Female-to-male to mistress: A layered account of layered performances

Abstract

Professionals in bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism (BDSM) have received minimal attention in the literature on sex work. Moreover, investigations of performance in sex work have focused overwhelmingly on cisgender women professionals, and tended to emphasize laborer–client encounters within paid sessions while neglecting encounters among colleagues. In this article, I engage in sociological introspection to provide a layered autoethnographic account of dungeon labor. I draw upon 10 months’ experience as a White, Jewish, queer, transmasculine person who enacted a White, sometimes Jewish, queer, cisgender womanhood throughout workplace encounters. Analyses emphasize gendered and sexual normativities, racism and discourses of client “taste,” violence in the workplace, and tensions between dungeon laborers’ professional personas and sense of authenticity.

Keywords

BDSM gender performance sexual violence sex work transgender

For eight hours at a stretch, three days a week, I used to live as someone else. I used a different name. And while everyone knew as much, few realized how hard I had fought to exist as Ethan in the first place, how strange to intermittently let go of that. I wore my body differently. The blockier, bound physique, which in those days was a prerequisite to braving public spaces, gave way to prominent breasts and body curvature. I spoke and moved differently. Years of masculine self-training, of desperate attention toward gendered communication styles in various environments, offered ideal preparation for enacting various femininities as befit encounters with colleagues and managers and a range of clientele.

That “someone else” was Rikki Michaels, BDSM professional (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism; I say “BDSM professional” rather than dominatrix as dungeon labor can involve dominance, submission, and fluid power dynamics on the laborer’s and client’s part). I constructed her during my first year of graduate school. She worked at one of several underground dungeons in New York City that served predominantly White and often astonishingly wealthy cisgender men. A few weeks into her existence, I began recording our experiences as a coping strategy for some of the more stifling and violent dimensions of dungeon life. What began as informal journaling transformed into ethnographic note-taking. In true graduate student form, I approached one of my professors with a paper idea. I disclosed my involvement in the sex industry and shared observations about complexly situated performances among colleagues and across sessions (Brooks, 2010; Haraway, 1988), disciplinary labor practices and sexual normativities (Foucault,1990 [1978]), and my “outsider within” vantage point as a female-to-male transperson who worked as a mistress (Collins, 1986; Schilt, 2010). My professor was kind and supportive. She heard me without disparaging my choices or labor, and also without doubting my feminist and transmasculine identifications. She noted that there was certainly potential for an academic project, and that most sociological treatments of sex work had focused on different industries such as exotic dancing and escorting (e.g. Bernstein, 2007; Brooks, 2010). Perhaps recognizing that I was struggling at work, she further pointed out that I was under no obligation to write anything at all, or to remain at the dungeon sufficiently long to design, obtain approval for, and conduct a formal ethnographic study. Heeding her words, I prioritized my personal welfare and left when I needed to.

Nearly a decade later, I have returned to 10 months’ worth of recorded observations, journal entries, poetry, and photographs from my time as Rikki Michaels. Distance and subsequent academic training have enabled me to reconsider and share our collective story.

Prior research on professional BDSM

Over the past three decades, a handful of scholars have investigated the world of professional BDSM. The most central theme across their work concerns a sort of Butlerian gender trouble (1990) that arises as cisgender women dominate cisgender men in commercial encounters. Khan (2009) analyzed representations of dominatrices in film and criminal trials, and found consistent emphases on women’s gender transgression. In an investigation of emotional labor in the field, Pinsky and Levey (2015) found that dominatrices were expected to demonstrate feminine-coded traits, such as compassion and shy flirtation, as well as masculine-coded traits, such as aggression and detachment. McClintock depicted the dungeon as a “house of misrule” where “woman is judge and jury [and] man is penitent” (1993: 106). Drawing on extensive ethnographic observations and interviews with 52 professional women dominatrices, Lindemann (2012) argued that the overtly scripted power dynamics of female dominance and male submissiveness within commercial BDSM scenes revealed the scripted and contingent nature of gendered power dynamics within everyday life.

Yet this is not to say that these scholars proposed professional BDSM as an antidote to patriarchy or heteronormativity. Khan (2009) argued that, owing to challenges to traditional gendered power structures, women dominatrices were regarded as deviants who must be “put in their place” by dominant men (whether love interests in films, or judges in criminal court). Lindemann (2012) and McClintock (1993) both demonstrated that normative ideals of feminine beauty, along with conventional markers of feminine subservience and masculine aggression, pervaded commercial sessions. Lindemann went so far as to argue that dominatrices “paradoxically reproduce traditional models of femininity in the course of subverting the standard gender/power arrangement” (2012: 153). These women were expected to be feminine and beautiful, to serve as objects of heterosexual men’s desires, even as they claimed temporary authority over those men in session. Such expectations were even evident in worknames. Many workers embraced formal titles such as “Lady,” and demanded that clients behave in a gentlemanly fashion towards them (Lindemann, 2012; Wilson, 2005).

Some scholars have explored demographic and behavioral characteristics among dominatrices. Sisson and Moser (2005) surveyed 31 cisgender women in the field. Approximately three-quarters self-identified as White, and more than half had never married. All but one had completed at least some college, although annual income and sources of income varied considerably. Although most participants expressed sexual desire for men, only 10% expressed exclusive heterosexuality. Many incorporated BDSM into their personal sex lives and relationships. Consistent with these last findings, Lindemann (2012) reported that a majority of the dominatrices she interviewed were bisexual, and that many were “lifestylers” who practiced BDSM in commercial and noncommercial contexts.

Research on sex work often addresses violence as a central concern for laborers (Bernstein, 2007; Footer et al., 2019; O’Doherty, 2011; Sprankle et al., 2018). Scholarship on professional BDSM departs from this pattern. When discussing safety concerns with dominatrices, Lindemann found that many emphasized clients’ safety rather than that of the laborers, and reflected that “the women I interviewed for this book gave me every reason to believe that physical assaults on dominatrices were a rare occurrence” (2012: 158). Those women characterized BDSM as among the safest forms of sex work. Sisson and Moser (2005) documented a higher rate of sexual victimization among women dominatrices than in the general population, but did not specifically inquire about violence within sex work.

This field remains in its infancy, and there are many open questions remaining. Two gaps in the literature are particularly important for this article. First, scholars have overwhelmingly focused on cisgender women professionals (Khan, 2009; McClintock, 1993; Pinsky and Levey, 2015). Wilson (2005) explicitly defined “dominatrix” as “a woman who, normally for financial purposes, participates in forms of sexually charged role-play with a fetishistic or sadomasochistic backdrop” (2005: 32). Sisson and Moser attempted unsuccessfully to recruit cisgender men for their investigation, and although they recruited two transgender participants, both were excluded from analysis. Lindemann (2012) reported interviewing 52 women and 3 men, but focused almost exclusively on women’s narratives. While these scholars have provided valuable insights into encounters in which cisgender women are paid to dominate cisgender men, other gender patterns remain unexplored. Second, analyses of the social dynamics within professional BDSM have emphasized worker–client encounters within paid sessions, and often implicitly presented dominatrices’ personal and professional selves as distinct. Session dynamics may not extend to other professional contexts, such as initial meetings with prospective clients or interactions among colleagues. Moreover, close-ended demographic inquiries do not reveal how BDSM professionals navigate such matters in the workplace, or whether their constructed personas share their sexual, racial, gender, and other identities.

