Dozens of books are published by Purchase professors every year. Most of these books are purely academic in nature. Melissa Febos, lecturer in the school of liberal studies and continuing education, however, recently published a memoir about her years as a drug-addicted professional dominatrix working her way through college in New York City.
Whip Smart came out in March and is the first book published by Febos. She teaches classes on memoir writing and short fiction, as well as senior capstone, an advanced essay writing class required for all liberal studies students.
Febos’ life story is so wild it’s almost unbelievable. After dropping out of high school in rural Cape Cod, Mass. at age 16, she got her GED, moved to Boston on her own and began taking night classes at Harvard. She supported herself by waitressing, and began experimenting with illegal drugs.
At 19 Febos moved to New York City to attend the New School. She graduated in 2002 with a 3.9 GPA and a degree in literature and writing, but she also developed a heroin addiction and a new job title, dominatrix, while in college.
Asked how she was able to balance her job, schoolwork and drug use, Febos said, “I’ve always been a pretty adept multitasker. Also, a really galvanizing force for me was the sense of power and satisfaction I got out of being able to occupy so many seemingly disparate worlds.”
Much of Whip Smart is about how Febos was able to reconcile these disparate worlds and live a life full of secrets. Her double life took a toll on her personal relationships during the four years she worked as a dominatrix. “Having any kind of secret life—any kind of secret, really—is alienating,” she said. “That’s the dark side of the powerful feeling it offers. As much as I divulged my job to people, no one ever got the whole story, and that secrecy kept me separate from the people in my life. I never felt fully known, because I wasn’t.”
The nature of Febos’ work was also damaging. Although she never had any direct sexual contact with her clients, her work was certainly sexual in nature. She helped people, mostly men, to indulge in their sexual fantasies—everything from the bizarre, yet innocent, like sweaters and balloons, to the messy and disturbing, like bugs and bodily fluids.
Ironically, Febos said that one of the most disturbing sessions she ever participated in did not involved flogging, or peeing, or anything physical at all. This particular client wanted to talk through his darkest fantasy, which involved tricking a group of women onto a cruise ship, fattening them up, then raping, murdering and eating them.
Febos said she initially felt powerful, like a sort of feminist hero, beating up men for a living. Eventually, however, she realized that the fact that her clients paid her for their pain gave them all the power in the relationship.
“That kind of work necessitated a certain level of dissociation, and an ability to compartmentalize certain feelings and beliefs,” Febos said. “Practicing that kind of work, and manifesting that kind of psychological landscape didn’t support a holistic emotional life, for me at least.”
Luckily, Febos was able to overcome the emotional struggles of this time period. “Ultimately, the experience helped me to become a much more emotionally present person, but not while I was working. I didn’t realize this until I had been out of the job for a while.”
These days, Febos looks and acts nothing like the person she describes in her book. She walks the campus dressed in casual, yet professional attire. She usually covers up her sleeves of tattoos, and, although her ears are clearly stretched, she does not wear gauge plugs. Nothing about her appearance betrays the fact that she used to shoot up heroin and cocaine, smoke crystal meth, and inflict torture on people for a living. “I think it’s easy for readers to attach the material in the book to me today, when the events in the book actually took place many years ago,” she said. “My life bears little resemblance to anything in the book.”
“Now, I have what those in the S/M world call a very ‘vanilla’ lifestyle,” she continued. “I teach a lot, walk my dog, eat mostly vegetables, [and] write. It’s pretty boring relative to my past; I haven’t even had a cocktail in six years. Having lived so differently, I appreciate it enormously. I have a sweet life. I’m very happy.”
Asked if her love of secrets comes into play at all in her professional life now, Febos said, “Not anymore! I wouldn’t even show my students my tattoos for a long time, but it’s all public now. There is something terrifying in that, but also liberating. I am serious about teaching; I love it, and I think that’s always been clear to my students.”
Febos is dedicated to teaching and is popular among students. According to the curriculum vitae available on her website, she was the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year Award for the 2008-9 school year, and was the highest student-rated faculty member in her department for the fall 2007 semester.
Senior Emily Day has taken two classes, including her capstone, with Febos. “What is funny about learning about her past life chapter as a dominatrix is that upon meeting Melissa, I told her that she had an especially nurturing and gentle demeanor,” she said. Reflecting on a memoir class she took with Febos, she said, “People wrote and shared very personal and varied life experiences. Melissa always created a very warm and accepting environment that lent itself well to whatever subject matter came up. I was also impressed with the level of dedication in Melissa as a teacher.”
Day heard Febos’ story when Febos was a guest lecturer in professor Mary Kosut’s Riot Grrrls and Radical Women class last spring. “Her story was certainly compelling but more than that, it challenged me to look at my own assumptions and opinions,” she said. “She's a bright, kind, multidimensional person who has the courage to share her own past despite possible criticism and negative reactions. I admire all that she is and has become. Purchase is lucky to have her.”
Febos’ days as a woman with a secret past are over now. Whip Smart has gotten highly positive reviews, and landed Febos interviews with the Terry Gross of NPR, an article in TIME magazine and a cover story in the New York Post. The book sold out its initial publishing run on Amazon.com.
The fact that Febos’ story is now out in the open does not bother her too much, though. “It makes me nervous some, yes, but the book is what it is, and I’m proud of it as a literary work,” she said. “ I’m also not ashamed of my past, and I believe in the value of telling my story—in it’s potential to be of service to people I’ve never met. I’ve already seen evidence of this. How it affects me in my personal life is less important to me, and will be a growing experience, despite any discomfort. I can’t control other people’s reactions to it, so I don’t try.”
For more information on Febos’ work and a schedule of her upcoming reading events, and a list of outlets that carry Whip Smart, visit her Web site, www.melissafebos.com.
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