“Breaking ranks with the legions of writers who have exoticized the people, places, things, and activities in this supposedly ‘seedy’ quarter of the retail sadomasochism economy, Danielle J. Lindemann offers up a lithe and sharp account of life in the dominatrix’s jungle and, in the telling, places the reader and the dominatrix side by side. While Dominatrix is a must-read for anyone interested in sociology, sex, pleasure, pain, or work, this isn’t just a book about gender and power. It’s also an occupational study rooted in the venerable tradition of Everett Hughes and his colleagues and protégés of the Chicago School of Sociology. This is sociology—and the exercise of the sociological imagination—at its finest.”

Greg Scott | DePaul University

“In the tradition of the great occupational ethnographies, Danielle J. Lindemann takes us into professional dominatrices’ worlds and shows us, with graceful and consistently engaging prose, how the women she studied build careers, negotiate with clients, and develop accounts that make sense of their work and of the relationships it entails. Dominatrix has much to teach us about gender and sexuality.”

Paul DiMaggio | Princeton University

“In wonderfully evocative vignettes and provocative analyses, Danielle J. Lindemann’s stunning ethnographic study of professional dominatrices shows just how much supposed deviance has to tell us about the normal, the ordinary, and the everyday. Theoretically innovative and methodologically perceptive, Lindemann’s work shows a sociological imagination at its most engaging.”

Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson | Columbia University