Chicago-based sex work advocate and premier African dominatrix, Mistress Velvet, talked to students about her experiences as a dominatrix and how she involves black feminist theory into her work.
Held by campus organization Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee (SEAT), Mistress Velvet spoke at her third and final panel of the day; “Black Feminist Thot” discussed a variety of topics from an emphasis on race identity to practicing black feminist theory as a black female dominatrix. Mistress Velvet said that she was nervous about lecturing because of how much she would be talking about herself and her life.
In her mid-20s, Mistress Velvet was first introduced to the world of BDSM and domination when enrolled in grad-school at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro for women’s studies. After answering an online ad for a partner to learn BDSM, Mistress Velvet was told that she was too nice to be a domme, or female dominant. Since then, she has tried to change the image of female dommes as well as the negative perspectives that people have on black women.
With her background in black feminist theory, Mistress Velvet soon began implementing these ideas into her daily life and her career. Mistress Velvet focused this event on topics such as intersectionality, collective wisdom and how she makes her clients, or “slaves,” write essays on the works of black feminist authors like Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw.
“The core of my domination style is that I force slaves to read black feminist theory,” Mistress Velvet said. “Clients are coming to me with only one particular view of me. My imagination of whiteness is so extensive, but our imagination of blackness and people of color is quite limited.”
Throughout the lecture, Mistress Velvet was very interactive with the audience, pausing to ask questions and start discussion amongst ideas like campus events to black feminists ideas such as controlling images. At one point Mistress Velvet invited students to take a picture of the screen which read, “White Supremacy made me hate myself, I finally stopped listening,” and post it to social media. The audience was also very engaged, laughing, asking questions and applauding.
“I really enjoyed the event,” Jasmine Wilcox, junior in interdisciplinary programs, said. “I really appreciate having a safe environment to discuss topics dealing with perceptions on race, gender, sexuality that are not talked about in class or even society.”
Cole Tipton, co-chair of SEAT and junior in sociology, said that SEAT picked Mistress Velvet as a keynote speaker last spring, who is doing something different with their academic background.
“Here’s somebody that is mainstream doing something different with black feminist theory; we are all over it,” Tipton said. “It was spring last year when we were picking keynotes, and someone said, ‘Why don’t we just ask her if she can come?’ This is not something that she advertises that she does, but we knew she had this academic background so we knew we were speaking the same language.”
The lecture ended with an open Q&A that sparked many questions for the dominatrix. Mistress Velvet even invited audience members to talk after the Q&A about any topic they were interested in.
“I’m so appreciative of SEAT for having programming that allows for people that are ready to have these conversations the space to learn and discuss,” Wilcox said.
Occurring amidst student funding controversy, Tipton advocated for Mistress Velvet’s visit, sharing that her experiences are unknown to many in the UT community.
“Our unofficial theme for this year is giving space to sex workers and that is not a conversation that ever happens,” Tipton said. “There are people like them that are underneath the bus that just get steamrolled over as really dirty, terrible people.”
“It was a very nuanced decision to bring her to this campus at this time.”
