Colette Pervette | Finding Power in Pain and Freedom in Bondage

Colette ,welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Colette Pervette

Thanks for having me.

Srini Rao

It is my pleasure to have you here. So I found out about you by way of one of our former guests, Amy Chan, who wrote this amazing book about heartbreak. And I saw that she had shared something about a program that you guys were doing together and I was incredibly intrigued about it. So I thought, okay, well, I'd like to talk to you as well.

But before we get into all of that, given the nature of your work, I thought I would start by asking you what social group were you a part of in high school and what impact did that end up having on where you've ended up in the choices you've made with your life and your career?

Colette Pervette

Oh, what social group? I felt like I was kind of this person that went in and out of many social groups. So I was kind of, I held like an office position in every club in high school, except for like Black Student Union and Latin Society. And I hung out with the jocks sometimes. I hung out with my nerdy friends. I hung out with my Asian gangster friends. But I...

honestly didn't feel like any of those groups were my group. And I was looking for like the group of weirdos to hang out with. And like the weirdest group in school were like the thespian goths. And I didn't feel like that was quite my vibe. And so for I'd say most of high school, I was like blending in with as many groups as I could, but never felt like I was truly a part of it. And it was my group until I connected with

Srini Rao

Hmm. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Hahaha!

Colette Pervette

another weirdo in high school who had a crush on me. And then we started dating. It was my first boyfriend. And he brought me to this place in Orange County called Koo's Cafe. And this is where all the misfits of Orange County convened and made music and made art. And all of a sudden it was like the senior year of high school. I was like, oh my God, I found my group. It wasn't in high school. It wasn't in my physical high school, but it was in this place that...

Srini Rao

Hahaha!

Colette Pervette

just had the most awesome weirdo kids that I felt like was my tribe.

Srini Rao

Yeah. It's funny because the OC is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. And you're describing basically the opposite of what I probably saw on TV. I mean, I grew up in Southern California as well, so I know it well, but I'm from Riverside, which people in Orange County basically consider the ghetto from what was portrayed on that show. You mentioned that you didn't really find your people until you found this sort of group of weirdos. And we have a lot of parents who listen to this show.

Colette Pervette

Okay.

I'm sorry.

Srini Rao

I always wonder for people like you who found this group of weirdos that you connected with, if parents are listening to this, what would you tell them about having their kids find their people in high school? Because I certainly didn't in high school. I think I was a band geek, but that was more out of necessity or proximity, not necessarily true connection.

Colette Pervette

What would I tell parents to probably just to explore their like what activates and excites their child? Like what is it that really turns you on? And it's you know it's not what most parents tell their kids when they're in school right? It's just like do your homework, get good grades. But really it's like what excites you? And like I know at the time.

I was this overachieving valedictorian, but there was this other side of myself that wanted to explore like weird things. And that was before the internet. And all we had was, you know, TV, films, and MTV, and music. And so I went deep into exploring cinema and alternative music. And that was my outlet. And

Srini Rao

Hmm.

Colette Pervette

I think that was how I tried to find my friends. I was like, are you into the same things I'm into? And the people in high school weren't. And when I found the group who were into similar music, similar arts, similar films, I was like, oh, this is my tribe. And so I would say the advice is explore what excites you and what makes you feel like this is resonating with you and go deeper in that space and find people who also.

are interested in the same things you are, and that's how you could speak your common language with them and find your tribe and feel connected.

Srini Rao

Well, you mentioned that you're this overachieving, valedictorian type, and that makes me wonder what the narrative about careers was around your household growing up. What kind of advice did your parents give you about what paths to pursue in life?

Colette Pervette

Well, I'm Vietnamese American and my parents were refugees. And so as you can imagine, they were conservative, they were traditional. And their model of what successful is, is becoming a doctor or lawyer or something that they could tell all the relatives. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Something very stable, secure, and has a high status at that time. And so that was the model.

Srini Rao

I'm Indian, so I can relate.

