What's it like to work as a dominatrix?

As a "fierce dominatrix", Laura Lee can get some bizarre requests from clients. The most unusual is "public humiliation", where she is asked to shriek abuse at men in the street. That alone is enough to satisfy some. "Normally it’s about power for men, they want to relinquish it and hand over the reins because they are in control all day," she says.

Like Anastasia and Christian in Fifty Shades of Grey, she also uses safe words – but the single mother says the similarities between her practice and EL James’ "rubbish" novels end there. “BDSM is strictly agreed limits; safe, sane and consensual. This man spends the whole time stalking her. That is wrong."

When she is not working as a dominatrix, she offers her services as a "standard" sex worker to the terminally ill and physically disabled, who have never had a sexual experience before.

"The reaction you get is wonderful because they’ve gone their whole lives feeling isolated and depressed – so it makes them feel more part of the group. If I had my way there would be paid training courses for sex workers in the UK."

Lee is also working to change society’s "polarised" perception of sex workers. While there are glamorous escorts who jet around the world and curb-crawling girls battling addiction, she says the truth is far more boring. “Seventy per cent of sex workers right now are mothers working from flats quite discreetly," she estimates. "You could be standing in a queue in Asda next to a sex worker and you wouldn’t know it."

Despite her unusual job, Lee’s teenage daughter has been able to tell her friends about her mum’s line of work without fear of being bullied. "All the mums know I don’t have a dungeon in my basement and I live in a normal family home surrounded by cat and hamsters and their daughters are perfectly safe with me."

The professional escort has worked in the sex industry for over twenty years, taking breaks to train as a barrister and work in the financial sector. She first became a sex worker while studying law at university in Dublin. "I took the unorthodox decision to be the girl at the local massage parlour because I wanted to graduate debt free." She now fits sex work around studying for her second degree in psychology.

Lee is currently running a campaign to make sex work legal across Ireland, which she says will make it easier for women to work in safety. "As it stands at the moment, if two women work together in a flat for safety, they can be arrested and charged with ‘pimping’ from each other." She hopes to raise enough money to get a judicial review of the law in the High Court in London and Supreme Court in Ireland.

"I wish if people could only just see the work I do in making people happy. Sex work is only 25 per cent about sex; it’s about companionship, honesty and listening to people. It’s about a lot more than the physical act."

Read more about Laura Lee's campaign at gofundme.com