Long Version

My art is about shining light where our society typically doesn't shine a light. In 2023, in the United States, there are certain people who are lifted up and certain people who are pushed to the fringes. Attributes of someone's identity such as sex, gender, race, ethnicity, profession, sexual orientation, and ability status are contributors to the hierarchy of who is represented and who is not. The hierarchy is invisible to those at the top and life-crushing at the bottom.

There is a story that we all tell each other about who we collectively are, and then there is actual reality. One of my superpowers is feeling in my body when the story we're all believing is out of congruence with the lived reality of people. I feel pain in my body when I sense into the gap.

A personal area of my life that intersects where the dominant narrative pushes people to the edges is sex, sex work, kink, and more than binary gender of sex assigned at birth. At times my sex life is kinky, my lovers not cishet, my coaching blending the edge of sex work, and my gender more fluid than fixed.

There are those among us who are pushed to the edges because someone, somewhere, at some time, made a decision to amass power by "othering" people. In the United States, sex workers have particularly been "othered." 

When thinking about sex work, some practices are accepted into mainstream society and even paid for by health insurance, while others are villanized. Examples of these include licensed sex therapists and pelvic floor physical therapists. Conversely, other sex workers such as escorts, dominatrices, sex surrogates, exotic dancers, and even some massage therapists are cast as outsiders. The data on life-changing positive health outcomes from sex work is so terrifying to the status-quo that in the United States, we don't even collect the data to prevent conversations about it. This intersects with the fear of women having agency, money, and power.

The key differentiator between the two groups is pleasure. Someone some time ago, probably a man, probably a white man, probably a Christian, decided that the body feeling pleasure was wrong. Those who gave others pleasure were cast as "sinful", and punished, killed, or ostracized.

What activates my artist is that just as much "acceptable" sex work is happening as "reprehensible" sex work. All of the above still happens every day. People find just as much healing from professional dominatrixes as from licensed therapists. People have sex every day. More people than you probably know have some amount of kink or roleplay in their sexual relationships. You've probably even spanked or been spanked by someone in the bedroom! 

And that's not what we see in mainstream media. We see something else. Something that is a lie.

My work is about exposing that lie. My work is about lifting up those parts of us that we hide from others. My work is about lifting up those people that we pretend don't exist. It's about normalizing you. Who you are, what you do, your invisible desires, your hidden kinks. They are not wrong.

As an artist, who is a widowed, White, middle-aged, attractive, educated, accomplished, and affluent, I find myself in a position where I can speak truth to power about sex, gender, and kink with few life-destroying consequences. This is a message that needs sharing, and I am the one to do it.