Colette Pervette

of what success was, looking to our cousins who all finished med school and were established doctors. That was kind of the pillar of success.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So there are a couple of things that I wonder, you know, when it comes to being raised by immigrant parents, because there are a lot of things that I thought were a pain in the ass about the way that my parents raised me, you know, in our household, probably much like yours. Nobody, you know, puts your report cards on refrigerators for getting straight A's. That's just what they expect. You know, it was like you go to the best damn school you can get into. And there are pros and cons to that in my mind. Like the significant upside to that is my parents taught me the value of intrinsic motivation, which has been

later in my life. And of course, the downside to that is that you end up really kind of, you know, chasing other people's dreams and, you know, measuring your life with other people's yardsticks. So I wonder for you, what were the pros and cons of being raised, you know, by immigrants?

Colette Pervette

Well, yeah, no, I think in the same vein as yours, that's that intrinsic motivation, right? Just seeing how much my parents have sacrificed so that I would have this opportunity. I mean, they immigrated on a boat that was a life or death situation. And I was born here in the US and now I have all these opportunities to be who, what I

like do whatever I want to do or even as they'd say, you could even be the president of the United States because you're a citizen here. And so I really felt like, yeah, there was a lot of pressure to succeed, a lot of pressure to not let my parents down, a lot of pressure to just be the best. And I'm glad that I have that intrinsically, no one.

like motivated me in high school other than myself to become like the over achieving valedictorian. I was the one who pushed myself to the point where my mom was even a little bit worried about my like craziness of like getting like an A-. Right? So I'd say that is the pro. Like just being able to see how much our parents have sacrificed for us so that we would have this opportunity and we're gonna make the most of it.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

And I think the cons of it is that they have certain ways of defining what success is. And every generation is different in what success looks like. And back then in the 80s and 90s growing up, success was like a very stable career. And back then it was like lawyer, doctors, professor, whatever it is that had like high status was successful.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

And we know now that that's different in this generation. It's like you could be an entrepreneur, you could be an influencer, you could be a creative, and you could find your own success. But following that path that is something that's a deviation from what your parents think is a betrayal of what they want for you. But I think that that's like the path of every daughter and son of an immigrant parent. You betray your parents, but ultimately you will find a way to show them that you...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

are doing what they want for you, which is to create a life where you are filled with abundance and wealth, material, spiritual, emotional, and you'll show them that there's another way that looks different from what they thought, but it's your own unique way.

Srini Rao

Hmm. Yeah. Well, speaking of your own unique way, what happened after high school? Where did you go? I mean, I don't imagine you'd go from being the valedictorian of your high school to doing what you do today, which we'll get into.

Colette Pervette

Thank you.

Colette Pervette

Yeah, so what happened? Um, well, I graduated in the year 2000, which, um, was also the inaugural year of when Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, um, uh, created their Millennium Scholarship. And so I was a Bill Gates scholar and that scholarship paid for all of undergrad full ride, and then at some point they also announced to like, they're like, well, we'll also pay for grad school. If you go into one of these five.

domains and it was like computer science, math, library science and education. And all the other sciences wasn't quite resonating with me because I wanted to be like an artist. But I was a psych major at UCLA and I was minoring in education. So I was like, well, education feels like a space I could explore. And if I get a full ride scholarship to graduate school, why not?

I have no other plans after college. And so I went to grad school at Berkeley in the Department of Education. And in my first year of being a grad student, I just knew I didn't want to be a poor grad student because when I was an undergrad, I was dating a graduate student and he was like poor and miserable and just always complaining about like how he just didn't have enough. And so I knew it.

I knew that I didn't want to be what he was doing. And so I wanted a side gig. And a couple of my friends from undergrad at UCLA moved up to the Bay Area at the same time and two of them started working at this house of domination called The Gates. And one of them didn't have a good experience at all, the other one did. And she just told me about her day at work one day and she described what she did to me over like...

soup or something and she's like, yeah, I tied a guy up. I put nipple clamps on him. I flogged him. I put a strap on and I don't know if we could use certain words here, but okay, yeah. So she put a strap on and she fucked him in the ass. She pissed on him and then she got paid and she used that money to pay for my soup for lunch and...

Srini Rao

Go for it.

Colette Pervette

she was paying for it, she had to break a $100 bill. And she was like, yeah, it's my new problem now. I have to break these hundreds wherever I go. And I was just like, whoa, okay, I want that story. I'm like, I want to tell stories like that. That's so cool that that's like another day at the office for her. And I want that problem, breaking $100 bills wherever I go. And so I went in for an interview at the gates and started shadowing sessions.

