Mistress Raven
⚡ ALL INFORMATION CLICK HERE 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻
Mistress Raven
Pandora's Box New York City, 1995. Mistress Raven directs a staff of 14 at Pandora's Box , a 4,000-square-foot, high-class Manhattan S&M club that bills itself as the "Disneyland of Domination."
Ready for Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
I came off 18th Street, went up the elevator and entered. It was like a film set or backstage at a theatre. I was stunned by the sense of performance and the level at which the interiors had been constructed, how the walls were painted, and how each room had its own identity — the Versailles room, the medical room, the dungeon. I was fascinated by the ways in which the mistresses chose their clients and the clients chose their mistresses. - S.M.
Sketch of Floor Plan at Pandora's Box, 1995
Asphyxiation by boot, The Versailles Room.
Mistress Natasha's Rules I, The Versailles Room.
Over many years I had been looking at enforced violence and the corresponding trauma. At Pandora’s Box I was witnessing the individual’s choice to participate in a violent act. It represented play in a controlled setting where the man could say, ’Mercy mistress’, and it stopped. This was the very opposite of what happens in interrogation cells. I have seen those spaces. These pictures were ten years before Abu Ghraib. - S.M.
Mistress Catherine after the Whipping I, The Versailles Room.
Mistress Delilah's Tender Touch II, The Role Play Room.
Whipping of Maria I, The Role Play Room.
Entombed by Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
Despite the sense of being on the edge, Pandora’s Box was still a safe confined space and I knew the boundaries. The underground slave culture is amorphous and terrifyingly real. Its current could drag you under. There is a subtle process here: you allow yourself to give in and then you have to pull out. - S.M.
Asphyxiation by Mistress Beatrice III, the Medical Room.
The School Room, Ravenswood Academy.
A letter to Goddess Raven from a client
I came off 18th Street, went up the elevator and entered. It was like a film set or backstage at a theatre. I was stunned by the sense of performance and the level at which the interiors had been constructed, how the walls were painted, and how each room had its own identity — the Versaille...
Over many years I had been looking at enforced violence and the corresponding trauma. At Pandora’s Box I was witnessing the individual’s choice to participate in a violent act. It represented play in a controlled setting where the man could say, ’Mercy mistress’, and it ...
Despite the sense of being on the edge, Pandora’s Box was still a safe confined space and I knew the boundaries. The underground slave culture is amorphous and terrifyingly real. Its current could drag you under. There is a subtle process here: you allow yourself to give in and then you h...
Ready for Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
I came off 18th Street, went up the elevator and entered. It was like a film set or backstage at a theatre. I was stunned by the sense of performance and the level at which the interiors had been constructed, how the walls were painted, and how each room had its own identity — the Versailles room, the medical room, the dungeon. I was fascinated by the ways in which the mistresses chose their clients and the clients chose their mistresses. - S.M.
Sketch of Floor Plan at Pandora's Box, 1995
Asphyxiation by boot, The Versailles Room.
Mistress Natasha's Rules I, The Versailles Room.
Over many years I had been looking at enforced violence and the corresponding trauma. At Pandora’s Box I was witnessing the individual’s choice to participate in a violent act. It represented play in a controlled setting where the man could say, ’Mercy mistress’, and it stopped. This was the very opposite of what happens in interrogation cells. I have seen those spaces. These pictures were ten years before Abu Ghraib. - S.M.
Mistress Catherine after the Whipping I, The Versailles Room.
Mistress Delilah's Tender Touch II, The Role Play Room.
Whipping of Maria I, The Role Play Room.
Entombed by Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
Despite the sense of being on the edge, Pandora’s Box was still a safe confined space and I knew the boundaries. The underground slave culture is amorphous and terrifyingly real. Its current could drag you under. There is a subtle process here: you allow yourself to give in and then you have to pull out. - S.M.
Asphyxiation by Mistress Beatrice III, the Medical Room.