My analyses in this project center on the following questions: How do BDSM professionals construct workplace identities? How do enactments of professional and outside personas overlap with, diverge from, and inform one another? In posing these questions, I draw upon scholarship on performativity and enactment (Butler, 1990; Perinbanayagam, 2000; Woolgar and Lezaun, 2013). Guided by these frameworks, I work under the assumption that all identities are performative. Rather than simply comprising an “essence” or stable “truth” of oneself, gendered, racial, and other identifications are constituted through social performance. It is also important to note that these questions are far-reaching, touching upon matters of values and political inclinations; race, gender, sexual, and other identities; and personal histories and relationships. I argue that these actors engage in layered performances, constructing professional personas that interweave with their outside (often perceived as their “true”) selves in complex and shifting ways. I further argue that, within dungeon spaces, workers conform to and resist normative pressures around a range of identifications including gender, sexuality, race, class, political leanings/values, and status as a survivor or victim of interpersonal violence. Some of these normative pressures overlap with those faced in their personal lives, whereas others are more particular to dungeon spaces.

Rather than attempt to arrange myriad narratives and identifications into a falsely coherent, singular “self” (Perinbanayagam, 2000; Vila, 2017), my colleagues and I endeavored to enact outside (often perceived as “real,” “authentic,” and stable/fixed) and professional (often perceived as “inauthentic” and temporary/bounded; see Bernstein, 2007) selves within the same encounters. And yet for all this shared complexity, my personal experiences as a professional switch entailed unusually stark shifts in gender expression and identification. I lived my everyday life as openly transmasculine, often using language such as “transman” and “transgender man” to describe myself. Rikki Michaels shared my birth assignment of female, but she identified as a woman. Perhaps more than my colleagues, I felt compelled to perceive my professional and outside personas as actors whose differences extended well beyond our names. We were at once distinct and interweaving. We remain so. Although I speak consistently as Ethan in this writing, I refer to Rikki at varying points in the first and third person. While this risks a more confusing narrative, it reflects my own perceptions and further speaks to the layered performances in dungeon labor. I also recognize the possibility, or perhaps inevitability, of “slippage” in autoethnography (Medford, 2006). Former clients and colleagues might remember our encounters differently, or might offer different accounts of dungeon life. They might disagree as to whether working as Rikki demanded identitarian and corporeal transformation, or was simply a matter of enacting something akin to femme drag. The fact that I am returning to my records 10 years after the fact also produces a measure of distance from the material that unavoidably affects my analysis; I might well have drawn different conclusions during or immediately after my time as Rikki than I do here. What follows should be regarded as my own understanding, a partial perspective (Haraway, 1988) grounded in lived experience and academic literature rather than a definitive, universal account.

In drawing attention to layered performances in professional BDSM, I hope to contribute to the literature on sex work in three ways. First, as others have noted (Pinsky and Levey, 2015), this field has received scant attention. Much academic knowledge on sex work concerns other sectors such as street prostitution, escorting, brothels, and exotic dancing (Bernstein, 2007; Brooks, 2010; Büschi, 2014; Lyons et al., 2017). Yet, as others have argued (Lindemann, 2012; McClintock, 1993; Pinsky and Levey, 2015), professional BDSM is sex work. Many laborers and clients perceive their encounters as erotic. Although many professionals do not offer sexual intercourse in sessions, some do, and commercial BDSM regularly involves other sexual acts including erotic touching, oral sex, manual stimulation, and penetration with sex toys. Second, whereas literature on professional BDSM has consistently focused on women (Khan, 2009; Lindemann, 2012; Sisson and Moser, 2005; Wilson, 2005), whose identified genders do not vary within and outside work even if their enactments of femininity/masculinity do, this article engages the complexities of navigating trans(masculine) identity in the field. Third, investigations of performativity in sex work, including professional BDSM, overwhelmingly focus on laborers’ interactions with clients (Bernstein, 2007; Brooks, 2010; Lindemann, 2012; McClintock, 1993; Smith, 2016), in which they are often expected to be enacting a temporary persona that aligns with clients’ desires. This analysis focuses on moments in which sex workers are expected to be, at least to some extent, enacting their “true” selves. This includes encounters with colleagues, managers, and some negotiation talks with prospective clients.

Methods

Throughout 10 months of dungeon labor in 2009, I recorded a range of observations. Initially, my writing was more akin to journaling, focused on personal experiences as a transmasculine mistress. Several weeks in, I began actively documenting observations about manager–mistress, mistress–mistress, and mistress–client interactions; hiring and firing practices; professional and personal relationships that extended beyond the workplace; experiences of and attitudes towards violence; and gender, sexual, racial, and other inequalities. Most notes were handwritten and then transcribed. Periodically, I reviewed my observations and composed brief memos on emerging themes (Emerson et al., 2011). I strove for what Geertz (1973) refers to as “thick description,” attempting to understand the context of individual behaviors and practices in depth. In 2019, I began this project with a return to those observations along with poetry, photographs, and other texts from that period. I analyzed my recorded observations and initial memos, and composed additional or revised memos to identify themes related to the construction and enactment of gender, racial, and other identities.

Following Rambo Ronai (1995), I engage here in sociological introspection to produce a layered autoethnographic account. Rather than seek to arrange personal narrative, social theory, qualitative research, quantitative research, and “scholarly” and “non-scholarly” insights on a formal hierarchy, I interweave these forms of knowledge across multiple reflections. Rambo Ronai introduced this method in an essay on childhood sexual abuse (1995), in which her own narrative of victimization and healing was interspersed with scholarship on nature, scope, and outcomes of such violence. Her account was nonlinear, further reflecting the complexities of remembering and recovering from trauma. Others have since applied this method to diverse projects, including investigations of White privilege (Magnet, 2006), transgender identity and experience (Levine, 2018a), the performance and articulation of “taste” in wine festivals (Vannini, Ahluwalia-Lopez, Waskul and Gottschalk, 2010), and the influence of neoliberalism in sports charities (Batlle et al., 2017). A layered account seems particularly apt given that professional BDSM work leads toward what I conceive as layered performance. Within that professional dungeon space, I and other laborers constructed distinct work personas throughout interactions with colleagues. Outside names were rarely shared and almost never asked for. As various identifications and narratives were engaged and subdued (Vila, 2017), we made strategic decisions about which to reveal in the workplace and which to conceal or preserve as aspects of our out-of-work selves. We faced and imposed distinct pressures around various privileged and marginalized identifications. As we met and served various clients, these workplace personas were continually tweaked and manipulated to align with or, in some cases, resist clients’ desires. In some cases, we transformed our bodies and rewrote our histories across client meets and sessions. Such concerns and practices were multiplied for those who saw colleagues or clients on the outside. The layers of our professional BDSM performances and identifications, much like those in Rambo Ronai and others’ scholarly layered accounts, bled into and through one another.