And soon enough I was working at the Gates and also funded by Bill Gates. I felt like for a period of time I was like, everything related to the Gates is funding my life right now. And that's how I became a dominatrix. And yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, I was a Berkeley undergrad, so believe me, I get the experience of being poor and being in Berkeley. Not a pleasant place to be poor because it's not a pleasant place in general. So obviously, numerous questions come from this. I've had a porn star as a guest, we had a professional courtesan as a guest. I think we've had a dominatrix as a guest. I believe Kasia Urbaniak, if I remember correctly, was a guest here. Yeah.

Colette Pervette

Yeah.

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

Oh yeah, she was a former dominantrix. Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's good.

Srini Rao

So, I guess the first place I want to start is, you know, kind of overcoming the stigma of this. I mean, you are raised by these sort of traditional immigrant parents who have this definition of success of doctoral or engineer, and you go from grad school at Berkeley to becoming a dominatrix, which is really, you know, as far off the beaten path as you could possibly get. And I mean, that's a ship that's, you know, it's sailed really far off course. So I guess

The first thing is to sort of address, you know, how do you deal with the kind of cultural stigma that would come with something like that? Because I know in an Indian family, if anybody found out that somebody was doing something like that, it would be the talk of the town and there would be no end to the amount of bullshit that person would have to deal with.

Colette Pervette

So.

Colette Pervette

Right. Yeah, no, I hid what I did from my family and in academia for a really long time. Eventually, I think six years into it, I told my sister about what I did. She was worried about me and we always kept each other's secrets. So I felt like it was safe with her. But four years later, 10 years into being a Dom, my sister outed me to my mom.

And that was one of the most challenging experiences in my life because, you know, the way my sister framed it to my mom just made it sound like it was a horrible thing I was doing where I was hurting men, assaulting them, or I might get assaulted, I might get arrested. And they were just afraid for my life. And they want me to quit.

And my mom was just so, so upset and so sad. And she told me how she like, you know, she waited a month knowing this news. Like after my sister had, she waited for me to come home to tell me in person what she knew and that whole month she's like, I couldn't sleep. When my sister told her, she said like her insides felt like it was just like, just, just felt like she was just being like, just gutted and it's, you know, the most painful.

experience because as an immigrant child, as you know, you just live to make your parents happy and proud and not be worried about you. And for the longest time I was the golden child, my mom was so proud of me, told all our relatives about all my accomplishments. And now I'm like the shame of the family. No one can know about this. And she's just worried for me and wants me to quit.

And that was such a painful experience to see the disappointment in her and just to know every day that she's worried about me. And I had to choose between, it felt like at that point that ultimatum of like you have to quit. And I just didn't want to. I just knew that this life that I created for myself, this unique path and all the relationships that I've cultivated.

Colette Pervette

with my subs, it was just too beautiful and too perfect to let go of. And so I made a promise to myself that I'm going to continue doing this work, but I'm going to also make my mom proud of me. And I know that up until that point when I was hiding all of this, I was perpetuating the misconceptions of what a dom was, what sex work was, by not telling my family about what I did.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

They were filled with misconceptions about this world. They thought it was awful and unsafe when it's the complete opposite. It's beautiful, filled with light and love and completely safe. And so I just made it a personal mission of mine to be completely out, dispel misconceptions, put my voice out there and share with the world what I think this...

this space is and I think it's filled with a lot of truth and beauty. And that was what inspired me to create pervete.com, which was initially a community blog where a lot of doms and subs would write in about their experiences. The first theme was about secrets coming out, being outed. And so, yeah, I think that's kind of...

Wait, what was the question again? Again.

Srini Rao

No, you answered it perfectly and you set up the segue perfectly. So let's talk about the misconceptions that people have about sex work because I think that one of the things that I really enjoyed when we had Sarah Vandela, the porn star here, was really kind of destigmatizing the entire idea of the adult film industry and giving us a reality check because I think you're right. Based on sort of-

what our cultural narratives are, particularly here in America. Sex work is frowned upon. It's stigmatized. And it's basically one of those things where there's just tremendous social stigma. But what are the misconceptions that, one, people have about the work that you do? And then let's get into the misconceptions after that about people have about the people that are your clients.

Colette Pervette

Mm-hmm. I think the misconceptions that people have about being a dominatrix, are you talking about misconceptions about sex work or media?

