A Dominatrix Journey, Kinky Desires and Confidence: Natasha Strange

“A Dominatrix Journey, Kinky Desires and Confidence: Natasha Strange”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

Natasha: A lot of it is getting past the feeling that we’re doing things that we’re expected to do…Like you watch porn and you’re like, oh, that’s how you’re supposed to have sex. But that’s just not how you’re supposed to have sex. You’re supposed to have sex how you want to have sex. And sometimes that means with some spanking or some bondage or some name calling… And I always like to say that there is absolutely no right way to do kink and BDSM and sex in general.

[acoustic chord riff]

August/narration: 

Princessa Natasha Strange is a professional Dominatrix and femme-centric BDSM coach. We met in 2014 at a blogging conference. We were two of the few sex writers in attendance. Since then, we’ve co-presented on panels, spent some time together in Portland…and I thought I knew her pretty well. It wasn’t until I spoke with her for this episode, that I understood the depth of her journey to becoming the Dominant Sadistic Goddess she is.

August:  I’d love to go way back in Natasha Strange history, what stands out most as ‘little kid you?’ What was life like when you were starting out? 

Natasha: Uh, little kid me. I was always fascinated with sex and sexuality. I grew up in Central Oregon in the seventies. And I didn’t realize that not everybody experienced this until I started talking about it, but I grew up finding bush porn is the only way that I can describe it. 

Out in the country, there wasn’t the internet. So people would stop on the way home, pick up a magazine, enjoy their magazine, and do what came naturally, which is throw it out the window as you’re driving down the road on your way home for a little, you know, like 11, 12 year old me to find. 

We found them all the time, you know, not like every day, but like every couple of months you’d find bush porn. Find porn in a bush. 

August: And what did you think when you first discovered it? 

Natasha: I was raised in a really prim, proper household where we didn’t really talk about sex. But at the same time, my mother listened to a lot of Grateful Dead, where they sang about sex all the time.

I got pretty much zero sex education because I was very precocious and I had already found all of this. So when I was finding the bush porn, I was just like, this is amazing.  (both laugh)

August: Did you talk to anybody about it? 

Natasha: Oh, all the kids, yes. None of the adults. You know, it was the seventies. We were all latchkey kids, so my parents had other things to do.

I do remember always wanting to play Truth or Dare and make the boys take down their pants though, so I could see their penises and they’d get embarrassed and then they’d get erect. And I think that some things began there for me because I loved embarrassing them. 

August/narration: 

It was almost like a humiliation kink of sorts, or at least an early sign of her future career path.

Natasha: Yeah, I was like, you know, 11 and 12, at that point. I was far too young. I like look at my 13 year old daughter and I’m like, we are different creatures. She’s like really into D and D and she jokes about how she has more friends who are teachers at school than friends like her age. Maybe we’re both old souls. Just, I’m more of a 1800s harlot.

August: Yeah, totally. I see that.

August/narration: 

Unfortunately, Natasha’s peers weren’t exactly ready for a harlot tucked inside a farm girl’s body. And some of them were downright cruel.

Natasha: I grew up on a self-supporting ranch. We raised all of our own. It wasn’t really cattle. We’d have like three or four cows at a time, but we butchered a cow every year. We like raised chickens for eggs.

We like had apple trees. We bought and traded. Didn’t really buy. We like sold and traded for things that we needed. We didn’t have a TV and when we did have a TV, we weren’t really allowed to watch it. So my connection with pop culture in the seventies was tentative, slim at best.

So I would go to school and kids would be talking about things and I’d be like, I have no idea. It was like a foreign language to me. And there was a time where somebody came in and there was this Wendy’s commercial and this little old lady would say, “where’s the beef?”

And so all the kids at school were like, “where’s the beef?” And I was just, “It’s in the deep freeze in the garage?” I don’t understand the question. And combine that with my haircut, which my mom did with like, a bowl on my head cuz it was the seventies and that sort of thing was okay.

