Interview with Vera Violette: pro-domme, photographer, porn maker, and latex designer

I have a lot of fascination for pro-dommes. They’ve got it all: power, personality, presence, some mind-blowing physical skills, and understanding of the human mind <3 Based in Brighton, Vera Violette is a truly multifaceted talent on the scene. She works as a professional dominatrix, takes photographs, makes porn, and designs latex clothes at Good Girl Latex.

Vera’s career reflects the way contemporary pro-domme business merges with content creation – and how it can allow one’s creative resources to flourish as part of sex work. Her visual sensibility makes for a beautiful erotic universe: black latex catsuits in soft red light, playing with bodily fluids in the romantic settings of a cemetery, authentically hot queer sex, and intimate moments from scenes captured on Instax (and if I were you, I would take out my wallet and watch this pegging video right now).

I talked to Vera about her work and creative process, kink as part of both professional and personal lives, and being an explicit artist in the era of online censorship.

It's such a pleasure to talk to you! To start with, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into kink, being a dominatrix, latex, and all of these things?

I got into sex work at around 18 through making and selling videos and pictures and online sex work. I got all of my clients from this one website offering customs to people with very niche fetishes. So I started making fetish custom videos for clients without really knowing or understanding it. I got introduced to fetish through sex work basically. I used to be very submissive, and only explored my dominant side about two years ago. I am now mostly focused on femdom and latex.

What attracted you to femdom in the first place? Curiosity or something more specific?

I would get some submissive clients, and I kind of learned everything from them. They took the time to explain to me what their fetishes are, what they get off to. At the time I was doing both submissive and dominant work, and then I started enjoying being dominant more.

What do you like most about being a pro-domme? And which parts of the work do you find the most interesting or the most challenging?

I like meeting people, and I get to meet a lot of different submissives. Every submissive is so different, I have never met two people who are into exactly the same thing. So I find it really interesting to learn in-depth about what turns them on and what they enjoy. What I don’t really like is when submissives don't know how to communicate properly. Or some of them are really needy and message you all the time. All of the gifts and being worshipped and put on the pedestal is a great part of it too. But also, sometimes, you feel low, and being put on a pedestal doesn’t feel nice.

I find it so interesting how much you get to know the person through BDSM. It’s like no one else knows them like that.

I like how vulnerable they are to me, how they open up and show me the side of them that no one knows about sometimes. It's quite intimate, a unique connection that they don't have with anyone else.

So for you, kink is part both of your work and your personal life. Is it different in these contexts? And how do you separate the two?

I see my sessions with clients like work. In my personal life, I have different boundaries, I'm comfortable with being more sexual. At work, I don't offer penetration on myself, or I don't really like oral sex with clients. Like that, I can separate those two very clearly. It's just a different dynamic. When I make porn videos, I have different boundaries as well. It's more genuine on video because I can pick what I want to do.

You do a lot of visual creative work like photography and video. Is it something you’ve been interested in for a long time or it developed alongside sex work?

I've always loved art, and I've always been very crafty. Since I was a kid, I would always make clothes or paint, draw, take photos. I’ve always been really into photography. I remember getting my first camera when I was like 12 years old, a DSLR. And I was really excited. And then I went to study photography when I was in France. But my mental health was really bad so I had to drop out. Then I moved to Brighton to study filmmaking and stayed here.

How has your creative journey with photography been?

I initially stopped taking pictures a few years ago because I was too busy with sex work. And then I slowly got back into it mainly because of my friends The London Vagabond who encouraged me to take it up again. I mainly take Polaroids and Instax pictures. Mainly because I can see them immediately, and I'm really impatient. I mostly like to take pictures of my sessions, my clients, or people I play with in my personal life. I just like having memories of sessions. I hope eventually I can make a zine or a book out of it.

I think sessions are full of very special moments to keep, I have a similar feeling – but more with writing things down to remember as much as I can.

I've always loved keeping memories. So I've been keeping a diary since I was like 10 years old. So I have everything documented and stored somewhere, which is nice.

And how did you start making latex clothes and Good Girl Latex?

I started making latex clothes for myself because I couldn't really afford them. I've been doing it for like two years now. I taught myself how to do it through online resources, mostly through groups on Fetlife.

So the things you designed were mostly pieces you wanted to wear yourself?

Yeah, at first I had no intention of selling it at all. And then all of my friends started asking me if I could make them some. And then once I got good enough and felt confident, I started my Etsy shop. I'm really busy with it, which is super cool.

I loved the prints of rubber lovers which you sold to raise money for SWARM, such beautiful works! How did this idea come about?

Originally, I just wanted to take pictures of latex and experiment with different colours and lights. And I had this picture in my head of me and Mina kissing, and I wanted to recreate it.  When we posted it on Instagram, a few people asked if they could have it as a print, so I decided to try. And it made sense for me to donate the money. Because I'm not in a situation where I need money, I could afford to donate the profits.

You talk quite often about censorship on social media, especially Instagram, which is a huge issue at the moment – especially for sex workers, creatives working with sexuality, and the queer community. How does it impact your work and life?

When it comes to Instagram, this is my sixth account now, which is exhausting. I had three accounts deleted last year. Every time I hit 5000 followers, my account gets deleted for some reason. It discourages me. I don't really care about the followers I lost as much, although obviously it sucks and it takes time to rebuild the following. But it's more about the fact that some people can share explicit things and get away with it. But it seems if I talk about kink, I just get censored immediately, even now when I am really careful about what I post. On my last few accounts, I had zero community guidelines violations. So it's literally just no warning, being erased overnight.

Do you use any other platforms these days?

I use Twitter the most because I can just promote whatever I want on there. But Instagram is just so amazing for networking. And I've got so many opportunities from there, as much as the sense of a tight community on Instagram, which is comforting.

Do you have any exciting plans for the near future, especially after the pandemic?

Mainly making more porn with people in nice locations and exploring dungeons. Because making the sort of porn I’ve been making lately can get a bit depressing. I'm just spitting on my camera. I've had enough of spitting on my camera in the last year.

All images courtesy of Vera Violette. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter, or visit her website here. Shop for Good Girl Latex here.