Srini Rao

Yeah, but I mean, both. I mean, both being a sex worker, dominatrix. I mean, in your case, you know, dominatrix, like what are the misconceptions that you think that are perpetuated by media, you know, by people who don't know anything about this, but just people who see it from the outside.

Colette Pervette

Yeah, I think it's one of the misconceptions is that this work is unsafe and that you don't know who you're going to meet and deal with and that you may run into situations where you're put in danger. And I think that what people don't know about these sessions is that before even a

Colette Pervette

heavy amount of screening and negotiation that happens. And it's both the Dom and the sub are choosing very carefully who they want to play with. You choose, you choose each other as you would like a partner, right? Someone that you find attractive, someone that you find for a sub, someone that you look up to and, and trust to take you somewhere that you can't go alone. And with the Dom, it's someone that you feel is sincere.

and honest with their intentions and their feelings and their fantasies. And before a session begins, you negotiate and you create a safe space for each other to share what our desires, what our limits are and the feelings that come up from these experiences. And so there's a lot of communication that is happening before the session and throughout the session. And so...

That's a safe space that's being created to make this work really, really safe.

Srini Rao

Well, I think for me, another misconception is that the types of people who end up in a situation, students like this or put jobs like this or broken come from screwed up families. You're a high school valedictorian who is a Berkeley grad student, which completely goes flies in the face of that. What misconceptions do you think that people have about people who do this kind of work?

Colette Pervette

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Colette Pervette

Oh yeah, like it could, as you said, like those misconceptions also exist where it's like, oh, you must not have any other, like this is the last resort of like making money or you're doing it just for the money. Or yeah, there must be something broken about you, that's why you're doing this work. And it's quite the opposite, I think. It's someone who really knows themself and knows their desires and knows their worth of their time, right? Like...

In this work, you get to have so much freedom to see who you want to see, when you want to see them, how you want to see them, and how much you want to charge per hour for your time. And I think that those who are gravitating towards this work are those who just value their time, know themselves and their desires.

are completely okay with not caring what others think about this work. It's like, I don't give a fuck that you think that I'm crazy or broken. It's like, I know what I want. I know that this is something that's really exciting and activating and makes it feel like every day I'm not working, I'm just playing. And that's the greatest hack.

Srini Rao

So I love this idea of not caring what other people think. And I think that for creatives, that's incredibly relevant because if you are constantly living your life in pursuit of the opinions of people who will never live with the consequences of your choices, you can't do anything interesting or extraordinary. And I wonder how people apply that to their lives, regardless of whether we're talking about the kind of work that you do or not. I mean, how can they take the lessons from what you do and apply it to other areas of their life?

Colette Pervette

Right.

Colette Pervette

Yeah, I think that's kind of the journey, right? The experience of really not looking around, but looking inward to finding your compass and trusting your intuition of where you ought to be and what you should be doing. Because if you look around and see what everyone else is doing, then you're just following the mainstream. And there is no creativity in that. There's just a lot of structure.

Colette Pervette

monotony. And I think that that's our creative challenge of our time. Like everyone's life, this is what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to figure out our own unique path. And all you could do is really not think about what others would think. It's about how you feel. How do you feel waking up every day and knowing that this is your work? Are you excited about it?

Or do you feel like, oh, fuck, it's another day, right? And I really think it's about getting out of your head and really not caring what others think and just really tuning into how you feel and letting that be your compass.

Srini Rao

now.

Srini Rao

Hmm.

Yeah. So tell me what a typical day in your life is like. Like, and you know, what is a typical one of these sessions like?

Colette Pervette

Hehehe

Colette Pervette

Well, there is no typical day at all. They're all different. But let's see. I mean, one day I could be, well, I like to wake up and have a spiritual practice of prayer and meditation, journaling and making my matcha latte with all my adaptogens in it.

Srini Rao

Hehehehe, yeah.

Colette Pervette

So that's a ritual. But everything after that is pretty, it's different. And some days I have sessions that are BDSM sessions with clients. Some days I have intimacy coaching sessions where I take people on a journey into new spaces as well. And I lead people onto psychedelic journeys. I...

Sometimes I just carve out days where it's completely unstructured. There's nothing on my schedule. And those are my favorite days. I call it my impromptu-ation days. And it's just completely, everything is impromptu and intuition-based. What do I feel like? And it feels like I'm asking my inner child, how do you feel? What do you want?

