Going Indie

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I’m just so grateful to be at this place in the growth of my business. I feel more satisfied in my work than I have ever felt in my life, and I’m thriving financially. Where has SW been all my life…?

When I was young I was obsessed with the show “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”, based on a SWer memoir. Her life was positive and fun, she enjoyed her clients and loved her job. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though, it depicted a double life as she hid her profession from her family and friends and dealt with a boyfriend who wanted her to leave the business for him. This show challenged the societal narrative that I had been fed that SWers are coerced, disenfranchised and desperate. In hindsight, it really humanized SWers and was realistic of the good and the bad. I think I need to rewatch to see my thoughts on the show now, with some lived experience as an SP…but regardless, the show captivated me. 

In my personal life prior to starting SW, I had beautiful, powerful examples of SWers as partners and friends. They loved their job and thrived doing it, which further challenged those societal narratives with real world examples of people I knew and cared about. Being around them, I was able to glean bits of information about how to do this work successfully and things to be wary of…although I had no practical application for this info, I absorbed it like a sponge because it fascinated me. An ex of mine remarked once that I would be good at this work (in a non-creepy, non-pimpy kind of way), but although I was a staunch ally, I hadn’t undone the lifetime of whorephobia that was fed to us to enter the world of SW myself.

During the pandemic, I came to the realization that my job in corporate finance was killing me slowly. I had previously thought that in order to do this work, I needed to be face out (because all the SWers I knew were), and that was a major deterrent to me entering the industry. Then one day, I was scrolling on Instagram and I found a profile of a woman selling pictures of her feet. No face, just feet. For some reason at this moment, fueled by the depression I was in because of the pandemic and feeling stuck working my life away in a job I hated, something clicked that I could try to find a way to do SW without showing my face. I went into hyperfocus research mode, and figured out how to do it, consulted a friend who did online Pro Domme work, built a website, put up some ads and set myself a date in the future that I was going to quit that corporate job. (PS That friend is in Thailand and now runs a dungeon where she does BDSM submission vacations. Check out Mistress Mayliza!).

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A Struggling Baby Dominatrix

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Being a face-in, indie pro Domme was difficult. I had some resources for knowledge, but I had a hard time finding my place in this niche. For a time, I had an ok following of clients, enough to get by. I found however that my interactions with clients were not what felt natural for me. 

First of all, I had a very false view of what a pro Domme should be: detached, stern, other worldly…so I put up my marketing as such and tried to personify that, despite the fact that was not my style of domination when practicing it in my personal life. When clients would contact me, our interactions just didn’t feel authentically me. I am a sensual, caring sadist. I’m likely to giggle and laugh when I’m beating you, I’ll kiss and caress you mid-flogging, and I really get off pegging people, and it definitely shows in the noises I make while doing it 💦. I am NOT stern or detached. So the clients who would have liked my style of domination couldn’t find me because I was putting myself out there as something different. Second, in my personal life kink was foreplay to sex. Kink doesn’t really do it for me when it stands alone without the connection of sex afterwards, so my kink sessions felt kind of empty to me. They were fun to be sure, but left me unsatisfied and wanting more. 

I floundered with my marketing. As a person with ADHD/VAST doing things that aren’t fun, especially daily, and with little to no immediate return for effort, I found getting into the groove of daily marketing and constant content creation extremely difficult. Further frustrating was all the unnecessary and unpaid emotional labour that I had to do with the inordinate amount of time wasters I used to deal with. It’s almost like they smelled fresh meat they could manipulate. So I was putting in a lot of frustrating effort with little to no return. I knew getting a following would take some time, but at a point, I knew it wasn’t in my wheelhouse (at the time) to get there on my own.

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“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie

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A New Hope

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I am so grateful that a civie life acquaintance @Trisha_Shirley1 posted on Facebook that Sassy Angels (now Reverie) was looking to take on new companions. I chose a new persona that aligned more closely with the real me, which was a genuine relief. It was lovely to be able to have the variety of working both as a vanilla and kinky companion. I’ve had the privilege to work with such powerful, strong, sweet, caring, beautiful people at Reverie/Sassy’s, both the management team and my SP colleagues. They have given me so much support and knowledge as I grew into this new phase of my career as a SWer. When I started there, I was burned out from a year of frustration with the marketing and admin side of my biz. Now I had the Reverie/Sassy’s admin team doing booking/screening/marketing so I didn’t have to, with their existing roster of clients that booked me regardless of my lack of Twitter following, I was making more than ends meet. I was able to build up an emergency fund/nest egg for the first time in my life!

