Well, hello there. I've missed you all something terrible, my loves! Welcome back to A Tryst With, our worker interview series. today we have the absolute pleasure of chatting with the illustrious, industrious, incandescent Baltimore sex worker, Andre Shakti!
Tell us your story, how did you get into the industry and what has your journey looked like thus far?
I kind of always knew I was going to end up in the sex industry, to be honest. I became sexually active at a very young age and, despite growing up in a small, conservative New Jersey town, never seemed to possess any internalized shame around my desires. I clearly remember my gay best friend and I exchanging grainy clips of porn with one another and staying up late on the phone watching shows like HBO’s “Real Sex” at age thirteen. At age fifteen I remember dragging my first serious boyfriend in front of my parents to explain that yes, we were fucking, I’d love to not have to hide it anymore, and could I get an OBGYN appointment? As you can likely imagine, my parents were not exactly thrilled that I had become so…specifically precocious? We were never close to begin with, and that [lack of] relationship continued into adulthood.
I loved learning and talking about sex, and soon into high school became a reproductive rights advocate, petitioning my school board to implement an age-appropriate, science-based sex ed curriculum (they did, using my research, two years after I graduated). By the time I entered college in Baltimore I had amassed a wealth of sexual experience and become a Dr. Ruth-type figure to my peers. I started working at a Russian strip club in 2007 (oh, the stories) when I was barely nineteen years old, and the rest is history. I began working in porn in 2011, moved to Northern California in 2012 and began training as a dominatrix in 2013. It was also around this time that I was working part-time in sex toy stores and beginning to put together my own educational programming, launching my side hustle as a sexual health and pleasure professional.
At this point in my life I still keep very busy, although I officially retired from club dancing in May 2022. I run a dungeon out of my home and see clients for everything from Kink/BDSM/Fetish, to escorting and wrestling, to sensual massage and intimacy coaching with varying degrees of explicitness. I’m fully stepping into my “post-COVID” conference swing and will be teaching all over the country this year, including co-running a queer sexuality retreat in Costa Rica called “GTFO” with queer trans sex worker DSwitch. I fucking love this industry; I keep my sex worker peers close and my clients even closer. I’ll only throw the towel in when people stop wanting to pay me, hahaha, or when my body quits on me – whichever comes first!
How has the industry changed since you started?
Since I’m engaged in so many genres of the sex industry, my opinion is multifaceted. I’d say that stripping has changed the least (not in a good way), and that digital content creation has changed the most (in a good way).
Strip clubs are these strange little wormholes where time seems to stand still once you’re inside. Which can be fascinating and magical and nostalgic, a total escape. It can also mean that the rights of the workers hardly ever evolve. For example, there’s rarely any inflation in strip clubs – that $25 lap dance you got back in 1995 is likely still $25 today. A sweet deal for the customer, but what about the significantly rising cost of living impacting that dancer? Even if service prices do increase, they rarely benefit the dancers [e.g. a lap dance may jump to $30, but that just means the dancer owes that additional $5 to the club after the fact].
Advocacy measures to improve safe, healthy, ethical working conditions within clubs also haven’t gotten very far historically (shoutout to @stripperstrikenoho doing the work in LA, though!). Dancers can be fired at any time, for any reason. We’re routinely sexually harassed and are rarely looked after by staff. Although we’re independent contractors, we’re typically made to adhere to a specific schedule and can be fired or fined if we don’t show up for a shift, no matter what the reason. Etc etc etc. It takes a VERY special person to be a career stripper.
On the other hand, I’m actually really excited about the changes the porn industry has been going through. Media pirating is a huge issue in Hollywood, and we’ve seen it hit the porn industry hard over the past half dozen years. This may sound unlucky, and it is – for the big studios. But introduce the boom of social media and a worldwide pandemic, where all of a sudden big studios aren’t shooting content and performers are scrambling to create, edit and market their own, and it’s become an entirely different ballgame. Now the focus is on individual creators, which means A) More diversity in porn, B) More money going directly to the performers, and C) More autonomy and agency. In addition, organizations like the BIPOC Adult Industry Collective have sprung up to combat long standing racism within the industry, and the big studios that remain are more frequently made to publicly reckon with fatphobic and/or transphobic practices. I’m really excited to see where it all goes.
Dating as a sex worker is often difficult. What are your experiences with this?
Largely positive! Because I’m as publicly out as I am, folks typically know I’m a sex worker before they even meet me. If they don’t, I make sure to inform new love interests before we’ve even met up in person. I don’t mind partners who are new to dating a sex worker, but I have zero tolerance for any attitude apart from one of unwavering, unapologetic support. Things are also made easier by the fact that I mostly date within the queer community; queers generally have better politics and more of a preexisting familiarity with the work as opposed to heterosexual, cisgender folks. That all being said, I’m extremely picky and have been flying solo polyam for a while now, haha.
Much of the public have a very shallow understanding of our work. What are some skills you’ve developed through your time as a sex worker?
Oof! I’m my own executive assistant; I do all my own booking, marketing, promotion, and branding work. I’m adept at digital security screenings, editing images and video and constructing websites. I’m skilled at costume creation, burlesque, erotic dance and pole performance. I’m an event producer and have run programming for dozens of conventions, conferences, universities and businesses. The list goes on and on and on. Sex workers are highly marketable people; we just often can’t advertise our immense skill sets on traditional resumes.
What do you think the general public could learn from Sex Workers and about the industry?
So, so much. When you have a car issue, you take it to a mechanic. When you need your taxes filed, you take them to an accountant. Why sex workers are not widely recognized as the consummate professionals they are – and provided with the same labor rights and privileges as workers in other industries – is equal parts baffling and maddening to me. I mean, really, it’s the public that’s missing out.
How do you deal with burn out? How do you recharge or take a break?
- I never offer up services I don’t genuinely enjoy providing
- I vary my sessions/energies (e.g. I might have an escorting client Monday, a massage client Tuesday, and a wrestling client Wednesday)
- I form lasting bonds with my clients so it [almost] always feels like I’m going on a date, not trudging to the office
- I get to work from home
- I [try to] feed my other basic needs as best I can: exercise, good food, lots of water, therapy, and satisfying sleep.
- I strive for balance in my life at all times. I moonlight as a veterinary technician, do a lot of rescue/rehabilitation work and am constantly surrounded by animals. Having half my life be so explicitly sexual and the other half so wonderfully wholesome really works for me!
- I talk about my work. All the time.
What are you favorite books on sex work?
Coming Out Like a Pornstar (Jiz Lee)
A Taste for Brown Sugar (Mireille Miller-Young)
Thriving in Sex Work (Lola Davina)
Do you have a favorite piece of sex work art or sex worker artists?
I’m really loving @exotic.cancer & @mistyrosecreations right now!
My ideal date would consist of: yoga in the morning, a trip to a reptile convention in the afternoon, clinking two glasses of bourbon together in the evening, going dancing and then falling into bed.
The dorkiest thing about me is: I’m a total animal nerd AND sex nerd. I’m also an avid reader.
I get the biggest thrill out of: Discovering a new turn-on!My dream pet would be: I have all of them! 3 dogs, 2 cats, 4 snakes, 2 lizards, 2 tarantulas, 1 scorpion, 1 African Sulcata tortoise & 1 Vietnamese pot bellied pig.
I’m weirdly attracted to: When someone takes their shirt off by reaching behind their head and pulling it off with one hand.
Want to meet Baltimore provider Andre Shakti in person?
Head over to her profile! 👇👇👇
