 to Inside the History of Hireside Chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, the host of the chats that I produced with Mistress Joanne Gatti. Today, I'm sitting down with Ms. Sherry Jubilee, who by her own description here, and I'm gonna read it, this is what I've been sent, is an onion hard to pin down and a lifestyle educator and a professional performance artist. Would you tell us a bit about these, please? Well, I kind of think the world is a balance of things. And I've learned that I have a lot of unique talents. Some of them were opened up by being introduced to the Leather Lifestyle and BDSM and Kink related activities. I never knew I could wear ballet boots and things, but I had tap dancing lessons as a kid, who knew? So I use my talents and abilities in multiple dimensions, like I do burlesque and I use circus sideshow. I use my art of shabari and suspension into doing circus aerials for performance and use some of my mind over matter, submissive techniques, learning that I was an extreme masochist after a lifetime of not exactly knowing what it was that I had some issues with. You know, I turned into a nice way to round out some of these oddball things that made me an outlier in most of the society, so. Are you hired by events or something to perform for them? Or how does that happen for you? Absolutely. I get hired through charities. I've done both US of Illinois as well as charities within the Leather organizations, things for the Leather Archives. I used to do their mobile presentations as well as, you know, do charitable fundraising at events, like having people staple money to me for Leather title holders fund, that kind of thing. So it really depends on whether or not it's something that's mainstream performances. I've done geek and Comic-Con, Comic-Con's traveled all over the place doing nightclubs and just having a grand old time, I guess, but I probably wouldn't have done so much of that if I hadn't learned more about what my kinks were coming into the community. Let's go back to step one though and let's find out a little bit about you. Please tell us a bit about where you're from, a little about your early years because it was a bit tumultuous for you. Well, without delving straight into, turned into living with a father who is an alcoholic and abusive, meaning that I can live through trial by ordeal and turn it into something that's erotic in my adulthood. I grew up normally as a military brat. We traveled to Japan when I was a kid and I didn't come back until I was in kindergarten and I was teaching the Japanese tea ceremony in my kimono when I was six years old to my first grade class. And that was like cool stuff. I was a tomboy, I climbed trees when my dad sort of was forced to semi-retire due to an incident. We went back to my mom's side of the world in Maryland and I learned about the historic sites. I was close to PBS television so I appeared on Mr. Wizard and some other things as a kid and had some really good memories but my dad was also not settled well in a civilian world. And so he expected a house full of women to jump like his, you know, ensigns did on the aircraft carrier when he was an electronics chief. So it didn't end up well. And I left the home and was put into foster care during my teenage years. So I kind of lived on the street and used my talents and survival skills in nine lives as a unicorn rainbow butterfly kitten to kind of make my way and survive a lot of things and turn it into a craft of storytelling and recycling, you know, the past into something new and better and an empowering kind of thing, taking the abuse and the words that were said and turning it into a means of growing stronger and getting a better sense of self and being able to turn it into a service so that other people can learn from it. So it sounds like you recaptured that power for yourself to be able to then reuse. Absolutely. I mean, I consider the community generally taking a safe place. I mean, we go out of our way to try to make it a safe place to explore things. And we took elements like the food control and cooked chicken livers so that they could be stuffed down my throat in the middle of a traumatic scene about trying to weigh me on a scale and objectifying me in the middle of the dungeon at that scene. And it was very cathartic. I mean, I wouldn't say I was 100% healed but it helped me focus on abuse and trauma in a different way because I created the parameters. Explain a bit more about cathartic though. How is that cathartic for you? Well, I mean, when you're dealing with mental health issues and I do believe that you can get some form of therapeutic release from sexuality based activities. I was spanked by my kindergarten teacher because I was in a private school and I accidentally made fun of her name but now I really get off on spanking. You utilize some of the things that you had as trauma in a childhood to sort of turn it into something that is more meaningful to you and puts you in a better mindset instead of focusing on the negativity of the traumatic experience, you turn it into something that's empowering. When my father called me a cunt, now I say I'm a cunt because I'm a switch. I like dominating and I know the power of words. I like to pick apart somebody's brain with some humiliation and some mind fucks only so that they can expose like an inner part of themselves and heal. I have sort of a Japanese aesthetic of highlighting things that are difficult to deal with and I feel like it's very cathartic doing things like laying on a bed of nails and one of the best things I've learned about being in the community whether I'm performing a skit in a fantasy show or being a keynote speaker or a judge is that all of my scars and leather or when I recycle my leather into a fashionable boa or something that may be