It was an attempt at the Mary Lou Retton hairstyle. My hair, my brain, my whole entire being rebelled against. And so it just looked awful. I had had homemade dresses, , it was just, yeah. So I was bullied. 

August: Oh, and do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up, when people asked you about that, what did you say? 

Natasha: Oh my gosh. I remember being in like second or third grade and having to do a report on that. I wanted to be infamous. And everybody else was like, I wanna be a vet, I wanna be like, and I just, again, just didn’t understand the question and I was like, oh yeah. Um, I don’t know. Activity wise… [laughs] 

August: that’s so interesting because I feel like even the word infamous, a lot of kids aren’t even sure quite what that means. And for you, without all these constructs around, here’s what’s popular, here’s how you behave. You were drawn to this kind of, darkish vibe 

Natasha: Yes. And I knew that I didn’t wanna be famous. I didn’t wanna be like a TV star or something. I wanted to be infamous, I wanted to be famous with an edge. It was a long journey, though, from a second grade question to where I am now. It was a bumpy, twisty, definitely rocky journey. 

[atmospheric piano starts]

August/narration: 

Some of that rockiness seemed to propel, or perhaps hint at, more of her future life. It involved those bullies.

Natasha: I was a nerdy, introverted child. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school and all I wanted to do during lunch was eat my weird homemade lunch that was usually like homemade bread and like a chunk of cheese, and read a book. Usually a book that was far past my reading ability, so it wasn’t even a book that I could talk to my peers about. So I would just wanna sit and read, but people want to tease and torment, especially then like, so these boys would come up and torment me and one day I just like out of rage — like, just let me eat my freaking cheese and read my book — I kicked him in the balls. I then kicked their friend in the balls and then it became a game. And it was amazing because they would run away and I felt like this rush of power over my life and my situation and like they ran away. But then there was some of ’em that just always came back and it sort of became a game for both of us. I wonder where those boys are now… (laughs)

August: What was your life like, moving into your teens and early 20s?

Natasha: So I lived on the street when I was a teen, developed a drug addiction, so then married my, basically my dealer and had kids. So by the time I hit my twenties, I was living out my teen sexual exploration, except for with three kids.

So I was very promiscuous and sleeping with all the genders, exploring myself and the bodies around me. (laughs) 

August: Yeah. Oh my goodness. I had no idea that you lived on the streets. I mean, there’s so much rich history before you even were like 20 years old. 

Natasha: Um, you know, my parents were very busy going to college and starting their careers. Uh, they had me when they were very young.

And so I went from latchkey child to just, I was very promiscuous sexually. I discovered drugs. I tend to be a person of excess, so at that point in my life, I’d rather do drugs and have sex with my friends rather than go to school. And that didn’t work with my parents. So I just packed up and moved out and I went to a different town and when you’re a 14 year old drug addict who’s pretty and busty, it’s easy to find places to sleep. 

August/narration: 

Then she married the man who she described as ‘basically [her] drug dealer’ and had kids. At a certain point he “cleaned up,” as far as drugs go, she said, then she did, too. And the relationship didn’t last, which was a good thing.

Natasha: It was a bumpy, with no help kind of ride, ending that relationship. I was in that relationship for seven years. It was very abusive, very physically abusive, mentally abusive. 

August/narration: 

And one day she just knew they’d had more than enough. It was time to leave. 

Natasha: I packed up my kids one morning. I think back to that now, it’s like I had no support. I didn’t really have support from my family. The cajones that took, I had been a mother since I was 15. I had no, I don’t know, like how did I do that? I just basically, like, I had one relative who was supportive and like, I packed my kids in the car. I had like a hundred dollars to my name, you know? And we drove off into the sunset. Phew! And I lived in a women’s shelter. Uh, the whole cloak and dagger, you have to park and like go and hop through a fence and got therapy after that. 

And so that’s really in a way informed a lot of my BDSM experiences, especially my coaching and working with women. I am very trauma informed, having lived it. 