Results

The following sections address three themes regarding my and other mistresses’ constructions of workplace personas, and the ways in which those personas overlapped with, diverged from, influenced, and were influenced by our constructions of self outside of work: gender and sexuality, including normative expectations of female embodiment and heteroflexible desire; race and ethnicity, including the challenge of navigating racist “tastes” among clients and racialized variations in erotic capital (Brooks, 2010); and sexual violence in the workplace, which focuses on varying responses to this pervasive problem as well as broader perceptions of sex workers as actual or potential victims/survivors.

Revealing, concealing, and constructing genders and sexualities

Seeing this performance for the first time I was deeply uncomfortable with watching this happen onstage. Her naked chest was not troublesome, and neither was her bound one, but watching the awkward and ungainly process of binding seemed like an intrusion, as though the decent thing for all of us would have been to close our eyes or avert our gazes instead of watching, fascinated, while this most intimate transformation took place. (Bergman, 2009: 42)

Every shift, I buzzed into an unmarked building and trudged up the stairs as Ethan. I’m told that I was quite noisy, enough so that at least one client with wrestling fantasies paused in the stairwell after I passed by, listening fervently to my movements, and reported the experience in passionate detail to another mistress in session.

On the outside, I wore what felt like a combination of generic transmasculine and generic heavy metal fare. Black boots, jeans, tank tops, button-downs, all from the “men’s” section and all a bit worn down. Less formal than most of my graduate school colleagues, but not so much that anyone said anything aloud. I entered the dungeon dressed this way, and proceeded to transform in one of two often overcrowded dressing rooms. I removed my shirts first, revealing a binder that covered and constrained me from waist to shoulders. The binder and sports bra below came next. Whatever happened after, body curvature and breasts were on full display until the end of my shift offered a chance to revert back.

Some days, feeling the intimacy and exposure of this ritual, I rushed through everything as though I might trick my colleagues into believing that my body only ever came in the one (stereotypically feminine) shape, and stifle any hitherto unspoken questions. I scanned the rooms for signs of curiosity. I scanned the rooms for signs of recognition, frightened that a colleague might know what my binder was for, and what kind of person I must be for wearing it. Someone did make the connection, it turned out, but kept it to herself until I offered a disclosure one night after work. Our dungeon had a strict “no transgender employees” policy, and though I believe this was grounded in cissexist (trans)misogyny and a conflation of all gender variance with transfemininity, it could have been enough to get me fired. Gender determinations (Westbrook and Schilt, 2014) relied on managers’ gender attributions and anatomical assumptions. At least one prospective mistress had been forced to strip and submit to genital inspection to assess whether she qualified as a “real” woman. Although Rikki/I would have passed such an inspection, she/I might well have refused if asked and been summarily fired.

***

There is no shortage of literature on outness in the workplace. Queer laborers must endlessly decide whether to reveal or signal or conceal or cover their sexualities (Jones and King, 2014; Yoshino, 2006). Those in ostensibly welcoming environments may still face pressure to be a particular “type” of queer. Williams, Giuffre, and Dellinger have written of a “gay-friendly closet” that compels gay and lesbian laborers to choose between visibility, which often entails embodying gay stereotypes that may or may not resonate with individuals’ sense(s) of self; and acceptance, which often entails downplaying socially recognized indicators of homosexuality (2009: 41). Matters are further complicated for bisexual, queer, asexual, and other individuals who fall within what Callis (2014) refers to as the “sexual borderlands,” whose sexualities are imperceptible (Murphy, 2006) in social environments that rely on a straight/gay binary.

Transgender and nonbinary workers, regardless of sexuality, must also endlessly decide whether and how much to reveal our gender identifications and express ourselves in alignment with them. If we identify to any extent with the normative categories of “man” or “woman” and the normative pronouns of “he/him/his” or “she/her/hers,” respectively, we may have the option of being perceived “accurately” in social encounters. By this, I mean that other individuals might guess correctly about how to refer to us based on visual and auditory cues and without instruction. This is most feasible for transgender men with normatively masculine appearances and transgender women with normatively feminine appearances (Dozier, 2005; Schilt, 2010). Those of us who identify fully or to some extent with normative gender categories, but whose appearances do not align with corresponding expectations about our bodies and overall appearances, face different circumstances. We may exist within a sort of “transgender closet” in which we conceal our gender variant identifications, and are perceived and approached in accordance with our assigned sex at birth. We may self advocate and declare our identifications, but with somewhat limited chances of respectful or “accurate” perceptions and treatment among colleagues (Levine, 2018a; Schilt, 2010). Nonbinary individuals cannot ever be read “accurately” in contexts that rely on dichotomous gender, and may face limited chances of respectful treatment even when providing repeated disclosures and guidance.

As with marginalized sexualities, enacting gender variance may entail complex processes of identity management and varying pressures to conceal/cover/reveal (Jones and King, 2014; Yoshino, 2006). Laborers with nonbinary and/or fluid identifications may face pressure to enact binary and fixed/stable selves in the workplace. Trans men who are perceived as cis men and trans women who are perceived as cis women must repeatedly decide whether to disclose their transgender identities and experiences. Those who wish to celebrate or otherwise reveal such experiences may face resistance. Schilt (2010) has documented that transgender men often face the constrained options of shifting into professional manhood or remaining in professional womanhood, without much possibility for embracing trans-specific workplace identities or enacting a more fluid or liminal gender. In other words, although a masculine-identified trans person who was assigned female at birth might become recognizable to colleagues as a “man,” it is rarely possible to secure recognition specifically as a “transgender man” or as a “man” and “transgender person” simultaneously.

How might such knowledges apply to professional BDSM? It is certainly true that, notwithstanding our shared status as sex workers whose labor was maligned elsewhere, my colleagues and I faced varying pressures around the revelation of our outside (often referred to as our “real”) selves. And while identitarian and behavioral expectations in that space varied from those beyond, many of our navigation strategies fit well within the literature on labor inequalities and managing (in)concealable stigma (Jones and King, 2014; Yoshino, 2006). What set this context apart was our layered performances. Even as we engaged with one another as peers, constructing various selves and putting them into play in social encounters (Perinbanayagam, 2000), we were constructing and (inter)acting as our dominatrix personas. In my case, I presented as a cisgender woman at work. And while this might seem deceitful (an accusation often posed against trans people; Serano, 2016), it wasn’t precisely, because I was also embodying Rikki Michaels, who was a cisgender woman. Yet I was often at a loss to fully distinguish between us. I caught myself acting inconsistently at times. As I began befriending colleagues and seeing them on the outside, I spent time with them as Rikki or as Ethan as guided by personal inclinations and safety concerns. Those who learned my “real” gender were still expected to call me Rikki and she/her/hers at work, which may have felt disingenuous for them – but again, wasn’t really, even if it set our professional and personal relationships apart. Managing distinct workplace and outside names was standard practice, as was maintaining an awareness of safe and off-limits topics of conversation, even if we were rarely asked to enact or acknowledge different genders on either side of the dungeon walls.

***

I wanted Rikki to share in my feminist politics. I wanted my years of social justice and antiviolence work, my commitment to seeking out allies and providing allyship across and among intersecting oppressions, to find its way into the dungeon. In some moments, I achieved this. In others, I fell short as an advocate and ally (Ghabra and Calafell, 2018), or grappled failingly with dungeon normativities around sexual, racial, ethnic, and other identifications.

