In celebration of Vienna Pride Month, we’re joined by Amsterdomme—a dominatrix, sex worker, kink coach and author of Goddess Gold: A Domme’s First Love. Once an anxious people-pleaser herself, she is now a ‘pleasure punk’ who is radically reframing how we think about power, pleasure, and healing.
Through her work at the intersection of sexuality, embodiment, political resistance and social liberation, she invites us to challenge the shame, silence, and stigma that still surround gender and sexuality—especially for women, queer folks, sex workers and anyone whose desires and identities have been pushed to the margins.
Far from just erotic spectacle, her approach to BDSM is deeply intentional: a body-based practice of presence, healing, and resistance. Once an anxious people-pleaser herself, Amsterdomme now works with clients to reclaim their agency and shadow desires, using conscious kink to move trauma through the body, unlock altered states of consciousness, and rewrite stories around dominance, submission, and control.
This Pride Month, she took the stage at TEDx Donauinsel to share her insights into the transformational power of kink, reminding us that our erotic selves are not separate from our healing selves and that pleasure is not a guilty indulgence but a natural force for reclaiming our bodies and boundaries.
In this episode, we explore how BDSM is being used as a healing modality to rewire the nervous system and expand our capacity for joy. We talk about the shame that’s often wrapped around female and queer sexuality, the thrill of consensual humiliation, and why pleasure—especially when unapologetically claimed—is an act of feminist resistance.
We also dive into ageism in the kink world and beyond. Amsterdomme’s work challenges the myth that desire and desirability fade with age. Her writing and coaching speak to those rediscovering their erotic selves later in life, proving that it’s never too late to access intimacy, autonomy, and deep embodiment.
This is a dialogue about sex and power, to move through shame, trauma, and social conditioning to access deeper truths about our authentic selves, vulnerability and pleasure, no matter our age, gender or history, which is not only valid, but vital.
Let’s begin.
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