Velvet was known for making their clients read Black feminist theory, as described in a 2018 interview with HuffPost. They shared that they had started doing sex work as a means of survival but over time had found personal fulfillment in it.
“The ways that patriarchy impacts men, they can’t really be submissive in a lot of contexts,” Velvet told HuffPost. “They come to me looking for a safe space to explore the parts of them that may not be seen as masculine, or they might have a lot of shame around. They may not have opportunities to be their full selves in a lot of ways, including sexually, because of those societal constraints.”
Velvet also said that their work gave them an “emotional sense of reparations,” as the majority of their clients were straight, white men. Analyzing these power dynamics and assigning Black feminist texts to clients even led one client to start an organization for Black single mothers in Chicago’s South Side.
Texts included selections from Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins, Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, The Black Body In Ecstasy by Jennifer Nash, and The Color of Kink by Ariane Cruz.
Aside from their work in sessions with clients, they were also known for their fierce advocacy for “sex workers’ rights, communism, sexual education, anti-imperialism and Black and transgender liberation” according to Block Club Chicago. They brought their knowledge and skills to their position as the executive director for Sex Workers Outreach Project USA, a network of grassroots sex work advocacy organizations across the country.
Their bio on the SWOP-USA site states that they had an MA in Women’s & Gender Studies and a BA in Women’s Studies and that they liked “to spend their free time reading revolutionary texts while snuggling their cats.”
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