Whip Smart: The True Story of a Secret Life

Whip Smart is one of the best debut offerings I've read in some time. Melissa Febos has very cleverly, and effectively, used the narratives of her drug addiction/recovery and her experience as a professional dominatrix to write a revealing and moving memoir of self-discovery. She juxtaposes the extreme emotional neediness of her clients (including graphic descriptions of her sessions) with her own apparent emotional detachment, as we are led to believe at first that she is doing this work "just for the money." The narrative is structured so that the entire first half of the book is designed to construct a duality between Ms. Febos (working under the pseudonym "Justine"), on the one hand, and her clients, sex-worker colleagues and drug addicts, on the other hand. Not only do her vivid anecdotes -- always emphasizing her anthropology-student / interloper status -- illustrate this, but so too does she achieve this through her use of over-intellectualized and complex prose (she's really saying: "I don't belong here, I'm not one of them, and I can prove it by showing you how smart I am!").But Ms. Febos is also dropping clues along the way that all is not as it seems and she is in fact "one of them," and in spades. Of course, the sub rosa world of S&M -- where clients sneak to her sessions to be secretly humiliated between coffee and lunch -- is the perfect backdrop for the author's self-revelation. She in fact becomes increasingly cognizant of the façade she has created for the purpose of isolating her own emotional neediness -- a neediness that is more deeply buried and more powerful than that of her submissive clients. It becomes apparent as the memoir progresses that she is not at all in the dungeon "just for the money": in fact, she clearly illustrates that the addiction to her work is more powerful than the addiction to her heroin and cocaine. As she first experiments with role-reversal and assumes a submissive position herself with client "Larry," and then initially dates and next develops deep relationships with other selected clients (e.g., "Jacob"), she increasingly clearly sees and acknowledges her own emotions (in fact, the reconstruction of the dialogue with her psychologist is some of the most moving in the book). She eventually even empathizes with the psychological needs of her clients -- substituting understanding for her initial contempt -- and realizes the extent of her own former emotional denial and the psychological payoff that the work in the dungeon provided her. As she lets us in on her emotional development, the prose itself becomes punchier and more direct, with fewer frills and much less opacity, and the reader shifts from being a voyeur at the freak show to rooting for the narrator and the repair of her psyche and her life.This is a work of heartfelt emotional honesty and integrity, and a sophisticated memoir, and it is well worth the time to share Ms. Febos's journey of self-discovery.

I have the Kindle edition of this book, which is not a bad idea if you're bashful about reading something with whips on the cover. But hopefully, you're not too squeamish, because this book holds nothing back. While I have always been curious about the life of a professional dominatrix, this book was the first time I ever learned about the realities. It is a much tougher job than it sounds like. I loved reading about Melissa's transformation in Justine, and her reflections - academic and objective, or personal - on this lifestyle. I was also impressed over time with her kindness to these people, her clients. She had a sensitivity to them even though their proclivities would be considered very strange by your average person's standards.The most difficult parts to read were about her addiction to drugs. I became very worried about the outcome, until I realized that not only did I have half the book left to read, but the author was clearly still alive. I can't imagine what it feels like to be an addict, but I felt dragged along on this darker part of the journey. It is pretty amazing when anyone can overcome that. It must be noted that drugs and domination don't go hand in hand. In fact, I'd imagine it could sometimes be difficult to do one's job safely if too many drugs were involved. And no, I didn't want to read about addiction, as some other reviewers wrote. But it was part of her life and experience - it could hardly be left out and still tell her story.Melissa is a very interesting person. I related to many of her emotions and feelings, like the compulsion to be desired, or wanting to be open to try anything once (great for a writer), for example, or the way she enjoyed impressing people at parties. Okay, maybe everyone likes to impress people at parties! At any rate, I identified with her quite a bit even though the course of her life was extremely different from my own. I know some people felt that some of her statements came across as bragging, but I really didn't notice those parts. I didn't think much about her GPA other than understanding how hard it is to balance many different lives, and still do well in school. Unlike Melissa, I actually have to work my butt off at school, though I had classmates that could write the paper the night before without doing any research. But, like Melissa, I am balancing a number of different lives on top of going to school (although mine aren't nearly as exciting - project manager, mother, and dancer), and I can appreciate it. I know what it's like to be studying, doing reading for school, while multi-tasking at another job. Overall, she may not have been the most likable person, but she came across as a real person - infinitely relate-able in her flaws and charms. It was a huge relief to me when she really gets it sorted out in the end. It's great when a memoir, a true story, can have a happy ending.As for the book, it really reads well. It's difficult to put down, and doesn't get boring. I found the situations depicted in here absolutely fascinating. But, again, one can't be squeamish. I know I am a bit squeamish myself, well, let's just say I won't forget some of the things I read here and I think I'd pick a different career for myself. As she points out in the book, you have to have a certain level of comfort with the human body, much like a doctor or nurse. I don't want to be a doctor or a nurse either. Nevertheless, this book is much more interesting than a book about doctors or nurses. It also treats the subject with humor, and can be downright funny, but also sometimes sad, or even sensual. I just don't feel I can do it justice in this review. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

