This is the transcript of a podcast episode titled: BDSM Kink Secrets Revealed in a New Documentary Called tOuch Kink. The podcast is The Weekly Hot Spot – hosted by Experienced Mistress Olivia and Mistress Erika from Intelligent Phone Fantasy. Today’s guest is Todd Max Carey, producer of a new documentary exploring the world of BDSM, kink, and Femdom communities. The conversation delves into the making of the documentary, its intent to demystify kink and BDSM, and the importance of trust, consent, and community within these lifestyles. Listen to this episode on the tOuch Kink documentary on Spreaker or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Ms Olivia: Welcome to The Weekly Hot Spot: kink conversation, BDSM advice and insight from the worlds of distance domination, and phone sex. I’m Mistress Olivia here with Ms. Erika. Today’s guest is Todd Max Carey, producer of a new documentary that you must see.
Ms Erika: Absolutely. You must see it, and we’ll get into the details of the documentary in just a moment. But first, a big, big welcome to Max for joining us today. Thank you so much for taking your time out to talk with us.
Todd Max Carey: Oh, it’s my pleasure and I’m glad that we could have this conversation.
Ms Olivia: Let’s get right into it. Max, your film has a great tagline. An unprecedented journey into the secret world of pleasure, pain, and power.
That’s a great line. This is also the single best representation that I’ve ever seen of our BDSM kink Femdom community.
Ms Erika: I’d like to know about the title tOuch Kink. The small t in ‘touch’ emphasizes the OUCH part. How did you come up with that?
Origin of the title: tOuch Kink
Todd Max Carey: When you work on something for seven years, you start putting metaphor inside the metaphor, inside the metaphor, and a lot of things I did were to remind me of my intentions. The word touch. I mean, everybody wants to be touched. Everybody wants to be connected. Everybody needs that. But sometimes we’re afraid of putting ourselves out there. It’s beautiful, but sometimes it’s a slightly painful thing for people to do. It’s the discomfort that people sometimes feel to really be open and honest. So that was one of the metaphors.
And the other metaphor was the Big O. The biggest thing I wanted people to sort of get from it and why I broke the documentary down the way I did, is that the difference between what consensual kinks do and what abusive people do is all about the circle.
For example, if you go smack someone on the ass without asking, that’s not cool. If you negotiate, you have consent, and you do that and you take care of that person after you smack them on the ass. That’s fine.
So it’s not about what we do, it’s about how we do it, and that’s the circle as opposed to sort of a line of not caring.
Ms Olivia: Wow. I thought it was about the Big O, for orgasm! But, we’ll get into that a little bit later because, we and a lot of our listeners also know that BDSM and kink are not necessarily sexual in the way that other people think of sexual. First, we saw a preview of the film. Erika, what did you think?
Femdom Mistress reaction to the BDSM kink documentary tOuch Kink
Ms Erika: Oh my goodness. I was blown away and really for 10 minutes after, all I could think was wow. Simply, wow. I mean, this is what Olivia and I do for a living, and this is also kind of what we do with the podcast – what you’re doing with the documentary – and that is to try to just demystify the lifestyle and those who enjoy BDSM and kink.
I’m telling you right now, watching it once was not enough. Mm-hmm. And I’m gonna be watching it over and over. It’s so tasteful and elegant. It shows the real humanity behind what many people feel is the work of the devil. So, thank you, Max. And was that your intent when you started this project?
Todd Max Carey: Thank you! Well, the project started off more directly about just trying to demystify the basics of kink.
A number of years ago I met a fairly famous Dominatrix by the name of January Sarafina. She was the first person that I had ever met that was a Dominatrix. I mean, the first person I knew was a Dominatrix.
A Dominatrix is a real person
And it was interesting because she wasn’t any of the stereotypes of like this hard ass, whatever, whatever that you sort of see on TV sometimes. She was super kind and was happily answering questions. And I think at one point I said, “Well, you’re surprisingly normal.” And she goes, “Yeah, that’s one of the wrong ideas people have. It’s not all kink all the time.” She was the one that actually suggested this and we talked about doing a documentary simply sort of demystifying BDSM and Femdom.
That was the start of the project.
