Terri-Jean Bedford

[Guest N***he**Ont**y]

Terri-Jean Bedford is sitting on a leather swing suspended from the ceiling by four metal chains. She is asked if she needs some support for her feet. A man wearing backless leather underpants crawls in and sets himself up as her footstool. Canadaâ??s best known dominatrix is told by her director to explain what we are doing here. A cameraman adjusts the shot and begins to tape. Bedford starts talking to her daughter about their hopes for their potential reality show with the working title, [I]The Bondage Bungalow[/I].
â??There are 750 different known kinds of paraphilia (types of sexual arousal) and we want to shed a light on some you may not know about,â? says Bedford to the camera.
Bedford, who has been one of the public faces in the legal battle over Canadaâ??s prostitution laws, started work in the sex industry as a prostitute. She eventually became a professional dominatrix, owning and operating Madame de Sadeâ??s House of Erotica in Thornhill until she was charged with operating a bawdy house in 1994. She was convicted in 1999.
This effectively forced Bedford into retirement. However, by 2009, she joined other sex workers at the forefront of the ultimately successful legal challenge that struck down Canadaâ??s prostitution laws in 2010.
Legal victories continued and, in March, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that sex-trade workers should be allowed to conduct business in homes and brothels.
This opened the door for Bedford to get back in the game, but this time, the 52-year-old wants to invite the world to see what she does.
Hiltz Squared Media is the production company behind Bedford and the six-person crew is shooting in Toronto at the Oasis Aqua Lounge, whose owner claims it to be Canadaâ??s only heterosexual bathhouse. Todayâ??s shoot is for a test or â??sizzleâ? reel, which will serve as a promotional tool to sell the series to a broadcaster, who will then put up money for at least a pilot and potentially a series.
Producer Jonathan Hiltz says that five networks from across North America have expressed interest in the show. The current fascination with [I]50 Shades of Grey[/I] is clearly fuelling curiosity about what happens in a dominatrixâ??s world.
Other reality shows, like [I]Cathouse[/I], an HBO series set in the Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel in Nevada, and [I]Family Business[/I], a Showtime series about a family in the porn business, are cited as touchstones for this new series.
On the second floor dungeon â?? a dark room with sex furniture, mirrors and the swing â?? two cameramen shoot an exchange between mother and daughter, with direction from Naomi Hiltz.
â??Weâ??re kind of comparing it to a racier version of [I]Family Business[/I]. We want to show Terri-Jean and her daughter are regular people, that they interact like a regular family, but their life is completely different at the same time,â? says Naomi Hiltz. â??We want to really compare their normal mother-daughter relationship with the outlandish things they do in their daily lives.â?
Asked about the challenges involved in this, she admits there are many.
â??I guess itâ??s a bit of a challenge on any reality show working with people that arenâ??t professional actors . . . trying to make it not awkward and very natural is a key,â? she says. â??Technically, lighting is going to be a huge challenge, and sound issues with all the slapping and kicking. We also are making sure that nobody gets really hurt on set. Weâ??re taking their cues on how they do things and the way that weâ??re shooting it is more as a fly on the wall, with smaller cameras.â?
The dayâ??s shoot consists of the mother-daughter family dynamic, some role playing and some BDSM scenarios, such as spanking. It often looks more ridiculous than titillating with a cast of characters that includes a man dressed in a leather straitjacket, complete with â??gimpâ? mask and wearing an adult diaper.
As with all reality series, the magic will come in the editing. Bedford and her daughter are a little nervous and goofy in the early introductory Q&A session.
Bedford says she is dragging her daughter â??kicking and screamingâ? into her world. Potentially complicating matters is that the daughter doesnâ??t want her name or image used until she is sure the show is sold and there is an income coming in. The reluctance comes because she has a young son, and fears reprisals and being ostracized.
Bedford seems most comfortable in front of the camera when sheâ??s explaining her craft: The human footstool from the earlier scene, referred to as a slave named Angelo, returns for a spanking session. Bedford rummages through a trunk filled with whips and other paraphernalia before choosing a riding crop. She then provides the camera with a how-to guide.
Sheâ??s approaching the show with a girl power attitude and believes that what she knows could aid many women in their relationships.
â??Iâ??m a grandmother and Iâ??m a grandmother for the times. Iâ??m not going to knowingly try to direct young women in the wrong direction. Iâ??m trying to help them. . . . They donâ??t have to think that they are submissives. Thatâ??s the way a lot of them have been raised, to believe that they canâ??t take the bull by the horns, and they can. And they can train the bull to do anything they want. They just have to know how.â?

[URL]http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/article/1243541--terri-jean-bedford-sells-new-reality-show[/URL]