"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.
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.
'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.'
For a while I’ve been fascinated with the sex industry, my curiosity manifesting in occasional, random bouts of research and daydreaming throughout my college career whenever something like stripping, camming or escorting tickled my mind.