I think we live in a world that hates poor people and sensationalizes sex in a really nasty way. I feel that ideology constantly harms sex workers and excludes us from social liberation movements by objectifying our labor while rejecting our existence in the same breath.
I am a New York City-based dominatrix and cultural activist. I started doing BDSM professionally in 2016 after finding a dungeon on craigslist (those were the days) and then mostly did online work for a year or two while I finished college before transitioning to full-time in-person BDSM.
'There’s a lot of hate in this world but through sex work – and I’m talking specifically about companionship – we create such a loving intimate space for people, free of judgment.'
I kind of always knew I was going to end up in the sex industry, to be honest. I became sexually active at a very young age and, despite growing up in a small, conservative New Jersey town, never seemed to possess any internalized shame around my desires.
I started full service work in 2018 as a way to supplement my student loans and feed my desires to just buy things. I had come out as trans in 2017 and found that it had become shockingly difficult to get hired in any civie job