The dominatrix next door

In the middle of the Wellington CBD, tucked into a nondescript area, stands an unmarked door. What lies behind that door is one of the best-kept secrets the country has to offer – known only to a select group of mostly wealthy, very happy clients. It’s The Funhouse – Wellington’s most glamorous brothel, and as I wait to get cleared by Mistress Mariah herself to enter, I feel a little bit like Alice, going into a very different kind of wonderland.

Expect the unexpected

Stripped – not literally – of her dungeon outfit, Mariah – or Mary Brennan, as she’s otherwise known, does not look how you might imagine New Zealand’s highest-paid dominatrix would look. Wearing jeans and a blouse, she’s a petite power-house with a tumble of unruly curls. She’s also very, very friendly (when she’s not holding a whip). As I enter The Funhouse, I’m equally surprised by how, well, elegant it is. It’s my very first brothel, but I do live next to a stripclub in Auckland’s CBD so I’m somewhat aware of what adult entertainment looks like. This is not it. Filled with retro furniture, low lighting, plush rugs and soft leather couches, it looks like the kind of place where you would drink whiskey with Don Draper. Not the kind of place where you would… well, we’ll get to that.

Books and bookings

I’m at The Funhouse because Brennan has co-written a book, Some Kind of Fantasy, along with NEXT books editor Eleanor Black. It takes us through her life and how she became a madam, and then a dominatrix. It’s a love letter of sorts to the sex industry, and the people within it – those doing the work, and those paying the money. The book is excellent, and eye-opening. Scattered within the chapters that tell her life story, Brennan writes passages that go into great detail about what a dominatrix does – and what her clients pay top dollar for.

“When clients ring up and they’ve never been to a domme [dominatrix] before, we’ll say, ‘What are you looking for? What would you like in the session?’ and they’ll say, ‘Whatever mistress wants!’ And I always say, ‘Well, I’d like to tie you up in a corner and go and read a book quite frankly, so please give me some idea of what you want. What is it you fantasise about when you think about coming to see a mistress?’”

Off the rack

There’s a dark, dry sense of humour to Brennan which makes the entire situation feel much more matter-of-fact than it could be. It might be worth-while to point out our interview is taking place in the in-house dungeon. I’m sitting on the ‘throne’, a 1950s barber’s chair, and Brennan is perched next to me on a kneeling rack. To our left lie two racks that feature a meticulously organised series of whips, chains, ball-gags and some scary, shiny metal things. To our right lies a hospital bed. There are chains on the walls, and a bar hanging from the ceiling with handcuffs attached. So I fully believe Brennan when she says The Funhouse – which offers full service appointments, dominatrix/BDSM appointments and also sensual massage – is stocked to cater for any fantasy.

Well, within reason. One of the more extreme fetishes covered in the book came from a client who wanted to act out a cannibalism fantasy and be trussed and basted like a turkey, put on a giant plate surrounded by roast vegetables at a dinner party and poked at with forks by the dinner guests. And if you weren’t a little bit terrified reading that scenario, you’ve clearly led a more interesting life than I have. I tell Brennan my reaction to a lot of the fetishes featured in the book was along the lines of “Really? That’s a thing?” and she laughs.

“We’ve never actually done one [cannibalism fantasy], because it would be costly. I don’t have an issue with it – it doesn’t go against me, morally or ethically – but they’re not going to want to pay for it. To set up a dinner party, we’re going to have to pay everyone to turn up. Be realistic, boys!”

Brennan jokes guys “always think whatever their fetish is, everybody else is into it” but she’s rarely shocked by requests. In fact, on The MM Club (the dominatrix wing of The Funhouse) website, when you visit ‘Mistress Mariah’s’ personal page, it’s stated “there is no request or fantasy that will make her think badly of you. She will tell you if it is something she doesn’t provide, chances are there will be someone else at The MM Club that does.”