August: Yeah, I see that in your work you do so much around empowerment.

Natasha: It’s because it’s so intertwined for me. It’s so intertwined.

August/narration: 

Back when Natasha drove off with her kids, her sights weren’t yet set on coaching other femmes or working as a full-time Dominatrix. She was busy getting on her feet. She enrolled in school and pursued a degree in business management. Meanwhile, sex work helped her pay the bills.

Natasha: In 95, I was finishing college and splitting time with my kids. They mainly lived with my abusive ex-husband. That’s a whole other conversation. I needed a job. I needed to make money. And a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of Fantasy Makers, which was a fetish and fantasy house. It’s not even really a house of domination. There was a lot of masturbation shows and girl girl shows and some just fun, weird role play. And so I figured I would do that until I got out of college. 

And then I got outta college and was on the cover of the local sex rag, and I was on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

August/narration:

Her cover photo on the Chronicle appeared with a story about San Francisco’s kinky sex scene. At the time she had short, wavy, dark hair and wore a lace bodysuit with a string of rosary beads running from her nose ring to her earring.

Natasha: And I had planned on going back and possibly getting my masters, but then I graduated and you know, that last couple of weeks, everybody would go in the bathroom and there were people who were like, stress vomiting, trying to like get into the right school.

And I’m like, yeah, I was a crazy sex party last night with a bunch of porn stars. Like I think I’ll stick with beating businessmen instead of working with them. And I figured, you know, I’ll do that for a couple of years and then I’ll figure out what it is that I wanna do professionally. 

August/narration: 

Natasha was busy those couple of years. And learning a lot.

Natasha: It was amazing. You know, at that time I always had like three different jobs cuz I would have little side hustles that would also contribute to my income. Money was coming from different places , you know, cause I was paying child support and I was supporting myself and I was living in San Francisco, which was not inexpensive.

So I worked a lot. And some of it was vanilla work. I did some retail. Ooh, that was bad. I did some office work. And some of it was sex work. And I can promise you, after all of these years that the selling of myself happened in the non-sex work jobs.

August/narration: 

The concept “selling yourself” has a few definitions. The one usually used around sex work is “to give up one’s moral or spiritual standards.” It’s also used as a derogatory synonym for sex work. But that wasn’t Natasha’s experience at all.

Natasha: In sex work, I was able to negotiate everything I did. I didn’t have to do anything that I didn’t feel comfortable doing. There were things that I was less comfortable doing that I would do because it was money. And I was like, okay, I’m not into this really, but like, you’re a nice person and Because sex work is work.

So, but I could make those decisions. I could be like, you’re creepy. I don’t like you. I don’t wanna see you. But then when you have a vanilla job, I was making a fraction of what I was making in the other job, but it was steady and there was no negotiation. No like this makes me feel gross. I don’t wanna do it. And then, in sex work. Like the men were very respectful In my vanilla work, not so much. 

August: Isn’t that interesting? Because I mean, people who have the impression that sex work is quote unquote dirty, like a lot of people learn that it’s selling yourself, like you said, but then ask them about their own jobs. Ask someone who’s a woman or a femme, how they’re treated when they are, you know, serving cocktails. 

Natasha: Oh my God, anything. you can be serving cocktails or the CEO. You’re still gonna get treated a certain way because the patriarchy fricking sucks and it doesn’t just suck for women.

I literally talk to men every day who have fetishized showing emotions. Fetishized being the object of desire, and wearing soft, silky clothes. people see cross-dressing as like that’s the most humiliating thing you can think of is to be dressed like a woman.

But it’s not. I mean, sometimes yeah, that’s where somebody’s psyche goes. But a lot of times it’s just like you know, , these masculine people wanna be the object of desire because they’re not allowed to be, they’re always supposed to be the pursuers. They’re never supposed to be the objects of sexual desire.

They’re never supposed to be vulnerable and open and, you know, so. The patriarchy in a way, like if it went away, would I still have a job? I think I would, I’d just see more queers and like more women. It would be awesome. 

August/narration: 

Anyway, back to the sex work she was doing until she decided what she would do with her life – or as she put it, what she would do “when [she] grew up.”

August: So you did those couple of years and you thought you would only do it for a couple of years. 

Natasha: 30 years later… (both laugh) 

August/narration: 

Natasha would do sex work for two years or so then attempt other work only — like the time she got really into hand-coding HTML and started designing websites.

Natasha: I tried to work in that industry and I just, it went back to like, no. now I’m working like 60 hours a week in dot com and like, ugh, God, I’m like dealing with these men that I don’t wanna be dealing with. I got laid off and I was just elated. They gave me my computer and four weeks of severance pay and I got to go home and use this computer to upgrade my website and go back to work as a dominatrix. I was like, woo. 

August: Ahh! You kept coming back to yourself. Is that what it felt like every time you’d go back into the sex work versus the vanilla?

Natasha: Oh my God, so much so. I think that was the longest, that was like 15 months and I still saw a couple of clients here and there. Um, regulars. But yeah, definitely coming back to myself. But at the same time, because there’s these societal standards that tell you that, sex work isn’t a job, which have definitely shifted now because now everybody thinks that OnlyFans is an easy way to make millions, which it’s not. 

But back then there were no examples of people that were sex workers indefinitely. I mean, there’s some, but they were all like Carol Queen who got her doctorate, or Annie Sprinkle or, Scarlet Harlot, who just passed away, who were activists. None of those appealed to me. They weren’t Doms. 

August: I read that you were, you embraced the role of “dominant sadistic goddess.” Like how did that come about and when, cause it sounds like you had to create yourself. 

Natasha: Yeah. The great thing about growing up and having absolutely no sense of what pop culture was and what expectations were, even when I started at Fantasy Makers, everybody else was like Mistress and Goddess and Domina and like, they’re just so put together.

Not all the women that made necessarily, like at Fantasy Makers, we were a bunch of weirdos. But the people who were independent, who are well-known Dominants. And I was like, “I’m Natasha the Cat.” And all of my photos were of me like Cat Woman…

I wanted to be doing what I was doing and I wanted to be a Dominant, but the role play aspect called to me. I just felt goofy and weird and like I didn’t fit in and like I was trying so hard to be what I thought I was expected to be, which I think pretty much every femme’s journey goes through that phase.

August: Yeah, totally. It’s such’s a common thread.

August/narration: 

She did gradually create and embrace her own mold, so to speak, where she fits in perfectly. And around the time we first met, in 2014, she was about to realize that for good. 

August: It sounds to me like you’ve been in your groove, so to speak, every time you have been in this work. So really off and on, and then very consistently for most of your adult life. but I’m curious if there was a time in your journey where you did start to feel like,  wow, I’m really in this. Like this is my full career. I know what I’m doing, I know who I am. 

Natasha: I mean, you and I met at a time when I was trying to be a grownup and I was trying to be a mom, cuz I decided after having three kids when I was a teen, to go ahead and throw a fourth one in when I turned 40. Completely missing the actual breeding years of the human female. And I was gonna stop. I was gonna be a mom and I was gonna write about my past as a dominatrix and I was gonna write about, femme empowerment or as I call it, femme-powerment, and them-powerment.

I thought I was done because I was like, I am 40. I can’t be a dominatrix forever., I’m gonna finally grow up and I’m gonna raise this kid and, and write in my spare time. And I tried and it still felt like I was cutting off part of my soul, part of my being. So I was still seeing my friends and they’d be talking about sessions and I’d be like, “Oh yeah, and then what”? “Oh yeah, he was a jerk.” “Oh no. I hate clients like that.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But at the same time I’m like, oh, I miss it. 

August: Oh, you’re like, I wanna have a jerk client to talk about . 

