The past week has seen the tabloid news sites posting numerous articles on Alissa Afonina. She’s a young woman who was recently awarded $1.5M in damages after being badly injured in a car accident in 2008. The reason for all the tabloid interest was that the accident resulted in a brain injury that led to changes in her social and sexual behavior, and in recent years she has earned a living working as a dominatrix. Or, to put it in the most tabloid way possible, courtesy of the Daily Mail – “Star student, 23, wins $1.5m after car crash brain trauma turned her into an impulsive sex-mad dominatrix”.
I wasn’t planning to feature the story at all. All the articles seemed like sensationalist nonsense, designed to sell page views, titillate readers and ignore the serious elements of the story. However, Jezebel put together an interview that I think is worth linking to. I can’t say I like the headline for it, but it’s a well done interview that actually digs into the pertinent issues and treats Alissa as a person rather than a story to be packaged and sold. She comes across as an intelligent and impressive person who has dealt well with a very difficult situation.
She works under the name Sasha Mizaree. You can visit her professional site, her clip store, her twitter feed or her tumblr. If you’re in the Vancouver area you can arrange in person sessions via her main site.
