From sex work to post-sexual labour
Symbolic boundaries in professional dominatrix profiles
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15099765 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucie Krivankova (University of Hradec Králové, corresponding author), Lucie Drdová (0000-0002-9169-4591, University of Hradec Králové), Steven Saxonberg (0000-0001-6057-2762, Södertörn University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-13 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Culture Health & Sexuality (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-1058 • E-ISSN: 1464-5351 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13691058.2026.2614331 |
| PMID | 41553841 |
| OpenAlex | W7124828542 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
This paper examines how professional dominatrices in the Czech Republic construct symbolic boundaries in their online profiles in relation to other forms of sex work and how they sometimes construct BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism) services as separate (post-sexual) practices that differ from traditional sex work. It focuses on the online self-presentation of women providing paid professional BDSM services in the Czech Republic. An analysis of 70 profiles of professional dominatrices on an online platform specialising in BDSM services was conducted, and the profiles were classified using Bourdieu's theory of symbolic boundaries into four categories reflecting varying levels of symbolic differentiation. Complementing this approach, a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis identified five key discourses as articulated in the textual self-presentations of the profiles, focusing on biopower, knowledge, ethics, discipline, and the symbolic distinction of BDSM services from other commercial forms of sexual labour. Conducted in the first half of 2025, this study demonstrates how professional dominatrices actively construct and maintain symbolic boundaries through the language used within their profiles, contributing to post-sexual discourses in BDSM services and to distinctive forms of discursive and symbolic differentiation
Construct (python library · Czech · Human sexuality · Meaning (existential · Relation (database · Social constructionism · Symbolic power · The Symbolic · Sex work and related issues · Sexual function and dysfunction studies · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
Ethnography in the Digital Age
Abductive Analysis
How ethical challenges of covert observations can be met in practice
Commodified BDSM Services
Sexual Deviance and Society
Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style
Playing on the Edge
Fabrication as Ethical Practice
Unperverting the perverse
Managing intimacy
Sexed Up
Generations of BDSM Czech style
“Every Couple Has Their Fights … ”
Business Women and Exit Programs
Pleasure, power, and pain
An Ethnographic Analysis of Escort Services in Poland
Please Describe a Person who Sells Sex”
German dominatrices’ choices of working names as reflections of self-constructed social identity
Sex Worker Collectives Within the Whorearchy
Will the Real Dominatrix Please Stand Up
What Is So Appealing About Being Spanked, Flogged, Dominated, or Restrained? Answers from Practitioners of Sexual Masochism/Submission
Temporarily Yours
Sex in the New Europe
Health discourse and within-group stigma in professional BDSM
Mainstreaming Kink
The ICD Diagnoses of Fetishism and Sadomasochism
Digital Ethnography
The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |