What’s important is how I choose to view sex workers, and how I view myself, and the sex workers in the community who I choose to surround myself with. I see us as powerful, empowering, deeply beautiful, nurturing, compassionate, passionate, driven, creative, fun, and just business savvy people.
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.
What’s it like starting out now, when ads have shifted from the back pages of the local paper to almost exclusively online? When everyone talks about being ‘on brand’ and a social media presence is essential?
The threats sex workers face are not just from clients or individuals in society; the very system we live within is at the root of much of the violence we face.