Didn’t Do It for Love

A film by Monika Treut 

Starring Eva Norvind

(a.k.a. Ava Taurel) 

First Run Features

1997 

Length: 80 minutes

Those who read the book “The FemDom Experience” might recall the intriguing life of Eva Norvind. Eva was one of the Pro Dommes that Elise Sutton featured in her chapter dedicated to the professional Dominatrix. Other than a brief mention of the name Ava Taurel when the gals of Predominant had dinner together in 2005, I had never heard of Eva Norvind until I read "The FemDom Experience". However, prior to meeting me, my husband was a regular reader of Femdom and Fetish magazines. When I asked James about Ava Taurel, he was well aware of her and her establishment in New York City. He had seen her picture and her ads in the magazines.

 

But he was not aware of this woman’s fascinating life. And what a life it was. According to “The FemDom Experience” she was born Eva Johanne Chegodayeva Sakonskaya in Trondheim, Norway in 1944. Having moved to France at age fifteen with her family, she entered and won second prize in a beauty contest held at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. Her prize was a minor role as a German tourist in Marcel Moussy's “Saint Tropez Blues”. Shortly thereafter Eva changed her name to Eva Norvind when she began acting at the Comedie Francaise. Eva also became a showgirl at the Follies Bergere.

In 1962, Eva moved to Canada and then to New York City, where she worked as a showgirl and Can-Can dancer in cabarets. Upon finishing high school in 1964, Eva took a bus to Mexico City to study Spanish over the summer and was recruited by a television producer to act in a TV variety show. Because of her Nordic beauty, voluptuous figure, and daring attitude, Eva rapidly became a film actress and a sex symbol in the Mexican media. Some called her the Marilyn Monroe of Mexican cinema.

Eva Norvind acted in a dozen films from 1964 to 1967. In 1968, the gifted and intelligent Eva became a freelance photographer covering fashion and celebrity news in Paris and New York. She also worked as a journalist specializing in film. Eva covered international film festivals and got Latin American exclusives with major Hollywood talent from Paramount and Universal Pictures.

In 1980, Eva returned to New York to study film production at NYU. While she was at NYU, Eva ran into an old girlfriend she had known from her days as a showgirl. When she asked her friend if she was still acting and dancing, Eva was shocked to learn that her friend was performing in an S&M show at a club called “Show World”. Eva went to see her friend perform and that night forever changed her life. That is when Eva decided to become a Dominatrix.

Since it wasn’t appropriate for a Mistress to give her real name to her clients, Eva created the BDSM scene name Ava Taurel based on her Zodiac sign Taurus. Eva traveled to Europe visiting some of the most popular Mistresses in London, Paris and Hamburg, seeking advice and honing her skills. She eventually contacted the infamous Monique von Cleef and Monique agreed to teach Eva some of the tricks of her trade. What Eva found to be most educational was the mental aspects and the psychodrama scenarios of the Mistress/slave relationship.

Female Domination became an obsession with Eva and when a close friend encouraged her to capitalize on her obsession, Eva decided to open her own playground in New York City where people could come to explore their fantasies and where they could find guidance. In 1987, Eva founded “Ava Taurel and Associates” where independent Mistresses and Lady Disciplinarians would feel comfortable and could work on their own terms. Some of New York’s most famous and popular Pro Doms worked for Ava Taurel. Her rates were the highest ever charged for professional Domination.
 

 

By the early 1990’s, Ava Taurel became a world renowned Dominatrix and a respected expert in the field of human sexuality. She was invited to lecture at Sex Education conferences around the world, even in restricted societies such as Beijing and Moscow.

One of the more interesting nuggets about her life was that Eva was hired to coach Rene Russo in “The Thomas Crown Affair” starring Russo and Pierce Brosnan. I loved that movie and I considered that a possible movie for me to review because of Russo’s aggressive and dominant female character. That is why I was intrigued to learn that a Dominatrix had coached Rene Russo for that role. When I saw “The Thomas Crown Affair”, I was still getting my feet wet in the female domination lifestyle but I immediately recognized the Femdom imagery of her character. I now know that we can thank Eva Norvind (a.k.a. Ava Taurel) for that wonderful portrayal by Rene Russo.

Eva Norvind passed away in 2006 in a drowning accident off the coast of Mexico and her obituary revealed just what an extraordinary woman she was: well traveled, highly educated, multilingual, and quite the adventurer. 

When I learned that a documentary was made about Eva Norvind’s life, I immediately decided that I should get a copy and review it. It wasn’t an easy find but I finally tracked down “Didn’t Do It for Love” but could only find it in VHS tape.

I guess the word “disappointed” best describes how I felt about this documentary. When I was done watching this video, I wished I had never seen this film because it did not do justice to Ava or her life. Feminist Monika Treut produced and directed this film but I found it to have a gloomy and depressing tone. 

