I wanted to add to the conversation of sex work in media by creating a film that was honest without being judgmental, where the viewer never felt disconnected from the main character. To accomplish this, I told the story using various subjective filmmaking techniques inspired by directors such as David Cronenberg and Carl Dreyer. At times, I even incorporated improvisational scene building techniques, my attempt at using the “Mike Leigh Method.” I wanted to immerse the viewer in the dungeon space from start to finish, gaining insight only as fast as Remedy herself gets the information, and no faster.

Remedy’s back story is intentionally nebulous, but the film suggests that she is involved in private and social BDSM (Bondage, Discipline/Dominance, Submission/Sadism, and Masochism) practices before she becomes a professional, and she does not view them as taboo. The seed of “doing it professionally” is planted when a man in her life tells her “she could never do it.” When she stumbles, drunk, into a casual BDSM scene at a NYC fetish club, a dominatrix notices her and recruits her to interview at a local house of kink.

While there is really no such thing as a “typical” sex worker, Remedy does not fit the common literary and media stereotypes; she is neither a catsuit-wearing, corseted sexual superhero nor a victim of human trafficking. She isn’t desperate. She also works as a private tutor for children and teenagers. Pride gets her into the business, and pride keeps her from leaving. That is all.

She finds that the job is far more than putting on a costume and delivering a good spanking. She must indulge, validate, and endure other people’s fantasies. One hour at a time, one client at a time. She cannot maintain distance from her clients, nor does she understand that this is necessary – until her well-being is already compromised.

The film details the many layers of submission and dominance integral to the commercial BDSM industry. A “pro-domme” or “dominatrix” can be either independent or work for a house. Independent mistresses tend to do their own bookings, or they have an agent who assists them, more of a personal assistant than a pimp. Women like Remedy, who work for houses, are frequently recruited by the owner or manager and possibly another employee. While they absolutely have agency, they are often, but certainly not always, cajoled by management to do things unpalatable to them. House workers are not self-employed and, while houses do serve regulars, they also serve strangers. There are exceptions; some women welcome relinquishing part of their earnings to the house in return for more (perceived) security. Ultimately, however, women who work in these establishments have a “boss,” whether they work primarily as a dominant or a submissive. In every session, Remedy submits on multiple levels — once to her boss, again to her at best mercenary (at worst sociopathic) manager, and lastly to the client who is paying for her “service.”

Many dungeons in New York City were in the garment district, in semi-refurbished former sweatshops in varying states of decay. The house Remedy works for is no different; there is still an aura of exploitation about the place. The hallway is every bit as cold and unfeeling for the employees as it is for the clients. Although the lounge itself is open to the street (allowing anyone to look in), once the lounge door closes behind her, no one can hear Remedy scream. There is no trust and no real protection.

To add to the overall insecurity of the her submissive sessions, “pretending” to surrender one’s autonomy to strangers for pay invites a physiological dom/sub battle. Remedy fights to keep her wits about her — to surrender real control under these circumstances is dangerous — but her mental and physical self-defense mechanisms overpower her. She eventually goes into physical shock from a session gone wrong and then retreats into a dissociative state because she cannot withstand the humiliation.

REMEDY is shot and edited to provide only one viewpoint, to allow someone unfamiliar with the subject matter to relate to Remedy’s anger and humiliation rather than be alienated by her choices and their consequences. Remedy appears in every scene of the film; the viewer cannot see what she does not see. There is implicit uncertainty and tension regarding what is really happening versus what Remedy thinks is happening. Each session “episode” adheres to a different visual style that reflects both the fantasy dynamic of the session and Remedy’s mental state at that point in the movie.