NZ leading the way

While some more extreme fetishes are not catered for, and delicacy prevents me from going into too fine a detail, the ladies at The MM Club are both experienced and enthusiastic when it comes to the services they offer. The reputation of the club precedes it internationally – they have had recommendations from as far away as Los Angeles and Italy – and thanks to the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003, New Zealand is now leading the world when it comes to safe, legal sex work.

“My passion – the reason I get up in the morning – is the sex industry. It’s about making it a safer, happier and more ethical place. Not just in New Zealand – we’re going leaps and bounds compared to the rest of the world – [but] I would like to be able to get out and educate more people about the sex industry.”

Despite the fact it’s been legal for 12 years, there are still a lot of misconceptions about sex work in New Zealand. Before my trip to The Funhouse, when I tell people I’m off to meet New Zealand’s highest-paid dominatrix, they all – without fail – ask the same three questions. Is she married (yes, her husband Mikel co-owns the company); has she ever had sex with clients (no); and – perhaps most insidious of all – was she abused as a child? I tell this to Brennan, who isn’t surprised.

“That’s the sort of thing I like to educate about. If, in my lifetime, I could make 50% of New Zealand realise sex workers don’t come from damaged backgrounds any more than nurses, or doctors, or psychologists do, I’d be a very happy madam going to my grave.”

Not all about money

For the record, Brennan had a very happy childhood in Wellington and grew up a good little Catholic girl, who was fascinated with Mary Magdalene in the way good little Catholic girls often are. She wanted to be a journalist, then a singer, but ended up in a government job on leaving high school. Her first introduction to the sex industry was through a friend of a friend who was making a small fortune as a sex worker. To a teenager working a dull job, the money was a big drawcard – as it still is today for those who get into the industry.

Being a high-end brothel, the girls at The Funhouse, who are mainly university students, charge $400 an hour. Compare that to the jobs you had while studying, and you’ll start to understand why Brennan gets an average of two to three girls a day applying for work. But she’s very wary of who she accepts – taking only 5% of the girls who come looking for a job – and warns off those who are in it purely for the money.

“The ones who come to me and say, ‘I’m in a tight bind financially, I only want to do this for a month to earn some money…’ I’ll go and meet those girls and say, ‘Please, if that’s your reasoning, don’t do it. Because it’ll mess with your head and once you’ve stopped doing it, you’ll regret it. You’ll be the kind of person who will write a book about the sex industry and say all the bad stuff people want to hear.”

Brennan describes the industry as an easy target “because everyone wants to hate it”. And this is a large part of her push for the rights of those who are part of it – not just The Funhouse workers, but the clients as well.

“It’s a very real, very human part of life for a lot of people. When women apply – especially in the old days, in parlours – they’d say, ‘What are the clients like?’ and I’d say, ‘You know when you’re walking down the street and you see men? They’re clients.’”

The same goes for spotting an in-house sex worker out in the wild. “I’ve met people who say, ‘Oh, you can spot a sex worker a mile away!’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, really?’ If you saw any of our girls in the street, you would have no idea.”

Far from straight-laced

But Brennan is putting her head above the fray time and time again, becoming the willing face of a still stigmatised, and therefore still secretive, industry. She seems openly hellbent on changing perceptions – one encounter at a time – that a dominatrix is always someone “hard. Nasty. Dressed in black”. She says she’s mostly honest about what she does for a living when asked, depending on who it is asking.

“I went to a shoe shop one day to look for some boot laces, and the guy said, ‘What sort?’ and I said, ‘Really soft, long boot laces.’ He asked, ‘Well, what sort of boots are they for?’ and I replied, ‘They’re not for boots, they’re for tying up men’s genitals.’ It gives him a better work story too!”

The business of sex

Local shoe shops included, Brennan and her husband Mikel have built a lot of relationships around where they work and live, and she knows many of them have no idea they run a brothel together. While others might baulk at the idea of running a business with your husband – let alone a business where your day job includes whipping naked men – Brennan says it’s never been an issue for the pair.

