Before you get all excited, this is for beginners.
The show follows Tiff, a psychology student in New York, who is moonlighting as a dominatrix and enlists her broke gay best friend Pete from high school as her assistant.
Tiff, who has been banned from the dungeon community for not following the rules, struggles to balance work, school and her personal life as she introduces Pete to the world of sadomasochism and bonding.
While striving to keep her work under wraps, she is trying to hold off an infatuated classmate and help Pete – an aspiring comedian with crippling stage fright – deal with the new environment.
Tiff by day and Mistress May by night, she can’t seem to shake off her German house slave who is developing an uneasy interest in her. He stays in the background clad in a gimp mask and white apron, cleans her house and ends every sentence with “Yes, Mistress”.
This dark sex comedy is not to be taken as a guide for bonding, fetishes, or dominatrix-submissive behaviour as it contains several inaccuracies and mistaken stereotypes, despite reportedly being based on real-life circumstances. Season 2 is closer to reality, as it was written with the help of an expert, enlisted to provide insight and lend an air of authenticity.
Leather straps and buckles, blindfolds and feathers, gags and thongs are all there.
As the show follows a group of people in the process of finding themselves, rather than a showcase of pain and humiliation, there is an absence of basics actually being used, which every starter pack in real life includes.
Nevertheless, viewers can expect suggestions of men in nappies, penguin onesies, fetishes from tickling to slapping and, of course, watersports – those who know, know.
Both seasoned fetishists and the uninitiated will find this rather innocent brush with BDSM amusing – for different reasons.
Mild enough not to need a safe word, but don’t press play when granny’s visiting.