Natasha: I know. and then my husband got laid off and then decided he would start his own company. And then, you know, we started making the joke that, “well, there’s always money in the banana stand.” Which was, you know, our little code for, I could always go back to work as a dominatrix. And once again, I was like, woo! Bye-ee! 

August: Yeah. 

Natasha: Gleefully running back to work.

August/narration: 

But then, she and her family moved up to Portland, away from her contacts and resources.

Natasha: and again was like, yeah, maybe I’ll just do online coaching. I am 40 something. I should grow up and figure out what I’m gonna do. And then, my current business partner, Viola Parker, came to me and was like, so Portland doesn’t have a dungeon and we really need to have a dungeon. And I was like, “Tell me more…”

August/narration: 

So they started one. It’s called Sub Rosa. It’s Oregon’s only FemDom-owned boutique fetish space. 

Natasha:

This was four years ago. I am 53 now. I’m gonna be 54 next month, and I will see clients until I can’t, you know, mentally, physically, I’m pickier about who I see as clients, most definitely. But I am almost 54, and I am still in demand. And, women’s sexuality, waning is a myth. 

You know, it’s a myth that I battle with sometimes as well. You know, I see these, threads on Twitter and people are like, “I’m turning 30 and I don’t know any other sex workers that are older than me. Can I get a shout out on Twitter from all the sex workers who are over 30?” And I was just like, “Oh, honey, I’ve got kids older than you.” (laughs)

August/narration:

At that point we talked about anti-aging trends — specifically navigating decisions and pressures around things like Botox and fillers. You can hear that in a special bonus on Patreon.

I nearly asked Natasha how she stays so confident; she’s always seemed that way to me. Then I realized that was presumptuous. 

August: Do you consider yourself a confident person? 

Natasha: Ah, confidence is a muscle and you have to keep using it and exercising it.

And there are still times when you will wake up and your confidence muscle will not be the greatest. You know, that’s, that’s life because you can’t always be super confident. And also it’s what you project. I can sit here and talk about things that I know about and I’m super confident talking about kink and like femme-powerment. 

But I also felt like a total jerk because I left you sitting for 45 minutes because I put the wrong time in my calendar. And like those little things like dig at yourself confidence and you’re like, I was sitting down to do the interview going, oh God. 

August/narration:

(By the way, I didn’t mind the time mixup at all.)

Natasha: You know, so it comes and goes and you really just have to keep leaning in.

And especially when I do coaching with femmes, I start talking about the fact that when you’re playing with your submissive, you’ve negotiated this and you are doing these things and they don’t know the whole plan. So if things go sideways, you just have to confidently move sideways with it.

You just have to confidently roll with the punches and do something else. And you’re submissive, as long as you never say anything, is never going to know that you weren’t confidently doing exactly what you wanted. No matter how sideways things are going in the backend. And you can apply that to your real life.

Just confidently march forward. And as long as you are projecting that and then people interact with you thinking that you’re confident, even though inside you’re going, oh boy. But then they interact with you and then you’re like, oh, okay, no, I’m doing fine. 

August: Yes! Or if you see footage of something that you thought you were awkward in, have you ever done that? And then you look back and you’re like, it wasn’t so bad? Here’s an example. This is very recent cuz as you were saying that I was like, oh my gosh. I was so embarrassed. 

So I did this live interview and for some reason I first of all didn’t realize we were live when we started. I thought I was backstage in this virtual room, so I wasn’t totally professional yet? It was okay. I mean, it was, I guess it was fine, but it just, it gave me that start like how you felt late. And then I felt like I was just rambling and rambling. Then at the end I was just supposed to share like my website link or something. And for some reason I realized in that moment that I had really wanted to recommend self-pleasure and some masturbation things I never got to.

So I was like, “Everyone, do not forget to masturbate!” It just blurted out of me. And it was for this big audience of moms. Some of them may be very sex positive. A lot of them were there partly because they were hoping to take some small steps, you know? And I just like yelled, “Everyone, let’s masturbate! And ran off. 

