At 73 years old, Sherry Lever holds the title of the UK's oldest dominatrix and has a large roster of clients who will regularly pay for her... services.
For an unspecified fee, she will scold, spank and generally humiliate anyone who fancies it, something she wasn't always too confident with considering her bold career change.
Speaking to LADbible about her unique job, Sherry, who previously worked as a cook, explained how her daughter, Amy, was actually forced to step in on her first job and take the lead.
Advert
After briefly working on phone sex lines, Sherry began to notice that most callers were interested in 'domination' and, after some encouragement from her daughter, she took a leap of faith.
"You’re doing it for peanuts on the phone, why don’t you do it for real," Sherry recalled her daughter saying.
"That was it, so that's how I kind of started."
Easing herself into the role, Sherry's first encounter was with a man she'd met on the phone sex lines.
Advert
"It was actually one of my callers... let's call him Martin," she said, adding that he'd come over to stay for the weekend.
So how was her first experience?
Unsurprisingly, Sherry found the whole process unnerving, but she was able to get through it thanks to some help from Amy.
Once 'Martin' got changed into his first costume, with his choice of clothing being leather shorts and collar, Sherry was understandably taken aback.
"My eyes must have been popping out of my head because that's not what I was imagining," she recalled.
Advert
Fortunately, Amy was on hand to help as she struggled to get over her initial shock. "I suddenly heard Amy say right, go in the utility and empty the machine and hang it out," the mum-of-three explained, before Amy urged her to 'pull [herself] together'.
The shock of the situation didn't last for too long and Sherry was able to come away from the experience with the man cleaning her house 'like a trojan' in a red babydoll dress while she slept.
In the years since, Sherry has been able to build up a strong roster of clients - although she personally finds the word 'client' too sexual and prefers terms such as 'sissys, slaves or subs' - offering up everything from their cleaning services to a willingness to be caned while dressed as a mermaid in a paddling pool.
So why are men interested in paying dominatrixes to order them around while dressed in costume?
Advert
If you ask Sherry, her work provides men with a safe place to explore 'kinks and fetishes' they simply couldn't with their partner.
"Their partners wouldn’t understand," she said. "A lot people know their partners and they know whether they're going to say 'Yes' or be revolted and that's the end of the relationship.
"Some people have said to me, 'Why do you humiliate them? It's so unkind'. I'm doing it because they've asked for it," she added.
"I try to teach them is not to be ashamed, because we all have things in our lives, and as long as you're not harming anybody, then it's part of you."
Brenna Cooper