Pro-Dommes Are Not Safe From FOSTA-SESTA

While professional dominatrixes and dungeons can fall into a legal grey area and are not always as at risk for persecution as camming and escort work, that doesn’t mean that pro-Dommes are sleeping easy after the passage of FOSTA-SESTA. And, regardless of how you make your money, neither should you. “These laws don't just affect sex workers, they affect everyone,” says Goddess Aviva, a BDSM educator, lifestyle and pro-Domme, and fetish model based in NYC of the recently passed FOSTA-SESTA laws.

To recap, FOSTA-SESTA is legislation masquerading as anti-sex trafficking measures, when in reality, the bills simply further put sex worker’s lives at risk. How does it do this? Any site that hosts content considered to be promoting sex trafficking can be held liable for user’s content, shut down, and its creator stuck in a Federal prison. “Not all Dommes do technical sex acts, and lifestyle domming is a close parallel. Compared to other sex work, I feel that Domme’s may have it lucky, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t scared about the current climate,” says pro-Domme, sex educator, and fetish wrestler Goddess Lola Jean. To start, social media, the use of websites such as Backpage.com, which has already been seized, and personal websites are how pro-Dommes attract clientele and therefore make their money. If you don’t get paid, you can’t eat. “Some Dommes have had their websites or social media shut down,” Goddess Aviva says. “These are how Dommes connect with clients and subs. So yes, there is concern. This feels like a witch hunt towards any woman who uses her sexuality for self-empowerment and financial independence.”

Along with ridding sex workers, including dominatrixes, of their livelihood, FOSTA-SESTA removes crucial information sharing. Pro-Dommes use social media and message boards to screen potential subs, and share bad client lists with one another. With Twitter accounts, personal pages, and websites such as Backpage on the chopping board, pro-Dommes will not have access to the same safety precautions that have been in place. Such stupidity again proves that despite how often Bernie Sanders tweets about former stripper Cardi B, lawmakers (including Sanders) do not care about the danger they have put sex workers in. “I can't imagine how much dicier things would have been had I not had FetLife as a middle man,” says Madame Kat, who worked as a Domme to help pay for her college. “With FOSTA-SESTA comes a massive step back in terms of how, in this case, Dommes, can find and field clients online before choosing to see them in person. It's passing invites an environment ripe for doing more harm than good.”

While politicians are doing more harm than good, Dommes, like the porn performers NSFW spoke with, and sex workers of all industries, are coming together post-FOSTA-SESTA to protect one. “Something wonderful that I am seeing come out of this is sex workers of all kinds coming together, supporting each other, sharing information, and bonding. Together we can make our voices heard,” Goddess Aviva says. Pro-Dommes don’t tend to compete, but rather promote and protect one another, and such camaraderie has only increased in recent weeks. “My Pro-Domme friends and I are constantly on the lookout for opportunities for each other or quick to throw business their way, related to SW or otherwise,” Goddess Lola says.

If you’re not a sex worker, but care about sex workers’ rights, you can help by speaking out against FOSTA-SESTA while lifting the voices of sex workers without stealing the mic. You can also sign this petition, which the White House is forced to respond to if it gets 100,000 signatures. For the ill-informed, highly privileged, or out of touch with 9-5 jobs, the concept of having your income and safety threatened may seem alien, especially for the sort of civilians who view sex work as a moral failing rather than recognizing for the job that it is. Some pro-dommes, and all sex workers, do it out of necessity, others do it because they enjoy it, others do it to pay for school or pursue a creative passion. All such reasons are valid. Because sex work is highly stigmatized, sex workers don’t have the same luxury of complaining about the less-than-ideal aspects of their work (which all jobs have). A lawyer can bitch about long hours and annoying clients, but if a domme does the same, fingers are pointed. This is why online platforms are crucial, as such information exchange was already (literally) policed even before FOSTA-SESTA. From income to protection from unsafe clients, even though domming isn’t treated with equal legal scrutiny as escorting, the violations of free speech imposed by FOSTA-SESTA put even those in the grey area at risk, which is exactly what the legislation intended. And the bills are likely just the tip of the iceberg in the attacks on free speech our government is imposing. “The scariest party of this vague bill is that no one is safe,” Goddess Lola says.