them every single day, even if they don’t come in and session. And so sometimes it’s very emotionally draining too because for these people, I am their goddess, like I am everything in their world and that’s a very big responsibility to take on. You never really want to mess that up. So sometimes it just gets very overwhelming for me and I have to take a step back. Because I am human after all, like I’m not a Dom Bot. But when that happens, I usually just take a mental health vacation, shut off my phone and reset and it works.

What’s the most common thing that people come to you for? 

The most common things that people come to me for are rubber fetish, interrogation, mind-control and caning. Those are my specialties by far. Rubber fetish isn’t that popular in the U.S. It’s much more of a European thing, but I’m one of the few dominatrixes in New York that specializes in it. I have a full range of equipment for people. Mind control is my own personal interest, but it’s very popular too. People come in for hypnosis or they also want like CIA style interrogation – mind fucking, brainwashing things. And then caning is just good old corporal punishment and I would say that’s the most popular one by far.

So is there a school that you go to or a place that you take classes to learn equipment and routines? 

There’s not necessarily a school, but there are classes all over New York or all over the world where you can learn how to do these things. But the traditional method is to learn underneath a dominatrix or a domme in general and learn from them.

Because what we are doing is extremely dangerous. When it comes down to it, there’s a lot of cross contamination issues because sometimes people bleed. Also, you have to know the anatomy very well because you could rupture someone’s organs if you whip them in the wrong place. So it’s very important to learn in any way you can, via a class or the traditional method of working underneath someone. I learned personally through the traditional method. My mother was a dominatrix so once I started getting older, she started teaching me more safety techniques and how to just do it in the same manner.

As I got older and started working professionally, I would reach out to dominatrixes that I respected and I would offer it to pay them for their time. I would just come in and watch their sessions. They would give me demonstrations, I would be able to work on the client and then I would just keep building up until I felt comfortable. Part of where I learned how to do this stuff too is I went to university for pre-med. I learned a lot about anatomy and physiology and just like how to not destroy the human body, which I think is very important in this field. There’s a lot of dominatrixes that are nurses, doctors, surgeons.

Are newcomers nervous the first time they come in?

I never want anyone to be ashamed of what they’re interested in. I don’t want them to be afraid to actually try it. I would rather take their hand and guide them through – even if it’s very slowly. The submissive actually holds the most power in our exchanges. While I am the dominant one, when it comes down to it, it’s their needs, their desires, and they always have the ability to say stop. And I think that’s very important. There’s a lot of dominatrixes out there that feel like they are infallible and that they don’t have to actually listen to their submissive. And I feel that’s very detrimental for both parties.

You have to be able to actually listen and be able to react appropriately instead of just being vicious. But my other personal mission is to teach every Hasidic man that comes and sees me to twerk. That’s my number one goal.

When did you adopt that goal?

About two years ago – I’ve probably taught a couple hundred of Hasidic men so far. One day just started with one man who wanted a sissification scenario, which is forced feminization basically. But usually with those kinds of role plays there’s a lot of like dance parties involved. So of course, why not teach them to how to twerk?

Naturally. Would you say there’s a certain type of person that comes to visit you. 

I don’t think there’s necessarily a certain type of person that sees me. There are some cliches like men in extremely high powerful positions such as lawyers, politicians, men of God, whatever. They are always in extremely high stress situations. They have to always be in control. They always have to be dominant. So when they get out of the work mode, they just actually want to submit. They don’t want to actually have to use their mind. They just want someone to tell them what to do. But overall it’s mostly older white men. My clients age from 22 to 85 – the bulk of them are in their forties or fifties. I do have a lot of like trans and non-binary clients too. I have a few women. So it’s all over the place. Some are extremely rich, some are working class who save up.

Do most of your clients give you freedom to do whatever you want or is it usually a regimen?

My clients do not give me the freedom to do whatever I want most of the time. That’s actually a good thing because everyone has their own limits. I like to respect that. I do have a few clients where their only rule is they must be able to walk out of here and I can’t kill them. Anything else goes. They’re really fun. But I also have fun with the people who do have limits too.

Of course like some people will like hand me a literal script that I have to say word for word, but then most of them are just like, okay, here are my interests. Here’s what I don’t like – figure it out. I usually have about five minutes to figure out like a multi hour session.

So doing this for four years, what have you learned about ideas of “normality,” especially within gender norms and gender roles? I assume that you see a lot of things most people don’t – the inner side of people that a lot of people don’t see. What does that have to do with the way people think they are supposed to function in society?

I think that we definitely should not have gender norms anywhere within our society. You would actually be shocked at the amount of people who want to explore their gender presentation. I would say 80% of my clients who come in for forced feminization are trans-women in the closet usually. They’re just like working in finance or they’re lawyers or they’re doctors and they’re like in their fifties so they don’t feel like they’re actually able to explore it. So they come here to be able to have more open minded place.

