"I believe sex workers have valuable insights to offer, particularly in the realms of consent and communication. Understanding that not everyone uses the same language surrounding consent or possesses the same level of awareness regarding their limits and boundaries is crucial."
"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."
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?
I kind of always knew I was going to end up in the sex industry, to be honest. I became sexually active at a very young age and, despite growing up in a small, conservative New Jersey town, never seemed to possess any internalized shame around my desires.