Interview With Lexia Talionis
by Cary
How did you become interested in fetish/BDSM?
I was that weird little girl who opened up her My Little Pony just to see what was on the inside. Ken was by far never good enough for my Barbie. Barbie always showed some cleavage but never put out. Ken was usually forced to clean the My Little Pony castle even when he didn't feel like it because Barbie enforced it.
Mom was a big influence, too. My mother was a naturally strong, smart, beautiful, and dominant woman who never lost sight of what she wanted out of life. Her character was a real rarity seeing that she grew up in the south where men generally were the dominants and women were bare foot and pregnant. I remember when I was in junior high, and sometimes I'd walk to her office after school let out. She'd be sitting at her desk working in a room full of men, but she'd be running the show and everyone in the room respected her. You just didn’t fuck with my Mama.
In later years, I became a model and musician revolving mostly around fetish clothing and underground music. My lyrics spoke of sadomasochism, slavery, ownership, dominance and the like while in my personal relationship, I was the sadomasochist (not necessarily dominant, switch, or submissive), but I could never find what I wanted from my lover.
And how did you transition from an interest to it being a profession?
I dominated entire audiences long before I dominated men in a commercial dungeon; domineering lyrics, clothing, and stage shows came before boot licking and whipping. I moved to New York and went to work at a commercial house of domination and was running the place within six months. Being a professional Dominatrix simply became another creative outlet for me - photographing the ladies in their beautiful outfits, writing profiles, throwing parties and hosting fetish events, coming up with different role play scenarios and, um, different ways to torture people in session. I was one of the few people in the world who could wake up and go to work loving my job. My job appealed to my creative, professional, and sadistic sides, though I must say there's a dramatic difference between my relationships with my clients and the person I love and live with every day of my life.
You work on both sides of the camera, how does your photography influence your modeling and vise versa?
I know better than anyone how I want the world to see me. As an artist, self expression is, of course, the most important thing. People appreciated my self portraits, my album covers, my graphic design, and so I ended up being hired as a photographer on many occasions. I loved photographing as much as I loved modeling, so I stuck with it. My heavy influences would be Chad Michael Ward, Adrian Buckmaster, & Lithium Picnic (I'm not worthy!).
Do you enjoy fetishism/BDSM play in your personal life, and if so what are you into?
As I have stated on my FetLife page, "On the night of May 30th, the last Friday of the month, I met Anthony at Paradise Lost. We have been inseparable since. I have the type of relationship with Anthony that most people day dream of having and yet never get to experience. If I could live and die with anyone, it would be him. I am an extremely dominant woman who can’t help but submit to him; and it’s not a typical submission that merely includes discipline and sadomasochism. I hand over my heart on a silver platter, my soul slithers into a glass bottle and I hand it to him, my mind turns inside out and is overtaken. He takes me to beautiful places and when I return from them, I am in his arms or at his feet where I truly love to be. Anthony and I belong to one another and it’s a beautiful thing that most people envy. After all, to see two dominant people together is a rarity. My x-boyfriend used to tell me, “This is not something you do to someone you love”, but oh contraire, this is defiantly something you do to someone you love."
Are there any fetishes that you don't find appealing?
Well, we all have fetishes we don't find appealing; we all have our preferences. Of course I have completely different limits with clients than I do in my personal relationship. I know everyone's waiting for me to specify the fetishes, but I'm not going to. I like my private life private.
Do you think fetishism and sex and intrinsically connected, or can they be separate?
I am very lucky to have the relationship I have with my boyfriend. For us, we can act on our fetishes and not have sex, or vise versa, or we could do both (as if indeed they were intrinsically connected). I have, however, known people who can't for the life of them have sex unless they start out in leather or first get their S&M on.
In a commercial setting, however, things are totally different. When I'm dominating a client, I'm not turned on, but I'm happy. A funny analogy being the same kind of strange joy I got from looking inside of My Little Pony. In my personal relationship, I am both immensely turned on and happy.
You're also very involved in music, how did that come about?
I've been singing and dancing since I was old enough to walk and talk. I am very blessed in that I have the talents I have and the ability to express myself in the many different ways that I do. I've done a lot of moving around in my lifetime and with each move, there are limitations on my creative outlets and therefore my creativity. For example, when I moved to New York, I left my recording studio, my band mates, and my music business. So in New York it is very important that I am able to express myself through sessions, modeling, photography, videography, and fetish performances. Otherwise, I believe my head will explode.
How do you manage to have time and energy to pursue all these different interests?
I don't. A lot of the time I overwhelm myself. I think it's the Libra in me - biting off more than I can chew. But there's never a dull moment and that's how I prefer things be. I live with a very stable yet energetic Capricorn - he has enough energy for both of us - so things work out in the end.
See more of Lexia Talionis at:
http://www.lexiatalionis.com
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