Elite collaborators in the BDSM kink Femdom community
Ms Olivia: The two of you collaborating, you could not have found a better person to be an entryway into our world. I can think of a handful of Dommes and Pro Dommes who are in her league. Simone Justice is one of them. Mistress Cyan at Sanctuary LA and the founder of DomCon is another, like any profession, there are people who are elite because of their personality, skills, time in the profession, et cetera.
Do you think this film could have been made if you were an outsider looking in without that entree?
Todd Max Carey: No, definitely not. I mean this, this whole whole community is, you’re well aware is, is all built on trust. People have to trust your intentions and if they trust you, then they vouch for you and they basically take responsibility if you mess up. So there’s no question that without her I wouldn’t have had access to the community.
And from that, of course I met people like Simone Justice and others along the way. And, then it becomes this sort of two, then four, then eight, then 16 and so on sort of thing. But it couldn’t have started without January deciding to trust me to do it right.
Importance of trust in the kink community
Ms. Olivia: Oh, they hear that word. Trust. And that is an undercurrent through the whole documentary. It’s a beautiful exploration of the nuances of kink and BDSM playing from different viewpoints. That’s what I really loved. So you’ve kind of gone through the scene or the lifestyle in the eyes of the Dominant and then from the slave.
Ms. Erika: I just love the slave interviews and also you have a newbie in there, somebody who is like, curious, but what? What’s, what is all this all about? It is such a tasteful look at the situation.
You mentioned it took seven years to do this documentary. Is this a good time for this to come out? Why this documentary and why now? Not four years ago or four years from now? Why do you think it’s important now for people to see it?
Todd Max Carey: Well, I think we’re entering a time where people are … it actually feels like there’s sort of this cold wind of conservatism sort of blowing back into the world, which is strange in many ways.
We think we’re open, but we were more open in 1975 than we’re now. I just think people are fighting and trying to build little tribes and I’d like people to sort of see that we have more in common than not. I’d like to try and open up people’s hearts and try to let people understand each other a bit better.
So, you know, it feels important for that. But I mean, the truth is: you start a film and it gets done when it gets done. I can’t pretend I had any plans to make it arrive at a particular time.
Ms. Erika: I agree with you. It is the perfect time though. I think, like you said, there’s a big wave of people who wanna pull us apart versus finding the commonality that we have as humans together. It’s beautiful.
Todd Max Carey: Thank you. It’s always been what’s interested me. I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to travel a lot and I’ve always been fascinated by how infinitely similar we’re as humans and how useful it is to understand that.
What we have as humans, is our human experience that should unify us more. But it starts with being open minded. That’s one thing that I love very much about the kink community. You can have a conversation about anybody, anything, and people may say, well, that’s really not my kink. But, you know, usually people don’t kink shame or say, well, it’s just because I disagree with you, therefore I can no longer speak to you. So I like the openness, the basic approach.
Judgment in the BDSM kink community
Ms Olivia: But you know, within our community too, there are people that are “my way is the only true way.”
Todd Max Carey: That’s just a natural human struggle we have between thinking we know everything and understanding the truth as we know nothing.
Ms. Olivia: Ah, that’s so true. Let’s talk about the four people that are anchors, if you will, of the film. There are way more than four people, but those are featured. I have to say the photography is just. Oh, it’s lush. Like I just wanna roll around in the images.
First, let’s introduce our listeners to everybody. Okay. So the four people that are the anchors of the film. Grace, the soccer mom, and she’s the one that Erika mentioned, the newbie learning about BDSM and being a Domme. And then Mistress Evilyne, a British dominatrix outed and shamed by the British press, and slave robin. Robin is from Texas and is owned by his Domme. I own someone who is also in Texas, so I could definitely relate. And then of course, the late January Sarafina who had such an impact on the kink community and you call her the inspiration behind understanding the power that all women possess, but few truly realize. Talk to us about Mistress January in terms of that.
Todd Max Carey: Well, it’s just, you know, realizing that power. All people have these two sides, well, more than two sides, but we have masculine sides, feminine sides, Dominant sides, and submissive sides. And having that first conversation with her, I quickly realized that it wasn’t about a role for her.
You know, she wasn’t like I’m a Domme for breakfast and I’m always a Domme, so get on your knees and serve me.
