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Eve Mansion
Eve Mansion lives in Brussels’ affl uent suburb
of Uccle. She enjoys running and playing the
violin, and in her spare time paints portraits
in oil. A few years ago she converted one side
of her home into a professional dungeon.
“For fi ve years I had an erotic massage salon.
I had trauma in my childhood and wanted to
reconcile myself with men and get to know
them better; in this I succeeded. I’m a hyperactive
person; I always have a lot of energy,
and I had noticed that doing sport alone was
not enough to kill that energy. A friend of
mine who worked at an échangiste (01) club
suggested that SM (02) would bring me balance
– sport is just physical, but SM is more
mental – he said that to him I had always
seemed SM, I just didn’t know it yet.
" The physical act of love
is nothing more than that,
and not interesting in
itself. "
I started reading about SM and I immediately
recognised myself in what I was reading.
I have quite hard sexual fantasies: it struck me
that the scenarios and fantasies described in the
books were things that already existed in my
mind. SM is an intellectual sexuality. The most
sexual people are cerebral. I discovered that I
was like that – the physical act of love is nothing
more than that, and not interesting in itself.
Soon afterwards I created my own
dungeon (03) . With any project I work with the
motto “from the day you start your business,
behave as if you were already at the top” but
in truth I was very nervous. In a scene lasting
an hour you cannot have any blank spaces, it
is very exhausting. You also have to be sensitive
to what is happening physically and not
leave submissives fi xed in one position for
too long. In reality the dominatrix is in service
to the dominee – they invite you to be in
control of the session. The most diffi cult part
of SM is the verbal side. I don’t use many instruments
– I will perhaps carry a whip as an
accessory, but most of what I do is verbal.
I have a certain capacity for playfulness,
and my dungeon has become my stage set.
With each session I have the satisfaction of
having created something. What’s good with
SM is that you have to constantly challenge
yourself and discover new things. It has given
me another level of self-assurance. I’m like a
rock now – I’m not embarrassed of anything.
A dominatrix has to have a certain age, particular
intellectual faculties and experience; the
men you dominate are not nobodies, they’re
lawyers and CEOs, for them submission is the
opposite of their life in the outside world.
In my private relationships I like both
domination and submission – I need a man
who can put me in my place, but in my professional
relationships I would never let myself
be dominated.”
Do You Remember the First Time ? behind closed doors
01. Exchangiste
Swingers or couples who engage sexually
with other couples or individuals
02. SM
Sadomasochism or sadomasochistic sexuality.
03. Dungeon
Room created specifi cally for SM play,
often with expensive specialised equipment
THE THIRD WORD — 47
© Geneviève Balasse