85-year-old French Dominatrix and Her Concubine Let Us Into Their Chateau of Cruelty

When I first arrived at the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) I filed into one of the few empty stadium seats left save for the neck busters at the very front. The place was packed for The Art of Sex & Seduction: Ceremonies of Love & Desire, I realized all eyes were pointed to a tiny, gray-haired woman immediately below and in front of me. She looked more like a gentle octogenarian nun than a famous dominatrix known for her cruelty. But every once in a while there were flashes of unflinching harshness delivered with a toothy, thin-lipped grin–there was a reason why people seemed to either tiptoe or burst into fits of uncomfortable laughter around Catherine Robbe-Grillet all night. She could turn even the most accomplished Tinder Queens amongst us to puddles of prudish mush.

The event began with a screening, bits of Lina Mannheimer’s short film and documentary (La Contrat and La Cérémonie, respectively) about Catherine and her decades-younger partner, Beverly Charpentier, who translated Catherine’s responses from French to English in the discussion to follow.  The discussion was moderated by Toni Bentley, the journalist behind the Vanity Fair profile of Catherine Robbe-Grillet. Bentley had spent a couple of days getting cozy with the dominatrix at her 400-year old chateau in Normandy.

Before she left her seat for the stage, I got a close up look at Catherine. Squeezed between the filmmaker and Beverley, Catherine was childlike (she’s under five feet tall) her silver hair fastened in a tight, flat bun, a white headband holding her hair perfectly in place. She wore a prim black skirt and long-sleeve vest getup coupled with rimless oval glasses that sealed her look as an unusually compact, but severe junior nun. I guess you can’t beat the Catholicism out of the Catholic school girl. “These two ladies are atheists, but Catholicism and the props of Catholicism greatly inform their ceremonies,” Toni explained.

Catherine’s stature of course belies her powerful presence. All night, she delivered quippy responses and performed sarcastic, feigned innocence. In many ways, Catherine still has the mannerisms of a little girl down too– she squeals, gasps, and purrs, often widening her eyes in mock surprise. Her infantile movements reminded me of Toni’s piece: for Alain Robbe-Grillet, Catherine’s famous dead husband– the famed French writer, avant-garde artist, and intellectual–“Catherine embodied his lifelong obsession with young girls, resembling a little girl in her height, size, and manner.”

In the film, she described her relationship with Alain– a well-known sadist whose writing centered thematically on power structures, control, and lack of agency– as an “unusual” one. For a long time, she was his submissive. It wasn’t until he gave up sexuality altogether to focus more on writing (a detail hashed out in Toni’s article) that Catherine blossomed into a dom. The year was 1973. She’s been joyfully whipping whimpering subs ever since.

One audience member wondered if she’s ever wavered: “I was wondering if the Madame […] misses being submissive and wants to be dominated sometimes?”

Catherine answered simply, “Non,” and paused. “I relive my submission through Beverly, but I don’t want to relive it myself. I am simultaneously submissive and dominant, but my submission passes through her.”

The slipperiness between these opposing identities is hard to make sense of– the sadism-masochism dichotomy seems about as black and white as it gets. But Catherine attempted to explain the inadequacy of some widely-accepted definitions:

“The word Sadomasochism is an unfortunate word because the implication is you have someone who enjoys giving pain to someone who enjoys receiving pain. And you realize that sadist and masochist are totally incompatible. A real sadist does not want the other person’s consent, a real sadist does not want the other person’s pleasure. A sadist thinks that inflicting pain on someone who enjoys the pain being inflicted is a total waste of time. We’ve come to understand sadomasochism as an erroneous term, there is always some kind of contract either verbal or written, or a tacit agreement between people. It’s an exchange.”

But it was Catherine’s relationship with Beverly, not with her husband, that was on full display at the event and that continues to be the subject of fascination. “These ladies have known each other for 20 years,” Toni said.

“No– 25,” Beverly corrected her.

The two women live together in Catherine’s chateau, one that she bought with her husband in the ’60s, and where “Madame,” heads her S&M rituals. “She has a petit clan of dominatrixes, there are six of them and she runs them, of course. She is the top dominatrix,” Toni explained to the crowd.