Ms. Olivia: When people say that to me, that’s the biggest sign that they have no idea what they’re doing. If they talk to you like a human and then, you know, go into whatever role that is appropriate, then that’s fine.
Todd Max Carey: That multidimensional aspect of it was fascinating to me because I think as a man, for the most part, we’re supposed to be John Wayne. We’re allowed to be mildly pleased with ourselves or angry. Basically that’s the emotional spectrum that is typically allowed for men and there’s a lot of the people that just don’t feel like they fit into that.
And, I think there are a lot of lessons from kink too and January really personified that. That’s what started me down that path of thinking about that.
Soccer mom learning about BDSM and Female Domination
Ms. Erika: That’s beautiful. I think one of the most fascinating characters for me, and I think for a lot of our listeners would be Grace. I love how she’s a flesh and blood bridge between the two worlds, and she brings her “vanilla suburban housewife experience”, but she has a curiosity about what she’s seeing. I love how January said that about the power all women have, but few realize. With Grace you can see a little bit of that evolution.
Was Grace always a part of the documentary or did she come in later? How did Grace come to be in tOuch Kink?
Todd Max Carey: I basically finished the first two thirds of the documentary and realized it was becoming a little bit too much of a, just a straight up love letter to kink. Not that I had an issue with that, but I wanted to sort of have a sober second look Also, I think I mentioned it sort of at the beginning of the third act, is that I wanted to bring somebody in who really wasn’t part of this. And just sort of double check my findings. And, Simone Justice had agreed to have Grace in one of her classes about, you know, waking the Goddess, becoming a, becoming a Dominatrix.
Grace cautiously accepted that role, out of curiosity and sort of a desire to sort of understand all this. And so yeah, she was kind of like my sober second look. And that’s what I say in the film too. I wanted to just have her go through the Goddess awakening training and just see if, someone who really had no knowledge of BDSM, to hear what kind of things they thought and, uh, have her evolve. Even if Grace didn’t like it, I still would’ve put that in the film.
Viewpoint of a submissive owned by his Domme Mistress
Ms. Olivia: Brilliant move. I mean, not just cinematically, overall just really brilliant. Now, I mentioned that I have a treasured sub who lives in Texas.
In the film, slave robin from Texas talks about his relationship with his Mistress and others in the kink community. And at one point he said something that really struck me. I trusted these people. They’re not hypocrites. They know who they’re, and this is one thing that I really appreciate about your movie.
You capture the intimacy, the tenderness, the compassion, the joy in what we do. Power exchange though is not visual. So how were you able to convey that? And you did convey that and you did it really well. How?
Todd Max Carey: I just captured what I captured and then tried to edit what felt right to me to sort of explain what was going on.
And I wanted to show diversity because different people do really like different things. And so I really just captured what I captured and tried to use it the best I could to illustrate what people were talking about.
Ms. Olivia: And you did! This is really difficult. You see this in mainstream blockbuster movies, vanilla movies. It’s so much easier to put in a car chase or like a superhero movie in there. All of this kind of stuff, or with kink, the spanking and the paddling and the rigging and the fetish costumes, all of that kind of stuff. That was in this, but the humanity of the players is what really comes through. The tenderness comes through. Mm-hmm. It’s a very tender movie.
Todd Max Carey: I tried to sort of split the difference. I didn’t want to leave the kink play out of it. But I didn’t want it to be focusing on let’s watch a bunch of play scenes, because I mean, you can do that anywhere. I wanted to give you a sense of what the play scene was, and then let people tell you what they were feeling.
Because, as you know, or your listeners probably know, is, that you know, you can walk into a room and see 10 couples, for example, spanking one another and it may look exactly the same, but every single individual is having a different experience, you know? Um, so it’s hard. It’s better to sort of hear what they’re experiencing.
I felt I had to sort of walk that line a little bit and not be too much. Focusing only on the “look at all the beautiful people doing crazy shit” could be tempting and would’ve been a lot easier to do. But I wanted to try and give as much context as I could.
Dominatrix outed and publicly shamed – one of the biggest fears of kinksters
Ms. Erika: Now, you just said something a moment ago, so you know the idea of having people relate to you, the story that you’re telling. And Olivia touched on how it’s not that gratuitous sensationalism that we’re so used to in the media today.