And I was so embarrassed. I shut down the computer and I was laughing/almost crying. They sent me the video in case I want to use it for anything. And I was like, Oh… And then when I finally went back to it — in my head, it was much worse. And really, who cares? Cuz that’s me. I am someone who does that, so who cares? 

Natasha: Mm-hmm. 

August: I mean, this is what I do. It’s fine. Like, were you being yourself? Yes. People probably thought, wow, she’s very confident. 

Natasha: Yeah! She’s very confident. And that’s the thing, like if somebody saw that and now they’re listening to this… I mean, we can apply that to every aspect of our life practically. I used to call it, “putting Natasha on.”

So I’d be walking into one of those situations, like where you’re returning something and you know that there’s gonna be a pushback or if you’re going to talk to somebody and you have to ask for something that feels like a big ask. 

I used to call it “putting Natasha on” because I would walk into it like I knew what I was doing and I knew this isn’t me exactly. Because the real me is back there, hiding behind her fingers going, “oh, I’m sorry to ask you this, but…,” and the thing is that you just have to step away from that. I think that “putting Natasha on” was easier for me because I had this situation where I put Natasha on every day to pay my mortgage. 

August: Yeah. It’s a form of role playing, isn’t it? 

Natasha: It is! It is. And sometimes that’s, you know, what we all have to do is sort of role play somebody who is confident until you are confident, because really, you know, what’s sexy? It’s not clothes, it’s not filler, it’s not Botox. It’s really self-confidence. And it’s so hard for femmes to have it when we’re constantly being told what we’re supposed to look like, how we’re supposed to act, what is appropriate for us to do. And so to put on self-confidence and just be like, listen, I’m the kind of person who’s gonna shout, like, “don’t forget to masturbate” to a bunch of moms. You know? (laughs) 

August: You get what you get. 

Natasha: Yeah. 

August: There are other people you can hang out with or maybe you wanna be here because of that. That’s how the world works, right? 

Natasha: Yes. 

August: And same with you, you know? Yeah. Yeah. 

August/narration: 

Natasha has had to use that confidence muscle, that idea of “putting her Natasha on,” for her latest offerings.

Natasha: When I announced it, I said I gave myself a fear boner. Which is, sort of one of those things where you’re, you’re terrified but excited. So I have sort of a fear boner about this whole thing.

August/narration: 

For some backstory, that whole thing is related to an online class and workbook she created several years ago, originally called Kinky Sex Tips for Curious Girls. She re-released the book last month, with the title, Kink for the Curious. It’s still geared toward people who are conditioned as femme, and it’s meant to be fun.

Natasha: There’s coloring pages, activity pages, and it’s full of solid information about exploring kink and understanding.

Self-confidence is one of the first things I talk about. Knowledge is power that you can feel. It’s hard to feel self-confident coming into kink if you don’t know anything about kink. It’s hard to feel self-confident in any situation where you don’t know the situation and the lay of the land. So it’s hard to be a budding Femme-Dom and not understand what it is that you are trying to explore, what your partner wants. 

August/narration: 

She also delves into body confidence, something so many folks struggle with.

Natasha: I work with a lot of femmes who are like, “you know, I wanna start exploring this, but first I wanna like, lose some weight.” And I’m like, ” you’re gonna be the same person at 120 pounds, 160 pounds, 260 pounds. You are gonna be the same person. So start now. Enjoy yourself now. it’s never too late to start enjoying yourself.” 

August/narration:

You might even start enjoying yourself and then realize your weight was just fine to begin with. Confidence can bloom from your own pleasure. Speaking of which, consent can play a role in sexual confidence and pleasure, too.

Natasha: I call consent, like the real 50 shades of gray. When you’re playing with somebody, you should always understand why they’re consenting. Are they consenting because they think that they’re expected to? Are they consenting Because they just had some drinks and now they’re really relaxed and they’re like, oh, that sounds like a good idea. And that can be enthusiastic consent, which we hear about all the time. But you cannot enthusiastically consent when drugs or alcohol are involved. 