Beverly reiterated that she’s “completely heterosexual”– up until recently she was married to a diplomat and has two adult children. Her relationship with Catherine began as a fellow dom before Alain’s death in 2008. She still works alongside Catherine (or rather under her) as a dominatrix, ordering around the various submissives who visit the chateau. But her main priority is her devotion to Catherine.

All of these doms are women whose ages vary widely. Catherine herself is now 85 years old. “What I get up to is very ceremonial […] it has more to do with eroticism than sexuality, and eroticism is in the mind– there’s no age limit to that kind of thing,” she explained. “The very famous film director Manoel de Oliveira made his last film at the age of 100, so I’ve still got many years ahead of me.”

Toni first met Catherine almost two years ago. In her piece, “The Thin End of a Whip,” she describes the dominatrix as “a modern-day Marquise de Sade” who, over the last 40 years or so has “pierced and cut some of her guests with hatpins […] locked others in small iron cages, crowned them with acacia thorns, handcuffed them to chains on walls, and basically beaten the shit out of a rather large number of people, male and female.”

While this accurately sums up the Madame’s physical prowess, it leaves out something Toni clarified at the discussion, which is the kind of S&M Catherine engages in (and one that she understands as the highest realization of the practice) is about much more than simply giving and receiving pain. And beyond the obvious implications of power, I couldn’t help but notice the strange social and economic questions swirling around what Catherine’s kept referring to as a unique, separate sphere. “As a dominatrix, we are sometimes faced with submissive people who come with desires and requests that are almost impossible to express to people who aren’t in our world.”

Toni described her brief visit to this world, recounting one of Catherine’s rituals in detail at the talk. She concluded that the experience of being whipped over and over again (amongst other painful inflictions) was less about the physical suffering (or pleasure, for that matter) and more about the psychological results.

She recounted being handcuffed and then hung from a crank: “My arms are reaching up, I close my eyes and everyone is completely quiet and suddenly I feel this whip wrap around my center, all the way around me […] I’m sure I made some noise. It was incredible. I’d never been whipped before. Once I calmed down there was another one that was harder. My emotions started coming up– it’s very hard to described. Madame came close to me– this is so intimate–,” Toni actually started to tear up. “She has so much power in her hands, I can tell you– she took her hand and she put it in my mouth and she says, ‘sa commence’– ‘it begins.'”

Toni began to sob. “I felt like these whips by these incredible women were somehow bringing the grief from all my life to the surface, and they witnessed it and they held it in their arms, it was the most unbelievable experience.”

At one point during the talk, Toni finally acknowledged the S&M accessory she’d brought to the stage– a bundle of what looked like smoothed-down tree branches. She lifted it up and there was a stillness in the packed auditorium. I realized that everyone here totally wanted to see this tiny old lady beat the crap out of someone with that thing.

Like a set-up for a magic trick, Toni the object to Catherine. “You’re all hoping for a demonstration, I trust?” she said. Madame?”

Catherine had a ready, classically dom response. “Of course I could get Toni to kneel down in front of me and I could use this on her, but that would be ridiculous,” she said via Beverly. “You’re 360 people in this audience and I’m certain you’re not [all] people who share our way of doing things and our way of seeing things. Even ordinary, conventional heterosexuality between a man and a woman, it’s ridiculous to everyone but you.”

It seemed like this voyeurism overshadowed Beverly’s telling response, but only briefly. “I’m glad Toni brought [this thing], because I can explain to you the importance of the objects as part of the ceremony, the ritual behind what we do. It’s not just a matter of going into a dungeon, the kinds of dungeons we see in Fifty Shades of Grey, and hitching someone up to a hook on the wall and beating the shit out of them, that doesn’t do it for us,” she said.

(As Catherine explained, with S&M there is “seldom penetration,” and the eroticism of S&M is derived from mind fucking, rather than actual fucking, actual beatings, or real blood letting.)

“What is moving for us is the ritual and everything that leads up to it,” Beverly continued. “Making the object, for me, it was almost as important as what followed […] During all that time I was thinking about what Catherine wanted,” She described in detail the elaborate and time-consuming effort of gathering the sticks, whittling them down to perfection, aligning them perfectly, all in the service of Catherine.