And that brings me to Ms. Evilyne. She’s the British Dominatrix who was outed by the British press. She was forced to move. You really display the very humanness of being ostracized if you had a hobby or interest. That’s a really big fear for a lot of people in the kink community. Do you have any hope that this documentary may help people realize that and maybe even say, “Wait a minute, why am I doing this to someone? Why can’t they have their hobbies or their interests?”
Todd Max Carey: Of course. So the other idea, of course, is that the best way to demystify things people are interested in is to meet people or get an opportunity to understand something. I remember my grandmother once saying back in the day that she didn’t know any gay people and then when she found out someone was gay. She said, “He’s very nice, that boy. So I guess gay people are okay.” You know, it was just really that simple. Obviously she probably met a thousand gay over the years, but you know, once she could identify with someone she liked or knew someone then she could just make the connection.
Ms Olivia: So it’s letting people know that we’re not all crazy people that like this, that’s the other thing.
Todd Max Carey: Right. It’s really just letting people meet these people as best as they can. And maybe when they see these people, they judge for themselves. Maybe even ask if they can identify with these people and go, well actually, well maybe I would like to give this a go.
Kink is such a funny thing. They say as high as 45% of people in Scandinavia are now into it. But the second it becomes, you know, an activity becomes a majority, it stops becoming a kink. It could be argued that I dunno, anybody that hasn’t had a shag with the lights on, so maybe now shagging with the lights off would a kink. It’s just, it’s very relative. It’s just ideas and what people are considering normal at any given time.
Long story short, I do want people just to get to know these people, get to feel for them and try and be able to relate to them, and then maybe they can think a little bit about themselves.
Ms. Erika: Absolutely. Now Olivia and I are heavily involved with our listeners and they love to send us questions and when they found out we were going to be talking with you.
One of the questions from our listeners is this: “Are you Max into BDSM and kink?
Todd Max Carey: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think like a lot of people, perhaps they’re into it without realizing they’re into it. I mean from the time I could remember, I have always just done exactly what I wanted to and I couldn’t figure out why everyone else didn’t wanna do that. I think I was about 32 years old before I got a copy of (BDSM author and kink educator) Jay Weissman’s book.
I think the opening chapter has something about if you’re like, this, this, and this, you’re, oh, that’s a thing. You know? So, I mean, I didn’t know the words for it until my thirties. You know, for most of my life, my understanding was limited to what I was and what I was interested in.
I also didn’t know any Domina, and frankly, that wasn’t really my thing but then having this opportunity expanded my view of kink and let me walk in various words and understand it better. But yeah, I’ve always been into the DS side of things and I’ve become increasingly active as I get older.
Ms Olivia: Okay. So inquiring minds really wanna pin this down, so I’m gonna do a follow up. You identify “how” in the kink world, if you wanna say.
Todd Max Carey: Yeah, that’s fine. I’m a Dominant, I’m also a fetishist. I would describe myself more, I suppose, as just a general kinky person now. I mean, I used to always think of myself as Dominant. Most of my plays are dominant, but I’ve realized that I just like kink play. And if someone’s more comfortable playing and I want to play with them and they would like to be in a more Dominant role I’m happy to also be a bit flexible there as well.
Ms. Olivia: I’m kind of hearing that you don’t necessarily switch, but that you’re fine being topped.
Todd Max Carey: Yeah. I mean yeah, call it what you will. But yeah, for the most part, I’m a Dom but I like to play and I have my particular kinks.
Changes in the BDSM kink community
Ms Erika: Well, in all of your years being involved with the kink or BDSM world, have you seen any significant changes in the community?
Is the community more, less, more accepting? Is there anything you can give us regarding that? I mean like anything with time there, there’s good and there’s bad.
Todd Max Carey: As Ernest was saying in the documentary because it’s so much more accessible, some people are sort of skipping ahead a little bit. For example, walking a munch and you’ll meet some 22-year-old kid that is acting all dominant or whatever.
There are more people getting into kink but I think when it was harder to get into, people probably learned manners and learned the protocols better. As it’s become so easy that anybody can just decide today I’m this, and some people might even follow them. In general standards may have gone down.
