Male Discrimination in the Fetish Industry

In the everyday working world it's believed that women are discriminated against when it comes to pay wages. This is partially true but if you look at outside factors that are not factored in it's really not quite as true as the people are made to believe.
1. They don't factor in jobs that are cash based - tips. These business's are dominated by women. There are far more female waitresses and bartenders than there are males. Then there is of course the stripping and escorting which can both be very lucrative.
2. When the economy sank it was mostly men who got laid off. Largely because there were more men employed and because most men earned higher wages. Now there are more women with jobs than there are men.
3. There are more women in college to date than there are men, which means it's likely that women will continue to grow in the business world.

NOW ON TO KINK


Female models, Dominants, submissives, switches, and even women who are not kinky but are willing to be a part of something kinky will be paid for photos and or video work. I know that the pussy holds the power and that men are the ones that generally pay. The largest  problem I have is with the femdom kinky photography and video industry. Because men will pay a Pro Domme to be a submissive somewhere along the line someone decided we don't have to pay men to be in our videos. There thinking is "Because we are dominant they should be so lucky to serve us". If you really think about it, it is complete bullshit! Try saying that to a female who is going to be submissive on video, it just doesn't work like that.

I've been around long enough to know how the industry works and why it tends to work a certain way. I will admit that I have been on sets with men who don't have much video experience and sometimes much kink experience and it never goes the way as planned. Many men look at video as a free session when doing video is much different than a session. It's not as intimate, it's a stop and go pace, it's generally not as intense and there are people with cameras in the room.

Look around the fetish industry and try and tell me how many semi known male fetish models there are. Off the top of my head I can think of 2, Kade and Perish. Both are VERY different from one another and then if you throw me in there I would be more like Kade but I'm still very different from him. I'm also a full time college student and not living in L.A. All three of us are successful in the industry in our own way. We've all heard the term gay for pay and let me tell you lots of guys do this. It's because male discrimination in the fetish industry is so bad that men are willing to go where they get paid. How pathetic is that!?! I don't mean the men are pathetic, the pathetic part is the semi accepted discrimination on men in straight femdom videos. If a man does get paid in femdom work he is almost ALWAYS paid less than the woman.

On a personal note I do get paid unless I agree to do trade for content work. Which is primarily what I have been doing all this summer as I'm going to be opening up my own clips4sale store come September. With that said to get where I've gotten hasn't been easy. I've been pressing my modeling work a lot more in this past year but I've been involved in the community since I was 18. I was lucky enough to meet some great people pretty quickly and I was smart enough to be educated about BDSM. I've been around the block several times but with that said I still run into obstacles with the discrimination against males. Websites saying they want to work with me but can only pay me "this much" when I know that the woman is getting paid more.

One way to solve this is to have a higher standard for male models in kink.
Let me tell you doing what I do isn't easy. I don't care whether your a dominant, switch, submissive, male, female or TG. Kink work isn't as easy as it looks or sounds. I love what I do and I've made some great friends but there is a problem here that is regularly accepted among too many.

I've gotten to where I am because of a few things. 1) It's due to the people I've met over the years. 2) References, references, references. 3) Because of my versatility and amount of what I can handle. 4) My professionalism. I'm always looking for new people to work with but I've begun to reach a point where people are contacting me. With that said I stand behind everything I have wrote and I am a firm believer that the discrimination against males in the fetish femdom industry is pathetic. It's something that needs to change if not for the simple reason of respecting what I do whether I am a male or a female.

A Touchy Topic: The Fetish Industry

It seems like everyone is a fetish model or a pro domme these days. Not that there is anything wrong with being either because technically I am both. But it is here in the fetish community where anyone can proclaim to be a "fetish model" or a "pro domme". In a way that is what keeps the industry fresh, allowing new faces to emerge on the scene. On the other hand, it is was what over saturates the industry and the concept that anyone can do it is a dangerous theory.
If every male out there believed he can play professional football then no one would watch the sport. People wouldn't idolize players or respect their talents. It is the same here and for every other industry. Chicago has over 100 - born female Pro Dommes. There's only 10-15 that I would pay for a session and even that is pushing it. I feel bad for both the talented Dommes and the clients because the talented Dommes get put into the class of "just another domme" and they loose out on money. The clients have a difficult time deciding who they should session with and in many cases get  a really poor session.

As for the "models", just go on Fetlife and I'm sure if you clicked on 100 random profiles at least 40-50% of them would claim to be some sort of fetish model. Just because someone else took a kinky picture of you doesn't mean your a fetish model. Just because you're involved in the kink community doesn't make you a fetish model.

So where do I land in all of this?

Well let me just say, there is nothing wrong with being an aspiring fetish model. It's just all about how you go about becoming one. Proclaiming that your a "fetish model" before you've ever established yourself in any manner is preposterous. I've been involved in the community since I was 18 and I'm turning 25 on September 6th. I've been at this for awhile and just in the past year did I really start pushing myself as my own product.

The last and most important key to me is being a fetish model or pro domme is actually being interested in the BDSM - Fetish world. Most people who make it on some level in this industry are actually kinky. Kinky isn't wanting to tie a woman to a bed and fuck her, that's rough sex. I see it all the time, people think they are kinky until they are around kinky people and they realize just how vanilla they are. There is nothing wrong with being vanilla but a pro domme should be kinky. It's their job to make the client feel at ease and there are just too many pro dommes that are only in it for the money that they think they can make.
Many models also aren't kinky and that is a shame to me as well. If your not kinky and want to model - don't do fetish modeling. America is the best country in the world at selling a lie so I guess it's naive of me to think that the fetish industry should be any different.

Personally, it's been a process for me but the past year has been a good one for me and I expect to continue to grow and push boundaries. I will be at FETISHCON in Tampa Bay July 28-31. I've already schedule lots of gigs with several different people. I also hope to work some old friends that I've never gotten to work with yet like Nyssa Nevers. I've also been asked to model for a tattoo book so I'm excited about that as well.