And then there’s also the other kind of consent, uh, we’re recording this around the holidays. I’m sure that anybody listening has spent a holiday or most of them with family members that they didn’t necessarily want to, but they consent to do it. And that’s great because, you know, keeping up family and all—but that’s not how you should have sex. That is not a type of consent that should be involved in sex. 

August/narration: 

So really think about the reasons for having sex – your reasons and those of partners. Meanwhile, think about the kinks and types of play you want to delve into — whether that’s bondage, pegging, or something more taboo like golden showers.

Natasha covers a huge range of kinks in her book, so you can learn more about any one in particular.

Natasha: And I address it from like what it is, why you would wanna do it? What are the emotional goals of somebody who wants to play with this? Even if they’re not into it, I want them to know so that if they’re ‘partners into it, they can understand the realities of it instead of being like, “Oh my God, no! What?!” And you can decide that it’s not something for you.

But if you’re shocked at something that your partner says and you put them off, then they’re not gonna talk to you about other things that they find sexy and kinky and fun. 

August/narration: 

Equally important is voicing your own desires, because—

Natasha: One of the most feminist things you can do sexually is ask for what you want.

[acoustic, encouraging music]

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[acoustic, encouraging music]

August/narration: 

So back to Natasha’s latest fear boner…

August: You mentioned having a fear boner about this offering, how do you manage that when you’re feeling that way? 

Natasha: Putting the book out is, is not the part that gave me the fear boner. There’s a course that is gonna go along with the book. Eight week long course, one chapter for each week, and you get to work through it with a bunch of other femmes and thems. Cis guys too, if they think they can learn and not mansplain.

And it’s all about the camaraderie of joining in with other people and getting to know other people that are working through the same book and the same journey and the same struggles that you are.

Because you can listen to me talk about sexual empowerment all day long, but it’s not gonna be as fulfilling as joining in with other people that are doing the same thing. So I’m starting that course January 17th and it’s terrifying to me to like market this course and put myself out there like that because it’s a completely different thing for me to do.

I’m marketing basically to my clients’ wives, , and most of my clients don’t want their wives to know about me, . 

August: Oh, that’s interesting. So that’s the piece that feels vulnerable in a way. 

Natasha: That’s the piece that feels terribly vulnerable because you know, I’m asking money for the course. I am like putting out there what I feel are, are like brilliant observations, , you know, and like, are other people also going to be entertained and informed and like take anything from these observations and like, anytime I teach a class and like they, the impact class that I teach, I teach every couple of months.

And so I know that one really well and like I have no problem going in there and like teaching, you know, this last one, it went from spanking to riding crops to using your boot to kick people in the genitals.

August: Wait, what’s riding crops? 

Natasha: Riding crops. It’s an impact toy. Uh, it’s usually be about a foot to a foot and a half long and you can hold it and smack people in the nipples, the breasts, the butt, the genitals. It’s a, a sign of power. Oh. Or you can use it on your horse if you ride horses. 

August: Bringing you back to your farm roots, right? 

Natasha: Yeah. We never were lucky enough to have horses, though. We had cows, goats. 

August: Now you get the role play. 

Natasha: Yeah. 

August: So, so it’s interesting. So that feels like your comfort zone, like that feels like I got this, but then marketing this to the partners and all of that. Do you take on then that you were saying “I’m putting on Natasha.”

Natasha: Ah, I am putting on Natasha, but this is a different side of Natasha. 

August: Hmm. 

Natasha: So I’m having to find my voice again and so I’m having to back up a bit. I’m having to reevaluate things that I post on social media. Like, are these things that are going to attract femmes that would wanna take my class or, you know, scare them? Because some of my life is really terrifying to people that don’t understand consent and negotiation and kink in general. And some of my life is very not on the approachable side. I do crazy things that people who are starting out think of as too far out there. But at the same time, I wanna find the femmes that aspire to that. 