We were all expected to be cisgender women. We were further expected to convey a convincing and appealing femininity. At its most basic, this was more than a matter of policy. Gender policing was also woven into everyday interactions among mistresses, although ideals were challenging to pin down:

In three months as Rikki, I have been told to wear makeup because “clients want to see a made-up face,” told that my disinterest in makeup is an asset, advised to show more skin, advised that we all need cover up and “avoid looking like whores,” assured that any and all colors (or lack of colors) were fine so long as they looked good, and instructed to limit myself to black, white, and red as these were the only elegant hues, advised to be more demure and delicate, and told that my fierceness will attract clients.

It was common practice to comment (positively or critically) on one another’s bodies, with particular attention to breast size and symmetry, body curvature, body hair and shaving practices, and in some cases the appearance our vulvas. Clothing, makeup, hairstyles, sitting and walking styles, gestures, facial expressions, and other aspects of gender expression/performance were also fair game for critique. These aspects of gender policing were routinely connected with profit. As mentioned earlier, Rikki/I was advised to wear makeup because “clients want to see a made-up face,” not as a means of being prettier. I was, in essence, directed to construct and demonstrate a more dungeon-normative femininity.

We were also expected to convey a sort of voracious and transparent heteroflexibility. As far as I could tell, normative dominatrices desired sexual encounters with (cisgender) men and women alike, and reveled in sharing our most impressive exploits (of which there ought to be many), all the while reserving “real” or “serious” partnerships for cisgender men. New hires were often asked about “boyfriends” rather than partners. Yet when someone raised the subject of cunnilingus – a frequent occurrence in the dressing room – it was often assumed that all present had experience performing and receiving, and tended to enjoy both. There was little to no acknowledgment of transgender, nonbinary, or intersex communities and identities. Beyond conventional open relationship models, in which two romantically and sexually involved partners pursue sexual and largely aromantic encounters with other people, there was little acknowledgment of or support for consensual nonmonogamies (Conley et al., 2017; Levine et al., 2018). Like the heteroflexibility Ward documented among straight White men who pursue sex with each other (2015), this culture appeared to open up new possibilities for otherwise sexually normative women without celebrating or freeing those of us who embodied queer, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, polyamorous, and/or other borderland sexualities beyond the dungeon walls (Callis, 2014). These sexual norms were largely divorced from talks of profit. Our sexualities – or, rather, our professional personas’ sexualities – were standard fare for dressing-room discussions only. It was widely assumed that, during sessions, we would enact temporary sexualities that aligned with clients’ desires.

We learned, reinforced, and resisted these and other dungeon normativities during shared downtime in dressing rooms and a dreadfully small, smoke-filled kitchen. We faced complex covering and outness demands around our own – or rather, around our construction of workplace and outside personas’ – sexual lives and fantasies (Yoshino, 2006). It often seemed to be the case that laborers were expected to change their outside sexual behaviors to align with colleagues’ ideals, as demonstrated through frequent suggestions to “try women” or to take part in BDSM parties for personal pleasure.

Connections between outside and professional personas also functioned differently for those with and without “real” interest in BDSM. Rikki/I was known as a “lifestyler,” someone whose kinky life predated their turn to the professional. I never learned a word for staff whose involvement in BDSM began with paid labor. Lifestylers comprised about half the workforce when I came on board. Many of us, myself included, had pursued or at least considered some form of sex work previously. We swiftly became a minority. Working in what has since been deemed the Great Recession, my initial colleagues and I watched as more and more people – many of whom were White, heterosexual, cisgender women whose everyday sexual and family lives appeared quite normative – turned to an industry they “would never have considered” in better times. These women arrived with a ready distinction between their private and professional sexual lives. Lifestylers, on the other hand, faced continual choices about whether and to what extent we might draw boundaries between session offerings and our own proclivities (Smith, 2016). Quite a few lifestylers opted to construct professional kink desires that diverged substantially from their outside engagement in BDSM. For example, one colleague shared with me that she was “really a sub,” and in order to distinguish her professional and private lives/selves, constructed a workplace sexuality that focused entirely on domination.

Navigating race/racism in client meets and dressing rooms

There were 16 of us on site today. Only one in session when a new client came in. We all wondered whether he would request a general meet, in which we might all get a chance, or whether he would work with the manager to narrow it down. Our bodies and dress at the time varied enough that (manager) might have offered racial variety (White, Black, Latinx, Asian, multiracial), long hair or short hair, flats or high heels or super high heels, small or medium or large breasted, atheist or Jewish or Catholic, blond or brunette or redhead, no makeup or some makeup or loads of makeup, skinny or slender or average size or larger, domme or sub or switch, leather or lace or latex, piercings or tattoos or neither, barely legal or young professionals or middle aged … we all stared at one another waiting to see who might get a chance to make her case, let alone who would work.

When I first began documenting dungeon experiences, one exchange with a client stood out enough for me to preserve in some detail. Several mistresses were called in for a “meet,” a common ritual in we privately introduced ourselves for a brief negotiation of the client’s desires and our willingness and suitability. When it was my turn, this man – the first of a handful to do this, in truth – looked me up and down and inquired after my ethnicity. He asked “what are you,” and when I replied in silence, pressed further, “Italian?”

I told him “no.”

He carried on, “something Mediterranean, right?”

Again, I told him “no.”

As a relative newcomer, I had yet to learn of this man’s tendency toward “girl next door,” normatively feminine White mistresses. Even someone like Rikki, a White mistress with visible Ashkenazi Jewish features, with olive skin and brown eyes and wavy dark hair, should barely have stood a chance at cultivating his attention. I had yet to learn that he never accepted a session with someone he perceived as Black or Asian or Indigenous or Latinx. I told him “no” again, and added that I needed to leave promptly at the end of my shift and would be unavailable for his standard three-hour session in any case.

“Native, maybe?” he asked me then. “I need to know.” And there it was, the soon-to-be-familiar insistence that a client needed something from Rikki that she was unfairly withholding. That he was entitled to this information. That he was entitled to the biography of this mistress who seemed White-but-not-exactly, who seemed a bit exotic but not so far from his baseline that he would regret paying for a single session. Someone, as it happened, whose outside persona was an ethnic Jew whose last encounter with neo-Nazis had felt a lot like this conversation in the beginning.

“I think what you’re looking for is Hungarian,” I said at last.

“Hungarian!”

True enough for me, and thus for Rikki also. Though maybe not what he was asking after. He requested me nonetheless, among a handful of other available White mistresses, and I gently reminded him that my shift was ending well before our session would finish and that I had outside obligations that afternoon. He asked me to reconsider, and after my third refusal, never spoke with me on any of his subsequent visits.

