Control Tower

A Life in Sex Work

by Mistress Matisse

I always knew I’d be a sex worker when I grew up. I didn’t tell anyone, of course, because even as a kid I knew it wasn’t something anyone would understand. But I can recall being about 10 years old, and seeing an old movie with Mae West where she played, oh, something like a call girl, or a kept woman. I don’t remember anything about the man her character was involved with—he wasn’t important. It was all about her, and as I watched her smile seductively at her infatuated companion, confident of her power over him, I thought: I could do that. I could be like that.

I didn’t know then I’d make a life’s work out of it, though. But I was 18 when I began, and I’m 30-something now, and I plan on being a sex worker for, oh, at least another 15 years.

I’ve always liked what I do for a living, but what exactly it is that I like about it has changed over the years. When I was under 25, I bounced back and forth between stripping and escorting, and what I mainly liked was the money and the freedom from other kinds of work. I didn’t have very many jobs that didn’t involve someone getting naked, but I waited tables and tended bar enough to get a good comparison, and for me, there was no comparison.

I would describe my feelings towards most of my clients during those years as guardedly pleasant. I did sometimes take a certain satisfaction in being good at my job, but it was rare for me to feel much about the men one way or another—they were usually just a means to an end. However, there were some difficult occasions when only by mentally filling out a deposit slip was I able to conjure up a clenched-teeth smile for the man I was with. It wasn’t that they were terrible guys, but while I was willing to give them access to my body for short periods, I didn’t want to have even the slightest bit of emotional connection with them. Some clients’ preferences mirrored mine, but other men wanted to have at least a moment of intimacy and connection with me. That always pissed me off; it felt like they were trying to get something I hadn’t agreed to give them, and I didn’t know how to make a boundary about it, other than simply refusing to deal with them again.

It’s hard to say exactly when that changed for me, and what made the change happen. I think segueing from dancing and escorting into being a professional dominatrix was a certain part of it. I no longer feel that I have to adopt a whole different persona when I work. “Mistress Matisse” is only one facet of who I am, but she’s a true part of me, and so being with my clients now feels like I’m expressing something real. I can take a genuine pleasure in my work in a way that I never used to.

Some of the change, though, has come from simple maturity. I’m not crazy about all the changes that have come with age, but I’ve gotten smarter and I know myself better, and I like that I now feel comfortable enough with my personal boundaries to be able to offer some emotional connection to my clients. Not all of them want it, but most of them do. That’s one of the things people find most surprising when I talk to them about my work: how much my clients want me to like them, and the admiration and respect they show me. One can’t lose sight of the limitations imposed by our circumstances, and if someone tries to move beyond those limits, I gently rein him in—I know how to do that now. But I have clients whom I’ve been seeing regularly now for five and six years, and within the glass bubble that encloses our encounters, we have a friendship, a certain type of intimacy. Permitting that intimacy feels safe to me now in a way that it didn’t when I was 20. And it amuses me a great deal that although I’m a professional dominatrix, I’m actually far gentler and more compassionate about my client’s emotions that I used to be when I did other kinds of sex work.

When I turned 30, I worried for a while that no longer being a young girl would adversely affect my career. I was wrong. I’m making more money now, and I’m happier in my profession, than I was when I was younger. I still like the money, and I still like the freedom. But I really like that I’ve grown up to make a living fulfilling the fantasies of people I allow myself to have some affection and regard for.