The world of financial domination is a murky one. Even online, it’s something that’s become a kind of urban myth that lurks in Yahoo! chatrooms and on the back pages of Reddit. Reba Maybury, founder of Wet Satin Press and editor-in-chief of Sang Bleu, found herself on a BDSM website through her research into sexuality and fetishism, where she uncovered a world where men paid money for women to humiliate them.
Advertising herself as a dominatrix, she had an influx of interest. One in particular came from a man she describes as ‘sweet’, who could not afford to buy her things off of her Amazon wishlist. As she liked him, she created a wish list of books that included cheap novels.
“Once I made it and sent it to him, the slave told me that he couldn’t believe that ‘a Goddess like you would ever spend time on making something for a sad specimen of man like me,’ explains Maybury. “We’d speak on a daily basis on Skype discussing his virginity, most humiliating memories and fantasies. I was fascinated by the whole process of being in a position where I could get these men to speak with utter honesty to me. Having men talk about their sexual insecurities and how they honestly felt about women was completely empowering and eye opening.”
Fetishism and sexuality comes in all shapes and sizes: beyond intense attraction to specific body parts, having sex in public places, leather and latex. Maybury brought the man’s fantasies to life with a nickname she gave him: book worm. Maybury says: “Worms seemed to act as a metaphor for everything that this guy got off on. Worms as feeble, ugly, slimy, insignificant, asexual and tiny. As the relationship progressed I’d get him to complete worm-based tasks.”
“I was fascinated by the whole process of being in a position where I could get these men to speak with utter honesty to me” – Reba Maybury
”Sometimes I’d get him to go on cam, get naked and wriggle on the floor like a worm. Once I tried to get him to eat worms but he didn’t like that very much. As a punishment I made him buy me Venus in Furs.”
Maybury likens the man’s sexual gratification to something funny and harmless, in stark comparison to examples of in-demand, degrading porn. The more she thought about this, the more she realised how she could incorporate it into her work. She made her ‘Wormy’ do drawings of his most humiliating memories, fantasies, and her, his Goddess.
For Maybury, the zine is about experiencing sexuality as something different than the sanitised, gendered or pre-packaged examples we’re fed from day to day. Wormy challenges the conventional gender balance and its existing space, as sexuality is explorative. “I wanted to express how important it is for us to explore our sexuality, how it can be something fun and veer away from sexual gender stereotypes!”
Read our Q+A with Reba Maybury about the new launch of Wet Satin Press here
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