Now I have this whole process set and I’ve got a flow. It was suggested to me by the former management at Reverie/Sassy’s to do hybrid independent/agency. I did some market research and opened a Tryst account. I didn’t pay for it though, so indie clients were a trickle. Which was good, I wouldn’t have been ready for an onslaught. I asked my colleagues about screening techniques and read my Twitter for tips and tricks from other workers, all the while making good money at the agency to sustain me while I learned. 

Being at an agency allowed me to build up my confidence as a SWer and slowly build my twitter presence. Here, the more marketing I did for myself, the more clients I got and money I made. Immediate reward for effort = DOPAMINE, very important for an ADHD/VAST individual like myself. I got into a flow with Twitter posting. Having the external motivation from the agency for photoshoots every few months was very helpful for me to become comfortable with having my picture taken. Sometimes I do self shoots, but mostly I shoot with photographers because there’s a whole process around them to book photographers, hair, makeup, location, to create hype about it on Twitter, shop for lingerie/outfits…so it became fun and something I got excited about. Self-shoots are hard to get myself motivated to do. Something that I’ve learned about this business is that if I don’t want to do something or feel excited about doing it, I’m not going to end up doing it…just ask my three abandoned OnlyFans accounts 😬

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Becoming a Touring Companion

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A turning point for me and my business was the decision to do a tour to Halifax. I was going there to visit a friend and decided to tack on some work. I set about researching the market in Halifax. I followed Halifax SWers, I asked them for advice on where to advertise, I checked out their websites to see what going rates were and such, I even had a gracious worker add me to a screening list out there. I built a website for my new persona super quick to be seen as legit there. Reverie/Sassy’s was so great retweeting my tour promos and did my booking and screening for me for that tour. I did moderately well there, and the gents there were so lovely! All of the clients I saw there begged me to come back, including one who wanted to do an extended date the next time I came. 

When I decided I wanted to tour again, I contacted him first to choose a date that worked for him, as that booking guaranteed I would at least break even. Next I contacted all the other gents I saw previously, and every single one of them booked! For new suitors, I decided to book and screen myself this time around, as I had gained so much knowledge in that regard since my last trip from booking indie clients in Toronto. I ended up with an almost full schedule. This allowed me to try out a new stop, Calgary. My second tour of Halifax was a rousing success! Calgary was alright, but I knew from my first tour that I needed to build a reputation and following in a new city before it would be great. 

All of this built up so much confidence in my ability to do this on my own. I kept track of where I was getting all my bookings from, invested in paid account upgrades for those, and stopped putting up ads in the places where I wasn’t getting business from. And guess what? Those “hey” and “you available” dudes all but disappeared, and the ones that did message me I felt comfortable to ignore because there was another serious inquiry ready to do screening and deposit just around the corner. Another interesting side effect of touring is that my local Toronto biz increased. You see, whilst I was posting my daily ads for Halifax and Calgary, I made a modified version and took two extra minutes to post my Toronto ads. Something else about ADHD/VAST folks is that the best way to add new things to our routine is to attach them in your brain to existing routines you’ve already well established or are highly motivated to do. I was very motivated to make my tour worth it, added two minutes to my daily marketing routine, and by proxy ended up seeing my indie biz in Toronto increase. Slowly I needed the agency less and less as my indie business grew. 

After my second Halifax tour, I made the decision to do a tour once a quarter. It really energizes me and it is something I look forward to. I am a planning and organizing geek, and touring totally fills that need in me. I get to look forward to new shiny things; which is so good for we ADHD/VAST folks. (Watch out for my upcoming blog about my experiences with touring!) Touring once a quarter allows me to work less day-to-day. I’m looking to find more balance for me and my schoolwork, and going indie is an important step towards that.

This overview of my journey in SW is my very long winded way to come to this announcement:

✨ I am now a fully independent touring companion! ✨

I am no longer at Reverie/Sassy’s. I will have one day a week in Toronto at a lovely new incall space (or outcall to the GTA), and look for me to go on tour every couple of months or so. If you are interested in seeing me in a certain city, reach out to let me know. Once I have enough inquires from that place, I might add you to my next tour…but be prepared to put your money where your mouth is! ie. pre-book and put down deposits. If you want me to definitely come to you and don’t want to wait, let’s discuss a FMTY trip! If you prefer to wait and see, ask about my touring notification list where I will announce my tours first…well, after giving first crack at my schedule to existing suitors…see how it pays to be in the inner circle? 😉 

Book me!

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