IFinancial domination — or findom — looks like the perfect loophole for anyone who wants a career in the fetish industry without the risks attached to in-person sex work. No penetrative sex, no physical meetings with clients, no nudity required. Just long-term relationship-building, a carefully cultivated persona, and the ability to extract money from willing men who get pleasure from giving it.
In Holly Randall’s insightful podcast interview with Allie Eve Knox, the financial dominatrix explains why there’s more to the job than spending riches and living the luxe life. The discrimination sex workers face follows them everywhere, including to the bank, which makes findom a profession particularly tricky to navigate in the current financial climate.
Knox is obviously talented, radiating an earnest yet cultivated affinity for excess and wealth. There’s a glimmer in her eye as she describes not just the gifts she gets from clients but her business endeavors, her investments and anything lining her pockets.
Unfortunately, modern American culture’s vendetta against sex workers —or what Knox and Randall jokingly call “the Whores” on the pod— doesn’t stop at full service workers, adult performers or in-person dominatrixes.
Fetish Funds: The Struggle and Seduction of a Financial Dominatrix
Like many sex workers (and even sex educators), Knox is continually banned from social media platforms despite strictly following their guidelines. She’s on her third Instagram account and has been banned from TikTok as a “nude minor” despite being an adult woman in sweatpants.
She’s forced to hop from account to account, platform to platform, with every move losing her hard-earned flowers. Being denied access to social media platforms and accounts means losing community, friends, and visibility, as well as one’s ability to sustain a business.
As we spend more and more time online, these platforms become increasingly crucial public spaces which sex workers are systemically denied access to (despite the traffic their talents drive). This behavior from social media companies would be bad enough, but unfortunately the discrimination Knox and other sex workers face gets even worse.
Banking Discrimination Against Sex Workers: The Financial Reality
Banned from Cashapp, Venmo, and PayPal for “violations” as innocuous as selling her own dirty socks, Know like so many others, has been denied service by a myriad of banks. When cryptocurrency arrived on the scene claiming to be the new horizon of free finances, Knox was one of the first to jump on the bandwagon. She needed a system free from anti-sex worker bias just to accomplish basic financial tasks most business owners take for granted. Sadly, even the big promises of crypto fell short. She was banned from her Coinbase account, denying her access to all she accrued in cryptocurrency.
Despite earning large sums of money, Knox and other sex workers are systemically barred from receiving it, from storing it, and even from using it. Because of the stigma surrounding her profession, Knox is unable to buy homes herself because banks often won’t allow sex workers mortgages. She’s not even allowed to take out car loans in her own name.
When she found loopholes and used her own hard earned money to get the material security she needed, she got audited (of course), and she was subjected to months of scrutiny and hours of interrogation by the IRS. They demanded to know why all of her major assets were in her (now ex) husband’s name despite being purchased with her money. The answer was infuriatingly obvious: despite her self-made and meticulously recorded earnings, Knox was legally denied the right to a mortgage or financing of her vehicle.
The Findom Paradox
Knox has dedicated her life to money and she’s devilishly talented at procuring it. Some of the richest men in the country beg to give her gifts, fund her life, and even write her into their wills. She’s monetarily successful by almost every measure, yet her financial worries only seem to grow along with her success.
Knox makes her money in a way that produces pleasure in other consenting adults, which the powers that be have a problem with. The context in which she receives payment plays with erotic energy, exciting men by taking power… sexual power.
Sex is a major part of so many people’s lives and eroticism is baked into many forms of mainstream media that celebrate it publicly. Porn and sexual services are extremely popular, massive industries. So why are the people most dedicated to these realms of human experience villainized? How can this sort of widespread, systematic and explicit discrimination be accepted let alone remain legal?
How to Support Sex Workers Fighting Financial Discrimination
The future for sex workers like Knox can feel grim, but we can help to change it. Those with extra funds (that we’re actually allowed to access) can donate to organizations like The Free Speech Coalition, who organize to fight laws and other policies that target sex workers and their livelihoods. We can pay sex workers fairly for what they do, and if budgets are tight, we can use our voices to shift the narrative. Don’t tacitly agree when your loved ones spread conspiracy theories about human trafficking in the adult industry. Ask questions when your friends joke that selling feet pics is an easy cash grab for lazy people.
Spread the word: it’s legal for social media, financial apps, and even banks to deny people crucial services just for participating in sex-related work. It happens all the time, and it needs to stop.
