Kink, sex and money

There’s a post title with three simple and uncontroversial topics in it. I should have no problem dusting them all off in the space of this one blog entry.

More seriously, I’ve been idly musing over the intersection of these three areas for sometime, but this particular post was prompted by this blog entry by January Seraph. You can go read it for yourself, but the short version is that having been invited to participate in a pro-domme calendar project she was then uninvited for combing sexual acts with BDSM in the videos she’d shot. In the words of the unidentified calendar creator:

On a professional level this concerns me greatly. I require that all of the Pro Dommes in my production are not filming any sexual acts to protect my name, and themselves as well.

I found that extraordinary, particularly given that January had also offered to donate a full day of her studio’s time to shoot for the calendar, and it got me thinking more about sex and kink in the professional domain. I should add that what follows are my general thoughts, entirely unrelated to how January conducts herself in the different facets of her professional life. Her original post was just an interesting catalyst.

Anyone who has browsed pro-domme websites or scheduled a session will know that sexual activity between the domme and the client is very much verboten. Almost universally they’ll state that even suggesting it will get you hung-up on or booted out of the dungeon. Of course, there does tend to be some variance on where the line actually gets drawn. Some pro-dommes will do penetration with a strap-on, some will not. Some will limit body worship to below the knees, where others will do face sitting provided they remain fully clothed. But in general nothing happens that would typically be classified as ‘sex’.

I’ve also noticed a tendency for pro-dommes to ‘circle the wagons’ when it comes to defining what should and should not be allowed. I think this comes from an understandable desire to try and have a reasonably consistent boundary line across all pro-dommes, and not have clients confused about what they can expect. For example, masturbating a submissive (aka a handjob) is a fairly controversial area. That can clearly be a sexual service outside of a D/s interaction, and that can also be a very integral part of intense D/s play. Yet I’ve had lengthy on-line arguments with a few pro-dommes who tied themselves in logical knots trying to prove that it was impossible for a handjob to be a dominant act. It seemed that they felt a need to extend the entirely unarguable “I don’t do this” into the unreasonable “…and no other domme should.”  I suspect that’s partly where the calendar project owner was coming from. She wants a consistent view of what a pro-domme does, and more specifically she wants it to be her view. Anyone outside of that is not just making a personal decision about boundaries, but in her mind is also bring her chosen profession into disrepute.

I think a lot of the lines drawn around professional domination have arisen from the current laws around sex work. For the most part it’s possible to operate as a pro-domme entirely legally. Some activities are legally risky (anal penetration, force-bi), but with care a pro-domme can be successful without breaking a single US law. I think this legal boundary line has helped create a more universal definition of what a pro-domme actually does. That’s not to say that if all the laws were repealed tomorrow that all pro-dommes would then suddenly expand their range of activities to cover more sexual acts. But I do think the laws have helped shape the well defined form the industry currently takes.

In this context, it’s interesting to observe the evolution in BDSM pornography in recent years. Ten or more years ago it was very much segregated from traditional pornography. Movies either showed penetrative sex or they showed traditional BDSM activities (bondage, fetish gear, mild pain, etc.), but never both together. There was a general assumption that to combine these two things together would land the producer in court under an obscenity charge (mostly thanks to assholes like this guy). The Cambria list provides a pretty good representation of what was then thought to be unacceptable. But a combination of the internet, a big reduction in prosecutions and producers willing to push the envelope changed the perception of the legal risks. Now there are sites like Sex and Submission dedicated to showing explicit sex combined with heavy BDSM. I actually know of pro-dommes who will not shoot for kink.com anymore, as sexual acts have rapidly become an expected part of a scene. So while individuals have kept their own personal boundaries intact, from an industry perspective the legal change (or perceived one) has acted to dissolve the strict BDSM/non-BDSM pornography divide. Now the material distributes itself across the entire possible continuum of activities.

At this point I’ll stop writing further. Clearly my original goal of nailing all the issues around kink, sex and money in a single post was a little ambitious. It turns out I’m going to need two posts for that, so check-back tomorrow for my continued thoughts on where escorts and kink fit in. Until then it seems appropriate to finish with a shot of Mistress Seraph, given that she was the original prompt for my post. Here she is doing a little CBT for the Divine Bitches site.