And she just tells me what she wants to do. And she's just like, let's read this book. Just open this book randomly and read this page. Okay, now put it down and then get in the car, start driving, okay. Park wherever you find parking. And then like, it's just, I feel like I'm listening to my inner child and she leads me on this like magical journey throughout the day. And because it's like completely unstructured, it leaves a lot of room for.

serendipity, synchronicities to happen. And on some of those days, I'm like, wait a second, that was in my dream I had the night before at this book. I'm like, oh wow, if I didn't have this like completely open day, I wouldn't be led to things that my unconscious are pushing me towards.

Srini Rao

So there are two things I'm curious about, the intimacy coaching session and a BDSM session. How do those two things differ? I mean, obviously they're probably dramatically different, but what are the misconceptions we have about the types of clients that you have? Because I think that anybody who goes to see a sex worker, that's not something anybody wants to admit. It's not something that you openly talk about, and it's in a lot of ways something you'd never want any female friend of yours to know about.

because it's so stigmatized, particularly here in the US. And I remember in other countries, I don't remember where it was, but there are countries where literally fathers take their boys to prostitutes to lose their virginity.

Colette Pervette

That's so cool. I didn't know that. Yeah, well, I'd say the difference, there are similarities and then there's qualitative differences too. So the BDSM sessions take place in my dungeon, which is dark and has all the equipment and the toys and we explore erotic fantasies and realize them in that space. And the intimacy coaching sessions take...

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

place in my home, which I call the goddess pad. It's filled with a lot of light and space and it's tucked away in nature. And with BDSM sessions, you can imagine there's, it's pretty kinky and involves all the toys and fetishes and all those things that are kind of typical of a BDSM session. The intimacy coaching is my own special blend of

work where I work with my clients who it's really, it's, I don't work with like issues or problems that come up. I work with their dreams and their desires. Tell me what you want in your, for your life. Tell me what you want deeply for your relationships or your work and career. And they share with me all of themselves, their story, their desires. And when we get together, it's a five, three to five hour journey and we go somewhere.

And sometimes there's a theme. Like for some, they're like, you know, I really wanna explore having like, one of my clients is a woman in her 50s, and she was like, I really want a college lesbian night, because I never had that when I was in college. And so we would explore that space together. And sometimes I would lead them on a journey with working with plant medicine.

And it's really hard to describe, but what I'm trying to create is this experience, is that you're having an open relationship with me. And I'm here to support you in your journey of realizing your wildest dreams. Because I believe that a lot of growth, deep personal growth, comes from being in relationship with someone.

to mirror you, to show you your blind spots, to show you your potential. And I think that in a lot of professional settings with coaching and therapy, you don't have that intimacy of like, you know, the person you're working with professionally isn't gonna tell you directly, hey, you know, maybe you're being, you know, they're not gonna tell you directly and honestly that you need a shape up, that you need to...

Colette Pervette

do X, Y, Z, but I'm like a friend and a lover and a partner. I'll tell you honestly what I think and feel and what's coming up and what I see. And I'm just a mirror for them.

Srini Rao

So what about the men who come to you for our BDSM session? Are they married? Do they have girlfriends? Do they have relationships? What do they like and what misconceptions do we have about them?

Colette Pervette

Yeah, I think it's a pretty wide range. Some are married, some have girlfriends. Many are middle-aged and older. And I think that the common, if I were to like try to pinpoint like what's the most common quality in someone who is exploring, or who sees a dominatrix is that they're curious. They're deeply curious about their fantasies.

and they want to explore them. And they've reached a point where they know that this is something that they want to realize. Because for many people, we have lots of fantasies, erotic fantasies that excite us and activate us, but we just keep it to ourselves and it just stays there. But it takes a certain someone to be like, okay, I wanna live this out. I wanna explore what it feels like to let go.

And I think the reason why most of my clients are men is because the conditioning, the socialization of what it means to be a man in our society pushes us to have a very narrow bandwidth of that, pushes men to have a narrow bandwidth to allow them to be a certain way, right? Because a man...

Because you're less of a man if you want to cry. If you're less of a man if you are not in control and in leading and initiating sexual experience, right? But I think that most men are being denied so many experiences of fully letting go, fully being able to be guided by someone to go somewhere that they can't go alone, right?

