Oh hello there, welcome back to our worker interview series, A Tryst With. It's so lovely to have you with us. Today we're catching up with the glorious, the divine, the tender brutalist herself, New York Dominatrix Empress Wu! Activism and art and orgies, oh my!
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey?
Yes! My name is Empress Wu. I am a New York City-based dominatrix and cultural activist. I started doing BDSM professionally in 2016 after finding a dungeon on craigslist (those were the days) and then mostly did online work for a year or two while I finished college before transitioning to full-time in-person BDSM. I knew after my first session that this was the life for me.
I got involved in sex worker organizing since 2018, and went to grad school in 2019 to study activist practices centering sex work, art, and archiving. I currently organize exhibitions and events as part of Kink Out Events, Red Canary Song, and Veil Machine, and occasionally speak at universities about my work as an activist.
When I’m not at work, I enjoy the simple things: orchestrating orgies with friends, going to the beach, drowning my lovers in the ocean, that kind of thing.
What is it like to session with you, and what are characteristics of your ideal play partner?
Hm. People that I’ve played with often describe me as a very creative domme. I love building otherworlds where I can experiment with just about everything, including someone’s physical capacity, mental or emotional space, and the scene format itself. I love challenging both myself and my submissives, and I’m not afraid to push us both to our limits. I think this can be quite intimidating to a lot of people, but it's just another way of revealing vulnerability. Someone approaching me with a certain amount of openness to try a new or scary thing, and trusting me to guide them through, is the sexiest kind of intimacy of all.
What was something you didn't expect going into the industry?
How kind people are, on both sides of the client/provider relationship. I didn’t realize how many close friends I would make when I started. I also didn’t expect to learn all these technical and psychological skills I’ve accumulated—sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know!
What are some skills you’ve developed through your time as a BDSM professional?
Oh wow so many. I am much better at managing my time and my relationships. I am much better at expressing love and care. I developed a certain amount of business acumen. I am also very skilled at (and always practicing) wielding certain sadistic instruments, such as a whip or medical sharps.
What do you think the general public could learn from sex workers?
Oh god, so much. First, I think the public could learn a lot about themselves from the way they treat sex workers (and marginalized peoples in general). Sex work as an identity seldom exists in a vaccuum, so the way people treat sex workers often reveals what they think about women, about queer + trans people, about people of color, about disabled people, etc. Second, sex workers as a community have such a brilliant resilience in them. Throughout history, even in the face of discrimination, criminalization, patriarchal violence, and pandemics, sex workers have figured out how to build resources for and with each other. We kiss each other’s wounds, we keep each other safe, we feed each other, we take care of each other. I have never felt as held as when in the arms of another worker; it makes me emotional to think about.
When speaking about your BDSM practice, you talk about ‘deconstructing fear by embracing it’. Why are you interested in this approach to kink?
Probably because I have so much fear inside of me! I think that everyone has a little fear inside of them–fears about being alone, about being bad, about not mattering–and it's such a subconscious driver for the way that people move. It can be such a destructive force when it’s not given room to breathe, but when we have the courage to sit with it and be curious about it, the experience can be transformational. Invigorating. Life-giving.
What would you say to someone considering going into the industry?
Take your time, both in and out of session! It’s an easy job to hurt and get hurt in. Make sure you’re familiar as you can be with the risks you’re taking. Find people in your area who are also in the industry and do your best to show up for them and form community–when the going gets tough, having other workers to rely on for support has made a world of difference for me.
What have your experiences of the kink scene in general been like? Is there anything that needs to change to make these spaces more supportive/welcoming/safer for professional BDSM practitioners?
I think the circles I’ve run in have been pretty kind to professionals, mostly because the parties I like to go to are my own or thrown by other pros. I’ve heard of other spaces though in which “lifestyle” kinksters look down on those who also practice kink professionally. To those spaces I would like to remind them that a lot of pros are also lifestylers themselves, including me.
Do you have a favorite piece of sex-worker-made art?
I’m going to cheat. My favorite piece of art is E-Viction, which was a digital installation/performance event that my art collective Veil Machine threw in August of 2020. I was lucky enough to be interviewed about it by Lola Hunt, the founder of Tryst (you can find that interview here). This show was a protest against the increasing digital displacement of sex workers during the pandemic, and was built by sex workers in all capacities, featuring the work of so many incredible SW performance artists, painters, musicians, and more. It was amazing to watch that vision come to life.
Do you play music during your work? What are your top 4 playlists, artists, or albums for setting the mood during sessions?
I do! There’s one playlist that an incredible sw artist Cherubirl made for a E-viction.
I also love this dark techno playlist my friend made.
Other than that, I like to be creative with my music choice, like using movie soundtracks to assert a mood or playing the same song on repeat for multiple hours as a form of psychological torment.
My favorite beverage is: Harmless Harvest coconut water. Please bring a bottle when you come see me~
My dream pet would be: a good boy on a leash, waiting patiently for my instruction :)
I get a big thrill out of: someone handing over the reigns and offering me creative liberty
I feel most sexy when: I’m so connected to the person or people that i’m playing with, and it feels like we’re the only people that exist in the world
A fellow sex worker I find inspiring is: how do I choose just one? My co-collaborators at Veil Machine, Sybil Fury and Cleo Ouyang. Mistrix Sunmi in Baltimore. Rosie x Royale. Sonya Ravi in the Bay Area. And so many others
Want to meet New York BDSM provider Empress Wu in person?
Head over to her profile! 👇👇👇
