Lady Aster is a post-transgender escort and pro-submissive living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was raised as a boy by conservative parents in the suburbs of Washington D.C. She studied philosophy in college, finding there a lifelong interest in ideas -- reading among others Nietzsche, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre, and Leo Strauss. Her first intellectual love was the novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, but it was not to be, and she became fascinated by the promise of countercultural radicalism and pro-sex feminism. “Liberty requires resistance not merely to state coercion but also the cultural power of patriarchy, racism, and sexual repression to crush the human spirit.”

In January 2004, Lady Aster finally found the courage to come out as a transgender woman, say ‘good-bye to all that’, and move to San Francisco. She soon decided to make real a life-long fantasy and experiment with prostitution. “Yes, I was crazy to try this, but it was still the best decision of my life. Sex work gave me the first sense of passion and the first chance for independence I found in this world, and a spiritual calling that has beautifully changed me.” In March 2005 she completed her sex-change and has chosen to continue sex work in her new body. Besides her work, she currently hosts an online salon, pens essays and poetry, and enjoys fantasy gaming. Her dream in life is to train herself and eventually practice as a courtesan.

“Sex work is for some a nightmare of exploitation, for some a neutral means of income, for some a vocation and a source of joy. Please, let us free women from the first, but I demand equal respect for my human rights and the rights of all sex workers to pursue happiness as we so choose.”

Lady Aster can be reached at ms_shiris [at] hotmail [dot] com.