If you're always constantly initiating sexual encounters and experiences with your partner, you'll never have that experience of fully surrendering and following. What does it feel to open up to someone? What does it feel to be fucked? What does it feel to be, to just not know what's going to happen next? And I think that that's what most of my subs are desiring, that experience of the deepest surrender to their desire and to desire that surrender. And until...

Srini Rao

time.

Srini Rao

Okay. It's kind of like a math.

Colette Pervette

be able to find someone that they could trust and look up to and find attractive. And be like, okay, take me somewhere I can't go alone.

Srini Rao

Hmm. I mean, you know, in the spirit of transparency, I mean, this is what made me want to have a conversation with you because this is one of those things I'd always been curious about. And like, yeah, you know, my roommates are like, so you're into handcuffs and other shit like that. I'm like, yes, this turns me on. Um, but I wanted to, you know, explore it and kind of get an idea of what it's, you know, the reality. So, okay. How much of this is sexual and how much of this is not? Like, that's one thing I wonder, like, does it lead to orgasms? Like, I'm just curious.

Colette Pervette

Thank you.

Colette Pervette

Yeah, no, this is a good question. And kind of one of the misconceptions that people have about doms, they're like, well, if you're seeing a dom, you must be having sex with her, right? But the typical BDSM sessions, there is no sex. There is typically self-release, which is when the dom allows a sub to masturbate and come at the end of the session. And sometimes they don't, it could be that they want to prolong the chastity and the teasing and denial.

and all of that. So, yeah. So I would say it's very sexual in the sessions, but it's not in the way that you think in the common vanilla sex. It's finding all the other ways that you can be turned on and get off that isn't straight up sex. And I think that's the fun part of exploring like, oh my God, I didn't know it'd be so hot to be pissed on. Oh my God. Wow. I can't believe I just got off on that, right?

And I think what happens is that, you know, I've been thinking a lot about, well, like, why do the men that come to see me have these fetishes and fantasies and desires, right? And I think a lot of people ask that too, where they're like, why would you want to be cuckolded? Why would you want to experience being kidnapped? Or why would you want small penis humiliation?

If you think about these fetishes, they're all the things that most men are afraid of because it would make them less of a man if that happened to them. I think that a lot of subs, it's not like they intentionally and consciously want this fetish. They're not going to wake up one day and say, you know what? I want small penis humiliation as a fetish. It just happens. Something in our subconscious just planted that seed and now we feel like we have to scratch that itch.

Srini Rao

Hmm.

Colette Pervette

and experience it. And I think that subconscious desire comes from a collective self-conscious. And this, I think that all the fetishes that are in kink is dependent on the cultural context of what it means to be a man and what it means to be masculine. So all the fetishes that you could...

that we think about in kink are actually part of the collective male fear. Right? Cock and ball torture, small penis humiliation, cuckling, all of that. That's the collective male fear. And the subs that are coming to experience this, they're saying, you know what? I want to face this fear. I don't want to run away from it like everybody would. I want to experience this and fucking get off on it.

Srini Rao

Wow. That makes me wonder, speaking of cultural context, what did your parents teach you about sex gram? Because Indian parents don't have sex talks with their children. I know this because I never got one. Basically, the closest thing to what I got was when my dad caught me looking at porn in his lab. He was a professor and this was when the internet had just started in the 90s. I've asked a lot of guys who are my age, what was the first thing that you looked at on the internet? And I think almost all of us, if we're being honest, would say

Colette Pervette

Yeah.

Srini Rao

My dad literally came in and this was before we had browser history and we could cover our tracks. And somehow, he says, he's like, were you looking at pictures of Pamela Anderson in my office? I was like, yes, I was.

Colette Pervette

Yeah, I mean, what my parents told me is don't have sex until you're married.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Sounds about similar to what an Indian parent would say to their kids.

Colette Pervette

You don't want to be, you know, like, yeah, you want to keep yourself clean and pure and not be like, I can't remember the analogy of like, you know, just like something that's already like damaged or eaten or something like that. You know, there's a lot of connotations to exploring having sex before marriage. And I was Mormon for a good eight years too. So yeah, I was also had that.

Srini Rao

Oh wow.

