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.
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?
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 think sex work has made me feel like I have to be in a binary to be able to be marketable, and it’s been a journey not letting that dictate my ability to actualize.'
"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."