Untitled

Mistress Evita has been a professional dominatrix for 15 years and has cracked her whip at such diverse venues as The Whipping Post, Hellfire and Arena. Today, as manager of The Den of Iniquity, she plays 'den mother,' promoter, producer and much more. Evita honed her BDSM skills by studying with Mistress Mir, Leslie Savage, The Lesbian Sex Mafia, Tara Indiana and Arena's Leda and Carrie. Over the years, Mistress Evita has grown from a nascent fetishist to one of Manhattan's most serious players and certainly one of the biggest contributors to "the scene."

In addition to her experience as a domme, Evita has become a skilled event producer, transforming from a bartender at local nightspots The Roxy, Izzy Bar, Parlay Lounge and Nell's to become an influential promoter. She has given birth to What Is Fetish?, Risqué, Bottom's Up and her current monthly play party at The Den of Iniquity, Mistress Evita Presents. But Evita doesn't remain behind the scenes! Her inspired fetish performances began at Hellfire, where the lines between actor and audience were never very delineated, and formally debuted on the stage of Click + Drag. As a domme at Arena and a member of the Gomorrah crew, she stretched her stage talents further, exploring themes and concepts as diverse as Dawn of the Dead and Latinas Dominants, Female Wrestling and Psychotic Circus.

She recently shared her reflections on her metamorphosis with Mercy:

Mercy Magazine: Tell me about the people you studied with.

Mistress Evita: Mistress Mir is my mentor, my mama. I've learned a lot from her. I have a lot of respect for all her years and her time in the scene. I feel that the more experienced Mistresses don't get half the respect they should get, for instance Mir, Leslie Savage, Angel Stern and Belle du Jour. I'm a very old school Mistress, you respect your elders and where you came from. A lot of Mistresses today have a whip in their hand, take a few pictures and they think they're hot shit. They have no idea how they got here, why it is that they can do what they do and get what they get today. It's because of the women I just mentioned, who opened the door, took a lot of chances and a lot of shit, from the public, from the police, from other BDSM groups. And they're still standing tall. These girls have no clue who these women are and no respect for them whatsoever. That's my biggest issue with the scene today, the lack of respect and knowledge.

MM: Tell me about your worst client ever…

ME: Probably the cockroach client. He brought in a jar of cockroaches and wanted to be tied down and left alone in a room with his trained cockroaches poured all over him.

MM: They were trained?

ME: That's what he said, that the ones who wouldn't go back into the jar, he'd kill. We told him to leave with his jar of roaches.

MM: Okay, how about your best client ever?

ME: That would be a client who became a very good friend. I got to travel with him and had some really good experiences. I went to Germany and Paris and smoked Cuban cigars with him. He took me shopping and taught me how to be more intense with CBT. That was his thing.

MM: What's your favorite thing?

ME: It's definitely caning. I get heart palpitations when caning.

MM: So you like to see people bleed?

ME: Yeah [laughs]. Caning and maybe some needle play..

MM: What don't you like to do?

ME: I don't like medical sessions. They've never been my forte, probably because I don't like going to the doctor.

MM: Tell me about your favorite performances. You've done so many wonderfully visual shows. I love it when you turn Ralph into a Christmas tree.

ME: That's always been fun. I love Saran Wrap. The Christmas tree is one of my favorites. Also turning him into a candelabra.

MM: Didn't you turn him into a jack-in-the-box once?

ME: Oh yeah, at the circus Black & Blue Ball. That was fun, but it was a lot of money, and not one of my favorites. I think my favorite is when I bring Baby Evita out. Cause that's just like an all night thing; it's my alter ego.

MM: Eight hours of role-play! So tell me what you like about producing events. What themes have you enjoyed?

ME: Definitely my birthday, cause I get lots of presents! After my birthday, it's Halloween, because that helped with getting my straight friends and family out with all my fetish friends and family. I love Halloween, the dressing up, seeing the costumes. It's okay for everyone to mingle, both my families, and not have any issues. So my favorite party is always Halloween.

MM: What about Risqué?

ME: I kind of miss Risqué. It was born from Gomorrah; if it weren't for Gomorrah there wouldn't have been Risqué. To me, Risqué is a very adult fetish party, exactly what Gomorrah was. Risqué became loungeier, with different kinds of performance art, and adults hanging out just being fetishists.

