Famously establishing and running the Den Of Iniquity dungeon in New York thirty-five years in the business as of this year, Mistress Tara is an iconic domme who has seen, and pretty much done, it all. Author, filmmaker, head mistress, teacher, dungeon owner, activist, here is a lady who ran her pro domme business bio-coastal for a decade, owned and ran multiple dungeons, established a corporate model to her business and still sessions today.
Her honest assessment of where the state of domination is presently and her experienced take on the business is remarkable…and, oh so entertaining.
In September you will have been working in the scene for thirty-five years, might we assume you have seen some changes in that time?
Certainly. I mean, fetishes have always been with us, of course, Or something like a sudden interest in rubber comes along because rubber clothing suddenly becomes popular. But I notice that kinks trend.
Yes, trend, that’s a great word to use!
Yes, well they trend according to what to what’s going on in society, social and political things that people are living through, what might make them shameful, fearful or traumatized.
When I began it was what would call garden-variety kinks, cross dressing, femdom stuff. In the 90s heavy medical, cutting, blood-sports, became popular, as people rebelled from wearing dental damns, body condoms; the AIDS scare running through the straight male community made people want to repudiate toxic liquids. And now chastity and cuckolding are very popular due to the fact that men can pretty much have sex in any way they want it so eroticizing not having sex is a trending kink.
And speaking of the way things are now for you?
I have plenty of regulars I see ever since I got back to session-ing, and I am happy to session, I always have loved playing and lots of the men I used to see say they have missed me, which has been magical, actually. But in too many cases these days I have to tell you some of my clients are disconnected, they are not present with me. Because of the way we react to the world these days our noses in our phones, online or dealing in our social media—I have found lots of my clients are in their heads in a session. They are more or less dealing with me like I’m a non-playable character in a video game.
From teaching you went back to sessions as you say, and you have survived the scene in a successful way for nearly four decades. Do you find that generally dommes go gentle into ‘that good night,’ or is it a tough transition for lots of the women you mentored or have known through the years?
I have an interesting perspective on that, I think. In two-thousand-fourteen, my LA dungeon was still open so we decided to have this big 20th anniversary party and to do it on both coasts because we knew so many people had been involved in New York and we didn’t want to leave anybody out. So, we had this big party, and it was much more emotional than I ever thought it would be. I just thought I was throwing this party, but something that speaks to a testament to the space we created was we had like over two hundred alumni come. And they were split fifty-fifty in that half of them are still working and successful pro dommes and the other half are enjoying successful vanilla careers.
Whenever you’ve owned a sex-oriented business, you wonder ‘Was this a positive experience for people? Was anyone exploited?’ But seeing everybody and seeing how well they were all doing and how happy they were to see each other again; I know that it had all been a positive experience. I didn’t find anyone who got into drugs. Nothing negative.
Well, that has got to say something also about you, you mentored and taught a good percentage of those ladies, you ran the houses.
Well, yes, I guess out of the many I have taught and mentored, they shared my values. I ran a really strict house. And before I took people on as apprentices, I’d watch them in class. It was, and is still really important to me that if I mentor someone that they are a good and decent person. They have to have a real love of the profession. I’m gonna give a lady some powerful skills, skills that you need to use for good, not evil.
Find Mistress Tara Indiana using her skills for good (and naughty) purposes below:
Dominatrix Class – Sex Educator (theartoffemaledomination.com)
Dominatrixes Against Donald | Facebook
Restricted profile • Instagram
(4) Tara Indiana (@TaraIndiana) / X (twitter.com)