The School Room, Ravenswood Academy.
A letter to Goddess Raven from a client
Ready for Mistress Kayla, The Dungeon.
I came off 18th Street, went up the elevator and entered. It was like a film set or backstage at a theatre. I was stunned by the sense of performance and the level at which the interiors had been constructed, how the walls were painted, and how each room had its own identity — the Versailles room, the medical room, the dungeon. I was fascinated by the ways in which the mistresses chose their clients and the clients chose their mistresses. - S.M.
Photograph by Susan Meiselas / Magnum
Asphyxiation by Mistress Beatrice, the Medical Room.
Mistress Catherine after the Whipping, the Versailles Room. Photograph by Susan Meiselas / Magnum
What our staff is reading, watching, and listening to each week.
Sex and Longing in Larry Sultan’s California Suburbs
“Trans-Jester,” the drag queen Lady Bunny’s latest masterpiece, at the Stonewall Inn, is not a show for sensitive ears.
To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories
To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories
The documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield once wanted to make a movie about Carnival Strippers, the small-town striptease performances I’d photographed in the early nineteen-seventies, but when I met him, in the eighties, there was really nothing left to film. The girl shows had effectively been closed down by protests and by the economics of the expanding sex industry. But in the mid-nineties Nick was commissioned by HBO to make a film on S & M. When he found Pandora’s Box, an S & M club on Eighteenth Street, in New York, he said it was like Carnival Strippers for a new decade, and he invited me to come to see it. I rode my bike to Eighteenth Street, went up the elevator, and entered. It was like a film set or the backstage of a theatre. I was stunned by the level at which the interiors had been constructed, how the walls were painted, and how each room had its own identity—the Versailles Room, the Medical Room, the Dungeon.
I was fascinated by the sense of performance, and by the ways in which the mistresses chose their clients and the clients their mistresses. The dominatrix might select the “punishment,” but, ultimately, the client defined the degree to which he wanted to be whipped or what sort of equipment he wanted used. As a photographer who had documented social conflicts, I had seen violence and the corresponding trauma it inflicted. I had heard about what happened in interrogation cells, and I had seen those spaces firsthand. At Pandora’s Box, I was witnessing an individual choose to participate in what looked from the outside like a violent act. But it represented play in a controlled setting where the man could say, “Mercy, mistress,” and it stopped. As with Carnival Strippers, it was the power relations that really captured my attention—women who wield a kind of power that is suspect to others.
Still, I found S & M culture challenging. When Pandora’s Box moved to a new space, right around the time Nick was finishing filming, the club now seemed to me almost tawdry in its theatricality. I knew I could have gone back and pursued Mistress Raven, the owner, or some of the other mistresses, and tried to portray the duality of their real lives as opposed to their fantasies. I knew about the larger life they were part of and the invisible subculture, or “slave culture,” that surrounded them. But I made a choice not to get lost in that world. It felt like a place I was not sure I wanted to go. Instead, I simply stopped shooting and put the work aside.
There is a subtle process here that all documentarians know: you allow yourself to become immersed and then you have to pull out. Knowing when to get out takes judgment, and I think it is intuitive. But sometimes, as with my photos of Pandora’s Box, you feel some sense of incompleteness. At the heart of a project like this is an implicit collaboration: we are all here, looking at each other. The documentary photographer can cross the line and show that the conflict zone is not just a battleground in a distant land; it is also in our homes, it is self-inflicted, it is in our heads.
This piece was drawn from “ Susan Meiselas: On the Frontline ,” which was released this month by Aperture.
© 2022 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices
We'll try your destination again in 15 seconds
This page may contain sensitive or adult content that's not for everyone. To view it, confirm your age.
Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. ©2022 reddit inc. All rights reserved. REDDIT and the ALIEN Logo are registered trademarks of reddit inc.
Gilf Nude
Sex 60 Milf
Mistress Tied Panties Gagged