Lady with a Whip: History of the Dominatrix (Part I)

Picture a Dominatrix—what comes to mind? A leather-clad Betty Page with her iconic bangs? A strict governess brandishing a riding crop? How about an ancient Mesopotamian goddess carrying a cornucopia of flowers and fruits? Perhaps a woman in a toga adorned with black wings and a whip? The Dominatrix is a polarizing figure, inspiring fantasy, lust, excitement, fear, and ridicule. She exists on the frontier of sexual expression today in AI companions (Part I, Part II) and augmented reality, but she has been with humanity since antiquity. What about this archetype continues to inspire both worship and revulsion? 

Dominatrix expert Aanis O. Nomis muses on the social function of the Dominatrix in The History & Arts of The Dominatrix: “The long history of the Dominatrix suggests that there is something very important, and necessary, to her role in society.”  What purpose does she serve? To understand her allure, we must go back to her origins in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia and follow her evolution through history. 

Antiquity: The Dominatrix as Ancient Goddess

Mesopotamia

The year is between 2285-2250 BCE in what is now modern day Iraq. Enheduana, daughter of King Sargon, is the High Priestess of the goddess Inana.  “Inana is the single most complex and compelling goddess of the ancient world…she was the patron deity of war, sex, change, and destruction. She was said to break every rule and flout every norm”, writes Sophus Helle in his book Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World's First Author. 

Nomis writes that out of this period, the world’s first writing emerged along with incredible architectural achievements. “Most people are, however, unaware that these ‘hallmarks’ of civilisation’ developed from a Goddess-held area—a Goddess whose power was sexual. It is attributable to the conservative ‘leftovers’ of Victorian ideology and the clash of religious values in modern religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) that this story is not well known or told.”

Inana was both loved and feared. Enheduana’s hymns to Inana offered both praise and petition to the volatile goddess for blessing and protection:

To destroy and
To create, to plant
And to pluck out
Are yours, Inana.
To turn men into
women, to turn
women into men
are yours Inana.
[...]
To step, to stride,
To strive, to arrive
Are yours, Inana.
To turn brutes
Into weaklings
And to make the 
powerful puny
Are yours, Inana.
To reverse peaks
And plains, to raise 
Up and to reduce
Are yours, Inana.
To assign and allot
The crown, throne,
And staff of kings
Are yours, Inana.

(ll. 119-21, 139-42)

As mentioned in the hymn, Inana had the power to transform men into women, and women into men. Nomis observes: 

The transformation of gender is very interesting, as modern-day Dominatrices also engage in practices of ‘forced feminisation’, ‘sissy training’, and other play around ‘gendering’. These often take place in feminine ‘boudoir’ space – equipped with wigs, make-up, frilly and ‘slutty’ female clothing, jewelry, hosiery, high heels and boots. The Dominatrix offers a ‘safe place’ with an open mind and heart that welcomes all gender identities.

In addition to the hymn collection, another artifact of Inana’s period of dominance is the incredible Mask of Warka, the first life-sized sculpture of a human face ever found. It features a female marble head believed to be Inana. The face is beautiful and stern, fearsome and beautiful. 

Another remarkable artifact is the Queen of the Night relief (1800-1750 BCE), assumed to be Inana / Ishtar. Her beautification was a sacred process. This was signified in the names of her kohl eye make-up and jewelry, both suggesting that to be “beautiful and adorn oneself was to take up sacred erotic power.”

Sparta & Pompeii

Beyond the Fertile Crescent, the Dominatrix archetype was found in Sparta in the form of Artemis Orthia. She was revered as goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, and childbirth.  “Diamastigosis, or flagellation, was performed on the young men who gathered in the temple of the goddess. Greek historian Xenophon describes the rite as a competition in which young men tried to steal cheese from the temple altar, followed by a whipping administered by the elders. The intention was “to show thereby that by enduring pain for a short time one may win lasting fame and felicity. It is shown herein that where there is need of swiftness, the slothful, as usual, gets little profit and many troubles” (Temple of Artemis Orthia, Sparta, University of Warwick)  Other rites included dancing. Young men were rewarded with a sickle, signifying a fertile harvest. 

In the ruins of Pompeii, a “Whipstress” was found preserved on a fresco in the Villa of Mysteries. Nomis observes: “The fresco wall panels around the room of a private villa seem to present the initiation of a young woman into the ‘Mysteries’. During the rituals she receives pain at the hand of a Whipstress, who wears a magnificent set of wings and is poised to bring down a powerful stroke”. Though the exact significance of the whipping is unclear, scholar Sean Bourque proposes the “whipping scene could also be a metaphor for the two ‘faces’ of Dionysus, the woman being painfully whipped being the painful aspect through which the initiate achieves liberation and dances. This could be interpreted as the “price to pay” to fulfill the initiation, the cost being rather unpleasant in comparison to the later achieved ecstatic state” (The Women of the Villa of Mysteries (Pompeii), Women in Antiquity An Online Resource for the Study of Women in the Ancient World).

The Lady with a Whip Goes Underground

Monotheistic, patriarchal religions went on to violently suppress this goddess veneration. As private property came to be passed through male familial lines, confidence in a child’s paternity became paramount. This was enforced through female subservience and chastity. Despite this repression, the need to worship and serve a dominant woman was not extinguished, it went underground. Ritualized pain, service, and gender play in veneration of a dominant woman continued to exist, just as it exists today in many of the common practices of modern dominatrixes. It again suggests that there is something enduring about their allure that transcends time and culture.

In the next part of this series, the exploration of the Dominatrix archetype will continue from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Written by Tessa Tate.

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