Selina Raven, photographed by Constance Smith
SELINA RAVEN, THE MRS. ROBINSON
A former Catholic schoolgirl who attributes her sadistic tendencies to "all of those Sunday mornings spent contemplating the bloody figure of Christ," Raven began her pro-domme career in a structured, hierarchical way: she apprenticed. "There aren't a lot of other women who are practicing BDSM as professionals who went through the process of apprenticing themselves to an older mistress. There's only one other woman in SF right now, Eve Minax, who has actually done things in a more traditional manner."
Now Raven is not only one of the most established mistresses in San Francisco (and a 2007 Guardian Best of the Bay winner), but something of a mentor to up-and-coming dommes. Perhaps it's because Raven benefited personally from the tutelage of an older mistress, Sybil Holiday, that she "always resolved to be a friendly face in the community, in being that person who I wish was around when I was 18: a little wicked but armed with good information and good experiences. That's why I see myself as Mrs. Robinson." A popular guest lecturer at UC Berkeley and sex educator at the Academy of SM Arts, an organization based in Menlo Park with workshops around the Bay Area, Raven is a happily-settled Oaklander with a supportive leather family. "I have my slave, and I have my former apprentice. And her boy lives with us too. I do not lack for love and companionship, but it's not in the traditional hetero-normative form."
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