superficial on the outside it's a second skin, it's a second chance. So it's both physically, mentally, sensually cathartic and to me that's kind of like a spirit of the divine. You get to go to a subspace or you become primal and whether or not you admit it you can be a top if you're a slave or you can be a slave if you're a top depending on your circumstances and situations and how you wanna unpack your safety net and your scene. Do you identify particularly as a dominant or sub or where do you fit in any of that nomenclature? Well, I mean the community would count me as a switch. In reality, I was a submissive throughout most of my life having difficulty with male and female authority figures and felt that being a submissive or a slave when I first found the real community and not just kind of like a nightclub atmosphere. I wanted to be in control, I thought that was the top but I learned that you can control through the bottom as well as the top. I started taking lessons in classes and said, well, gee, all the subs and the slaves are having the most fun being hit by vloggers and having their pussy punched till they squirt. Fuck this shit. I'm gonna like do this myself and sort of figure out what feeds my soul. But then I also learned later on how giving sensory and tactile information through varying endorphin inducing intensities because I don't like to use the word pain. It's all sensory apparatus. And so I felt like learning from the bottom up like as the way to go. But I tend to dominate a lot because I'm a chatty Cathy and I'm kind of a bossy lady about my own expressions of being able to know what I want even if I don't know what I want. Well, how were you exposed to the community? How did that come up for you? My official debut was Kinky College in 2006 or 2005, I believe, and then I kind of got into with a core group of people, went to a bunch of munches and started doing some presentations and traveling because of my knowledge and my prior teaching and training skills in other areas of life and society. So. But how did Kinky College come up for you? And it also may be for the viewing audience, would you please explain what it is? I don't know that everyone's familiar with that. Okay, well, this was my first lifestyle event. I've been to nightclubs and bondage a go-go like at the exit to kind of get in with the goth and kink crowd that I sort of grew up with, but didn't know how to get real BDSM or community information. And so I found Kinky College, which is a lifestyle event filled with classes and it has play parties in the evenings. It's over a weekend, usually sells out of a hotel. And boy, do I have some great stories about the Purple Hotel. I'm sure everybody's been to Kinky College at one point or another. I've heard some of those stories here in Chicago. Yes. Here in Chicago. But I mean, I met Joanne Gaddy there, you know, so and some other places she taught me how to fist. So I'm ever grateful for that in one of her classes. And I started going to more of these lifestyle events and learning and sort of training myself and sharing my personal experiences in both classroom and performance art that included my kinks. And so Kinky College was a good structural foundation to find the event. But how did you even learn about Kinky College? I shouldn't think that that's something a lot of people would have known. Well, thank goodness I didn't have to do it old school, like go to a bookstore and put an index card after a newspaper, you know, add in the personals or something. I mean, at least I had the internet, you know, after the people at the nightclub told me about the types of events that were in the Chicago area, I was able to look it up. And then that led me into what other events because everybody advertised other lifestyle events. And I started being a devotee, so. Well, a little earlier, you alluded in various forms to BDSM being somewhat therapeutic. How is it therapeutic? How do you see it? Well, I kind of see it, I've taken courses on sacred spirituality, you know, and sexual identity. So, I mean, along with the psychologists and therapy and mental health professionals giving me cognitive behavioral therapy, I've utilized a lot of the techniques to help me be a better person in the community. I mean, I can help somebody have a little instruction book so that you can smack somebody's face and not hurt them or not harm them, but, you know, give them the right amount of hurt that they want that they can come, then that's a great thing. Or you can explore, you know, different areas in role play that you couldn't necessarily if you're just coming home every day to normal average variety, sexuality. And so it's therapeutic to be able to take off layers for the outside world and be more yourself or be closer to some of those things that do make you, even if they're kind of a little flawed or broken in other people's eyes, you have to find a way to creatively express those. And BDSM does that, you know, it allows you release in both a spiritual sense, sensory sense touch, hearing, visual or the absence thereof, you know, sensory deprivation. It helps you focus on different aspects of yourself. And I feel that that can be very therapeutic. And we give ourselves permission or we have a good structure with a power dynamic. I found a way to express it in what I feel is a healthy way by, you know, learning about boundaries and consent and where I can take it on at least my personal level and my personal journey to a healing and a growing perspective. What you're depicting, I feel, is something similar I've heard from other people in that in practicing BDSM, you can constructively experience sensations in a positive way. Would you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, even when you're piercing somebody and giving them a Prince Albert, you