“I’m the business brain, he’s the creative,” says Brennan, noting that the brothel’s sleek interior and hand-picked retro items are down to Mikel’s impeccable taste. “Most blokes think Mikel is in the most privileged situation in the world, because he’s the part owner of a brothel. But it’s completely not what people think – which is why we keep him out of it. He’s an honorary girl – the girls here love him. We’re very careful about the fact we don’t want people to think he’s some sleazebag who sits around in a smoking jacket with his underpants on.”

Wearing the pants

Brennan first met Mikel in 2005 when he became her flatmate; she was managing two brothels at that stage, so was already well ensconced in the sex industry. They fell in love, then a few years later decided to start their own business along with a dominatrix Brennan had assisted a few times, setting up a dungeon in a duplex in Lower Hutt. But when the professional relationship with the dominatrix fell over, Brennan was left with thousands of dollars of equipment, no dominatrix to use it – and an increasing debt. So she did what any other good businesswoman would do: moved it all into her house with Mikel and stepped in to run it herself.

“It was about the money, but it was also the fact clients – who I’d met previously through the other dominatrix – wanted me to do it. They had always wanted me to do sessions but I never believed I had what it took,” she says. “These clients were ringing me and saying, ‘I’ll show you, I’ll help you do a session if you want.’ I thought, ‘We need money. I’ll give it a go.’”

She made Mikel comfortable with her new role – and the fact she was never going to mix business with pleasure – with a simple tactic. Her dominatrix outfit started with a pair of Thunderpants – very full-cut knickers, designed in New Zealand. Practical, comfortable, and not the least bit sexy. It’s a tradition she’s continued throughout her dominatrix career. (As she says: “Anyone who knows Thunderpants will realise: ‘she’s not taking her clothes off.’”)

In a relatively short time, Brennan transformed ‘The MM Club’ from a spare bedroom in Lower Hutt to its current CBD location. The business has gone from strength to strength, thanks to loyal clients and loyal workers – with a team of 17 girls at present, most of whom have been with the company for three or more years, one of whom who has been working with Brennan for 12 years.

Under the lash

“We’ve made great inroads with decriminalisation, but the book, for me, is a vehicle to get people to realise I’m just a person who has a passion for human rights, on all levels,” Brennan says, of why she’s releasing her story to the public. “Whether it’s the human rights of the people working in the sex industry, or the human rights of the clients seeking those services. I just need people to understand I’m not the public perception of a madam, or a dominatrix. I’m just a person. I’m trustworthy. I’m a daughter, I’m a sister.”

Public perception is one thing, but there are a lot of sneaky ways the sex industry is still punished from a business perspective as well. For instance, they still pay a 40% higher premium on insurance due to the firebombings that competing massage parlours used to use against each other while it was still illegal. And getting money to – and from – places like The Funhouse is still difficult.

When the business was initially being set up, Brennan rang around banks to try to organise a loan. The salesperson saw no problem with it, but each time, an official higher up would come back and decline the request, citing a ‘moral judgement’ clause. When they tried to create a phone sex business, and had secured a payment gateway, they again couldn’t find a bank who would take their money. “It blew me away,” Brennan says.

Into the light

But the red tape didn’t stop them then, and it won’t now. It’s a life mission for Brennan, creating a safe space for workers and clients so that everyone walks away happy. Whatever your opinion of the sex industry, it’s always going to be a matter of supply and demand – and the demand will always exist. Prostitution isn’t nicknamed ‘the world’s oldest profession’ for nothing, but Brennan and her team are here to bring the industry out into the light.

“We’ve proven with Funhouse that this type of industry can work very differently to how it’s ever worked before. It’s better than just campaigning; we’ve got a working model that shows how safe, nurturing and fabulous it can be.”

Not to mention a working model that shows wherever you are – from a duplex in Lower Hutt, to a luxurious city-centre building in Wellington – if you build it, they will come.

Words by: Emma Clifton

Photos: Adrian Heke

Hair and makeup by: Miranda Millen

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