ABSTRACT
Sometimes it seems as though the Dominatrix is everywhere. She permeates popular culture and media, brandishing her whip in music videos and finding her way into advertisements for even mundane products like snacks and hair spray. Yet the public maintains a paradoxical relationship with the Dominatrix, despite her ostensible ubiquity. Dominatrices and other BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) practitioners have historically been subject to reproach, stemming from a variety of different sources, including the psychiatric community and the law. While the Dominatrix has been the subject of rebuke and alarm, at the same time she has received relative acceptance from unexpected corners. While the explosive popularity of the Fifty Shades franchise has certainly contributed to the high cultural visibility of BDSM, these practices were already in the spotlight prior to the book's release. In public discourse, the Dominatrix is at once nowhere and everywhere.
