PLAYING TO LOSE

In this intimate memoir Ariel Anderssen charts her journey from a strict religious upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness to her current position as one of the most widely recognised BDSM performers in the world. Her route between the two includes a period as a wretchedly miserable, teenage political activist, in ashamed denial about her inconveniently submissive sexuality, a phase touring with a Christian theatre group, and accidentally discovering a talent for posing for art nude photography as she tries to drum up some cash.

This surprising and unconventional career path led her to a life-altering introduction to BDSM-themed erotic artwork and a whole world she never imagined existing.

On this second visit to Camden, I was spending the afternoon with a painter who’d had the idea to do some designs on my body with UV paint, and then to film me, wearing the completed design, dancing under UV light so that all that would be visible would be his artwork. That sounded great to me, and Malcolm, the painter, a round, jovial man in his fifties, made me feel immediately comfortable. He chatted companionably as he began painting colour onto my body. We discovered that we lived within walking distance of each other’s flats; although his, as I later discovered, had the luxury of multiple rooms.

He took some lovely images and experimental video footage. It was tremendous to be dancing again, even though it was only the improvised movement that my injured back could cope with. And before I could quite believe it, our two hours were over. I was sorry; it had been fun and I liked Malcolm.

Malcolm then did a surprising, and very welcome thing. He was heading to an exhibition that evening, near to Waterloo. He asked if I’d like to go along; he had friends who were exhibiting their work there, and I might enjoy it. I’d never been to an art exhibition, other than the Tate Gallery with my parents. It sounded like exactly the sort of thing a professional, city-dwelling model would do – I agreed immediately. It was only 6 p.m., and the gallery wouldn’t be opening until 8, so Malcolm suggested going to get dinner somewhere nearby. My share of the meal would probably cancel out a lot of what I’d earned that day, but since moving to London I’d rarely gone out for dinner and it seemed like the most glamorous possible way to wrap up an afternoon of modelling.

We went for pizza, where we continued to talk happily throughout the meal. And at the end, he surprised and delighted me by insisting on paying the bill. This is not, by the way, and in case you were wondering, a preamble for my announcing that he suddenly turned into a murderer, sex pest or similar. He just paid for my meal. Almost no one outside my family had ever done that for me before. And it struck me that I’d just spent some entirely pleasant social time with a man who was the age of my parents. This seemed incredibly unlikely and remarkable to me. These days, because of my job, I’m used to having close friends in their fifties, sixties, seventies and even eighties. But at the time it was new, and felt extraordinary. So off we went, my generous employer and I, to the exhibition, which was being held in a hip, undercroft area beneath Waterloo station. Malcolm guided me through the door into the gallery. And quite unexpectedly, my world changed, irrevocably and forever.

ALL MY FANTASIES WERE LAID OUT BEFORE ME IN THIS GALLERY. IT WAS OVERWHELMING

The first thing I saw was a bronze statue of a woman. She was nude, kneeling, and her hands were tied behind her. Seeing it felt like an electric shock. I was stunned. And I immediately felt horribly visible, as though everyone in the crowded gallery would be able to see the effect it had had on me. And as the first of the shock wore off, I realised that it wasn’t the only statue. There was a series of them, and every single one included some kind of bondage. One figure was bent at the waist, secured in a set of stocks. One was on all fours, with a collar around her neck and cuffs on her wrists and ankles. What on earth, I wondered, frozen, was I looking at? It was like a mirror, reflecting the inside of my mind back at me. All my fantasies were laid out before me in this gallery. It was overwhelming.

Malcolm had noticed nothing of this, having spotted a friend of his. He introduced me to Ray, another artist who’d also organised the event. He was polite and friendly, but I was wildly distracted. Who’d made these sculptures? Were there any more in here? I excused myself, and walked further into the gallery. And there, on a wall, was a collection of framed sepia-toned photographs, hanging all together and clearly the work of the same artist. And just like the sculptures, they all depicted women. One picture was a back view of a woman bent over what looked like a church pew. In the foreground was a whip, lying menacingly on a table. Dear God. Another depicted a woman caught in the act of lowering her Victorianstyle bloomers. In another, a woman knelt in profile, glancing up anxiously towards the camera. It was like seeing my dreams brought to life in front of me, in artistic form. I felt hot, and giddy, and utterly transfixed. If there was art like this, I wasn’t alone, I realised. It’s hard to explain how much that meant to me. Someone had made these images, and these figurines. And whoever they were, they must, at least on some level, be like me.

