Viola Johnson
Dark Connections Featured Member April 2004

 

Name/screen name: Viola Johnson

Age: 50 something

Orientation: slave

Marital status: I am very married. My husband (female) is International Ms Leather 1996, Jill Carter and my wife is Queen Cougar of San Francisco.

Do you currently have a dom/me sub or play partner: My owner is Mistress Victoria of Atlanta Georgia.

Occupation: full time slave, wife, mate, author, writer, leather mother

In the simplest terms, what would you say is the difference between a slave and a submissive?
That’s not a question that can be easily answered in the simplest terms…but here goes:

In my opinion only, a slave is proactive, seeking out things to do, and ways to please their owner. A submissive is the blank slate waiting to be told what needs to or should be done and then given permission to do so.

From left, Viola Johnson, Jill Carter and Queen Cougar.

Some would say that a person with your level of confidence, out-spoken nature and willingness to fight for causes you deem worthy could not possibly be a slave. How would you respond to that? Slavery is not a personality trait. A slave is someone who has chosen to serve. Dominant and submissive are personality traits. A man or woman who chooses to serve someone isn’t going to change their basic nature because he or she puts on a collar. This community has come to view someone who is a slave as a weak-willed doormat who serves only because he or she is incapable of making decisions on their own. Nothing could be further from the truth. We all have many talents. I am many things; teacher, mentor, personal assistant, writer, family accountant, researcher, public speaker, genealogist, historian, just to name a few. All those talents are part of what I bring to my owner. She directs them in the ways that she deems proper.

What distinguishes you as a leatherwoman? Is it your sexual orientation, the clothes you wear, or some other factor?
Wow, that’s quite a question. I’m not a leatherwoman because I wear leather. The cowhide, boots and collars that distinguished us twenty years ago are fashion statements now. Besides, I’m a leatherwoman regardless of what I’m wearing.

I believe I’m a leatherwoman because some unique and decidedly different traits are an ingrained part of my personality. I think the first trait is a willingness to acknowledge that my choices about who and how I love make me (and all of us who embrace this lifestyle) a sexual rebel. Coming close behind that is the belief that the choices that I have made are the correct ones for my life, and that no one has the right to tell me otherwise or dictate a different standard for my sexuality. Add to that a fierce pride in my choice to love differently. I stand tall and will tell all who ask that a wedding ring isn’t the only symbol of love and commitment, that the duties of conventional marriage are not the only forms of responsibility that mark a committed relationship and that the missionary position for the purpose of procreation only isn’t the only type of gratification. I believe all of these things and many more that are almost impossible to articulate but somehow visible to the world are what I radiate as a leatherwoman.

Why are leather contests so important to the leather community?
In my opinion the leather contest is a lot like the coming out parties or graduation ceremonies held by the non-leather world. Those rights of passage let people know that this person is now ready for new challenges and willing to accept the responsibilities of their next stage of development. Leather contests perform many of the same functions. Entering the contest is a test of the character and mettle of the person who enters. Going through the stages of the contest before an audience of your peers tells the entire community “I’m here, ready and willing to take on the challenges and fill a need that the community may have.

How many leather titles have you won, and which contest brought you the most joyous memories? This might surprise lots of people, but I’ve never won any leather titles because I’ve never entered any contests. You need to remember that, when I came out, leather contests for women were unheard of. It would be fourteen or fifteen years before the first female leather title was conceived. That contest was International Ms. Leather. IMsL was created in the late 1980s. I was privileged to be a judge for that contest in 1991, and I won’t run for a title in a contest that I’ve judged. I do have very special memories of all the contests I’ve judged (and there have been well over a hundred of those). The one that has taken the most work, but has also been the most rewarding, has occurred in Dallas, TX for the past three years. That contest is Ms. World Leather. Ms. World Leather is a family project, and was conceived by my spouse, Jill Carter. It’s a title for an older woman that enables her to speak to this community for one year about an issue that is near and dear to her heart. I’ve been the Head Judge for that contest since its inception. I was, however, awarded the honorary title of Oklahoma’s Leather Mother by the Oklahoma community in the early 1990s, and that meant more to me than any title I could have run for and won.

Jill Carter and Viola Johnson.

What does it mean to be a vampire?
The stereotypical belief about vampirism is actually quite accurate. Vampires partake of a meal of human blood because we have biochemical, psychological and physiological needs that demand we do so, Now that I’ve upset 80% of the people reading this, let me explain further.

As a vampire, I share the intimacy of life force with a few select people. Yes, I drink blood. I drink it warm, red and fresh from a select few willing humans, but that’s just the beginning. My senses are heightened, my pheromones act as a food lure. I exist closer to my animal nature, and, for the most part, I’m at peace with it. Notice, however, that I said for the most part.

