"Finding community helped me to not only work through a lot of shame that I held around being a sex worker, but also to develop the skills and tools needed to engage with kink and in-person sex work in a safer and healthier way."
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.
This kind of work requires so many different skill sets, any sex worker must also be a good judge of character and very discerning when dealing with every single client they interact with.
So far, sex work has been a wonderful job for me! I really enjoy meeting different types of people and have felt so lucky to connect with clients and colleagues who both share and expand my interests. The best gift this job has given me is the free time to pursue my interests.