Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting read..., 12 Mar 2003
I have to disagree with the reviewer below I'm afraid.Ok, if you approach this as a kiss-and-tell book then you are going to be disappointed because that's not what it's about. If you approach it with an open mind then I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It follows Mistress Chloe from her humble beginnings through her transformation into a Dominatrix and ultimately her own happiness. The reason I purchased said book? It looked interesting, the author has a very dry sense of humour (you only have to look at the text accompanying the last picture to realise that - and yes, there are pictures for those of you out there that consider it a selling point!) and I find it interesting to know how people tick. Oh and Mistress is obsessed with correct spelling and punctuation which I can relate to! Just read the book with an open mind. You'll laugh (a lot), you'll probably grimace a few times (particularly if you're a man) and you'll be moved by the chapter about her faithful dog. Recommended.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb, 9 Jun 2002
The highly welcome publication of Mistress Chloe's 'Memoir' exemplifies not only how far BDSM culture has travelled in terms of cultural emergence but also how a leading personality located within it has become transformed in the process. Its subtitle, 'The Making of Mistress Chloe' sums up precisely that re-making process: the steady development over several decades from a "sick with nerves" Grammar School pupil to a confident and articulate professional dominatrix. But even if the parallels between her and the culture she is now part of cannot be usefully drawn further then there is much here to offer the reader whether they be familiar with BDSM culture or not.
The 'Memoir' opens as all well written memoirs do not with an immediate return to the past but with a vignette from the present moment. 'The Human Washing Machine', Armani-clad and later nappy-gagged provides for a fitting demonstration of Mistress Chloe's powers of domination. This is the Mistress finally 'made', supreme and charismatic, the summation of a make-over process that in subsequent chapters will come to be elaborated.
Yet when it does happen the 'Memoir' doesn't travel straight back to Claire Mansfield's distant past but alights briefly on the moment when Mistress Chloe first begins to clearly come into being. A party in Hampstead provides the pivotal moment, where the "Mouse" of middle-class conscience and convention is startled into appalled apprehension by the strobe-lit, Velvet wanabe Violet wand world of "three chained men [...] the prisoners of a petite fiftyish woman in a red latex catsuit". After the winning by Claire of a gorgeous-looking submissive in a raffle, the "Mouse", though still "pouting", is as good as dead.
Reeling further back to the late 60s the 'Memoir', after pausing by the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm where "a group of impossibly gorgeous young rebels oozing confidence in their tight leather, black lace and red lipstick" sets the Mansfield hormones tingling, then begins to chronologically move forward recalling miserable school experiences recompensed by a wall-mounted, Bison-faced clock, acquiring three A levels and joing the David Bowie Fan Club. The latter proves to be the truly formative development, a precursor to immersion into the 1970s New Romantic and punk music scenes.
From there the narrative gathers pace, and with one "glorious weekend" recalled after another, the 'Memoir' begins to take on an almost epic quality, an exhuberant and exhilarating romp through some of the most lively, subcultural moments of the 70s and 80s. And all the time, in her various entanglements and increasingly unconventional experiences, Mistress Chloe is to be seen in her splendid making.
But to focus merely on the 'kink' elements of her 'Memoir' would be do it a serious injustice, not least as a major element of Mistress Chloe's personality would be overlooked. And that is her longstanding animal anti-abuse activism of which sharp detail crops up in different places within the narrative.
Thus being an important reminder that there is more to the make-up of a dominatrix then simply a passion for BDSM, Mistress Chloe's "Memoir" is sure to set the standard for later, similar works. Finely written with wit in abundance, and underlaid by a deeply held personal philosophy, this is an autobiography to he highly recommended as well as it authoress applauded as an articulate spokesperson for BDSM culture.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whipping Her readers up to Fever Pitch, 3 May 2002
What is a Dominatrix? Where do They come from? And why do women become Dommes in the first place?There is more than one answer to each of these questions. You will find some in this book. In learning, the reader is treated to the metamorphosis of (out of the) ordinary London Scene princess Claire Mansfield into Mistress Chloe, and the journey is memorable, funny, frank and poignant. Mistress Chloe, 'the supreme Dominatrix of all London', provides episodes from Her formative years, via London Scene and subculture, to her awakening as a professional Domme. She fills the book with Her lovers, friends, acquaintances and clients, depicting them by and large with affection even when inviting the reader to grin inanely or laugh out loud. And when things aren't so funny, She candidly shares those moments, too. She draws the veil back on the world of the Pro Domme, and what the reader learns is that the Domme is not an archetype, but a warm, whole person dealing with the same feelings, cares and concerns as those who inhabit the so-called 'vanilla' world. And, for that matter, so do those (mostly) men who seek to visit or serve Them. The book is well-written with a nice narrative style, down no doubt to Mistress Chloe's insistence on good grammar. In inviting the reader into Her life, She sets out a controversial and misunderstood topic with openmindedness, and invites the reader to do the same, never resorting to a soapbox to present Her views. When Nick Hornby wrote 'Fever Pitch' they made it into a film. I submit that this book is the 'Fever Pitch' for the BDSM scene. And, movie-makers, it has a happy ending.
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