I’ve heard some Christians talk about their experience of meeting God, of having a conversion experience. I never related to it, though I didn’t doubt their sincerity. But, in recalling what it was like for me that night in the gallery under Waterloo station – the sense of peace; the hope of not being alone and strange after all, in the way that I’d feared all these years – I realise that what they describe doesn’t sound dissimilar. Once, as a confused sixteen-year-old, I’d had a sexual experience when I thought I was looking for a spiritual one. And looking at this work that was designed to be sexual, I had what felt like a spiritual awakening. I was part of something. And whatever that was, it was here in this room with me.

THE WONDERFUL, ARRESTING DARKNESS OF THE WORLD HE’D CREATED IN HIS SEPIA-TONED PRINTS

The people who’d made it were in the room too, though I didn’t know it. Ray, the organiser, suddenly appeared next to me. I hoped he hadn’t read my facial expression. I don’t know what it would have told him.

‘Do you like this work?’ he asked, indicating the sepia prints. ‘The photographer is sitting at a table over there; he’d like to meet you.’

He was here? And I could meet him? We’d only been in the gallery twenty minutes. I was going from having no idea that art like this existed to meeting the artist who’d created the most electrifying work that I’d seen in my entire life, all in a dizzyingly short period of time. Giddily, I followed Ray over to where a tall man in his sixties, wearing purple- tinted glasses and black nail polish, was sitting. He stood up to greet me. And just like that, I met China Hamilton, one of the best-established and most loved creators of BDSM-themed, erotic artwork in the UK.

‘What did you think of my work?’ he enquired courteously once I was sitting opposite him at his table, and Ray had absented himself again.

‘I liked it very much!’ I exclaimed, redundantly. I think that my feelings about his work were written all over my face. I’d never felt so young and ill-equipped to deal with a situation in my life. I didn’t know how to talk about photography. I certainly didn’t know how to talk about the wonderful, arresting darkness of the world he’d created in his sepiatoned prints. I literally did not have the vocabulary. I had never heard the term ‘BDSM’. I’d never had my own private computer, so I’d never tried to search out anything relating to my interests. I’d been sure that I was alone. There hadn’t seemed any point.

‘You’re very beautiful. Would you like to model for me?’ asked China, blessedly far more comfortable in this arena than I, and not, as far as I could tell, in the grip of an overwhelming cocktail of unexpected emotions.

Of course, I said yes. So we chose a date in a couple of weeks’ time, and he invited me to stay at his house in Suffolk overnight, since he preferred to shoot after dark. Like a vampire, I thought later that evening, looking over his work at the gallery again, but this time, imagining myself in the pictures, in place of the models I was looking at. My conversation with China had only been brief, but he’d made mention of a ‘BDSM scene’ in London; from the sound of things there was a whole network of people who knew each other, were into similar things to China, and who organised social events.

MY FIRST EXPERIENCE OF BEING TIED UP WAS NOT AT ALL WHAT I’D EXPECTED

It seemed quite unbelievable, but as Malcolm and I shared a taxi back to our respective flats later that night, he corroborated the story. In fact, there was an erotic life-drawing class that ran every week, within walking distance of my home, and they did bondage-themed classes. I could work with them if I liked. And, as I confided with excitement that I was going to work with China Hamilton, Malcolm asked if I’d like to come over to his flat the following week for dinner, and to do a short shoot to try out some bondage so that I wouldn’t be a complete beginner when I got to Suffolk. Thank goodness I said yes. Because my first experience of being tied up was not at all what I’d expected.

Find Playing to Lose on page 69