Obviously a viewer with a background in BDSM and kink – on either a lifestyle, professional, or habitual level – will likely have a different experience of REMEDY than someone with no familiarity. Some may view it as an anti-sex work polemic. But when things go wrong for Remedy, it is a product of the political and social environment that is stacked against sex workers, especially women, not the sex or the work itself. One wrote after viewing the trailer, “I can’t imagine the vulnerability of being a woman, walking into a stranger’s room, being bound, and completely at his mercy. Especially when he may be someone who is psychotic, or hates women, or… who knows?” Then imagine that the client knows that the law is on his side. The only thing protecting the worker is his conscience.

At the microscopic level, I believe that each element of this film reveals itself in binary – 1 for control, 0 for being controlled. Enough of these numbers in random patterns create a gray-scale from the black and white and ultimately reveal something much more complex than what could potentially be “Remedy, the story of a victim.” She clearly has pride, and she clearly is strong. She is simply over her head in a pool that didn’t have a shallow end to begin with.

REMEDY opens up a dialogue about the nature of sex-positive filmmaking. The film has (inadvertently) become an exhibit of sexual-political activism, and I hope my future films will do the same.

ARE ALL CLIENTS BASED ON REAL PEOPLE?

Yes. All of the clients are based on real people, but I have done a lot to alter the overall look or age of the specific characters. (I’m sure every NYC domme knows that the character who I call “Marathon Man” is not a sexy, forty-something Scotsman, and that he has a very different local scene name.) The employees of the dungeon, however, are not based on real people. They are inspired by the women I worked with, but I had no intention of caricaturing anyone specifically. I drew those characters according to patterns and tropes I observed in the industry, emphasizing good and bad traits often for dramatic effect. For example, the Manager character is a blend of the worst traits of any dungeon authority figure I either observed or was told about by another domme, but she is not intended to represent any one person. Luckily, no one quite that sinister ever booked me a session.

IS REMEDY AN ANTI-SEXWORK POLEMIC?

I can see how that read is possible, and it’s part of the reason that I chose to release the film under my real name and also make it clear in post-film discussions that I am in no way opposed to sex work, even if I’m slow to get involved in any political movement.

Because I created the film as a sort of exorcism of self-degradation. Before I wrote the script, I had assumed that the reason my trajectory as a pro-switch had gone so poorly was because something was wrong with ME. “Research” through memoirs of independent Dommes confirmed that I must have been terrible at it because I didn’t have a closet full of Prada bags. It was only after the film was completed that I realized that the problem was not me, not kinky sex, and not the work. And, despite what some people might think, I never thought the sex or the work was the problem. I was *never* ashamed of having done sex work.

The problem was, in this political and social climate, with sex work being stigmatized and under the best of circumstances inhabiting a grey area that is subject to legal whim half the time, the deck was and is stacked against workers. I have personal pride and competitive issues, that tendency so common (especially in subs) to never actually admit that something is too much for me until I, sometimes literally, break in two.

Working in a house tickled these drives something ferocious. I believe that if everything had gone well, if most clients were good people, if everyone in a house had the workers’ health and well-being in mind, and (most importantly) if everyone involved from owner to worker to client was aware that the law had workers’ backs, I would *never* have left. The work is fucking interesting, and anyone who knows me is aware of how much I value a personal arsenal of good stories.

I started making this film so that I could work through my past in a way far slower and more expensive than therapy, but also so that other people who had similar experiences wouldn’t feel alone or marginalized or defective. If my story *doesn’t* reflect other workers’ experiences, I urge anyone — and I mean anyone — with a story to find some way to put it out there. I never wanted REMEDY to be the last word, but rather to be the start of a long conversation.

HOW GRAPHIC IS REMEDY? WHAT RATING WOULD IT GET?

