In the latest in our Finances after Fifty series we talk to Mary Brennan, 64, a former dominatrix and now owner and madam of Wellington brothel Funhouse. Mary is a long-standing advocate for the rights of sex workers.
A good dominatrix is compassionate, non-judgmental, preferably has no skeletons in their closet, no triggers, no buttons to push. They’re open-minded, funny, service-oriented, a good people manager. I'm all of those things. I was a corporal punishment specialist, which means caning people and I'm naturally quite strong. I have really good eye-hand coordination. There's an art to caning.
I'm certainly not amazing with money but I'm no dullard. I've got a crossover between my mother's good, basic book-keeping/budgeting/business-running skills, and my father's attitude that the people who work for you are the most important thing. I could be making much better money if I was more of a hard-arse boss. If I said, ‘you said you’d be available at this time!’ But I want our women to be happy, so I always check twice that they feel like taking a client.
I grew up working class, in Eastbourne, which at the time was just a little suburb of Wellington, not the high-end village escape it is now. We owned a dairy on the front of the house. I had a very happy upbringing; there were lots of families and, back then, most people had three, four, five, six children so there were kids everywhere. I had four older brothers and Mum was always happy to have their friends around and provide Milo and biscuits and things, so there were always cars and motorbikes parked outside our house.
When they closed the dairy, Dad DIYed it into our lounge, which was pretty amusing because the front windows were right on the street, so he mirrored them. We'd be sitting watching television, and people would walk past and come up and check themselves out or squeeze a black head – it was pretty funny, but it was also fairly tasteless. Many years on, someone bought the house and did lots and lots of things to it, and it was in NZ House & Garden magazine.
We were Catholic, but I don’t think Catholicism is a kind religion and Dad was a really kind person, very much what a perfect Christian should be. He would have given away every last cent we had to people poorer than us, if Mum wasn't the one who took care of the money. Mum was really good at budgeting and buying things on special. They never used hire purchase. Dad was the man who, if anyone who had trouble, he would help them sort it out.
I left home when I was 17 and became a hippie down on the West Coast. I'd been a bit of a – not a rebel, I never did anything really bad – but I wasn't on a straight path to grow up, have boyfriends, get married, have children. My parents kind of accepted that.
I never had any confidence in myself at all, especially physically, because I was always overweight. That was a big thing back then, because I was born in ’61 and people were generally slimmer. You couldn't buy clothes over size 14, and I was usually sitting around size 14 to 16. Also, sexually, I had vaginismus; and I also realised about seven or eight years ago, that I'm actually asexual. But I always felt like I should be having sex, and I should be wanting to do these things and, you know, was I gay? And then it's like, well, I don't really feel any more attracted to women than I do to men. So yeah, I was always just, I don't know, the one who didn't have a boyfriend.
When I became a dominatrix, many years later (I was the busiest, most popular dominatrix in the country for 12 or 13 years) my mother was still alive. She didn't really have a big understanding of what it was all about, but she had no judgment around it. In fact, when she was in her 80s, she'd say, ‘Well, if you get short of girls, give me a call. I'll hop on the bus and I'll come down. I could probably almost remember what to do’.
I have an amazing partner now who I've been with for 20 years. Sexually it's been an issue, because he's very, very sexual, but I'm not. So, we've worked out a relationship that works. We're best buddies, and we'll be together until one of us pops off. People go, ‘Really? Asexual dominatrix?’ And it's like, well, I didn't have sex, I didn't get naked, I didn't take my clothes off, I didn't do any of that stuff. I was extraordinarily good because I had to make up for not doing those physical things by really getting inside people's heads to make the session so exciting that they’d want to come back again and again and again and again.
In about 2005 I set up a business around another dominatrix, who I believed to be a superstar, and threw a lot of money at it. I take a lot of leaps of faith, and this was one of them, sadly. The business went under and I probably lost, 170-180 grand. I owned a rental property which I sold as I was desperately trying to dig myself out of a hole that I'd made. I was very, very stressed and quite unwell by that stage, because I'd lost everything. I managed to get out of the lease of the premises and I walked away.
But I still had the phone number of that business. I’d assisted this dominatrix on a couple of jobs and former clients kept calling me and saying, ‘Would you do a session?’ I kept saying ‘I can't!’ because I had no confidence in myself. Eventually these two clients in particular kept calling and pleading so I agreed to do a session with each of them. Both of them rebooked me for the next week. I put a little advert in the paper, and all these clients came out of the woodwork. And I just became really well known at a time when there weren't many dominatrices around.
Around that time I also started Funhouse, which is a high-end brothel with three different service components. We are the most expensive place in Wellington. Our women only come in for confirmed bookings and our premises are way different to a high-volume walk-in brothel. It's all beautiful mid-century décor; the lighting is soft and adjustable; we have $8000-$9000 mattresses, which I only ever pay Sleepy Head half for, because they’re always having sales. The linen is changed after every booking – we don’t just put a towel down. Our ladies are paid via a tiered system – their hourly rates go up as their repeat clientele increases. Because repeat bookings are the only feedback that counts.
People judge our industry, both the workers and the clients, but let’s face it sex in long-term relationships is also transactional. People get bored with each other, and chances are that the woman's going, ‘Ohh, not tonight’. But to keep the peace, or keep it all happening, they feel obliged. Maybe the man is in the same position. But with women, they’re often not actually excited by the sex that they're about to have. They're transacting for a lifestyle or to stay together for the children's sake. If the guy pays the bills, then that's still sex for money. So don't fool yourself.
Financially, I’ve been down and then I’ve dug myself out, and I’ve been up, then way down, and up, and we’re going down again right now because of the economy and the war. I mean, we're a luxury spend. So many other businesses are closing, Cafés, restaurants, bars... It's been noticeably slower for this industry since about March last year.
I'm 65 in three months, and I'm really looking forward to getting my pension, so that it keeps the business afloat. I haven’t saved enough for retirement; I’m not planning on retiring any time soon. There are quite a few things I could still do as a dom, as long as physically I'm OK – and I do strength training at the gym and Pilates once or twice a week. My brain's still pretty active and I could train other women up to be doms, because I get so many people wanting to learn.
Sex work is not the licence to print money that many believe. It used to be, years ago, before the internet. But now there's free porn on your computer, there's cam girls, there's sugar daddying (which is horrendously dangerous and horrible). In terms of AI, I don’t think sex workers will ever be replaced by sex robots. But then if AI takes away people’s livings they won’t be able to afford us, so obviously we’re still in the firing line.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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