J'aime bcp.

I thought it was a brilliant book, well written and showed the industry through a different light. It was well balanced between work life and personal life, and would appeal to a woman reader.

The New York real estate market stamps its imprint on the city's BDSM dungeons. It is a rare individual dominatrix who can afford to set up her own independent dungeon in Manhattan. Yet there are plenty of clients on the doorstep, men with money seeking a quick high or instant release. And so a small industry of high-class multi-mistress dungeons has sprung up downtown in high-rise blocks alongside offices and commercial premises. These are the famous New York names of BDSM: Pandora's Box (as featured in Nick Broomfield's film Fetishes); Mistress Elizabeth's; Ball and Chain; Den of Iniquity; Rapture; Arena; and the anonymous dungeon that is at the heart of the memoirs of one-time pro-domme Melissa Febos.Melissa's book is a sort of coming of age story. A young woman with a soul in turmoil, wrestling with the engulfing desires of drugs and sex, and drawn into the business of sexual domination for reasons that even she struggles to understand. It is a world that fascinates and repels her at the same time. She works for three years in a palatial dungeon that caters to the well-heeled men of Manhattan, a world where the Dominatrix is employed as labour power, controlled by the dungeon management and controlled by the clients. Dommes like Melissa are hired through small ads in the Village Voice or other New York papers and magazines and work for an absentee boss and her sleazy officious agent under a regime of strict rules, fines, surprise visits, and non-stop surveillance by ubiquitous CCTV cameras. Unpaid hours sitting around waiting for appointments to come in are punctuated by periodic 'meat markets', competitive line-ups 'like pageant contests' where the girls compete with each other to be picked by clients ten times or more a day.This is the world Melissa stepped into at the turn of the millennium as a 21-year old college senior with standout grades, looking for money to finance her studies and her drug habit, and captivated by the dark allure of sexual taboos. She told herself it was 'curiosity and 'social tourism', and she knew almost nothing about what she was getting into. But the job made her thrill to her own wildness. She was the possessor of a magic secret that put her above others around her. And she was holding down the best paid acting job in town! Heroin killed the daily stream of fear and cocaine brought a rush that raised her above the grim predictability of the sessions. She became an edgy celebrity in her social circles turning heads with the merest mention of her occupation. And she had cash burning holes in her pockets. It was a lifestyle of cabs to everywhere, fashion, restaurants, beauticians, and a drug habit that could eat up more in a night than she earned from her sessions in a day.For me, the book was a vivid picture of a corner of a unique corner of the BDSM world and a fascinating unravelling of Melissa's illusions and disillusions. (There is no space here to go into these things but you can read more in the longer review on my blog colorsofpassion.net). Melissa does not dodge her confusions and failings. She is not the person that she thought she was and the dungeon and the drugs finally bring this home to her. In the end there is a rather too neat redemption: she gets off drugs, meets Mr. Right, leaves the dungeon and starts a writing career. But on the way a lot of the pain and muddle is conveyed, and although her self-analysis is perhaps too simplistic, her descriptions of the ups and downs along the way is telling and often gruelling.

Great read.

One of the more intelligent books in the tell-it-all genre, and the sections on bdsm scenes are detailed and enjoyably rendered. I could have done without the soul searching about occasional drug use and existential angst.