Episode 14: Erotic Labor with Kiana Lewis
In Episode 14 of the SensuElle Podcast, host Ari interviews Sensuality Coach, Sex Worker, and Educator Kiana of Healing is Imperfect • (she/they). They chat about Kiana’s use of eroticism throughout all of their work and dispel myths about the sexual service industry.
Kiana answers Burning Questions:
✨Being open about Sex Work online while keeping their inner peace
✨How the OnlyFans backlash of Fall 2021 proves SWers resilience
✨Racial guilt fantasies (YIKES)
✨Their 2022 PRIDE project, “House of Heaux”, a Queer erotic labor showcase centering BIPOC experiences
✨Ethical porn featuring Black & Queer bodies
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Featured in this Episode
Kiana (Healing is Imperfect)
Erotic Laborer, Sensuality Coach, Sex Educator
About our Guest: Kiana (she/they) is an erotic laborer, sensuality coach, and sex educator. She has always been interested in taboo topics that she believes are the most natural things for us to experience in this world. As a Black queer sex worker, Kiana has learned from and is fueled by pleasure activism. They love dancing, being by bodies of water, analyzing too many things, and quoting their favorite TV shows and movies. Find them @healingisimperfect on IG.
Pronouns: she/they
More from our Guest: House of Heaux
Follow Kiana: Instagam
Resources, Tangents, & Mentions:
Audre Lorde - A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde, feminist American writer, dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. — adapted from PoetryFoundation.org
In The Erotic as Power, published in 1978, Audre offers a detailed analysis of female power and why it is so often limited, constrained, labeled, put in a box, left to gather dust. — from FredandFar.com
Sex Ed // Definitions:
Erotic Labor - a colloquialism for “sex work”; includes a wide range of work from escorting, fetish work/professional BDSM, webcam/phone sex, and stripping, to name a few. People who work in any sex work or erotic labor-related field may experience stigma related to cultural norms around work, career, and occupation, though many people have positive or neutral experiences of their work. — adapted from lifeworkspsychotherapy.com
Sex Work - Sex work is any type of labor where the explicit goal is to produce a sexual or erotic response in the client. Sex work includes prostitution, but it also includes a bunch of other things like erotic dancing, pro-dom/pro-sub work, webcam work, sensual massage, adult film, phone sex, being a sugar baby, etc. — from SWOPUSA.org
Cuckold - One whose partner practices cuckoldry. Usage: Most often refers to a man whose partner practices cuckoldry by having sex with other partners, though occasionally used to describe women as well. For the female equivalent, see cuckquean. — from BDSM Glossary
Cuckolding - The practice by which a dominant takes one or more sexual partners other than his or her submissive, for the purpose of humiliating the submissive. Commentary: Cuckoldry is distinct from the practice of »polyamory« in the sense that it is done in a context where the submissive has no direct control over the dominant's other partners, and the primary purpose is to humiliate the submissive. Those who are aroused by cuckoldry are most often attracted to the humiliation and powerlessness aspects of it. The majority of the people who practice cuckoldry as a sexual fetish are women, who humiliate their male partners by having sex with other men. — from BDSM Glossary
Racial Cuckolding - the above scenarios, involving specific races/ethnicities. See Ep. 5 & fetishism definition
Sources // Further Reading:
“Learn About Sex Work” — from (SWOP) Sex Workers Outreach Program (USA)