I’m moving on from C S Lewis, but sticking with kinky button pushing moments from childhood. This image is Valerie Leon with Peter Sellers from the movie ‘Revenge of the Pink Panther‘.
The original scene – viewable on youtube here – now comes across as horribly dated. It leans into all sorts of uncomfortable stereotypes. However, back when I first saw it in the mid 80’s, it was my first awareness of the dominatrix role. There were plenty of screen characters who’d pushed my buttons already (like Catwoman and Miss Peel), but nothing as sexually overt as Valerie Leon’s role here. For all its cliches, it helped me connect some of the dots around sex and kink. This whip wielding dominatrix might be played for laughs, but the fact that type of character actually existed was a big part of putting together my kinky puzzle.