Retired Dominatrix Trains Execs On Harassment

A women who was a professional dominatrix for 17 years has established a training center called “the Academy” in New York City. There she teaches clients, mostly women in professions like banking and marketing, how to ward off harassment and more generally “how to employ a dominatrix’s rhetorical tools in any scenario when there’s a power imbalance with a man, whether or not it’s about sex.” One of her basic strategies for short circuiting problems is fielding an initial question – a common way for these scenarios to begin, she says – with another question: Why did you ask me that? When the man responds, she says, keep probing. “He’s on the spot, and you regain your footing,” Prices at the Academy vary with the offering, from $45 (with a price break for those who can’t afford it) for a three-hour training called “Cornering Harvey,” to higher-end offerings like a $2,200 weekend workshop and a course called “Foundations of Power,” which includes three weekends and an online component, for $8,500.