Everyone laughed. But it was still awkward to hear an otherwise powerful woman speak with such glee about subservience, something I thought we were way past by now or still fighting against. Of course, by all accounts Catherine and Beverly’s relationship is a consensual one and there’s nothing actually wrong with safe, consensual S&M. “There has to be mutual pleasure,” Catherine said. “If there is not mutual pleasure, then it doesn’t work.” But I couldn’t help but think Beverly’s total submission and willingness to embrace an antiquated female role in a relationship, and an exaggerated one at that, was helping to perpetuate the subjugation of women.

Toni writes sensuously in the profile about her encounter with Catherine and Beverly (and becomes a participant of the rituals herself, something she detailed to the audience later) to the point that I start to wonder: why does every article about S&M sound like it’s narrated by a 19th-century chamber maid? It’s understandably easy to be sucked into the fantasy of it all (I mean, c’mon– it’s fun!), and it was satisfying to hear Fifty Shades of Grey (which, reminder: began as fan fiction for one equally lucrative series of chaste vampire cheese romps) so relentlessly made fun of for its lameness and myth perpetuation– but where was the realness?

I noticed a serious lack of willingness to hash out real world issues during the talk, despite a few attempts to crack the fantasy shell and all the hints toward the very obvious problematic implications about what Catherine and Beverly claim to do to one another.

As matter-of-fact as Catherine is about conducting rituals of pain for a variety of submissives who approach her and ask to be included in the ceremonies (they are by the way incredibly diverse– men and women from all walks of life), she’s is well aware that, from the outside, her life probably seems quite bizarre. “You must understand I am two people, I am Jean de Berg, the dominatrix who lives a life considered sulfurous by many people,” she explained. “And on the other hand I’m Catherine Robbe-Grillet, this sweet little old lady who’s interested in theatre, music, making jam, all kinds of things.”

Her partner Beverly (though Lina’s documentaries shows her doing regular things in her free time like gardening– no old lady with a whip in sight) ostensibly has no freedom left to pursue interests outside of Catherine. In 2005, Beverly declared her complete allegiance to Catherine in a letter:

“I commend to you everything I possess, material, intellectual, and physical that you may dispose of what I have as you see fit.”

Beverly echoed this commitment to subservience at the talk. “From the moment I met her I wanted to take care of her.” Mostly, this seems like pure fantasy-speak. Sure, it’s easy to say you’d die for someone, but when it comes down to it are you actually gonna pull a Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard? Catherine’s hot in an evil nun sort of way, but she’s no Whitney Houston.

But what if she really means it? Beverly certainly wanted us to believe that she’s for real.

Toni asked her what we were all thinking: “Many women have said to me that they cannot understand how an intelligent, beautiful woman like you would give an oath of allegiance, of everything about your life, to another person. It’s very… non-feminist.”

What came next was cringe-worthy. Beverly began sarcastically: “We have a lot to thank the feminists for, but on the contrary of what feminists say […] Oh! I hate talking about myself like this,” she warbled cutely. I thought I might puke for a minute. She continued:

“Before I met Catherine, I had a career. I had my children who I’d brought up almost almost single-handedly because my husband was a diplomat and traveled all the time. I felt as if I was in charge in my life, in control of my life. I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t understand why. I felt that I should be looking for religion or looking for a sect, or dedicating my life to the service of humanity, or doing something! I felt aimless. And then I met Catherine […] I met this woman and all I wanted to do was take care of her. I can’t tell you why. All I wanted was to do everything I could to make sure she was happy. And in doing that, isn’t there an American fraternity called Phi Kappa Psi? I think their motto is ‘joy in service,’ and that’s what I found in Catherine.”

There was a bustle of uncomfortable laughter and seat shifting.

“My liberty came from the fact I didn’t feel that I was looking for something anymore,” she added. “I was doing something that I did very well and it gave me pleasure too.”

Catherine backed her up:

“People have no problem looking at someone who has a strong character dedicating themselves to the church or god, it’s something laudable if there’s a person with character who is prepared to submit to something greater than themselves […] We’re not talking about a person submitting to god, but to another human being. If one gives oneself absolutely to anything, that requires character.”

