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For as long as dominant women have defied the idea that it's a "man's world" and commanded the sexuality of secretly servile males, it has ever been their most delicate yet important task to promote their sadistic charms. A century ago a professional domina dealt in whispers and discreet, personal referrals. Decades ago hand-printed cards were posted in sex shops and tobacconist's windows. A few years ago she and her sisters found the Internet. With it, a boom of unrivaled self promotion and entrepreneurism has taken place. Throughout this long and ever-changing progression, however, one advertising medium has been the domina's staunchest friend and ally. The fetish-bondage-SM magazine has been with her, and has mirrored her unusual activities, for more than 50 years!

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In the Beginning

Believe it or not, DDI fans have a Los Angeles-based dominatrix named Stephanie Locke to thank for their years of reading pleasure. Back in the early 1980s DDI's founding publisher was already producing two popular U.S. fetish magazines, "Fantasy Register" and "Stiletto." These magazines featured a variety of subject matter on the B&D and fetish scenes, including regular interviews and photo spreads with genuine professional mistresses. It was in an early issue of "Fantasy Register" that Ms. Locke's six-page photo spread appeared, and subsequently spawned the idea for DDI. She wasn't the first professional mistress to be featured, but she was the first to come back to our publisher and thank him for the visibility. Between chidings about his choice of photos, she claimed to have acquired more than two dozen new clients thanks to the interview and inclusion of her phone number.

Mistress Stephanie Locke's thank you put our publisher to thinking. First, direct-contact visibility in "Fantasy Register" or "Stiletto" obviously had a fair value. Second, more and more professional mistresses were writing to our publisher clamoring for similar visibility. This was detracting from other editorial content, such as fetish fashion features, readers' photos or fantasy stories. Third, selecting only one dominatrix to highlight, per issue, was unfair to other dominas hoping for comparable recognition. The logical thing to do was to create a magazine dedicated to the professional dominatrix, and only the professional dominatrix. Thanks to that one telephone call from a grateful dominatrix, DDI was born.

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