Colette Pervette

belief or idea that I shouldn't have sex until I was married.

Srini Rao

So how does this end up affecting normal intimate relationships like boyfriends and things like that for somebody like you? Because I remember talking to one of the women we had here as a professional courtesan is how do you have a boundary between somebody who's a client and somebody who starts falling in love with you? And then what are your normal relationships like when you have them?

Colette Pervette

Yeah, I think it's pretty typical, or at least in my experiences, for my clients to fall in love with me. Because we're in a space where they're completely seen and understood and heard. They get to share everything with me. And not only am I accepting of it, I'm excited to play with it. And we go deeper.

each time that we see each other in our play, in our explorations. And so it's a real relationship. And I allow them to express that. I mean, a lot of them in the heights of their pain and ecstasy, they tell me they love me. And I allow that because I think that this is what a BDSM session is. I truly think it's a microcosm of life, the experience of life.

And I think that everything that happens inside the dungeon is what we're supposed to be doing outside of the dungeon, all of us. Right? I think that we're all supposed to be choosing very carefully who we want as our partner, who we can trust to take us somewhere. And we're supposed to strip ourselves of all our clothes, our layers, our ego, and be seen completely. And we're supposed to say, okay.

I'm gonna fully let go, I'm gonna surrender and just step into the unknown with you. We're supposed to not run away from the pain and humiliation degradation. Or we're not supposed to say, I want more of this and less of that because that's not what life is. Life is just gonna deliver to you whatever it thinks it needs to push you to the edge of your evolution. And through the whole experience of the BDSM session, there's only one thing you have to say in practice. In every moment, it's yes, mistress, I accept.

Thank you. Every moment of pleasure, pain, degradation, it's that practice. Yes, I accept. Thank you. I accept being tortured by this reality. I accept this chaos that I can't control. And I'm finding a way to say thank you because I'm seeing something that I couldn't see before. I know myself more deeply now. I know myself. I know my limits. I know how limitless I can be.

Colette Pervette

I know how soft these spaces are, this boundary is, when I could be pushed. And something happens when you could find your pleasure and pain, your freedom and bondage. In your power and submission, you've transcended the duality of life. You've transcended yourself.

And so this is the practice of what we should be doing in our lives every day. And when you step into the dungeon, it's just a very obvious in your face, like practice of that, right? Like BDSM just makes it way more obvious that this is what we're supposed to be doing. Right? When we see the bondage, when you see the gag and blindfold and the golden handcuffs that's on us, we see the bondage.

And when we see that bondage, we know that we have a choice to get out of that bondage if we want. We could say, or say for it, we're out, right? Or we could figure our way to find our freedom and center in that bondage. But in our everyday lives, we don't see the blindfold. We don't see the golden handcuffs. We just think this is how it is. And when you don't see the choice that you have to find your way out of this bondage, that's when you're stuck. That's when you've lost your power.

But in the dungeon, you see everything. You see the bondage, you see your submission, you choose it. And when you have that conscious choice, that's when you have your power. The sub has so much power, the dom has so much power. Everyone in that space has so much power because it's a conscious choice that they're both making to be in that space. But outside the dungeon, we're not being conscious of the choices that we have. We're not even conscious of the choices that we have before us because we don't even see the bondage.

Because the bondage isn't as material as a gag or a blindfold or a rope. The bondage is in our mind, right? It's the limits of what we think is possible. It's the judgments of others that hold us back from saying what we want to say, doing what we want to do, and being who we want to be. If we're not doing what we want to do in every moment, we have some bondage that we need to see and work through and find our way out.

Srini Rao

Damn. Wow. That was profound and thought provoking. So what about the other question? Boyfriends, things like that? Like, do you have normal relationships with people?

Colette Pervette

No, no, no.

Colette Pervette

Do I have normal? If normal is monogamish, then no, I don't. I'm in an open relationship, and I have two life partners, lovers, and my first partner was my client. And we've been together in this open relationship for seven years now, and I just love him so much.

Srini Rao

Okay.

Colette Pervette

And my second partner is someone that I've been with for a year now. And he's also incredible. I, both my partners are my soulmates. They are here in my life to push me to the edge of my evolution. And I didn't even believe in soulmates until I did acid with my client, my said client, seven years ago. And.