I share an intimacy with my vessels that is almost impossible for someone who is not a vampire to understand because there is no common experience on which to base understanding. My vessels and I, during feeding, essentially become one being. I can feel their blood moving through my system for the time they are within me. Until their blood is digested I can feel their moods and, occasionally, their thoughts.

What process did you have to go through to become one?
There are only a few ways one can become vampire. Either you were born this way, or you acquire the traits of vampirism by ingesting the blood of another vampire. I was not born this way. I chose this life. I drank the blood of my Sire and took into my system all that he was. I was made vampire when I was 17. For those who are interested (because this could squick most of your readers), more about the process is covered in my first book, Dhampir: Child of the Blood.

What is the illuminati?
Within the Vampire community, there are a number of great “houses”, or family lines. No two are identical, even though we are all Vampire. Each bloodline has its own distinct traits; you could call it a kind of vampire “genetics” that distinguish each line from the others. My bloodline, according to its mythos, goes back to Adam’s first wife, Lillith. That’s why we are called the Children of Lilith. Our purpose within the Vampire community is to preserve knowledge for future generations. We illuminate the way with knowledge for each subsequent generation. That is why we are affectionately referred to as the Illuminati.

Many people are intrigued by your beautiful teeth. Were you born with elongated teeth or did you obtain them through a dental procedure? A little of both actually. When my wisdom teeth started to drop my canines began to get longer. How long they would have gotten naturally I’ll never know. Unfortunately, I cracked a canine (in my early twenties ) in a bar fight in New York City. Then about a year later I did something else more than a little reckless that shortened the other natural canine. Because of this both of them have been capped. How many books have you written? What advice do you have for a burgeoning bdsm author? I have two books out. Both are with Mystic Rose Press, the publishers of “Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns”. My first is called “Dhampir, Child of the Blood” It is my recounting of the first year of the life of my first blood child. It is essentially a vampire’s baby book. The second, and perhaps better known, book is “To Love, To Obey, To Serve, Diary of an Old Guard Slave”. That book is 15 years of the journal that I kept as a slave.

The publishers of “Screw the Roses”, Phillip Miller and Molly Devon, found out that I had kept a journal since about 1980. They asked if they could publish it. When I got over the shock of the question and realized that they were serious, I said yes. I truth, I thought they would lose their shirts publishing the book, but it sold out its first print run and is about to go into its second.

I would tell any burgeoning author to write from the heart, be true to what you know and don’t compromise what you believe in.

There are wonderful publishers and mediums for publication in our lifestyle. Each writer can find a way for his or her story to be heard if they really want to.

Tell us about the retirement community you hope to establish and what it will take in order to create it. Many years ago my mate and I started fantasizing about a place where we could retire with our kinky friends and scene family where we wouldn’t have to censor ourselves and the lifestyle that we had chosen to live. That place didn’t exist and we were really too young at that time to care if it did or not. Now we are 50 something and seriously looking toward the years when life should be enjoyed. By today’s retirement community standards we would have to practically abandon the lifestyle we have lead since we were 21. I can’t think of any retirement village where all of the accoutrements of who we are would be accepted. I’m not willing to give up in my golden years what I have spent so much of my life trying to achieve. I don’t think many of us really want to go back into that vanilla closet, but most of us have been too busy struggling in the present to think about the future.

If there is going to be a place that will welcome us as we are, we have to build it now. That is a nutshell is the reasoning behind, and the vision for … WELCOME HOME.

Welcome Home is envisioned as a village that would not just be accepting of who we are, but formulated around the unique lifestyle that we live. Welcome Home has on its drawing board housing accommodations from one bedroom apartments to plots that someone could buy to build a house on.

Much of that information is on the website www.wewelcomeyouhome.com

The initial steps are being taken. Research has been done to pinpoint a location. A parent corporation has been formed. Folk in the community are slowly coming to the awareness that someplace must be developed that will serve our alternative lifestyle community. Right now the biggest thing needed is MONEY. This undertaking will be hugely expensive. The gay community has planned retirement comminutes. Swingers and nudists have retirement colonies. Why can’t we?

What is the most important contribution you have made to the leather/bdsm community (so far)?
I would like to think that the most important contribution that I have made to this community would be the nurturing of the next generation of kinky people. Without the next generation who is aware of their past but willing to fight for their future there would be no there would be no continuing community.

What is one thing nobody knows about Vi Johnson?
“To Love, To Obey, To Serve” really tells people much more about me than they probably want to know. <laugh> If I had to add one thing that probably isn’t specified, I guess it would be that I am a romantic.

Contact Viola Johnson at: Lamaia@aol.com