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.
"BDSM to me is about taking a part or parts of ourselves and blowing them up to be our entire existence in this nonlinear moment of time. This might include aspects of ourselves that may be buried and that we often do not fully understand."
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.
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.
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.