I had always been curious about this sex work – I was lucky to, for whatever reason, keep out a lot of the negative messaging people around me growing up received about their sexuality.
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.
I thought I’d had a plenitude of sexual experience when I started—I... had a sex blog where I would write about OKCupid and Craigslist hookups—but most of those encounters were things I was hazing myself through.
I’ve been a sex worker for so long now that sometimes I wonder which parts of my high femme identity are things I do because of work, and which parts are due to my work.