Venus Cuffs’ Only Boss Is Herself

“One of Them” is all about you. More community than column, this space is where we’ll be speaking to friends and idols, history-makers of the past and present, and those who inspire us, challenge us, and dare us to ask for more from this world. It is where we can be together. Read more here.

Venus Cuffs has a special way of enticing someone to divulge their most intimate secrets. At the midpoint of each nightlife event she hosts, Cuffs takes the mic and asks for volunteers to join them on stage and tell us your dirty confessions. Whoever delivers the most salacious story, determined via cheers from the audience, wins a sex toy. It’s a testament to their skill as an MC that people feel comfortable confessing at all, especially in front of crowds that regularly number in the hundreds.

Cuffs, who describes themself as in their “late 20s, early 30s,” is all about creating space for people to be vulnerable, including themself. As an unhoused teenager, they practically lived at Manhattan’s Hetrick-Martin Institute, walking face as a member of the kiki ball scene. Initially, it was for money, but eventually, Cuffs says, she found family and community.

This kind of evolution also characterized their journey as a sex worker. They trained as a dominatrix in Los Angeles as a young adult; although their dungeon typically mandated that sex workers start as professional submissives before “upgrading” to domination, the owners quickly realized that they weren’t going to make any money off of her that way. Cuffs has always had a natural inclination toward power. She had fun making great tips, spanking ass and getting her boots licked, but by the time they were a college senior, however, they wanted out of sex work for good.

Back in New York, Cuffs took a position at a tattoo shop. But when that job proved just as exploitative and toxic as any other, Cuffs decided that they were never going to work for anyone else ever again.

Between 2011 and 2019, Cuffs made a name for herself as one one the city’s most respected independent dominatrixes, eventually buying her own dungeon.

Now a retired pro-domme, Cuffs is still heavily invested in those at the margins of the already-marginalized sex work community, even when that commitment comes at the expense of her reputation as a nightlife figure. Though the pandemic has led them to question what community really means, it’s clear that everything Cuffs does is driven by love for their people, past and present — damn the rest.

Below, Them spoke with Venus over Zoom about the unwarranted stigma attached to sex work, the newfound urgency of queer nightlife, and the spiritual importance of mutual aid.

You transitioned from working as a full-time dominatrix to working full-time in nightlife. How’d you do it?

My first dungeon was in Manhattan. It was a very, very, very small hole in the wall kind of place. I got to keep all my money. I learned how to run a business. I learned how to book. I learned how to do all those things by myself. So there were all these business skills I got from being a dominatrix and running my own business. And from there, I decided to move to Brooklyn. I was about four blocks away from the Barclays Center at the time, which was a prime spot. The space was a really big industrial-looking lofts place. And I was like, “Oh my god, there's all these shitty BDSM parties for all the straights in Manhattan [laughs]. So why can’t I start hosting them here?”

And how did those go?

The first people that started throwing parties there that I trusted were my friends that threw queer swing parties. And those were really fun. Then word of mouth spread, and other people wanted to throw their parties there. The space was huge. They really liked it. And it was also very old school-esque; it wasn't super polished. It wasn't super clean. I did not want it to be polished and clean. I wanted grit. I wanted industrial. I wanted it to be like a hole in the wall. You walk inside and you're scared to come in right away.

What was the reception like for these events?

I was shocked that so many organizations wanted to actually work with me because there's such a stigma for a lot of straight organizations to ever work with someone kinky and take them seriously, especially sex workers. Nobody really puts people like me on a pedestal and says, “Hey, we want to work with you.” So I was kind of shocked and it was a while before I even took myself seriously in that role because I've never seen it before.

Are there any similarities between doing sex work and working in nightlife?

I pretty much applied all of those business skills that I got from being a dominatrix and literally copied and pasted them to throwing events. There's so much to be said about that, but the number one thing is that the amount of people that underestimated me as a former sex worker didn't make any logical sense to me. How judgmental some people were and how mean people were and how they really don't give sex workers a chance to advance and be something more than a sex worker. There’s so many people that think if you did this one thing in life, you need to be villainized and punished for it for the rest of your life. You won't get hired for things, people won't take you seriously. I still go through that now with some venues that were like, “You’re too risqué for our image,” and then two years later I'm getting an email from them like, “hey Venus, remember us?”

Could you tell me about the grocery trips you’ve been taking people on throughout the pandemic?

One of the things that affected me really hard when I was homeless were the hunger pangs in my stomach. I always thought if I were to help people, it would be feeding them, because I know what it feels like to be hungry. During the pandemic, a lot of sex workers didn't work and were very food insecure. So I started taking people grocery shopping, because some folks didn't have bank accounts. That's how I started connecting with people when I was in isolation. We would talk about their lives and about our commonalities. It's actually brought lots of joy in my life.

What did you learn?

At first I was like, “Oh, I'm just gonna go grocery shopping, it's gonna be fun,” but there were times that were really hard. People would show up and start breaking down. One person cried when I hugged them to introduce myself. The first thing they said to me was, “You showed up.” That struck a chord. I know what it’s like to feel you’re always gonna have to figure it out on your own. When I was homeless, loneliness would have killed me before starvation. I just wanted people to talk to me, but everyone walked past like I didn't even exist.

Have those grocery trips influenced your nightlife organizing?

80% of the people that I hired for [sex worker-centric party/healing event] Adults Only were people I met during those trips. Now I’m plugging them into the bigger events that I have going on. The only thing that put them in a hard situation was not having work, so just give them work. Give them things to look forward to.

This sounds like a part of a larger philosophical view.

I hate to make this morbid but we're all gonna die one day. In 100 years, I'm not going to be on this planet anymore. So all the hoarding of money that I could do, all the looking down at people, not wanting to associate myself or whatever, none of it’s gonna matter. None of it. The universe lent me energy in what I call a spirit, and the only thing that I have to do is return my spirit when I die to whatever powers may be, the way it was given to me: without anger, without hate, without any of that negative energy that we attach to in this life. None of this is coming with me.

You’ve mentioned that you’ve cut back on throwing events so often because of the pandemic. What do you find the most fulfilling about throwing events when they do happen?

I finally get to see people that I haven't seen in months. I used to take that for granted so hard. You know, you have your regulars that show up and you're like, “oh, this person is back! Oh my god, their little laugh,” and they're doing their little thing. Seeing people's partners and just the joys that they have. And you’re also happy that they've gotten through it, you've gotten through it, while mourning the people that didn't come to the party that you were looking forward to seeing, and then learning that they're not here anymore. You appreciate the people that show up; you appreciate the people that are still there.

It's also nice to just hug people. I feel like the people in Union Square with the free hugs sign [laughs]. It’s nice to talk to people and just feel less lonely.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.