***

The practice of client meets laid bare a range of inequalities. Skin tone, presumed or disclosed racial and ethnic identifications, facial features, sexuality, body shape and size, accent, indicators of class and geographic origins, all these and more might be (re)framed as matters of “taste” rather than an inequitable distribution of erotic capital (Brooks, 2010). And clients’ taste was top priority. In some cases, meets were for everyone, and recurring clients’ racialized and other parameters emerged as they negotiated and made selections. Other times, such matters were more explicit. Managers might announce “client meet in 15 minutes, large breasted girls only” or “thin girls only” or “White girls only.” Some clients, like the man described earlier, would ask for additional demographic information. Such matters of “taste” reinforced intersectional hierarchies, such that women of color encountered entangled racist/sexist stereotyping and seemed less likely to be perceived as potential “innocents” or “good girls” (and thus less likely to be chosen for “good girl” role plays; Collins, 2004; Crenshaw, 1991). Black women, in particular, seemed to get fewer sessions than women of all other races (Brooks, 2010). A White colleague once told me about hearing a Black mistress declare, to no one in particular, that “I wish I were a White girl, so I’d get more work here.” Another Black mistress was quick to respond with, “Don’t say that. You wish these a**holes weren’t so racist.” Clients who specifically requested Black mistresses often sought to live out racialized sexual fantasies. One colleague of mine recalled being asked to play a “mythical Black goddess” for a White man who cowered before her.

From the managers’ perspective, meeting client demand meant employing a predominantly White or White-passing, normatively attractive, college-educated staff while also securing a broad enough range in skin tone, size, and other features to satisfy clients with differing or more varied “tastes.” From the mistresses’ perspective, meeting client demand meant confronting intersectional oppressions and social hierarchies throughout every shift and session. White and White-passing mistresses were consistently the most employable. Yet White mistresses often seemed to resent women of color who “stole” sessions from them, tapping into discourses invoked by White (often cisgender male) US citizens in “legitimate” fields who resent diversity/inclusion initiatives and immigrant labor (Brent and Bonilla-Silva, 2008; Hall, 2004). Those of us whose features were perceived as racially ambiguous, myself/Rikki included, encountered financial incentives for constructing racially ambiguous personas. Those who were willing might capitalize on our “safe” exoticism, or shift our professional selves’ heritage in accordance with clients’ desires (Brooks, 2010). Mistresses who were consistently read as women of color were not without work, but tended to receive notably fewer session requests.

Throughout my life as Rikki, I never enacted a racial or ethnic identity that was absent from my outside heritage and sense(s) of self. Yet I was far from consistent. I endeavored to scrutinize clients’ curiosity, engaging or declining ancestral questions and knowing that my features appealed to clients whose racist “tastes” tended toward the quasi-“exotic”-but-still-racially-privileged. I told self-identified Jews that I was Jewish – or perhaps, Rikki became Jewish while encountering Jewish clients – and otherwise tended to conceal that information. When Orthodox or Conservative men asked more detailed questions, I readily shared that my heritage was patrilineal and thus insufficient for achieving true Jewish status within their communities. When anyone else asked, I offered one or two of the nations from which my various ancestors had immigrated in years past, thereby constructing a racial and ethnic identity for Rikki that diverged from Ethan’s heritage.

In staff spaces, I attempted to support other marginalized mistresses. In some moments, I intervened in racist and homophobic and fat-phobic discourses, or supported others in doing so. I drew on “shared experiences of Otherness” (Ghabra and Calafell, 2018: 3) to forge alliances. In other moments, I failed (and was failed) in this work. I did not always intervene. I sometimes ignored or awkwardly laughed along with oppressive behaviors where I ought to have protested. I exploited clients’ prejudices even as I loathed and critiqued them. Like many mistresses who recognized and struggled against the systemic inequalities and power dynamics of that workplace, I enacted resistance and complicity.

Rape and resistance in the workplace

Truthfully, as many people who have experienced violence may tell you, you often become your first advocate and line of defense … As a racialized, First Nations young woman, I know that I’m just as likely to experience sexual assault or violence working in an office as I am while sex working on the street, and I’m just as unlikely to get real support from the “authorities” who might not believe me or seek justice on my behalf. (Jessica Yee, quoted in November, 2016: 66–67)

It may seem a bit out of place to discuss sexual violence in detail, given that the aims of this article concern identity performativity and the construction of BDSM professionals’ workplace and outside personas. Yet experiences of violence can and do inform these processes. Such experiences may lead individuals to embrace “victim” or “survivor” identities, which are themselves performative. Enactments of victimhood or survivorhood may entail a range of gestures, including but very much not limited to direct disclosures and behavioral changes after an assault. Such enactments may be accepted, challenged, or denied outright in social interactions. Individuals who have experienced victimization, and do not consider themselves to be victims or survivors (in general, or within a given encounter), may find that others impose such statuses upon them. Moreover, incidents of violence occur within and outside dungeon spaces, and may inform workplace and outside identities and experiences.

Feminist scholars and activists have long criticized rape myths, loosely defined as widespread misperceptions that enable and justify sexual violence (Edwards et al., 2011; Payne et al., 1999; Ryan, 2011). Some embrace a gender-specific approach to such work, explicitly or implicitly restricting the concept of rape myths to misperceptions that justify men’s violence toward women (Edwards et al., 2011; Payne et al., 1999). Others embrace a more gender expansive framework, suggesting that all rape-supportive misperceptions might constitute rape myths (Levine, 2018b) or distinguishing among such categories as “male rape myths” and “female rape myths” (Chapleau et al., 2008).

While naming and challenging such harmful falsehoods as “women ask to be raped,” “men can’t help themselves,” and “men can’t be raped because they always want sex” is valuable in its own right, many scholars have demonstrated connections between rape myth endorsement and behavior. Individuals’ understandings of sexual consent and refusal are shaped by cultural sexual scripts (Simon and Gagnon, 1986), including rape myths that blur or deny distinctions between seductive and assaultive behavior (Littleton and Axsom, 2003; Ryan, 2011). Rape myth acceptance is associated with bystander attitudes, such that individuals who endorse rape myths express less willingness to intervene in sexist and sexually violent circumstances (McMahon, 2010). Rape myth acceptance influences women’s chances of naming their own experiences of sexual victimization as rape or sexual assault, and further impacts whether individual and institutional actors who hear a woman’s disclosure of rape will believe or challenge her story (Edwards et al., 2011; Littleton and Axsom, 2003). Among heterosexual cisgender men, those who endorse rape myths report a higher proclivity for engaging in sexual violence against women (Bohner et al., 2005; Lonsway and Fitzgerald, 1994). Even acquaintances’ rape myth endorsement can affect cisgender men’s likelihood of committing rape (Bohner et al., 2006).

Edwards and colleagues (2011: 762) argue that “rape myths, despite their falsehood, are endorsed by a substantial segment of the population and permeate legal, media, and religious institutions”. Sex industry sites are no exception. Participants in commercial sexual encounters may draw upon a range of industry-specific scripts regarding negotiation, pleasure, power dynamics, and (non)consent (Bernstein, 2007; Brooks, 2010). In a site where all providers are presumed to be cisgender women, broader patriarchal misperceptions intersect with attitudes that enable and justify violence against sex workers (O’Doherty, 2011; Sprankle et al., 2018). The notions that “women enjoy rape” and “women lie about being raped” entangle with such notions as “sex workers consent to everything by virtue of their profession” and “sex workers’ reports of rape are really complaints about underpayment.” Widespread beliefs about heterosexual, cisgender men’s entitlement to cisgender women’s bodies are joined by widespread beliefs that men who pay for women’s sexual services are entitled to do and demand what they like. Police, prosecutors, judges, and jurors who may already be inclined to doubt women’s narratives of violence (Dinos et al., 2015; Sleath and Bull, 2017) may be even less willing to recognize or respond to violence against women in the sex industry (Footer et al., 2019; O’Doherty, 2011; Sprankle et al., 2018). Collectively, these perceptions and practices contribute to tremendous rates of violence against sex workers worldwide (Deering et al., 2014; Schwitters et al., 2015; Ulibarri et al., 2014), particularly those who face intersectional oppressions and/or whose work is criminalized.