I’ve had a few clients who have ended up transitioning after seeing me. Um, cause I tried to tell people that it’s actually okay. Of course it’s a very hard thing to do but pursuing your own happiness is most important. But overall I think that society needs to learn that being dominant is not unfeminine and being submissive is not un-masculine. Assigning gender to behaviors and clothing is incredibly…not good at all. Gender in itself is significantly more complex than you can even imagine. I would say probably 60% of my clients do want to explore gender in a different realm or they want to bring it into their daily lives, but they’re just afraid. And it’s sad that society itself isn’t more accepting of it. We’re getting there, but it’s still very difficult for people.

Is this your everyday attire? Or is it for work purposes only.

I don’t get on the subway like this of course because this is a very, very expensive outfit. But I do wear latex in my personal life. I’ll wear like a latex top or when I get off of work sometimes I do put the catsuit on when I get home. There are fetishistic elements in my daily wardrobe. I’m usually wearing a corset because I have to maintain. I think most people on the street can probably tell him I dominatrix even when I’m not working. There’s a fine balance. I wish I could walk around in this, but it’s not really socially acceptable yet.

So say you were walking around in this outfit and someone who’s never seen anything like your outfit before, sees you. What would you want them to know or understand about it?
I think people just don’t realize how nicely latex actually is. It’s a very pleasant material to touch. It’s very comforting in this way. It seems very intimidating at first, but everyone that’s been afraid of it… once I’m like “Just touch my leg, touch my arm!” they figure out, like “oh, like I see the appeal now!” There is a lot of misinformation out there. I don’t think that having a latex fetish – for a fetish in general – is degenerate in any manner. I think it seems very scary from afar, but once you actually become more familiar with it, it’s not that scary. And I think that goes for most things within BDSM.

So you’re saying that you kind of are always in contact with your clients. Have you ever ended up dating one?
No, I would never date one of my clients. I keep a very strict divide between my personal life and my client life. Sometimes my clients do come into my house to clean my house or do my errands, stuff like that. But overall, they know that they will never actually be able to obtain me.

I think that’s the most important thing about being a dominatrix – your clients can never actually obtain you. But I don’t know. I have deep friendships with my clients. Some of my clients are my best friends. Like I wouldn’t mind going on vacations with them or something but it would definitely be separate rooms, situations. I would never actually date a client no matter what case it was.

In the reverse, have any of your close friends or people that you’ve dated ended up wanting a session with you? 
Yes, I would say pretty much the majority of my friends. People who I date can have this for free, essentially. Sometimes I don’t like to do like heavy BDSM in my personal life because I do it here 10 hours a day. It gets very exhausting not being able to like a normal, natural person. Especially because I’m in the queer community, most of my friends are very liberal and very open minded and they’re into this stuff themselves. So I don’t think they would pass up the opportunity. Sometimes I do bring them into my sessions. We have a Vac Ved back here, which is a bed people get into to be completely vacuum sealed off with the exception of a small breathing tube. A lot of my friends want to get sucked up into it. Or sometimes they just come in to help me humiliate one of my clients. They’re all pretty open to it.

What your favorite BDSM activity?
My favorite activity to do would probably be waterboarding. If you’re very careful about it, it’s not that dangerous, but it causes some very deep, intense fears. Even if you are a very seasoned BDSM player, it makes you feel like you’re drowning and it kicks in this primal instinct inside of you that makes you want to like panic and run. It’s very intense. So I like doing that a lot. I’m usually the first time anyone’s ever been waterboarded. My second favorite would definitely be mind control. I like doing hypnosis a lot. I am getting quite good at it at this point and it’s very fun being able to just snap your fingers and someone goes into a trance. You can get them to do whatever you want and then they don’t remember what they did either, which is always fun too.

I’ve always been curious about hypnotism. Would you consider yourself an expert in it? 
I’m not necessarily an expert. I don’t have any certificates, but I have been studying techniques for many years. Even before I was a dominatrix I was very interested in the CIA’s methods for like mind control. So I would explore their route of it. I would explore traditional hypnotism and through trial and error I figured out what actually works for me. I am trying to pursue more certifications for it because that always looks better and perhaps the experts have something that I don’t know or I can’t access on the Internet.

Do you aim to take this further? Do you want to, like, travel the world? What comes next.
I mean I do travel with this already. I’ve worked all across the US um. I’m going to Berlin in the near future to do this forum. I am probably going to be doing this for the next 10 years or so. But overall it’s the best way for me to actually make money and provide a good life for myself and for the people I care about. So I just want to keep going at it, perfect my craft, keep getting better and then maybe eventually go back to university for computer science or something. Because at a point I think I will need a break from this industry. It’s very emotionally draining sometimes. It’s very unpredictable. Sometimes you make a lot of money, sometimes you don’t make money for weeks and it’s that’s kind of hard to deal with. And then with like current laws toward BDSM it’s just getting more and more dangerous to do any form of sex work because they’re just trying to find any reason to squash our industry – like even strippers aren’t really that safe anymore. So I’m trying to find an exit plan somehow, but I do enjoy this a lot.

Check out more of Datura’s Work //
Instagram // @rubbercreature
Website // https://rubbercreature.xyz