As a feminist, I found Beverly’s response repellent. But the more I thought about it, I understood that Catherine and Beverly’s relationship (and equally so, Catherine’s relationship with what she estimates to be 40 or so other submissives)– as much as it may mirror patriarchal relationships and what was widely expected of marriage up until recently in its symbology–  they are still an example of women doing things with other women that they want to be doing. “There is no way you’re going to talk someone into enjoying being whipped if the desire doesn’t come from the inside,” Catherine explained.

Men barely entered the equation in this discussion, and seem to have little significance in these women’s lives besides their occasional usefulness as amusing playthings. “I organize an evening that […] is ceremonial, there’s a great deal of theatricality involved. when it’s men who organize it, they go straight to the G-spot,” Catherine said.

Beverly confirmed their way of doing things is different from a man’s approach. “It’s not just a game, it’s not just a joke or a quick hump and you’re off, it’s a communion of people who are searching for the same thing […] it’s very moving […] a wonderful experience that transcends everyday life.”

But even if both women feel they are “liberated,” there was another elephant in the room. Catherine and Beverly repeatedly exuded an attitude of exceptionalism. As the documentary presented endless images of elaborate rituals complete with decadent props carried out in an elegant chateau, I wrote in my notebook so I could remember to ask: “How the hell do these people have TIME for this?!” The economics of being able to devote so much time and energy to ritual, sex magic, and– as Catherine described it– “an endless stream of submissives,” are baffling.

But turns out I didn’t even need the note– I was constantly reminded that Beverly and Catherine are setting themselves apart from most other lowly practitioners. Though both of them reminded the audience they have “friends who are professional dominatrixes” (which reminded me of someone saying, “my ___ [enter a group you don’t belong to] friends” to justify saying something racist/homophobic/classist/or otherwise prejudiced”), at the very beginning of the talk, Beverly halted the conversation to outline this very important distinction:

“When you talk about a dominatrix, people immediately assume a professional dominatrix, a woman who is payed to dominate. But there are two kinds: there is the dominatrix where there is an exchange of money and the one where there is no exchange of money. And the question of money is very important because it changes the relationship between the person who is dominant and the person who is submissive.

It’s very important for Catherine that no money is exchanged ever. Not for moral reasons, but because it changes her relationship with the submissive person. As far as Catherine is concerned, the moment money is given, it is the person giving the money who is in charge and because she doesn’t need the money for any reason at all, if she’s a dominatrix it’s purely for her pleasure. And unless she feels absolutely in charge, absolutely in control, she’s beholden to nobody, there is no pleasure for her.”

Catherine was also careful to set herself apart from sex workers, which both of them implied are inferior practitioners of S&M. She recounted that a friend of hers, “a French dominatrix working in Switzerland [Beverly added “I think she ought to have been sainted”] chose to work on the streets and she loved her job and she loved her customers,” Beverly translated. Catherine stopped her so she could reiterate, “[The friend] wasn’t so much a dominatrix as she was a streetwalker.”

Though Beverly emphasized that “there are plenty of dominatrixes who work for money who are decent people,” the implication was that what “professionals” do is wholly different from their own form of heightened S&M. They are above money because they don’t need it and anyway money makes the act completely different.

I finally figured out what was so unfortunately grating about these two very fascinating, very smart, and highly entertaining women and what they preach. Their particular version of S&M doesn’t really reinforce the second-class status of women, but their exceptionalism reinforces the second-class status of some women. In Catherine and Beverly’s “world,” women who take money in exchange for S&M play are no longer “in charge.” Only women who can afford to forego money (or have the luxury of being able to choose to forego money) for dom work are truly dominant, in this view.

And while sexuality shouldn’t be up for debate or analysis or, really, the business of anyone else except the people involved in it unless of course there’s something truly heinous going on (rape, incest, child porn, etc.), Catherine and Beverly have very willingly made themselves public figures and outspoken representatives of a certain kind of S&M. So they’re encouraging discussion, debate, and understanding– all of which are healthy and good things. In the end, they should be thanked for sharing their experiences and opening up their lives to the general, judgey-ass public, even if some of what they say is problematic.

“There are psychoanalysts and psychologists who have felt the need to understand why I do what I do, I don’t mind, but I feel no need for it myself,” Catherine explained. “I have no need to know where my desires just come from, they just are. They just are. What matters is begin comfortable with what you do, and I’m very comfortable with what I do.”