***

Without question, sexual violence was a part of the job. Many workers experienced rape and threats of rape in the workplace. Many of us, myself/Rikki included, simply carried on working. As criminalized and off-the-books laborers, we lacked any formal recourse or protections. Our agency prioritized profits over staff welfare, and to my knowledge, no clients were ever banned or even criticized for assaulting mistresses. We might attempt a police report, but contact information and legal names were hard to come by. Besides, it was understood that anyone who reached out to law enforcement risked mistreatment. We might be as (if not more) likely to face abusive treatment and arrest for participation in the sex industry as we were to be recognized as victims/survivors of rape (McClintock, 1993; November, 2016; O’Doherty, 2011). We might reach out to antiviolence agencies or health clinics, but there too we risked being stigmatized as victim-criminals (Majic, 2014) or regarded as trafficking victims in need of “rescue” (Bernstein, 2018).

Among those who view sex work as inherently deviant or harmful, sexual violence may also be invoked as a causal explanation (Bernstein, 2007; Khan, 2009). The argument suggests that individuals, or women specifically, who pursue sex work are “damaged” or driven by traumatic experiences. This narrative came up quite explicitly one afternoon at the dungeon:

(Colleague), one of the more outspoken mistresses here, spent today conducting her own research. She approached everyone individually and asked: “Have you ever been sexually assaulted?” and, among those who answered yes, “Did that have anything to do with your choosing to work here?” She tallied “yes” and “no” responses. When I asked why she was doing this, she disclosed that a friend had suggested that only someone ‘damaged’ by sexual trauma would ever choose this work. She had countered that we were among the strongest women she knew – but also felt committed to documenting our histories to prove that at least some of us had never faced violence.

This colleague had, in fact, been motivated to join our workforce by her exposure to violence. She shared with me that she had experienced a stranger assault and turned to sex work as a means of re-empowering herself. Within her own narrative, that outside victimization history informed her professional life. Nonetheless, she wholly resented the notion that sexual trauma was a prerequisite to sexual labor. She further rejected the idea that she, or any of us, might be considered a victim. Her workplace persona – and, perhaps, her perspective regarding BDSM professionals overall – was constructed in opposition to qualities that she associated with victimhood (“strong” rather than “weak,” “empowered” rather “damaged,” “in control” rather than “controllable”).

I was nearly fired twice in connection with workplace violence. On the first occasion, a regular client had asked to meet with me and two other mistresses. I refused. The manager pressured me to go, and I broke down and shared that this same client had raped me during a previous session. Weeks earlier, when I had first disclosed this to fellow mistresses, most responded by blaming me or denying that my story counted as rape. Others would later share that this client had a reputation for harming staff, and one mistress offered to provide some form of “revenge session” on my behalf (I declined). On this particular day, the manager seemed unsure as to whether my story was sufficient grounds for refusing a meet (even if it might, potentially, be sufficient for refusing a session). I sat there in silence until the client selected another mistress.

By this time, I was shaken and enraged and felt wholly incapable of being there. I told the manager that I needed to leave. She informed me that this would be a fireable offense. She was obliged to tell the owner whenever someone arrived late or left early without cause, and he was unlikely to have any compassion here. In desperation, I suggested that she “make something up. Tell him my mom’s in the hospital, whatever. Tell him something that he’ll believe and actually care about.” And with that, I returned to the dressing room. I began removing feminine-coded fabrics and reshaping body curvature, transforming back from Rikki into Ethan, and was about to leave when the manager appeared in the doorway. She said that she had told the owner about “what happened with your mom” and that I was welcome to leave.

The second time, another manager threatened to fire me over discussing another client’s boundary violations. My offense was stating that I had once invited a colleague into a session for a (paid) cameo, observed a negotiation in which she explicitly stated that she was unwilling to be restrained, and then witnessed this client attempt to restrain her. She swiftly restated her boundaries and left. When I shared this story in the dressing room – that same client had returned, and was asking to meet with available mistresses – the manager stormed in and told me to “mind my own business.” She made it clear that any further such behaviors would mean termination.

By this time, though, Rikki/I had developed a reputation for this kind of thing. Whereas my outside history included a background in formal, institution-based advocacy and direct services for survivors of violence; I constructed Rikki as more inclined towards informal, interpersonal activism within dungeon spaces (November, 2016). Those efforts earned new friends and allies. We began to strategize, finding ways to safety plan and support one another without risking our jobs. Our resistance took several forms. In some cases, we simply spoke out against rape myths in the workplace. We also learned to speak indirectly or engage hypotheticals, using words like “rape” and “consent” and “boundaries” in public discussions without referencing specific people or incidents. We attempted to shift the culture of common spaces towards one in which violence against sex workers was acknowledged and challenged, or in which antiviolence discourses were at least tolerated alongside discourses that normalized rape.

Staff training became central to these efforts. Mistresses might be called upon to provide a range of services for clients whose desires varied widely, and many arrived without any prior BDSM experience or knowledge (a common issue in the industry, see Lindemann, 2012). Managers frequently relied on older staff to train new hires. This offered no compensation but, as long as one or more session rooms were available, it did provide opportunities to speak one-on-one or in smaller groups. I and several others seized these chances to model consent-focused behavior and safety planning, and to provide each other with space to raise questions or concerns without risking trouble from management. We approached these encounters as opportunities to work towards alternative dungeon normativities, centered on empowerment and consent.

We also engaged as fellow survivors, and believed each other. This was among the realms in which our workplace and outside selves bled into one another profoundly. We accepted disclosures of violence without dismissal or interrogation. We supported one another around experiences of sexual violence across contexts. We met outside of work to share stories of violence, struggle, and recovery; and drew upon those moments in our efforts to transform dungeon culture. Within our informal circle, victimhood and survivorhood were largely presumed to transcend any distinctions between professional and personal selves.

Enacting layered performances

Professionals in bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism construct workplace personas that converge with and diverge from the selves they enact elsewhere. While several researchers have demonstrated the performative nature of paid sessions (Lindemann, 2012; McClintock, 1993; Pinsky and Levey, 2015), I have argued here that BDSM professionals engage in layered performances in other workplace contexts. When interacting with colleagues and managers, and in some meets with prospective clients, these actors are often expected to be engaging as their “real” selves. In part, this is due to a binary logic of “performance vs. truth,” in which professionals are expected to provide a sort of bounded authenticity (Bernstein, 2007) within sessions and a more permanent authenticity in other workplace encounters. Performative approaches to identity, and scholarship on individuals’ capacity to enact or “put into play” various identifications across social encounters (Butler, 1990; Perinbanayagam, 2000; Woolgar and Lezaun, 2013), offer a substantial challenge to this logic. Yet even without those insights, clear divisions between workplace and “true” personas would be elusive. Outside of sessions, BDSM professionals typically share workplace names rather than outside names. As is arguably the case in most (if not all) social domains, these laborers continually construct and adjust personas across dungeon encounters. Workplace personas may differ from laborers’ understandings of their authentic selves in terms of overall disposition, political values, racial and ethnic identifications, gender identity and expression, sexuality, relationship and family status, and even histories of violence. These characteristics, and the personas constructed out of them, may shift briefly or permanently over the course of a career. Like laborers in many sectors, BDSM professionals comply with and resist a range of workplace normativities (Jones and King, 2014; Yoshino, 2006). Workplace experiences may likewise influence identity construction and enactment outside of the dungeon.

