by Princess Kali
The celebration of my 10th year in the adult industry has inspired me to share what I’ve learned in this unique business. I have been a stripper, a professional dominatrix, a fetish model, a fetish porn star, a website and DVD producer, and kink educator. I have hosted many kinds of fetish parties and been featured at both small and large BDSM events all over the world. I have even had a centerfold in a major wanker magazine, and the cover of a very specialized fetish quarterly.
Obviously I have dabbled in a pretty wide variety of niches in this industry, and yet there are many more that I have never, and probably will never, experience. The term “sex industry” actually covers an incredibly expansive array of jobs. Approaching sexuality as a business is a complicated and sometimes confusing choice to people; especially when they have never had any exposure to the sex business, but also even when they have been a part of its inner workings for years. With this column I hope to share some of the ups, downs, and in-betweens of being involved in sexuality as a profession. Through my own experiences and those of guest writers, I want to show the incredible fulfillment that can be achieved as well as the heart breaking realities of working in a profession that is often extremely misunderstood.
In this column you will read the stories of traditional sex workers: strippers, pro-Dommes, porn stars and escorts. But the column will also include the experiences of the less obvious sexuality professionals: doctors, psychologists, social workers, and sex educators, sex toy designers, fetish party planners & sex worker allies. Articles will not merely show these industry specialists as “sex workers”, but rather as complex and dedicated professionals. You’ll learn how sex industry jobs affect their lives: the good, the bad, the ugly, the awesome and the mind boggling – as well as the normal, accessible experiences which anyone can relate to.
This column will not be a place of illicit and explicit exploits of various “erotic experiences”. There are already plenty of personal blogs and other websites that take care of such things. Instead, “Professionally Speaking” will provide peeks into the reality of this industry… into the world of the people that deal daily within one of the most taboo industries in modern society: Sex.