But, you know, people are having more open and frank conversations, which is good too. And there’s other aspects. I mean, there are a lot of traditionalists that would say that BDSM pure form has nothing to do with sex. And, lots of fetishists would say that it’s always to do with that. So, the mix, the remix, the redefining and, and trying to look at it through more of a modern lens is useful too.
So, pluses and minuses of what’s happening in the world right now.
BDSM and sex
Ms. Olivia: Speaking of sex, like many things in BDSM looks can be deceiving. For example, it can look sexual. But as Natalie, a lifestyle kinkster said in the movie, a lot of things are not sexual, per se. It’s a sensory experience between two people. The best in the world.
For example, Simon Justice was an advisor on this documentary, how did the advisors help you to accurately depict this?
Todd Max Carey: I think for the most part, just answering a lot of my dumb questions, you know, like, what is this? What is that? How many people can ask, so are you having sex with your clients? Are you doing this? And then finding out, well, actually no one size fits all.
Ms. Olivia: So I was doing a scene where my sub was in suspension cuffs attached to chains hanging from the ceiling. And I had pulled down his underwear and put my foot on the underwear on the ground. So he couldn’t move his legs.
And at one point during that scene, I took the head of his cock in my mouth. And during the scene, one of the Dominant males came over and he went, I thought you were a Femdom. He said this during the scene!
All I could think of, is if I can’t do what I want as the Dominant, then what the fuck are we all doing?
Todd Max Carey: Exactly. But, I think women intuitively understand that better than men. I think that, again, it’s the emotional spectrum. Yeah, you’re the Dominant. You can instruct him to do whatever you want.
Many people are convinced that there’s only one true way, you know? As I said, there’s nothing less Dominant to me than somebody who thinks that there’s only one way of doing any of this.
Ms. Erika: We all know people in the general populace get all up in their feels when it comes to sex. They lose their mind or very least judge or shun anyone who is less than mainstream or status quo portrayals of sex and sexuality. What challenges have you had, if any, with this project?
Challenges getting the tOuch Kink documentary into film festivals
Todd Max Carey: Well, when I first submitted the project to documentary film festivals they almost universally said, no thank you. And some wrote back and said we don’t do sex, we don’t do documentaries with nudity, they don’t do anything like what I did. And I was actually surprised by that. They were so conservative about this subject. And then, I found the festivals that are more sort of interesting and that you know, pushed the envelope a bit.
Or the biggest one in the world is, Fantasia, where I had my world premier. You know, they’re willing to push the envelope a little bit, but generally speaking, there’s a hell of a lot of conservatism, even within the realms of people make decisions about what documentary goes to a festival.
And the same thing. I would try to do press releases and I would get back comments about how this links to something that’s somehow naughty. And I’m like, what do you find naughty? And then maybe somewhere down there, there might be a link to a video with somebody who maybe has bare nipples.
You know, apparently nipples will mess with you.
Bare nipples on women …
Ms Erika: Um, you know. Evil nipple. The evil nipple. Well, it’s only female nipples that will blow your mind. Apparently male nipples are fine, just so you know.
Todd Max Carey: Mm-hmm. I mean, it’s just that absurd, you know? And the funniest thing is, you know, you’ll see stuff on mainstream tv that is sexual but, anything overt about sex it just makes people uncomfortable.
BDSM and kink labeled as mental disorders
Ms. Olivia: One of the things that you did that I really appreciate and loved was you traced the formal medical labels.
Todd Max Carey: There’s a history of being uncomfortable around sex and BDSM and kink and fetish; it’s been misunderstood for years. By design or by benign neglect. So in 1952, that was the first year that the DSM was published. And that book from the American Psychiatric Association really codified prejudice in 1952.
Ms. Olivia: It was labeled as a mental disorder and sexual deviation. And then you list the changes in the various DSM editions, 1, 2, 3, 4, showing how this has changed. And then in 2000. It moves away from those inaccurate terms and now it’s listed as no longer a mental disorder unless it causes clinically significant distress or impairment.
Todd Max Carey: I think that is an improvement, but there’s always a lag time, so there are still therapists and medical professionals who don’t understand and who don’t want to understand.
