It’s a performance of sorts. I know I’ve spoken before about how, as Dominatrices, we find ourselves consciously invoking and absorbing certain archetypes. It doesn’t make what we are any less real. It’s just that, being multi-faceted human beings with the same drives, fears and insecurities as everyone else, there are sides of ourselves that we bring to the surface and allow to take precedence on specific occasions. We all do it.

When I visit the British Museum, I always gravitate to the almost identical row of Sekhmet statues. To say I’ve always courted an affinity with her is an understatement. This Goddess sits on her throne, perched high so that passing mortals can only view her from an angle that gives them the impression that they are kneeling in worship at her cool, bare, granite feet. With her hooded eyes, pert breasts and sensual half-smile, she could easily be mistaken for Bast, her occasional alter ego, yet we know that Sekhmet is a creature of unimaginable violence. Any Domme would be hard-pushed not to find shades of this Goddess in herself when she’s in action.

Last night, during a wine-sodden conversation about modern deities, the subject of Marilyn Monroe came up. As with other creatures of myth and legend, we’ve somewhat mislaid Norma Jean and only remember Marilyn. Where the living, breathing, flesh and blood human is dead and gone, along with any hidden upsets or ugliness, the archetype she came to represent remains. Areas of my home carry her image, as do those of countless women (and sometimes men) who wish to summon up and celebrate what she now seems to symbolise. Getting ready for a night out, I primp, preen and powder myself to the sound of her voice. Beneath a stylised still of her in a polished frame, bottles of perfume and tubes of lipstick make up her shrine. In the absence of Norma Jean Baker, Marilyn Monroe – the smouldering sex-goddess she played to perfection – has found herself deified.

In the book “Piece by Piece”, Tori Amos and Ann Powers sum this up rather beautifully in terms of show-business:

“Some women performers are playing with one archetype; some play with a combination of quite a few… However, Aphrodite is the one that is consistently chosen over time. And when a female artist embodies this archetype and can really pull it off – you look at her and you can feel that she emanates a supernatural presence. An obvious example is Marilyn Monroe. There was no mistaking: it’s almost as if she were carrying that Venus lineage with her and stepped into it and realised it, and the people around her needed to keep it there. Ultimately she couldn’t separate from the otherworldly. Some performers take an archetype on board with that intensity when they’re onstage; the show depends on the audience believing the myth. But then, sometimes, they die. Or they get old, and they can’t really do it any more. Others transcend; they’re the performers who ultimately have to tear down the altar of themselves, by themselves.”