August: You are such a nurturing person and I think that that is such a strength and such a strong trait that we, we tend to categorize as you’re either soft and meek and gentle and nurturing or you can be a dominatrix. 

So I just want people to know they don’t need to be intimidated because 

you’re a dominatrix, yes. And that same you who, as you mentioned earlier, wants to lift women and femmes up and be like, you belong here. Would you consider that kind of your core, who you are?

Natasha: That is definitely, it’s always been the core of who I am. Even when I’m seeing clients, I love to see people who are new and terrified and they’ve been hiding these sexual desires and these like fetishes forever and like to watch them open up and to watch them leave two hours later, like lighter, their whole body is lighter.

That has always been just my core calling. That’s one of the things I love. I mean there’s some great things about being t dominatrix. I have been able to work all over the world. I’ve been able to travel, I’ve been able to work when I wanna work with who I wanna work. But watching people blossom is my fetish.

And so working with femmes and thems and having them come in and couples and just be like, oh, you know, I’ve worked with couples where they’re like, yeah, we, you know, we’re trying to explore this, but they wanna do this and I wanna do this. And like, we don’t know how. And I’m like, well, let’s like look at this and like watch and like just have their eyes light up because they’re like, oh, that doesn’t have to mean that. Yeah.

August: It’s so good. So good. 

August/narration: 

Natasha is quick to point out that the benefits of whatever sexual empowerment work you do — whether that involves investigating any kinky desires you might have or something else — go beyond sex.

Natasha: I like to say bedroom to the boardroom, because the thing is, if you have these desire, no matter your gender or gender presentation, if you have these desires, you always feel like a part of you is broken and weird.

And if you can get out there and explore those desires and realize that, no, really it’s not that theoretically other people have those desires, but these are the people that have them and they’re just normal people just like you, it makes you feel less broken, less alone and more whole. 

August/narration:

If you’d like to step more fully into your sexual self, starting today or this year, Natasha wanted you to hear this:

[music starts: “Illusions of Serenity”]

Natasha: A lot of it is getting past the feeling that we’re doing things that we’re expected to do, you know, and that, that goes for everything. Like, you watch porn and you’re like, oh, that’s how you’re supposed to have sex. But that’s just not how you’re supposed to have sex. You’re supposed to have sex, how you want to have sex. And sometimes that means with some spanking or some bondage or some name calling…

And I always like to say that there is absolutely no right way to do kink and BDSM and sex in general. There are proper techniques when you’re tying somebody up, you know. There are things that can make it go easier. But there is no right way to enjoy kink. And once you get past that feeling like you’re doing it wrong or you’re trying to do it right, you’re trying to do what’s expected, and just do what you enjoy no matter how weird or different it is from what you’ve seen, do it. Do it.  [music fades]

August/narration: 

Learn about Natasha Strange and power exchange at kittenwithawhip.com. Check out her book, Kink for the Curious, and her upcoming course at wickedminx.com.  

Before I let you all go, I have an announcement to make. As some of you know, I have decided to shift gears as far as the release schedule goes for Girl Boner Radio. I’m going to give an every-other-week schedule a try to see how that feels. It’s a big change for me, and it feels really right, at least for now. If you are bummed by the change—first of all, know that I appreciate you so much for caring; it means the world to me that this show is a meaningful part of your life. 

Also, you can help me move toward weekly releases by sharing episodes with friends, posting a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes and recommending me as a guest on other popular shows you love. The more the word gets out about the show, the more likely making it my full-time career will be. Honestly, though, I’m feeling really grateful and happy about this decision regardless…and no matter how things roll out from here. 

If you’d like to hear more about my decision, head to patreon.com/girlboner. One thing that hasn’t changed is my commitment to this show. This change actually feels like moving deeper into it, in many ways.

I so appreciate you for being a part of this journey – and, as always, thank you for listening.