Tools of the Trade: Empress Wu in Petit Mort Magazine

I was recently approached by Petit Mort Magazine to talk about kinky organization and tools for their summer 2021 issue. We had an amazing photoshoot that was an absolute delight, and I got to talk about my early experiences in kink, my favorite tools, pre-session rituals, and what organization means to me. Read on for an excerpt of the full interview.

Photo from Empress Wu: The Artist’s Dungeon. Now available at petitmortmag.com

PM: let's talk about your toys and how that plays into your kink life. When did you start building up your collection, and how many would you say you have now? I saw your closet, it's a pretty large closet.

WU: The collection is always growing, baby. I feel like the first thing that I ever purchased was a collar. Yeah, probably a collar of some sort. Now my collection is much larger than a single collar/leash type situation. I don't know how many toys, I would say how many pieces of gear as it's just so much I'm a heavy material fetishist, I’m deeply, deeply in love with leather and rubber. I think about this all the time... okay, does a rubber outfit technically count as a tool, because it is technically. I consider a tool to be an extension of my body,

PM: Clothing. Is clothing a tool?

WU: Exactly. It’s a tool as I think it's similarly used to aid and [create] expression. Yeah, I would probably say [my collection has] I don't know, 200 pieces? It's always growing. Also like, what counts within something like a set...

PM: I'm interested in what you said about how you're pretty material-oriented. How do your toys aid your dominance, and do you need them or is it something that adds to it?

WU: I think that toys are really only ever going to be as useful as the strength of the connection between two players. [Mistress Sybil and I] were talking about technosexuality and cybersexuality, and we were talking about Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto, and about how she described a technological assemblage as understanding that we exist within a larger fabric of artificial inorganic, as opposed to saying “I am an organic body”. We're two things that are integrated into a larger system and neither of these things are necessarily secondary to each other.

PM: Nothing's real or fake exactly.

WU: Yeah, this is my arm and this is my plastic dick. Yes, it is plastic but it's also like, my nails are fucking plastic so who's to say that this is that or this is separate from myself, that the rules are different? It's all a larger part of a system that's an extension of you.

PM: So how do you organize your toys? How do you categorize them as well, as how do you organize and clean them?

WU: Big question. I keep most of my toys and most of my clothes in my bedroom. Kits like my violet wand and my cupping set and things that I need for light and photography I keep in an armoire. Longer impact toys I will keep in an umbrella container next to that armoire. Then my favorite tools like my dragon tail, my single tail, my floggers, my everyday harness, and my strap I keep on the back of my door. The essentials.

I keep all my dildos and my lube next to my bed for easy access. And then I generally prioritize or organize them separately by fetish or function, so I keep all my breath play stuff within a basket, then I keep all of my medical play stuff within its own box, and then bondage and restraint stuff has its own section as well.

PM: And would you say that tends to lend itself to how you flow in a scene, total organization of your tools?

WU: I was thinking about this recently, actually. I feel like part of my session ritual has included looking over what it is that my play partner is really interested in, picking the right music, and then curating the toys that I'm going to bring.

PM: I really like that you just called it a ritual, is that how you see it?

WU: Yeah, absolutely. I do feel as though it’s a ritual because picking out the tools that I want to use during the session also kind of dictates what I'm going to do first, what I'm going to do next, and allows me to really visualize.

You can read the full interview by purchasing the summer issue of Petit Mort Magazine at petitmortmag.com.

Photos by Penelope Dario and Laura Corinn
Style by Leon Cruz
Hair and Makeup by Valentina Fox
Shot at Less Dead Studios