Prior investigations of professional BDSM have focused on cisgender women laborers (Khan, 2009; Lindemann, 2012; McClintock, 1993; Pinsky and Levey, 2015; Sisson and Moser, 2005; Wilson, 2005). This work has offered tremendous insights into the gender dynamics of these women’s paid dominance over cisgender men, including the paradoxical tendency for this practice to both challenge and reinforce gender norms. However, the collective literature has often synonymized “professional dominatrix” with “cisgender woman.” My status as a transmasculine mistress offered an “outsider within” vantage point on gendered expectations within the dungeon (Collins, 1986; Schilt, 2010), not merely in terms of clients’ perceived desires in session but also colleagues’ and managers’ expectations in dressing rooms. Our cisgender woman identifications were presumed. Our enactments of femininity and womanhood were continually policed, often under the guise of improving our earning potential.

Findings regarding race and racism echo Brooks’ (2010) observations about race and erotic capital in exotic dancing. Clients’ “taste” was paramount, and racist “tastes” were not so much an opportunity to criticize or (re)educate clients as a motivation for stratified hiring and advertising. White and consistently White-passing mistresses received the most session requests. White mistresses who were perceived as racially ambiguous, myself/Rikki included, were encouraged to exploit that ambiguity for financial gain and to construct racially fluid or unclassifiable selves. Some shifted their personas’ heritage in alignment with clients’ desires. This option, regardless of its appeal, was wholly unavailable to darker-skinned staff who were consistently read as women of color. Outside of sessions, mistresses varied in their (stated) attitudes towards this racial hierarchy. Some White mistresses did not seem to recognize racial inequities that mirrored the outside world, and even complained of women of color “stealing” work that they believed was rightfully theirs. Mistresses across racial and ethnic groups who perceived these inequities seemed divided as to whether the cause was a presumably personal and apolitical, if unfortunate, pattern in clients’ “taste” or a matter of racism.

Although violence against laborers is a central concern in academic literature on sex work, investigations of professional BDSM tend to depict this field as low risk. The safety concerns addressed tend to be those of the clients rather than the workers (Lindemann, 2012). Where violence against dominatrices is addressed, this is largely presented as an outside issue. Rape might drive women towards or away from commercial BDSM, but is not necessarily regarded as a workplace hazard (Khan, 2009; Sisson and Moser, 2005). The experiences and observations documented here depart from this pattern. Five or six years after leaving the dungeon, I met up with a former colleague. We were both graduate students at the time, and spent most of the evening commiserating over academic struggles. Eventually, our conversation turned to sex work. When I disclosed having been raped on the job, she shared that she had been assaulted by a client during her first week, and described the dungeon as a “rape factory.” We both knew other colleagues who had been assaulted by clients at work, yet neither of us had seen these concerns addressed in the academic literature. Some of the risk was likely associated with our working in a formal dungeon space, where managers made it clear that clients’ desires were valued above workers’ welfare. Yet even independent professionals, who do not face the risk of being fired for setting boundaries or refusing prospective clients, may face violence from clients. Dungeon-based and independent mistresses who experience violence may embrace and/or reject identifications as victims or survivors across social encounters, and may face discrimination if they reach out for support (Bernstein, 2018; Footer et al., 2019; Sprankle et al., 2018).

As I mentioned in the introduction, this account represents a partial rather than universal or definitive investigation. Matters of identity within professional BDSM, of constructions of personas that overlap with and diverge from workers’ various outside selves, merit further investigation. Future research should explore questions of race, gender, and sexuality in more depth. Across such inquiries, it will be important to recognize that close-ended questions may not be adequate to understand workers’ navigation of personal identity within and outside of sessions. In the context of sex work, individuals may not have a single racial or gender or sexual identity, but rather navigate such matters variably across session and non-session encounters. Scholars should also incorporate questions of workplace violence more directly into their research. Although I have focused solely on violence perpetrated by clients against workers here, and this subject is certainly worth studying further, violence may also come from managers and site owners. Workers may commit violence against one another, or violate clients’ boundaries within sessions. Finally, investigations on gendered dynamics within commercial BDSM should incorporate greater diversity among samples. Rather than focus solely on cisgender women, researchers might recruit gender diverse samples, cisgender men, and/or transgender and nonbinary individuals. Rather than focus solely on the gender-troubling phenomenon of cisgender women’s paid dominance over cisgender men, researchers should recruit laborers who provide submissive services or sessions with fluid power dynamics, where the “paradoxical” resistance and conformity documented elsewhere (Khan, 2009; Lindemann, 2012; McClintock, 1993; Pinsky and Levey, 2015) cannot be assumed.

Footnotes

Ethan C. Levine is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Victimology and Victim Services at Stockton University. His research focuses on gender and sexuality, interpersonal violence, and the construction of scientific knowledge. To date, he has published more than 15 works in peer-reviewed journals including Violence Against Women, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Archives of Sexual Behavior. Outside of academia, he has more than 10 years’ experience advocating for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

ORCID iD

Ethan Czuy Levine

References

Batlle

Carr

Brown

(2017) ‘ I just can’t bear these procedures, I just want to be out there working with children’: An autoethnography on neoliberalism and youth sports charities in the UK. Sport, Education and Society 23(9): 853–865.

Bergman

(2009) The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Bernstein

(2007) Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bernstein

(2018) Brokered Subjects: Sex, Trafficking, and the Politics of Freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bohner

Jarvis

Eyssel

, et al. (2005) The causal impact of rape myth acceptance on men’s rape proclivity: Comparing sexually coercive and noncoercive men. European Journal of Social Psychology 35(6): 819–828.

Bohner

Siebler

F and

Schmelcher

(2006) Social norms and likelihood of raping: Perceived rape myth acceptance of others affects men’s rape proclivity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32(3): 286–297.

Brent

Bonilla-Silva

(2008) ‘ They should hire the one with the best score’: White sensitivity to qualification differences in affirmative action hiring decisions. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(2): 215–242.

Brooks

(2010) Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Büschi

(2014) Sex work and violence: Focusing on managers in the indoor sex industry. Sexualities 17(5–6): 724–741.

10.

Butler

(1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

11.

Callis

(2014) Bisexual, pansexual, queer: Non-binary identities and the sexual borderlands. Sexualities 17(1–2): 411–430.

12.

Chapleau

Oswald

Russell

(2008) Male rape myths: The role of gender, violence, and sexism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 23(5): 600–615.

13.

Collins

(1986) Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black feminist thought. Social Problems 33(6): 514–532.

14.

Collins

(2004) Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.

15.

Conley

Matsick

Moors

, et al. (2017) Investigation of consensually nonmonogamous relationships: Theories, methods, and new directions. Perspectives on Psychological Science 12(2): 205–232.