First of all, I was really surprised at Ava’s appearance. It is 1997 and only a few years removed from her years as one of the most beautiful and powerful Pro Dommes in New York City. Ava is overweight, wears no make-up, wears unflattering clothing and her hair looks as if she just doesn’t care. Toward the end of the film we find out that this is by design, as Ava is rebelling from her days as a sex-symbol and she now is seeking a more spiritual existence.

Perhaps Ms. Treut should have let us know this upfront because I kept thinking to myself as I watched this documentary, “what happened to her?”, as they showed pictures and movies of the attractive Ava from her youth to her days as a Dominatrix in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

 

Ava had a great body and she was a powerful presence as a Pro Domme with her athletic build. Ava was big-boned, as am I, but she was tall and well built. We later learn in the film how Ava had to work hard to keep the weight off. By the late 1990’s, Ava no longer cared and she had built such a reputation that men and women wanted to be dominated by her, regardless of her appearance.

Ava was so skilled in the psychological aspects of D&S that I can certainly understand why any submissive would consider himself most blessed to session with her. The film shows Ava dominating a submissive woman and we get a sense of how skilled Ava was at dominating someone. I hate to be this blunt but the submissive girl was very feminine yet Ava looks almost like a man during this scene with no make-up and her frazzled hair. Yet, the D&S session is rather erotic with Ava doing some knife play, teasing the woman, almost kissing her but pulling away.
 

 

Unfortunately, “Didn’t Do It for Love” does not cover very much about Ava the Dominatrix. Instead, it is more about Eva’s life journey looking for meaning. The movie spends a lot of time covering her years in Mexico and her relationships with the Mexican people that she obviously maintained clear up until her passing. The movie also takes us back to Scandinavia where Eva was born. We meet her mother, her brother and other members of her family. I found none of this to be particularly interesting.

Sandwiched between the Mexican shots and the Scandinavia shots, the film shares a little about her career as a Dominatrix. We get to see actual television interviews where Ava Taurel talks about her establishment and one of the shows takes us on a brief tour of “The Taurel Institute”. We get to see a brief scene where Ava is walking on a runway at the 1987 “Dressing for Pleasure Gala”, she is wearing a sexy leather outfit and dragging a male behind on a leash.  And we get to see some actual footage of Ava doing lectures where she educates people about BDSM. Ava is again wearing a leather outfit, complete with her trademark black and white corset.

 

These scenes are interesting but way too brief. During the “Dressing For Pleasure” scene one of Eva’s close friends, the woman who actually gave Eva her start in journalism, is talking about how one of Ava’s submissive males was into smothering. She recalls how he was driving the two of them around in a car when Ava began to strangle him, the car weaving around the road to the absolute horror of her close friend, who by the way was not into the lifestyle.

Through interviewing some of Eva’s New York friends, we learn that Eva was famous for throwing great parties. She would invite high-society types, politicians and celebrities but there would also be prostitutes and professional Mistresses present, which made for an interesting evening. Eva’s parties were also known for having no food or music. People would just sit around and talk.

Throughout the documentary we get glimpses of Eva’s dominant nature, such as the tidbit how she once sessioned with a young woman in Mexico and Eva’s sadistic nature came forth and expanded the woman’s limits to the place that the scene came very close to going beyond “consensual”. Eva explains that although she always lectures others to incorporate a “safe word” within all D&S sessions, Eva never allowed her submissives a safe word because it took away from Eva’s pleasure. Eva liked to take a submissive to his or her limit and then a little beyond that. That is when Eva experienced great arousal.

Eva was bi-sexual and she had many lovers over the course of her life, both male and female. Toward the end of the documentary we learn about her current relationship in 1997 where she answered a man’s personal ad. He is African-American and very shy around women. Imagine his surprise that the famous Ava Taurel answered his ad and asked him on a date. Eva is the dominant partner and he is submissive to her but they do not have a sexual relationship or even a D&S relationship. Eva is dating him for friendship and companionship, nothing more.

Those are the highlights of this film. There are far too many scenes that are slow and tedious and plain uninteresting. As I said, the film has a gloomy tone and I believe Ms. Treut was trying to make a feminist point about Eva’s life, portraying Eva as lonely and sad.

In 2005, when the gals of “Predominant” were gathered in Vegas, we all went to dinner one night and Elise was sharing stories about her own femdom past and the husbands were asking about some of the legendary Mistresses of the 80’s and 90’s. Eva’s name came up and Elise said they were friends in the early 90's. She described Eva as a woman who embraced life and loved adventure. That seems to fit with Eva's life story far more than this documentary.

In my opinion, “Didn’t Do It for Love” is a film that should have waited. I found a picture of Eva from 2003, six years after the documentary. She had lost weight and looked great again. Perhaps she was going through a downtime in her life when “Didn’t Do It for Love” was made. It would appear from her work on "The Thomas Crown Affair" and some of her later endeavors that Eva was back on top from the late 90's until her death.
 

Eva Norvind is one of the most interesting women the Femdom and Fetish worlds have known. Perhaps someone will do another movie about her life, a movie that celebrates her. I hope “Didn’t Do It for Love” fades away (it looks like it pretty much has). This film is not a fitting tribute to Eva Norvind.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars