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As many of you know I had some hard times in 2010, and I spent the whole last half of November and the entire month of December being totally burned out. I know many of you follow my twitter and have seen countless complaints about chronic pain, insomnia, problems at the day job, losing my photo studio, and ongoing problems with utilities and ants in my new warehouse space. I took several vacations, but it was only on the trip to Calistoga, gift from a generous gentleman, that I was truly able to relax. I had a spa night up there with the mud bath and mineral water jacuzzi. That was the first night in several months that I was able to relax enough to fall asleep and stay asleep for an appropriate amount of time. It was the mineral water that really did it for me, and I look forward to be able to go back a little more frequently. It wasn’t very expensive so if you are looking for a gift I can let you know who in Calistoga to call to get me a spa trip.
I don’t know if I’m feeling any more balanced in this whole work/life thing. My work as a femdom is just so personal that a lot of the times I feel like I’m not working at all. It’s also difficult having to sell yourself to people, as any self-employed, small business owner or salesperson knows. It can get really deeply personal when you’re rejected or fail to make a connection. I remember it being like this in the strip club, and trying to work through the issues at that time. I think I’m in a much better place mentally now, but it still hurts sometimes and it can get exhausting.
I have some big personal goals for 2011, and I hope for you all to be a part of them! Keep following for updates and get in contact. I would love to hear from the folks in my fan club.
I started working as a stripper in 2001 and have been consistently employing myself with adult work since then. Somehow I grew up with a strong conservative anti-sex feminist morality perspective and thought that strip clubs were dangerous and bad places. I had a friend who had worked as a stripper for about two days before giving it up because she didn’t like being naked. I trusted her and if the main problem with strip clubs was being naked in front of people then I shouldn’t have any problem! She didn’t think the customers or the location itself was a problem, it was just her personal nudity issue. Eventually I came around to realizing that if strip clubs are employing vast numbers of women then they can’t be all that dangerous for women. They need to keep their employees safe after all. I was really happy when I worked as a stripper. The women I worked with were fantastic. I met a lot of interesting guys and I loved dancing. I didn’t like having to hustle for money. I just felt like a beggar and felt like I deserved to be paid without having to beg. I had some issues with the management, the money we had to pay them, and the way women wouldn’t stand up for themselves to sleazy manager.
A lot of people have misconceptions about the adult industry, adult work, and sex work clients. There are a lot of misconceptions about sex and sexuality in general really. It seems like you have to work in the industry or hire a sex worker in order to debunk the misconceptions for yourself. This article, Why I’m Happy I Became a Prostitute , explains one woman’s journey much better than I’m expressing myself here.
I’m constantly hearing from people about pro-dommes who “do it for the money” and having conversations about this topic. It’s an interesting topic and far more complex than most people realize.
First of all, people generally do their jobs for the money. Most people aren’t able to make money from their beloved hobbies so they work the job where they can make the best money. I also hear people talk about sex workers being “addicted to money” and how they can’t go back to “normal” jobs because they can’t make the same amount of money. As if people in other high paying jobs aren’t also “addicted to money” and can’t go back to lower paying jobs because they can’t maintain their standard of living. It’s really the double standard that bothers me. I don’t hear you bitching about accountants who are just in it for the money and how you don’t pay to have your taxes done by a professional.
You get all types, especially in the adult entertainment industry. There are people that just take these jobs on the side for extra money, sometimes because they really love the work and sometimes because they just need the money. You also find people that are truly running a full time business for the same wide range of reasons, some really love the work and some just happen to have found something that they can do well and make a good living off. It’s not my place to judge why anyone does anything, and their relationship to money. As a feminist I believe that a woman has a right to make a living any way she damn well pleases, and it is sexist to hold financially independent women to a different standard. If you don’t think that your pro-domme, porn star or other adult service provider is doing their work for the “right” reason, then find yourself a different domme.
It is true that there are women working as pro-dommes who aren’t involved in the the scene or have much personal interest in BDSM. I see it happening all the time. A woman is working in a different area of the adult industry and finds that a lot of her clients ask for domination or fetishes they aren’t familiar with. I see women going to sex worker message boards saying that guys keep asking them for domination and they’ve never done this before. They start learning and practicing BDSM because they have clients that want it. They’re smart business women so they go where the money is, hone their skills and grow their business. Maybe this is their first opportunity to explore a side of themselves that they never realized existed. Maybe they discover that they love BDSM. Maybe they have a fetish for money and financial domination. Maybe they don’t. Business is business and if they aren’t successful they won’t last long in the industry. Again, it’s not my place to judge anyone’s motivation.
Where do I fit in this? All of the above. I started stripping because I needed money fast and loved dancing and performing. I went into modeling because I needed money and liked performing. I started filming and running porn sites because I was good at it, the money was good, and I loved the creative outlet. I started as a pro-domme because I love BDSM and I discovered that I could make money doing it. Now I’m doing webcam and phone domination because it’s a good business move for me. Yes, I am in it for the money. No, I have not stopped playing and indulging my fetishes in my private life. Like I’ve said before, I love BDSM so much that I’ve made the ultimate lifestyle commitment and have made it my career.
My first trip to Las Vegas was very interesting. I was there for the Desiree Alliance convention, so I was hanging out with other folks involved in the adult industry. My first day there I decided to go for a walk in the middle of the day and get my nails done. The manicure and pedicure was really mediocre, and walking that much in the heat was not exactly the best idea. I got my nails done in a sexy dark blue color, that everyone loved even though my nails started chipping right away.
I ended up getting really sick in the middle of the week and missed out on a lot of fun. I ate something bad I guess. I have never been that sick. In fact I was so ill that I was sitting in the hot tub and there was an orgy happening in front of me and I didn’t really care. Didn’t have a chance to make a trip to the range to shoot machine guns. However, for about an hour when I stopped puking I managed to get myself in a limo and go down to the New Rocks outlet store in downtown Las Vegas. That was tremendously exciting. The limo driver was really excited to have someone interesting in his car, and the guy at the New Rocks outlet was really sweet and helpful. I have been waiting to go to the New Rocks outlet for literally ten years. I bought myself some gorgeous boots, and I wear them everywhere. Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll snap some photos or even possibly trample you with them. And then as soon as I got back to the hotel I started vomiting again. Not exactly my fetish.
I also went to the footnight party and was surprised at how slow it was! The party was held at a really beautiful venue in a really strange neighborhood. I spent a good amount of time chatting with the guy that owned the place about sex clubs and night clubs in San Francisco. I met up with a good friend from LA before the party and we went together. I also met a couple of very interesting guys at the party, but it was really very slow. I was a bit disappointed that Las Vegas didn’t live up to the “sin city” name, because there was a distinct lack of sinning on my part.
Because I was so ill and so busy I didn’t get to the strip at all. I didn’t get to gamble like I wanted to. I got as far as putting $20 in the slot machine, but I didn’t get to play dice or cards. I am really disappointed that I didn’t get to the range to shoot all the guns you can’t get here in California. I also didn’t get nearly enough playtime! I had a wonderful date before the footnight party, but that was all.
I’m hoping to go back in the spring for a work and play trip. I’m starting to meet more people in interesting travel destinations, so I look forward to being able to travel more frequently.
I have my phone number listed on a certain local listing site. My business phone number goes through Google Voice because it offers better screening options than I get on my cell phone. It’s also very discreet for both the caller and myself even though it might seem weird. First it prompts you to say your name and then it will route you to voicemail. If you don’t leave a voicemail I don’t get a record of your name. It’s been very helpful for cutting back on the creepers that expect free phone sex, but it sort of concerns me that I’m getting so many calls where the guys hang up without leaving a name or that don’t leave any voicemail. Are there really that many creeps out there?
When I first arrived in San Francisco I had about a dozen men who were more than happy to show me around the fetish scene. They seemed like nice enough guys, and I didn’t really know where else to go, so I took the help that was offered. I think they were expecting me to be more innocent or wide-eyed or willing to fuck them. I wasn’t any of the above, so most of them disappeared into the shadows. I also expressed my interested in playing with female switches, and never really made much connection. There seemed to be a lot of talk and show, but private playtime was something totally different. I have some horrible stories. There is one woman in particular that was wonderful, but she moved away to go to school and I lost track of her. I ended up playing with a lot of guys, because they were everywhere and I didn’t think I cared that much about the gender of my partners. It took about two years for that to go downhill. It was a male dom that claimed to be a professional that pretty much ruined the scene for me. He was controlling in ways that were unsafe and unreasonable, thought he had some sort of claim to me and all my time, and didn’t really respect my boundaries. One night I actually thought he might kill me. He broke up with me after I didn’t give him enough attention at a party. I didn’t really care what he thought at that point.
I spent years being confused and unhappy about this whole situation. I left the scene for several years and tried to figure out what went wrong. Eventually I figured out that I wasn’t submissive at all, and I just got that position because that seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I also decided that I was considerably more interested in women than in men. When I returned to the scene it was as a dominant queer woman. I’m still not very involved with the local scene. I ran a munch for a while, and I might help run it again. I never bothered to get a membership at the local bdsm club because I just don’t have much interest in playing in public. A spanking or a foot worship scene here or there is ok, but I’m not going to display my personal relationships. You’ve never seen my long term partners in any of my porn or videos, and you probably won’t ever.
I am so much happier now playing in private with select clients and partners or performing on video in safe and well organized scenes. I am an exhibitionist, but I have no ambitions to be a celebrity. My value is not measured in how many people know my name or how many pictures of me are floating around the internet. I am a rare and precious jewel. When you play with me you will know that you have been specially selected to enter a very exclusive club.
I suppose I should write a bit about how I got into fetish and BDSM.
I grew up in a very very small midwestern town. There was no library, and the fire station was a good twenty minutes away and on the other side of the railroad tracks. My family was not on a farm but many of our neighbors had horses, cows, chickens and gardens that made them self-sufficient. I had absolutely no exposure to anything except through broadcast TV and the few music magazines I could pick up when we went into town. With one exception, for some bizarre reason my parents thought it was a good idea to send me and one of my friends to see Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was 15. My parents never talked to me about sex. They couldn’t even say the word sex to me. I pretty much got my sex education from Rocky Horror Picture Show. True story.
When I was in high school I was sent off to a school three hours away and lived in a dorm facility. There were a bunch of us there and it was a college town so I suddenly had everything I wanted and could get away with all sorts of trouble. I was a goth kid, and in this town there were about half a dozen goths, four ravers, a couple of punks, and other such subcultural types. We all stuck together because we had to. We all went to the raves, the punk shows, the metal shows, and the goth club night. The goth club night didn’t last very long, and was replaced with a fetish night. You were supposed to be over 18 to get in, but nobody seemed to care much that two high school goth kids were sitting in a bar at the fetish night event.
The fetish night wasn’t really very exciting. There was a belly dancer, a human fruit platter, and a flogging demonstration under dramatic lighting. There wasn’t any more bare skin than what you would see at the beach. I didn’t think it was very scandalous at all. It wasn’t particularly exciting or arousing. It was just a fun night out. I left that small town three months after I turned 18 and came out to San Francisco with a couple of boxes and my carry-on luggage.
The fetish scene out here was very comfortable and natural. I didn’t have any sex toys or BDSM equipment, but I had a hell of a lot of fun at the parties and clubs. It felt like home. It felt healthy and natural. Of all the things I’ve seen and done out here in San Francisco nothing has been as sick and twisted as some of the things I saw in the small town. Out here I run into some, “yeah whatever, freak” but it’s nothing like the “are you serious? that doesn’t seem healthy” that I saw back in the small town. People were seriously repressed back in the small town and it turned into some really unhealthy things. I have not met anyone out here with any sort of fetish or desire that is really truly unhealthy, and people have admitted some serious dark secrets to me.
So that’s me. Rocky Horror Picture Show as sex-ed and sneaking into “fetish” clubs at 16. Actual fetish fun when I was 18 in San Francisco.
Today on NPR’s Fresh Air program, they interview a former dominatrix who wrote a book called Whip Smart. It was an interesting program! Unfortunately Terry Gross’ questions tended to be of the “why are people so weird” or “what’s a smart girl like you doing in this industry” variety, but the author, Melissa Febos, didn’t make us all look bad. She was really articulate about her experiences. And let me emphasize “her experiences” because they are her experiences alone. She had a lot of interesting and insightful things to say about working as a pro-domme, but ultimately she didn’t like the job and so she quit. She also started working so that she could pay for her heroin addiction. There are plenty of people in this world who hate their jobs and have drug addictions and it’s important to remember that the vast majority of the adult industry doesn’t fall into either of those categories. Her experience is somewhat unique in that way. It’s disappointing that all you ever seem to hear about the adult industry comes from folks who hated it or were junkies.
I think it’s wonderful that NPR didn’t shy away from doing a program on such a taboo subject and that Febos spoke very positively about the variety of fetishes and human erotic experiences. We still have a long way to go.
Hello my beloveds,
I have had quite a summer, dealing with health problems and being very busy working on porn sites. A few of my fans are interested in seeing me blog more frequently, so I will be keeping this blog more up to date. If you need moment by moment updates then you should subscribe to my twitter feed HERE.
This summer I got involved in a situation where I did not have dominant social status. I felt that I had to be more accommodating and submissive in order to please these people. It made me fall back into old bad habits and typical American female training. I was unhappy, uncomfortable and still not getting what I wanted out of the situation. I ended that “relationship” to say the least. It just makes me sick to be reminded of the self-depreciation that young women are taught as the default socially acceptable female behavior in this society. When I was a teen, it took me several years to realize that being submissive and reserved was the problem. I was exceptionally unhappy in my life and relationships because I was taking the submissive role by default. I had never learned any different, and I had to relearn a lot of my behavior patterns. I’m trying to enter the situation I was in over the summer again, but without compromising my true strong, willful, dominant personality.
I am also looking to try out some new slaves and submissives. I had a lot of new submissives and potential slaves, but most of them didn’t really work out. I did meet some really wonderful, creative and erotic people that I will be playing with many many more times. I have a few openings right now for potential news subs and slaves, so please get in touch. Go ahead and email your interests to me at roxxie @ cyber-dyke.net and I will let you know if we have any interests in common.
I’ve had a very busy summer, and things are now finally beginning to slow down. In August I moved out of my old warehouse space and into a new one. I also had tremendous car troubles, and even worse mechanic troubles. Then I started having some health problems. The dungeon space that I had been renting closed. Work on my websites kept me pretty busy. It’s been a whirlwind to say the least. I’m very happy with the changes in my life and I took advantage of this opportunity to part ways with some unhealthy people and situations. I am much happier and healthier now. I hope to start working on my art and writing again. I’ve only been seeing my regular clients and attending foot parties, but I’m ready to meet some new people and consider potential new clients. I am now renting a new dungeon space in downtown Oakland that is gorgeous, but also comfortable and very discreet. It’s also very conveniently near the shop I like for my metal arts supplies!
