I´m
always on the look out for cool bands/people to interview
and I came across Mistress Crystal. Crystal is one of 50000
American women who started life with male genitals. Here I
speak to Crystal about her life and here´s what she had to
say.
Punk
Globe: First off can you introduce yourself to our readers?
I am Mistress Crystal, a computer professional who
moonlights as a dominatrix and a phone sex therapist who
moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco in 1999.
Punk Globe: As you quite rightly say on your profile
you are a woman despite having gone through a sex change and
wish to be considered female so why do you think as humans
we create tags for each other like Bi, Straight, Gay,TV,Ts
etc?
First of all, it´s not that I wish to be considered female;
in California and many other states I am legally female.
Even my birth certificate was amended after my sex
reassignment surgery. One of the most fundamental questions
we´re faced with in life is that of identity: who am I? The
answer to that question is complex and multifaceted, and
sometimes the answers beget new questions. Labels are a
double-edged sword. On one hand, they help whittle the
concept of identity down to manageable size, because people
usually agree on the general meaning of a given label.
Yet a label carries also generalizations and preconceptions
with it. For instance, for many people the word "lesbian"
conjures
up the image of a woman with short hair, no makeup, mannish
clothes and a butch demeanor, and who hates men. I am a
pretty much lesbian identified, yet I am very feminine with
makeup, long hair, a mostly girly wardrobe, and I don´t hate
men. Actually while I am romantically attracted only to
other women, I can be bisexual with men. And "bisexual" is
another label with its own preconceptions.
Punk Globe: So when did you discover the
dominant/submissive side to you?
Back in the mid-Eighties when poverty and anti-transsexual
bigotry forced me to work as a prostitute for a year, I did
my first dominatrix work, but I was so addicted to drugs
back then I was in no shape to discover anything about
anything. After I´d been clean and sober for a year at the
end of 1989, I met a man who introduced me to BDSM (Bondage,
Discipline, Sadism, Masochism) and showed me my submissive
side. Within a year I also discovered I liked being dominant
as well. A year after that I started doing professional
dominatrix work on the side.
Punk Globe: How do you go about choosing who is
right and who is wrong for you when dealing with the net?
I start with a dialogue between myself and with whomever I
am communicating. My bullshit detector is pretty accurate,
and most flakes and wankers give themselves away. Asking for
a recent photo, something other than what they may already
have posted online, is a good way to weed out the losers.
But nothing gives them away by requesting their phone
number. Back in 1986 when I screened my own incall/outcall
tricks I had to deal with phonefreaks, losers who pretended
to schedule a call with me so they could whack off to the
sound of
my
voice. They always asked the same questions, ones the real
clients never asked. The biggest giveaway was "what are you
wearing right now?" If I wasn´t sure if I had a phonefreak
I´d ask for the guy´s phone number. The freaks would hangup
immediately. Losers.
Punk Globe: With working a full time job and doing
the BDSM stuff in your spare time do you have time for
anything else?
I´m actively working on my autobiography and two
screenplays. I have a second book and another screenplay on
the backburner, plus another story I´m dying to start
outlining as soon as I get the first book and two
screenplays finished and ready to market.
Punk Globe: What kind of limits do you set yourself
as there´s such a wide range of fetishes in your scene?
I won´t do anything that could potentially put a client or
partner´s health at risk: no breathplay, especially
strangulation or smothering, no bloodsports like cutting or
piercing, and no toilet stuff -- it´s too damn messy and it
doesn´t turn me on.
Punk Globe: Would you ever do a movie or photo shoot
if asked?
It would have to be for a lot of money, probably more than
anyone would be willing to pay.
Punk Globe: I noticed on your profile you´re a bit
of a movie buff so what is your fave film at the mo?
The Matrix has been my favorite since I saw it in the
theater. After that I love LA Confidential, Titanic and
Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind. Also, anything by Paul Thomas Anderson
(Boogie Nights, Magnolia), Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) and
Ridley Scott (Alien).
Punk Globe: You´re also an author so what kind of
books do you write?
Besides my autobiography, I´m doing a major rewrite of a
tragic love story between two hookers. With my screenplays,
I´m working with a producer on an Action/Romantic Comedy,
plus she is script doctoring my Action/SciFi adaptation of a
William Gibson novel. I´ve also published some erotica.
Punk Globe: Anything you´d like to add?
Some people might be surprised that my bi/lesbian
orientation and my love of kinky sex do not preclude a
spiritual nature. I believe my Higher Power -- a Goddess --
helped get me through moments of intense emotional pain,
suicidal wishes, self-hatred and other challenges that go
along with being a transsexual person. I tried to walk away
from it, and I nearly killed myself with my denial. I used
to think that God(dess) must hate me to have made me this
way -- and I still can´t say I know why I turned out like
this -- but I no longer see my transsexualism as a
punishment. Whatever doesn´t kill me makes me stronger, and
I know that after twenty years of being a transsexual woman,
I know I can survive anything. That´s a real comfort.
Many thanks to Mistress Crystal for the cool answers
she gave to this interview. I hope you people found it as
interesting as I did? Crystal you rock!