The veil was lifted. This person that I didn't think was my type was exactly who I was supposed to be with. And we've been together ever since, and we have this expanding, wacky, open relationship where he's currently with a friend that I've introduced him to, and they're having this beautiful blossoming relationship. And I feel like I have sister wives, and it's...

Yeah, just a really beautiful polycule. And, you know, it took a lot of time to get to this place where we can have this relationship that is this expansive. It took a lot of learning how to communicate skillfully and knowing ourselves and expressing our feelings and insecurities and jealousies when they come up. And it's not like you could have this relation.

It's not like if you're at open relationship, you've like over like you have no jealousy. It's like no, those things are there. But it's how you how you express it and how you work through it and how you examine them.

Srini Rao

You know, I think that the thing that struck me most was that you've said the words being pushed to the edge of your evolution multiple times throughout our conversation. And what I wonder is how this ends up impacting, you know, other areas of people's lives. So we say client comes to you, how does it affect their performance at work or in their business? Because if they're being pushed to the edge of their evolution, I'd imagine it basically, you know, leads to incredible outcomes in other areas of life.

Colette Pervette

Yeah.

Colette Pervette

Yeah, no, I think that it's how one makes meaning of those experiences, right? If you could see like, oh wow, if I could be pushed in this way, if I could fully like go in this way and expand like how I see myself and what I thought was a limit is no longer a limit. What I thought was a boundary is no longer a boundary. I think that's kind of like the skill and the craft of the dominatrix to really...

you know, know where the subs boundaries are and push them right to it. And just a little bit beyond, but not to the point where they would say their safe word, it's just so that they could see it's like, Oh, I thought that was a limit, but now I see that it's not and I'm actually getting off on it. And I want to explore it a little bit more. Right. And so I think that's the, the fun of all of this, being able to explore our boundaries and our limits.

and realizing they're softer than we think. But if we never explore them, we always think it's a hard stop. And the key is just to create the safe space with deep trust and intimacy so that we can explore the limits and bounds of ourselves and that what we thought was an edge, we get to be pushed a little bit further. And when you're pushed a little bit further,

That's the edge of your evolution as I see it. And you know, I see it happening in life all the time when like things happen to you that are incredibly challenging and painful. That's you being pushed to the edge. And you could choose to see it as the edge of your evolution. If you choose to see like, what am I going to learn from this deep pain and suffering? How am I going to find my way out of this suffering? When you could figure out your way out of that pain, that painful experience, that painful challenge.

You have unlocked a part of yourself that can take more, that can experience the depths of life, the breadth of life as well.

Srini Rao

Amazing. Well, I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Colette Pervette

What do we think it is that makes someone unmistakable?

Colette Pervette

Oh, okay, wow.

Colette Pervette

I'm going to let that question sink for a second. So what do I think it is that makes something or someone unmistakable? Is that the question?

Srini Rao

That is the question.

Colette Pervette

It's.

It's knowing your truth. It's...

Colette Pervette

It's knowing yourself. It's doing that deep work of really exploring and getting to know every part of yourself, especially the shadow, especially the shame, especially the parts that are so painful. When you can explore the depths of yourself and get to know yourself.

that you have something that you have your truth. And when you can embody that truth, seek that truth and express that truth, it becomes so clear to yourself and everyone around you that you are you, that you're not looking around to figure out who you are. You just have looked so deep inside.

You have let every moment, every experience of life allow you to see yourself more clearly. And I think every moment of life offers us that opportunity to get closer to our truth. And when we seek it and express it, it becomes unmistakable. This is you.

Srini Rao

Amazing. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom, and your insights with our listeners. This has been one of my favorite conversations I've had all year.

Colette Pervette

Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to hear that.

Srini Rao

Now, where can people find out more about you, your work, and everything else you're up to?

Colette Pervette

Well, people could find me on, I have a website called pervet.com that I've been working on for seven years now. It's still a work in progress. It's an evolving website and it's a very intimate space where I share my dreams, my wisdoms, and I'm beginning to share my stories as well. And it's also a space where people could see what my offerings are. It's a dominatrix, a shamanatrix, it's an educatrix. And I'm...

about to launch a course called Mistress Class in October, teaching women and femmes how to come into their power and become dominatrices. And you can also find me on Instagram and Twitter.

Srini Rao

Amazing and for everybody listening we will wrap the show with that.