This depends on your definition of graphic. There is nudity, both real and implied. And the movie is full of sex, but no one gets past “first base.” (For those of you who have not heard of this term, the Urban Dictionary defines “first base” as: “In relationship/sexual terminology, this is the Stage in dating where the couple kisses, or makes out.”) However, there is no voyeuristic lingering on nudity — in other words, it exists only to further the storyline and not for nudity’s sake. This last distinction is the only reason I don’t actually consider REMEDY a pornographic or erotic film, despite the fact that it has screened at more so-called erotic film festivals than so-called mainstream festivals. It isn’t the primary intention of the film to elicit a sexual response from the viewer… but everything has side effects. I’m fine with that. 🙂 As for rating, who knows with the MPAA. (For more information see This Film Is Not Yet Rated, available on Netflix.) American review boards have a lot of trouble with the idea of people enjoying themselves sexually, so I wouldn’t doubt that someone would want to slap it with an NC17 rating. In Europe, I think it would be the violent content that would raise eyebrows. Interesting, that. With REMEDY, you feel a lot more than you see. So nothing really gets “explicit” anywhere but in your imagination. As REMEDY heads toward its first distribution deal — more on that when ink meets paper — I’m sure I’ll have to deal with ratings quite a bit in the near future.

WHAT MEDIA INFORMED YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF BDSM?

From 2000 until now, I’ve been a prolific videographer of Freak Culture: burlesque, circus, fire, dance, and extreme fetish performers. These artists inspired me to create a narrative based on my own experience in a fetish subculture. In other words, I wanted to turn the camera on myself.

As far as my media influences, I was a film studies major at Columbia University and I was particularly attracted to the work of Carl Dreyer (Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr) and the German Expressionists. The films featured a lot of subjective explorations of torture and violent sexual imagery. The more modern filmmakers Kubrick, Cronenberg, and Lynch, devote themselves to these themes. Cronenberg’s Videodrome was especially intriguing — the character Nikki Brand is absolutely driven to experience the furthest fringes of masochism. Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Inland Empire were terrifying and fascinating looks into the nature of power exchange, manipulation, and fetishism.

But I found realistic portrayals of kink in non-pornographic film a bit troubling. Even the best examples draw problematic correlations. Secretary, while nailing the pleasures of being a bottom, associates masochism and self-mutiliation and strays into the surreal. Quills identifies the kinky with the crazy. A Dangerous Method corrupts the relationship between teacher and student. However, these films contain stunning examples of how intertwining sex and pain can be intensely erotic and enjoyable — even theraputic.

Oddly enough, the bright shining examples of sex-positive kink have appeared in bizarre places. Sick – The Life And Death Of Super Masochist Bob Flanagan is a documentary of how a man with cystic fibrosis is able to reclaim control of his life and is sexuality through extreme acts of masochisism, at his own hands and at those of others. Henry and June honestly may be the best existing example of self-conscious and sensitive exploration of this subject matter.
All of these films influenced me heavily.

ARE YOU WORRIED THAT PEOPLE WILL MISINTERPRET YOUR FILM?

I’m TERRIFIED that people will misinterpret the film, But I feel it is the risky part of making art. Once you’ve created something and released it into the world, really the interpretation is out of your hands. Sure, by attaching my legal name to the project, I’m standing behind my work in a way that perhaps I couldn’t do if I either used a pseudonym or talked about my story in the third person. But I created an immersive, subjective film. I deliberately invite viewers to put themselves wholly into my main character. If you come to the narrative with notions that sex work leads to victimhood, then I almost guarantee you will walk away from the film believing that REMEDY is the story of a victim. If you believe that sex work is like any other job where there are good days and bad days, where the risk is really due to an unsafe legal and political environment versus there being any thing “wrong” with the work itself, then you will see the film as supporting this perspective.

Here’s the thing — and this is a bit of a confession here — when I started making the film, I was convinced the reason I had a less than stellar experience working in a dungeon was that I was bad at it! (I never ever thought that the job or BDSM was the “problem,” by the way. I never judged the work or my coworkers. Only myself, and very harshly.) I would have agreed with the victim narrative because I was actively victim blaming myself. We were halfway through filming — specifically The Businessman scene — when I figured out what really made the job ultimately unsustainable for me, and that it wasn’t my stupidity or naïveté.

Long story short, I started the process a victim and ended it an activist.