MM: What about your parties at The Den?

ME: Those are my play parties. They started at Hellfire five years ago. I was initially working as a Hellfire Mistress. After I left, I came back with my play parties. I started them because I was looking for the players I'd met at the original Hellfire years ago. I wasn't seeing that sort of play or those types of people anymore...

MM: They don't go to nightclubs...

ME: No, once the scene became mainstream, Hellfire started to change. I no longer saw a lot of the players who used to come out. But my Hellfire play parties started when I featured the ladies of Arena. Then I wondered, why couldn't it be Evita from Arena featuring so-and-so from L'Oielle Caché? Or from Excalibur? I wanted to show that Mistresses are friendly with each other. In the beginning I was saying Mistress Evita from Arena presents so-and-so because I really wanted to show that we do get along. The play parties started there, with Arena, and then moved on to feature other house Mistresses and independents. It became Mistress Evita Presents. Then Hellfire closed and I took the play party on the road. I tried it other places and it just wasn't the same. When I joined The Den, they were doing play parties that I thought I could contribute to. I figured it could actually work - it's a huge, beautiful space, it's a safe place for couples, and singles and TVs. Why not do what I was doing before? So I started that last January; it's grown and become extremely successful.

MM: Do you have anything to say about party politics?

ME: I remember when parties were underground. You really had to go out of your way to find out where a good fetish party was and pay good money to get into what was an adult party. The fetish scene as I knew it was always a 21 and up crowd. Today it's so congested. It has become a competition, who can throw a better party, who can find a bigger space. And what it has done is make people not want to go out. The scene is too small to have eight parties in one night. New York just isn't what it was. If there's two or three parties on one night, our poor little scene is trying to reach out and say hi to all of us, and it's just not worth it at the end of the night.

MM: For all the ridicule Gomorrah got for being a party where "all you need is a pair of khakis," I felt that more people were dressed than not.

ME: Gomorrah made a big difference in the fetish scene, as far as having a safe place to go, something different to see all the time, being dressed to the nines, hanging with your friends and seeing Mistresses dressed up and laid back at the same time. We had a little bit of everything. So if there were four or five people in khakis or a suit, they were on the floor worshipping someone's feet! MM: It was more about the dommes and dominant women, I thought, than most events. Dommes visiting from out of town would all chat on Max Fisch and then show up at Gomorrah.

ME: They would! You look at the old paperwork, man, there were, like, 80 dommes! We totally rocked!

MM: What's coming up?

ME: Gomorrah is going to Boston in April. There's What Is Fetish? in October. I might do another Risqué this year because people are asking for it. I have a lot of plans with The Den of Iniquity. I just got back from Los Angeles and I'll be traveling a lot more; representing and taking new responsibility fro some things at The Den, assisting them with their expansion. I'm working on making a lot of exciting things happen for Tara [Indiana]. There are a lot of big surprises for Mistress Evita!

MM: Do you have anything personal you'd like to add?

ME: Regarding what I've done in addition to scene events and being a pro domme, I designed a clothing collection called Evita's Line. I produced a fashion show for TES25. That was my first really big fashion show. It was beautiful, with drummers and everything. Then I produced another fashion show at Hellfire. That is something I want to pursue again. My fashion interest is going to resurface. I'm more grounded today, with no regrets. I feel an evolution going on. I'm more in control of my life. I was just telling one of my friends who was having doubts about being a domME: if I had to go back and change anything in my 15 years as a domme, I really wouldn't change anything. I have met the most amazing people in the scene, have done the most amazing things. And I've learned a lot about myself, how to handle situations, how to deal with people. I've grown. For anyone new coming into the scene, you have to learn how to have fun. It's a process. I wouldn't change it for anything. I would be so different today if it weren't for the people I've met in the scene. I have a different respect for men today. I've made such great friends. So was it all worth it? Absolutely!

Evita will be hosting the VIP galaxy of Black & Blue Ball Eleven: 'Supernova' on May 20th, 2004, www.bbb11.com

photo by Ekko Katzen

photo by Ekko Katzen

photo by Misa Martin