Legends of Dominance - 01

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This article is titled
Legends of Dominance  - 01
by Mistress Michelle Peters et al.
and posted with permission
(All information herein is provided by author)

Legends of Dominance Article Index
Also see: Name Cross Reference

Cora Korsette

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A long time ago, when I worked at a fetish/leather store, a customer who liked me brought in some of his old fetish magazines. I think he was having some trouble with his wife, and he didn't want her to find them, so he gave them to me. I was little disappointed — he had said they were old — I had been hoping they would be from the 1950s. Instead they were all from the 70s, with inartistic covers, and poor photography. I was flipping through "Domination Annual" (1972), which was a combination of photo stories and contact ads, when I saw my first image of Cora. Underneath the photo it said: "If you enjoy crawling, contact me." I suddenly felt completely love struck and desperate. Who was this severe looking woman with the white hair, tiny waist and drawn on makeup?! This image stood out so sharply from the amateur snapshots that filled the magazine. I had always loved trashy glamour — fake hair, exaggerated makeup, and over the top outfits. If a woman looked so womanly that she was suspicious as a woman — then it was my kind of look! But THIS woman looked like science fiction — an ultra cruel villainess — where was the planet she was from? Could I get an invitation to go there? I wasn't interested in crawling for anyone — but that all changed when I saw her photo — I would crawl for someone so fabulous — but who was she ?!?

I used the photo of this mystery woman on Valentines and photocopied letterheads for years to come. I accumulated older fetish magazines searching for more images of her to no avail. Before the internet was widespread, with no Ebay, it was a daunting task to find older fetish magazines. I asked at several of the more likely used book and magazine stores. The genius IQ but poorly socialized male clerks laughed in my face and told me those vintage fetish magazines never turn up. (Subtext: If they ever did, they would take them home, never to see the light of day again, alone in their bedrooms at their parents house with their 50,000+ comic, etc. collection).

One day I was looking through the local Buy and Sell magazine. Under the Adult section there was an ad that said something like Rubber clothing, adult baby wear, used fetish magazines, etc. with a fax number. I faxed a note — there wasn't even a number to call — with a brief description of what I was looking for. At 11:00 p.m. that night I received a long fax with the titles of what this person had, many of which sounded amazing, with a phone number. I phoned immediately the next day and went out to a plain house in the far end of an older suburb. A person in their late 50s, who was transitioning from male to female, led us into their rec room bar. Piles of magazines were all over the floor, and racks of bitter smelling rubber clothing hung in the small room. This person explained that a good friend had recently passed away, and that his wife wanted nothing to do with this, so he was selling off his friends collection. He left us alone in the room to look through what was there, and went upstairs with his Siamese cat. The deceased had different tastes than what I was searching for — there were many MacKintoshes and 60s style latex dresses and big rubber bloomers — but no ultra high heeled boots from the 1940s! It appeared that this man had kept everything fetish related he had ever acquired. I made piles of Must Have, Maybe Have, and a Buy-If-Its-Cheap magazines. Between two of us we spent a couple of hours going through all the magazines. There were a few dozen smaller format magazines, including two copies of Bizarre, but a bunch of them were a German magazine from the 70s I had never heard of, called Club Caprice. Initially I bypassed them, but then on my second or third go around I opened one up — and there was THAT woman. I started leafing through them all in an excited panic. There were many pictures of Her! She was in colored wigs, in fancy outfits! I bought everything I could afford. On the long ride home I felt like a complete degenerate having spent that much money on old fetish magazines, and sadness at what I left behind.

Club Caprice was completely in German, so I couldn't understand the text. I did understand that her name was Cora, and that I wasn't the only person who was amazed by her. There was an interview with Her, and stories about Her, and drawings of Her by other enthralled fans. The only person I knew who read German was my mother, but she would not begin to understand or appreciate Cora's greatness, so I did not ask her to translate. I showed Cora's picture to everyone. A friend of a friend claimed to read German. My friend and I got all dressed up, and we had a date for this person to come over to read us the Cora Scriptures. However, he smoked too much dope, and the best he could do was offer a loose translation, with a bunch of gaps and digression. Years later a client of my partner finally did a written translation of two of the Cora articles that seemed the most illuminating.

I know Club Caprice magazine is still around, and still completely in German. There was a small piece in Marquis #10 about Club Caprice. Apparently Club Caprice started in Germany in the early 1970s, as a private fetish social club. Initially the magazine was for members only, but it seems that many copies made it to North America, so perhaps it had a magazine distribution deal as well. I have seen images from the magazine reprinted (stolen?) in many U.S. publications from the 70s and 80s, which is where I found my first Cora image. Early Club Caprice was an odd mix of amateur photos, soft core porn/ fetish stories, historical images of fetish interest, and fetish and surrealist artwork, all filtered through a certain German angst. Many of the photos of Cora and others have been retouched by the artist, Tom, who did many paintings for the covers and stories. Sometimes the retouching is slight, and other times Cora has been airbrushed into even more fantastic proportions and expressions. Club Caprice Magazine was edited by Sylvia Berte, a woman of whom I know nothing. She appears in the interview photo with Cora.

What I know about Cora: Not much. In the interview image of Cora meeting Sylvia, Sylvia appears to be a petite woman, perhaps 5' 3" or under. Cora is standing in the foreground, and I dont know if it just camera distortion but in her heels, Cora appears to be over 6 feet tall ! Cora looks to be over 30 years old — but whether she is 35 or 55 I cannot tell. In the "Cora In Paris" piece there are a few references to Cora looking very womanly but this may also be an effect of the translation. I find it difficult to believe that Cora was a man with those hips! The apartment pictured in the interview looks modest — but perhaps it is not Cora's apartment. Was Cora married? Did she have a job? How did she afford her fabulous creations? Who was her corset maker? Did she have children? In the interview she seems aware of her wonderfulness, without seeming pathological. She seems bright, and witty, with good humor, but perhaps that is what I want to think.

