In 2007, a battle with Indianapolis authorities over the legality of her basement fetish dungeon drove Melyssa Hubbard to political activism, and founding the Indiana Tea Party.
Daily Beast
by VINCENT CARUSO
“On top there is the Goddess Diana,” she had finally revealed to me. Having just picked me up from a cafe in downtown Indianapolis, we were now parked solemnly facing the nearby Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. Pointing to a silhouetted figure crowning the towering structure, she elaborated, “the great goddess worshipped in ancient Ephesus in the Bible was installed very purposefully in this spot by the Freemasons.”
“My entire experience—and a lot of it was supernatural—led to the discovery of the great archetype Goddess Diana.”
I sat nodding reservedly beside my hospitable instructor. This information, esoteric and cockeyed, ought to have been alien to me, but it was perfectly familiar. I had, after all, read it in her book.
I first met Melyssa Hubbard about a year prior to this rendezvous at an Indianapolis brewery about a mile from where we met this evening.
I was in town to write about the launch of a nationwide network of regional meetups organized by conservative noisemaker Breitbart News, on the heels the Trump campaign’s recent rise to a lead as impervious as it was unanticipated.
Breitbart had all but hitched themselves to the Trump Train, and I had hoped to capture what I thought would either be an improbable weather-vane for the Republican Party or, at least, a snapshot of insulated right-wing ephemera.
It would ultimately be both.
Apocalyptic lamentations of the loss of national identity, invitations to condemn CNN and hermetic D.C. elites, and vivid anecdotes conveying the gravity of border violence and mass immigration were the dominant themes propounded by the speakers.
But the most lasting impression was made by a dialogue shared between myself and a woman who flagged my attention on my way out.
“I like your outfit,” Hubbard said in passing, with a detached listlessness that could have meant sarcasm. She introduced herself, “My name is Melyssa, I founded the Indiana Tea Party.”
Hubbard didn’t look like the Tea Partiers I’d been acquainted to through various media segments covering the massive rallies years earlier. And unlike the morose orators who had just taken the stage, my interlocutor evinced a frisky, free-spirited demeanor, tempered by a natural nonchalance.
Authoritatively donning a black fitted blazer and leather boots, Hubbard bore the appearance of a dissident art teacher.
“I was a dominatrix for many years,” she interjected, snatching relief from my stiff small-talk. “That’s how I got involved in this whole thing.” She quickly filled in the blanks, explaining that a battle with the city over her the legality of her basement fetish dungeon drove her to political activism.
“I founded the Indiana Tea Party,” she repeated. “But I’m no longer involved now that it’s been co-opted.” Co-opted, she meant, by Republican Party elites.
The backstory, she pressed, was detailed in her memoir, amusingly titled, Spanking City Hall: Dominatrix to Political Activist. As I signalled my exit, she pulled a copy from a small bag of Spanking City Hall hardcovers and assigned me my travel reading. …