Birthday Blessings 2021: A (BDSM) Year in Review

As another birthday comes to pass, I can so clearly think to myself, “God, what a year it has been.” I am so happy and lucky to be alive, and I owe much of it to the play partners, friends, sex working and queer family that I currently have in my life. I feel like this year has been a cycle of being challenged, defeated, pushed and shoved, triumphant and liberated, all to forget so I could learn again. Here are some things I accomplished this year.

This year I:

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  • Realized just how deeply important it is for me to feel in my body and experience touch. Being deprived of real time sessions made me understand just what I love about them, how important it is to experience another person’s energy during a scene, to sync your breathing with theirs, to feel their pulse and ramp it up or slow it down together without lag/mediation of a screen.

  • Made more money than I’ve ever made, meaning that I got to spend more money than I’ve ever spent on loved ones and organizations that I support.

  • Reckoned with my own feelings of aloneness. Forgot about it. Learned again.

  • Became an absolute monster with some skills I set out to learn last year (including whipping and flogging) and some that I didn’t even anticipate being a part of my toolkit (TENS electro and KICKING. I LOVE KICKING PEOPLE NOW)

  • Reveled in the pure joy of my queerness and my kinkiness, exploring what those look like together for me as a sex worker. I feel like this year would have chewed me up and shit me out were it not for the care I received from my leather and sex working family. I am endlessly grateful.

  • Got to deepen relationships with submissives whose strength I truly admire and want to call upon every day.

  • Threw the first exhibition with Veil Machine. E-viction was an experience that I had to submit to, and it was worth it to get to share my art in such a profound way that other sex workers got to see themselves in.

 
 

In this upcoming year I

photo by Lanee Bird

  • Will be continuing the work I do with Kink Out events and Red Canary Song for the collective liberation of all sex workers. The work I do with these organizations is life affirming and deeply necessary.

  • Would love to travel more and meet submissives from different places. I definitely know that I experience a lot of freedom in the ability to go wherever I want to, whenever I want to. I will be in Los Angeles in less than a week, and would love to take a trip to the Baltimore/DC area, as well as back to Texas during the fall or winter.

  • Want to create more gatherings of pleasure for queer folk, and would love to play with more queer clients, especially QTPOC.

  • Want more scenes that involve blood or otherwise allow me to indulge a part of myself that enjoys chaos. There is a certain kind of tunneled focus and hunger that I get to experience as a top and a sadist; these are the moments in which I feel closest to God.

  • As always, more group scenes.

I am quite the lucky bitch. I have a private birthday orgy in two days that I am deeply looking forward to. Thank you to everyone who has brought or sent me gifts already, including Frank, A, my rubber slut, N, Rosie, and more. To all other submissives who still wish to offer me a gift for my birthday or Father’s Day, you can visit my wishlist or send me a tribute.

 
Empress Wu