Ms. Olivia: Mm-hmm. And they are quick to label. You’re sick, you’re weird, or you have a mental disorder. And luckily it’s not the case now, but why did you go through and put that in with everything else?
Todd Max Carey: Frankly, because a lot of people thought it was still a mental illness. I can see that because 10 years ago, it would’ve still been classified as some kind of mental illness.
And I also wanted to make the analogy that it took us 50 years to be okay with gay relationships. I mean, it was only 50 years ago that homosexuality was delisted. So it took us 50 years literally to get to where we are now for the gay community. It’s probably another 30 years before we’re gonna get anywhere near the same kind of acceptance of BDSM and kink.
Final thoughts and questions for listeners
Ms Olivia: We could sit here and just continue talking to you indefinitely. We’re coming to the end of our time. Thank you. We always end the podcast with final thoughts and questions for our listeners. Erika, why don’t you go first?
Ms Erika: Well, for our listeners who come to us with these similar questions and are trying to find a way to introduce BDSM or kink play into their relationships, this is a great documentary to open up those conversations.
Todd Max Carey: That’s really a statement. I didn’t have a question that was always my intention actually. When I was young, my parents were too shy to talk about sex. They handed me a videotape to watch. And this is the tape I want to hand back to them to sort of explain what kink is and what I’m into.
Ms. Erika: Beautiful. I love that. And we’ve done several podcast episodes answering questions like:
- Why isn’t my wife or girlfriend like my Goddess or Mistress?
- How do I ask my wife or girlfriend or partner to become a Femdom?
- How do I negotiate this with someone that I’m interested in?
- What should I do?
So we do a lot of discussions like that.
Ms. Olivia: Will this come out on dvd?
Todd Max Carey: The first thing, it’ll be broadcast in various places. I’m not sure if it’ll go straight to DVD or straight to video on demand there, but eventually it’ll be available through various channels.
Ms. Olivia: The American market, lemme tell you, there are some fucking perverts here and I identify pervert. Okay, that’s not me trying to shame them except because their kink is on the down low. A huge chunk of our callers are conservative religious Republicans.
Todd Max Carey: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think Simone Justice will have a problem with me sharing this. She once made the observation that usually there are more customers for her in the conservative places because there is no other place to have these conversations. There are pluses and minuses to everything.
Ms Olivia: So my final thoughts are actually two quotes from the documentary, and I didn’t write down who said this. It might actually, it might have been Earnest, but the quote is, “Where else can you experience pain without fear, violence, without anger?”
Todd Max Carey: Yeah. That was Earnest. What an interesting man.
Ms. Olivia: And then this quote by Mistress January Sarafina: “BDSM is sexuality for creative intellectuals.” That is so true, a lot of thought goes into kink.
If you’re in the kink community, reach out to Max if you’ve got a way to get this film into play party or event.
You showed it at DomCon LA in the springtime, right?
Todd Max Carey: Yeah.
Reaction of the Femdoms at DomCon
Ms. Olivia: What was the reaction?
Todd Max Carey: I was incredibly nervous because most of the people there were in the documentary. And, if you’re gonna follow the hardcore rules of consent, you have to let people withdraw consent. So even though they signed model releases, if people had an issue with anything, I probably would’ve pulled it out. Though I wouldn’t be legally obliged to do it, I would. So I was terrified. But after seeing it they stood up and gave me a three minute standing ovation. To try and get a hundred Dominatrixes to like the same thing at the same time was pretty remarkable. It made me pretty happy.
Ms. Olivia: I stood up and cheered right here in my living room. I’m not kidding. Yeah, I teared up, stood up. Fuck yeah.
Max, thank you so much for joining us. This is just a real treat.
Todd Max Carey: My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Ms Erika: I’ll also be following you and tweeting you out and encouraging everyone to see the documentary when it comes across their table. Thank you very much.
Ms. Olivia: So we’ll leave our audience with this quote.
It begins the documentary, and it’s from Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” So my friends, as we leave you today, please “ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.” Until next time, we appreciate you.
Bye
Bye
Bye.
Mistress Olivia’s blog: Experienced Mistress
olivia@enchantrixempire.com
Mistress Erika’s blog: Intelligent Phone Fantasy
erika@enchantrixempire.com
DISCORD: LDWOlivia & LDWErika
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