Catherine, The Matriarch

Catherine Rules was originally written for a publisher who believed in the superiority of women. Books by this company advocated a society ruled by women – Matriarchy. Fortunately, this harmony of dominant woman/submissive man dovetails nicely with Femdom, and Pink Flamingo published Catherine Rules. But Matriarchy and Femdom are not identical. In Satan Wears Satin, for example, the unscrupulous Elise Weiss wants to suppress other women with traditional conventions so she can cheat her way to an unfair edge and take advantage of men who try to act chivalrous. She heartlessly mistreats men and may have murdered at least two for entirely selfish motives. Feminists would call Elise a “lady against women.” Gold diggers (and perhaps most women) live their lives as individuals, not trying to advance their gender. On the other hand, while Catherine Roman rules Frank Prince ruthlessly and considers her supremacy completely natural, she expects him to subjugate himself to other women, too. She sees herself at the very top of the superior sex. Furthermore, she can gratify herself as deeply with another woman as with any man. When she ‘does’ Honey Bates, they frolic in raw sex. Her orgies with Sable Brandenburg on Sable’s birthdays are a volatile cocktail: Sable flaunts her wealth, amassed by the sweat of her male underlings, to pay Mrs. Roman one million dollars, and Mrs. Roman brashly takes the cash because she’s worth it. This monetary power exchange heats up their voluptuous flings. When Suki Swisher and Mrs. Roman get together, who knows? (Their relationship is one of the untold love stories in the imaginary world of Catherine Roman.) The books that follow Catherine Rules – Satan Wears Satin and Down for the Countess – were, of course, specifically tailored for Pink Flamingo’s Femdom line. The theme of Matriarchy was no longer the reason for each novel to exist. In fact, Matriarchy could have been absent altogether.