I had a prospective client who claimed to know about Cora, in fact to have even been at a gathering where she was. He claimed Cora had been murdered. This man had a German name, and was the right age, so he could have been telling the truth. However, he also claimed to have been a secret agent, an assassin, a surgeon, and had about 20 different factious personas online, so his claim was suspect...

The Cora effect: She had a big influence on my personal ideas about style and persona. At one of the very first fetish nights I ever attended (1991) there was a woman (who looked nothing like Cora!) wearing the same strappy outfit as Cora. Her dumpy master made it for her. At the time I thought he was pretty original for such a boring guy but now I know it was under the influence of Cora! Leo Zulueta (tribal tattooing pioneer) used the same strappy image of Cora (and others) on San Francisco area punk flyers in the very beginning of that scene in the late 70s. From the volume of drawings of Cora that Club Caprice printed it was obvious that Cora seared the psyches of many who saw her!

If you have other images of Cora I would be thrilled to see them. Please send a note prior to sending them, as I will not open attachments from strangers. If you have information about Cora I would like to speak with you. I am not interested in disclosing private or personal information about Cora — but I would like to know more about this mystery. Please contact this website if you can be of any assistance.



Baroness Monique von Cleef

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Obituary
(1925 - 2005)
Goodbye to Monique von Cleef
By Bert Wibo

Suddenly, but not entirely unexpectedly, we received the news from Monique von Cleef `s personal secretary, that Mistress Monique had died on the 4th February in Antwerp, Belgium, after a long illness. Her Funeral took place on 9 February 2005 at the Municipal Cemetery in Merksem, Belgium.

I first met her I the 70`s , when she came to the famous Massad studio to order leather clothing. One day after lunch, I went to climb the stairs, to find a middle aged man chained to the stairs, waiting for his Mistress. He devoutly bowed his head when I passed him and I was then introduced to Mrs von Cleef, a breathtaking beauty who with her natural dominance, acknowledged the presence of the layout setter of the magazine and gave me a friendly nod, before proceeding to discuss her clothing requirements.

She was friendly, but distant – but it was immediately obvious, that this was a powerful woman. Later in the day I was given a sample of her book "House of Pain". Her life story to date.

Originally Monique von Cleef came from Heerlen and was worked in nursing in The Hague. There she was approached by a photographer, who was there for a check up, who was totally overcome by her figure and the magnificent white nurse’s uniform. Offering a fair recompense, he persuaded her to pose in all types of leather garments, boots and corsets in his studio, for a yet to be published photo book. Although she found it initially strange and had never associated with this type of material, the money persuaded her. The leather enclosed her body like a second skin, her natural dominance came to the fore and before she realized what was happening her true nature (hidden until then) manifested itself: she came out as a dominatrix and her first experience with a subservient man, was naturally, with the pushy photographer, who willingly subjected himself to her. For clarification: this event took place in about 1954, when she was around 30 years of age.

Let’s not forget, that there were no S/M Magazines, the topic was rarely raised in the media and it was a big taboo. Still, Monique von Cleef was able to gather a stable of subservient and masochistic men around her.

Her real story begins about 1960, when she decided to leave Holland for America. With a handful of bondage items and her leather clothing hidden in the rest of her luggage she moved to New York, where, within a year, thanks to a growing band of faithful followers, she transformed a large townhouse in Newark, New Jersey in to a Valhalla for masochists, subservient and fetishists. In the years 1962 to 1967 the place gets to be known as "the House of Pain", and is put on the map through the efforts of Lenny Burtman and his magazines Exotique and Bizarre Life.


Countess Anne

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Visiting Countess Anne

I met Mistress Kristen in 1979 or 1980. We were doing photos together for 1 yr, maybe longer. It was her and ron (her slave) who told about their visit to Las Vegas. Mistress Kristen appeared on the front cover of Lashes right after that, Vol 3 number 4. Mistress Anne Murray appeared on the cover of Lashes magazine Vol 4 number 3. She says that was 1980. I'm not sure????? Could have been. I do remember Mistress Kristen telling me this and I wanted to be on the front cover! I contacted Countess Anne and visited on 2-24-83.

Countess Anne picked me up from the airport (I flew in from Detroit) and we drove to her house. And she wasn't wearing leather or anything like that. I thought that was good, showed me she was normal. That Friday night we were talking about all the Mistress's we knew and talking about adventures. When I noticed a jar with something in it high above and on top of her china cabinet. latrina (her husband slave) told me that they were slaves balls, Countess Anne had cut off. That night Countess Anne told me she hated men. Apparently, she was in love with this guy and riding on the back of the motorcycle, when they when over a rise they landed in a deep hole. She had cut her face badly and almost lost her eye. Her boyfriend acted like he didn't want anything to do with her after that. I can see why you`d hate someone for that.

The next day, Sat, Countess Anne, latrina, and I did a photo shoot for her magazine and newspaper. I never did end up on the front cover but was in the photo spread of the magazine and her newspaper several times. We spent most of the day shooting photos. Later that night, we all when to dinner, and that's when latrnia attacked me saying I was stupid for believing that the balls in the jar were of a slaves. They were of German Shepherds. Also, latrina made another comment too , THAT I didn`t like at all. I was pissed a I vowed to never talk to latrina ever again.

Sunday latrina wanted to take me out to show me around and take photos of me in the desert. It was a silent ride coming and going. latrina sent me a few whips over the years , but I never said one word to latrina even to his death. I talked Countess Anne in 1988 and haven`t heard from her since. I understand she re-married and lives in Las Vegas.

And me? I'm still kick'n ASS! Mistress Michelle

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