By MsDDOM
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from occupying multiple marginalized identities within a space that was not originally built with you in mind. For Black women who exist in Leather, kink, and BDSM communities, that exhaustion is layered — woven from threads of anti-Blackness, gendered expectation, colorism, and the quiet violence of being told, in countless subtle ways, how to show up.
I was raised in Colorado, with a short two-year stint spent in Atlanta. My upbringing was very much Black; I was surrounded by family, friends, activities, and a community that celebrated Black people, culture, and history. It’s not ironic that I find myself living in Atlanta late in life.
The South has a different mindset, archaic even, but used to maintain a strong hold over Black people, particularly. The belief that Black people being close to whiteness validates their existence (or participation) in a variety of spaces is abnormal, but acceptable behavior for some. This mindset is even evident in the kink, BDSM, and Leather community. Serving in groups such as Black Atlanta Munch, Black FemDoms-Atlanta, and Women in Leather Atlanta, the southern mindset is unforgiving as it encourages folks in a community to offer up racist attitudes, microaggressions, and direct exclusion. Black and BIPOC only spaces are born from outright exclusion from community spaces at large.
And yet, many of us stay. We stay because we love this lifestyle. We stay because our physical presence and the community are important to us. We stay because showing up is itself an act of resistance and affirmation.
Some people want your Leather journey, as a Black woman, to be one-note — no room for expansion, exploration, or adventure. As if the complexity of your desire, your leadership, your service, or your presence is somehow too much to hold. You are expected to fit neatly into a box others have constructed for you, and when you don’t, the consequences arrive swiftly with backlash that you are “too Black”. Damned if you don’t. Damned if you don’t do it the way others want it to be done. The conditions of your acceptance in these spaces are rarely stated outright, but they are felt — in the rooms you are not invited into, the energy that shifts when you speak, the silence that greets your ideas before someone else repeats them and receives applause.
My work in the community has been as a behind-the-scenes worker and advocate. Even that can upset some people when I am fulfilling my own personal service goals. I am here to work and serve on my own terms, not to perform service based on someone else’s expectations or to make others comfortable with how I choose to show up, but to live out a deeply heartfelt calling. Even in service, a Black woman’s autonomy is often questioned—the how, the when, the who—all become subjects of scrutiny when they don’t align with what others believe they are owed. My Leather journey will not be dictated; it is a personal path that has evolved as I have grown, gained self-awareness, and experienced life as a Black woman. Traits like encouraging, compassionate, inspiring, creative, purposeful, and caring fuel me. This is my life, not a weekend activity; how I have learned to serve, give, and work comes from growing up watching my mother do the same.
My Blackness is simply that: my Blackness. I will not sacrifice it to be more adjacent to whiteness, to be the conforming, docile Black woman, or stay silent in the face of anti Blackness. To be radical, to revolt, to be heard and seen, I must be present with all my intersections and personal power. Advocacy means nothing if I remain silent. Spaces are not built, nurtured, or sustained when you are absent. Every part of who I am belongs in every room I enter — my race, my gender, my sexuality, my politics, my voice. Dividing myself to make others more comfortable isn’t belonging; it is erasure with a smile.
The dynamics of power within BIPOC communities can’t be ignored. Those who claim to be BIPOC allies and accomplices will deny their own privilege, even when it involves colorism among BIPOC individuals who sell their souls for white approval. The harm isn’t just external. When we internalize hierarchies of proximity to whiteness and enforce them against each other, we recreate the same structures meant to exclude and diminish us all. Solidarity in our communities can’t depend on how closely someone fits the standard of acceptability set by the dominant culture. My Blackness is not an onion where those in power peel back the layers to “acceptability.”
Accountability has also been weaponized in these spaces. It benefits some, but not others — or you are criticized for being accountable when it doesn’t give others the raw power to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Accountability becomes a tool of control rather than a way to foster growth when it is used selectively. Communities that only call in the margins while shielding the center are not practicing true accountability; they are merely performing it.
Proximity to whiteness, for Black women, is an interspace between white acceptance and marginality. Many Black women have watched — and sometimes lived — the painful compromise of trying to be acceptable enough, quiet enough, and agreeable enough. So, you have many trying to do what they feel is acceptable and fundamental through their quest for approval, to stop self-loathing. But Black women in these different lifestyle communities are enough. In Black FemDoms-Atlanta, there is a core group of Black women who support each other through encouragement and affirmation when the community doesn’t see us. We are enough as we are, without modifications, without performance, and without the exhausting effort of making ourselves palatable. This is not a statement about all Black women — but it is a pattern that is visible enough and present enough to warrant recognition.
What heals this, in part, is both simple and radical: showing up. Giving ourselves the time and space to attend a munch, a social, a conference, or even the dungeon increases our resolve to be radical, to embrace being a sexual outlaw, and to claim our own space. It is permission— permission to occupy space. The collective of participants in Black Atlanta Munch holds space without white influence or presence to allow BIPOC folks to gather freely and share their desire for kink, BDSM, and Leather. It does not divide Black folks, specifically, in the community (a comment made by a white person) because they cannot bring their white partners; it affirms a space for less than three hours per month, for some Black folks to exist without the pressures of white-alignment in the lifestyle. Not as outsiders in someone else’s community, but as full members—complete humans, full of desire, Leather, politics, Blackness, and all the beautiful, radical, complex things that define us.
The lens through which I see this life is mine. Unapologetically.
Brief Bio: MsDDom (She/Her) is active in the Atlanta community and lives in a M/s dynamic with her slave, CreamDream. She is an MTTA Master Academy alumna who holds membership in MAsT chapters, leads Black FemDoms-Atlanta, co-leads Black Atlanta Munch, is a founding member and Road Captain of Women in Leather Atlanta, and is the current Editor-In-Chief for Black Leather In Color (NextGen) Magazine. Her service to the community varies, from an advisor for the Leather Solidarity Collective, a servant for Evergreen Leather Events, a fundraising coordinator with her slave CreamDream for MsC Worldwide, and a Southeast advisor for Women of Drummer. Recipient of several community awards, including the DomCon New Orleans 2025 Lady Remedy Ann Fetish Educator Award, the Washington State Leather Organization Leather Emerald Award 2025, and the MTTA’s Lady Lynette Leadership Award 2022, MsDDom continues her labor of love to the community as a presenter, peer mentor, and volunteer. MsDDom and CreamDream are librarians for the Carter/Johnson Leather Library & Collection Atlanta Annex, and frequently travel to visit friends and family across the U.S. and Canada.