In this installment of AOS Featured Artist Interviews, we learn about the wonderfully free-spirited, adventurous and FUN Switch Margot! Join us as we discuss the intersections of BDSM, art and education!

Hi Margot! I heard that you just celebrated your 5 year anniversary of living in New York City! How does it feel?

Thriving in this city feels like one of my greatest accomplishments. I get to do what I’m most passionate about every day, which is to make kinky art!! When I’m not using my creative talents in session, I’m drawing, journaling, writing blog posts, planning photo shoots for work or participating in events to help further education in BDSM and sexuality. I have a wonderful community of people who support me, and I love it when I have the opportunity to use my skills and experience to give back.

You are an incredible artist! Your work is very provocative. Can you tell us more about it?

Sure!! I’m very proud of my erotic illustrations, and I’ve been using porn as a source of material and inspiration for my art since college. Growing up, I believed that porn was scary or gross, or just something that I wasn’t supposed to like because I’m a girl, but collecting and drawing hardcore images helped me come to terms with my own desires. Women who performed submissive roles, whose bodies were bound or subjugated in some way, appeared to me to be the most powerful. I created performance pieces and installations that allowed me to explore kinky subject matter and cultivate my budding exhibitionism. This stuff transformed into the career that fulfills and sustains me now

Have you always been kinky? Or did you develop your taste for BDSM after moving to the NYC?

I suppose that the potential to be kinky was inside me all along. As a kid, I played adventure games that involved being captured and tied up, or surviving alone in the wilderness. I loved to play dogs, and my close friends and I had our own little pack. When I got older, I had a perfectionist streak, and pursued AP academics and endurance sports such as cross country, which anyone can tell you is masochistic.

My hunger for experience and sensation only grew as I became aware of socially constructed power dynamics. I explored it in as many ways and with as many individuals as I could, analyzing it in my art, but never really connecting the concept of BDSM to it. So, yes, I was kinky, but I just didn’t know it.

I always tell people that you are the most perverted person I know (please take that as a compliment)! What drives your avant-garde interest in BDSM?

Something that really resonates with me is Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, which states that people react in horror to that which threatens to break down the boundary between ourselves and the other. BDSM is like constantly finding that boundary, and it’s the most intimate experience that I can have with myself or with someone else. Finding your limits and accepting them or having someone else accept them feels extremely vulnerable.

I guess another way to put it is that I like to surprise and shock other people just as much as I like to surprise and shock myself.

It sounds like kink has always been a part of your identity. How has realizing that affected your lifestyle?

Realizing that I wasn’t alone and seeking out a community of kinky, sex positive people, changed my life. Even though the subject of my sexuality fueled my art and allowed me to express myself, I still felt like an outsider. When a community exists, so do expectations: mutual respect, open communication, and consent. I truly value my early experiences, but I also see how my desires as a submissive to give up control and to receive degradation lead to hurtful relationships when the context of BDSM was absent.

Actively choosing to be submissive is so much more powerful than passively accepting social norm. The structure of BDSM allows for a lot of flexibility to suit the individuals that practice it, and it also asks those individuals to be self reflexive. It can be cathartic, but it’s not therapy, and, in the end, it’s supposed to be fun!!

How has understanding BDSM affected your art?

Understanding BDSM peaked my interest in learning the skills I needed to be a capable player, and in pursuing a career as a pro switch. I consider my sessions to be my performance art tailored to an audience of one, and the content that I produce on social media to be part of my character’s story. My art and life really intersect through Margot.

What is the most fun that you’ve had recently?

I got gangbanged for my birthday. That was fun!! Organizing the whole thing was quite a feat, too. I helped create the initial invitation, outline my expectations and hard limits, and decide on the date and location, but I wanted the participants to be a surprise. I wore a hood the entire time, and I was tied up, held down, tossed around. It was everything that I could have hoped for. My friends recorded it and edited it into a feature film with a killer soundtrack. The sense of camaraderie during the scene and the screening was so heartwarming.

[Dear readers, this was a personal scene and not available for booking. And also, no, you cannot watch the film – Margot is a delightful open book, but some things must be kept mysterious! 😉 ]

So where are you now? What are you into these days, and how would you describe your kink orientation?

I’m a switch, leaning a shade more submissive than dominant, more bottom than Top. Call me greedy, but l like to receive direction and sensation alike. I love pushing my partners’ buttons and exploring their interests while they explore the depths of mine.

Perhaps a good way to describe my submission would be to say that I strive to be the receptive vessel to my partner’s confidence. Confidence and Dominance really go hand in hand, and it’s catnip to a kinkster like me. Even as a Dominant, I can’t feel a spark between myself and a submissive with zero sense of self worth. Power exchange is my biggest fetish, and both parties need to bring some kindling to the table if anything is to catch fire.

The beauty of power exchange is that you don’t need a BDSM scene to feel its presence. It can be expressed very simply in the playful give and take of a thoughtful conversation. It can be expressed in flirtatious requests and suggestions and subtle acts of service.

What advice do you have for Switches, newbie or experienced players?

The second Satanic Statement in LaVey’s Satanic Bible states: “Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams!” Replace ‘Satan’ with switching, and you’ve got my kind of mantra! I’m a big fan of distinguishing between submissive, bottom, Domme and Top. They are four distinct roles, and switches especially should embrace fluidity as they search for their pleasure.

In regards to pleasure, also keep in mind that there will be certain things you try that just don’t feel good at all. It’s important to keep an open mind, and to be ok with feeling silly or unsexy. There will be times that something doesn’t feel or have the effect that you thought it was. Hold true to your hard limits, never push yourself to the point of injury (physical or otherwise), but know that it takes time for new sensations and experiences to process. Some things become erotic in the moment, and other things will take more reflection, a different setting, or a different partner.

Thank you for sharing the story of Margot! You have and always will be one of my favorite people. Whether we are talking about art, kink, working out, or which brand of flogger to stock for the dungeon, you always bring a fresh perspective. Your unique take on the world and breath-of-fresh-air candor make you a true Original. Keep on being you because we love you!

To book Margot, check out her Artist profile!