16.

Crenshaw

(1991) Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299.

17.

Deering

Amin

Shoveller

, et al. (2014) A systematic review of the correlates of violence against sex workers. American Journal of Public Health 104(5): e42–e54.

18.

Dinos

Burrowes

Hammond

, et al. (2015) A systematic review of juries’ assessment of rape victims: Do rape myths impact on juror decision-making? International Journal of Crime, Law and Justice 43(1): 36–49.

19.

Dozier

(2005) Beards, breasts, and bodies: Doing sex in a gendered world. Gender and Society 19(3): 297–316.

20.

Edwards

Turchik

Dardis

, et al. (2011) Rape myths: History, individual and institutional-level presence, and implications for change. Sex Roles 65(11): 761–773.

21.

Emerson

RM.

Fretz

Shaw

(2011) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

22.

Footer

KHA

Park

Allen

, et al. (2019) Police-related correlates of client-initiated violence among female sex workers in Baltimore City, Maryland. American Journal of Public Health 109(2): 289–295.

23.

Foucault

(1990 [1978]) The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books.

24.

Geertz

(1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

25.

Ghabra

Calafell

(2018) From failure and allyship to feminist solidarities: Negotiating our privileges and oppressions across borders. Text and Performance Quarterly 38(1–2): 38–54.

26.

Hall

(2004) Entitlement disorder: The colonial traditions of power as White male resistance to affirmative action. Journal of Black Studies 34(4): 562–579.

27.

Haraway

(1988) Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–599.

28.

Jones

KP and

King

(2014) Managing concealable stigmas at work: A review and multilevel model. Journal of Management 40, 1466–1494.

29.

Khan

(2009) Putting a dominatrix in her place: The representation and regulation of female dom/male sub sexuality. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 21(1): 143–175.

30.

Levine

(2018a) Becoming a transgender failure: Speciation, benevolent transphobia, and the persistence of binary gender. Women and Language 41(1): 39–61.

31.

Levine

(2018b) Sexual scripts and criminal statutes: Gender restrictions, spousal allowances, and victim accountability after rape law reform. Violence Against Women 24(3): 322–349.

32.

Levine

Herbenick

Martinez

, et al. (2018) Open relationships, Nonconsensual nonmonogamy, and monogamy among U.S. adults: Findings from the 2012 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior 47(5): 1439–1450.

33.

Lindemann

(2012) Dominatrix: Gender, Eroticism, and Control in the Dungeon. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

34.

Littleton

HL and

Axsom

(2003) Rape myths and seduction scripts of university students: Implications for rape attributions and unacknowledged rape. Sex Roles 49(9–10): 465–475.

35.

Lonsway

KA and

Fitzgerald

(1994) Rape myths: In review. Psychology of Women Quarterly 18(2): 133–164.

36.

Lyons

Krüsi

Pierre

, et al. (2017) The impact of construction and gentrification on an outdoor trans sex work environment: Violence, displacement and policing. Sexualities 20(8): 881–903.

37.

Magnet

(2006) Protesting privilege: An autoethnographic look at Whiteness. Qualitative Inquiry 12(4): 736–749.

38.

Majic

(2014) Beyond ‘victim-criminals’: Sex workers, nonprofit organizations, and gender ideologies. Gender and Society 28(3): 463–485.

39.

McClintock

(1993) Maid to order: Commercial fetishism and gender power. Social Text 37: 87–116.

40.

McMahon

(2010) Rape myth beliefs and bystander attitudes among incoming college students. Journal of American College Health 59(1): 3–11.

41.

Medford

(2006) Caught with a fake ID: Ethical questions about slippage in autoethnography. Qualitative Inquiry 12(5): 853–864.

42.

Murphy

(2006) Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

43.

November

(2016) It takes ass to whip ass: Understanding and confronting violence against sex workers. In: Chen

C-I

Dulani

Piepzna-Samarasinha

(eds) The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. Chico, CA: AK Press, pp. 57–78.

44.

O’Doherty

(2011) Criminalization and off-street sex work in Canada. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 53(2): 217–245.

45.

Payne

Lonsway

KA and

Fitzgerald

(1999) Rape myth acceptance: Exploration of its structure and its measurement using the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale. Journal of Research in Personality 33(1): 27–68.

46.

Perinbanayagam

(2000) The Presence of Self. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

47.

Pinsky

D and

Levey

(2015) ‘ A world turned upside down’: Emotional labour and the professional dominatrix. Sexualities 18(4): 438–458.

48.

Rambo Ronai

(1995) Multiple reflections of child sex abuse: An argument for a layered account. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 23(4): 395–426.

49.

Ryan

(2011) The relationship between rape myths and sexual scripts: The social construction of rape. Sex Roles 65(11–12): 774–782.

50.

Schilt

(2010) Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

51.

Schwitters

Swaminathan

Serwadda

, et al. (2015) Prevalence of rape and client-initiated gender-based violence among female sex workers: Kampala, Uganda, 2012. Aids and Behavior 19(1): 68–76.

52.

Serano

(2016) Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.

53.

Simon

W and

Gagnon

(1986) Sexual scripts: Permanence and change. Archives of Sexual Behavior 15(2): 97–120.

54.

Sisson

Moser

(2005) Women who engage in S/M interactions for money: A descriptive study. Lesbian and Gay Psychology Review 6(3): 209–226.

55.

Sleath

Bull

(2017) Police perceptions of rape victims and impact on case decision making: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behaior 34: 102–112.

56.

Smith

(2016) ‘ It gets very intimate for me’: Discursive boundaries of pleasure and performance in sex work. Sexualities 20(3): 344–363.

57.

Sprankle

Bloomquist

Butcher

, et al. (2018) The role of sex work stigma in victim blaming and empathy of sexual assault survivors. Sexuality Research and Social Policy 15(3): 242–248.

58.

Ulibarri

Strathdee

Lozada

, et al. (2014) Prevalence and correlates of client-perpetrated abuse among female sex workers in two Mexico-U.S. border cities. Violence Against Women 20(4): 427–445.

59.

Vannini

Ahluwalia-Lopez

Waskul

, et al. (2010) Performing taste at wine festivals: A somatic layered account of material culture. Qualitative Inquiry 16(5): 378–396.

60.

Vila

(2017) Music, dance, affect, and emotions: Where we are now. In: Vila

(ed.) Music, Dance, Affect, and Emotions in Latin America. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 1–38.

61.

Ward

(2015) Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men. New York: New York University Press.

62.

Westbrook

Schilt

(2014) Determining gender: Transgender people, gender panics, and the maintenance of the sex/gender/sexuality system. Gender and Society 28(1): 32–57.

63.

Williams

Giuffre

PA and

Dellinger

(2009) The gay-friendly closet. Sexuality Research and Social Policy 6(1): 29–45.

64.

Wilson

(2005) German dominatrices’ choices of working names as reflections of self-constructed social identity. Sexuality and Culture 9(2): 31–41.

65.

Woolgar

Lezaun

(2013) The wrong bin bag: A turn to ontology in science and technology studies? Social Studies of Science 43(3): 321–340.

66.

Yoshino

(2006) Covering: The Hidden Assault On Our Civil Rights. New York: Random House.