know, you're not doing that without their consent because you still kind of set back and reassess your boundaries and are able to find some framework to be able to move forward. Tell us about your title holding. The title holding for me started off is like a way to use my modeling and fetish modeling background and kink background as a means to sort of focus into something that would be a more positive experience and a learning experience, understanding leather, power dynamics, BDSM more fully, and also a sex title, you know, to go out and go play and not feel constrained, you know, by getting out of a bad MS or DS relationship. So I won the title of Miss Illinois Leather Pride 2012. I moved to the regional, which was Great Lakes Leather in Indianapolis. And I won the regional and then followed up the leather path of international Miss Leather. Had a great time, had a lot of interesting experiences throughout the competition phase. I got to know Mama's family a little bit better. I'm Mama's Cherry Pirate. And Sir Bear Abbott, Mama's 7-Eleven was my original titled daddy. And he was awesome, but at the same time, he felt a little out of his league as a producer. And I ended up Daddy Ron being his partner, being my daddy more, because I guess being a gay male leather master, he had no clue what to do with the bouncy, passionate, enthusiastic femdom who, you know, is like one of those anime characters or I literally have been called a Muppet Mistress because of my dom style and my creative antics in the dungeon, you know, both as a top and a bottom. So, but he illuminated me to like, you know, some of the things about leather that I could never experience like the back room at Touche, there's places I can't go. And, you know, in some respects, that also alluded me and let me open up a few scars and wounds about feeling left out and, you know, so, but it makes you learn a lot. So, you know, I've gotten to know people like Joanne, like Midori, I was the fetish model. So I know Rubber Doll and Low-Kai, I was on kink.com and not many people can swing upside down by their ankles with their arms tied behind their back and a dildo going on in them and lick a pussy till my partner squirts. It's fun. I don't regret that. I do regret that my sexuality and my lifestyle has taken like my heart because I do wear my heart on my sleeve. It's really something that because of my finding myself, my passions and my creativity within my sexuality, you know, you asked me about my identity. Well, BDSM took away my son because, you know, legally I'm still a pervert and I'm a porn star. And it is unfortunate that my ex-husband, my first ex-husband, used that against me in a court of law, even though he tried to join GD2, you know, and it's awkward, but, you know, one of these days I'll have the opportunity to help my son learn about things, you know, we did cosplay together, you know, going to Comic-Cons and things. And I hear through the grapevine that he's now going to places like Frolicon and, you know, he's taken our lifestyle, you know, to heart for himself, which is awesome, you know. We haven't yet been able to, you know, get back together because the lifestyle was used to put a wedge between me and my son by my ex-husband, you know. I had to answer questions about my collar in a legal deposition, you know, why? What does that have to do with how I raise my son? You know, and I'm not the only person who's had problems like this, you know, when you're faced in a domestic violence situation, people can use anything and will use anything against you, you know. And legally, you know, what we do sometimes is definitely abuse. So how can you say you enjoy being spanked and having your pussy punched, but you don't want to be smacked in the face in anger by your ex-husband because, you know, you just worked a 36-hour shift and he's lost his job, you know, in front of your four-year-old child. It's like, ah, people have different perceptions and so it's hard. Having been through that particular hardship that I'm just gonna say absolute misery of having your son taken from you, what advice can you offer someone who may be watching this video who's facing something similar? Well, first of all, make sure that you have a good lawyer. And I'm not kidding. And use all of the resources here in the community, you know, we have therapists who are aware, you know, here in Chicago, we have the Center for Halstead and I used Kala to help me, which is a legal organization that I found through SWAP, SWOP, which is a sex workers union. Sorry, what is Kala though? Please explain to the audience. Kala, I can't remember the exact name, it's just C-A-L-A, but they're a legal organization that helps you if you are a sex worker or someone in an alternative lifestyle, LGBTQ, without funding, you know, I was a single mom when I was trying to raise my son and had all of this stuff happen to me. You need people who understand you or get you and get what you're going through to help you through this. And there are resources in the community that you can use. So the BDSM and the leather community were very helpful because I went to a regular lawyer and they literally asked me that question, you know, well, you put a restraining order against your first husband but you have pictures up on the web about you being tied up at Shabari Khan. So it's, you need to be aware of what you put out on the internet. You know, I am one of the legal reasons for why we don't shoot photography at general lifestyles events anymore because it was used against me and you know, why people wear wristbands and do all of that, this is the need for it because it is a lot about perception and whether you're a title holder or you're a teacher and you're trying to maintain your sexuality and your sexual identity, which is at least now not considered a psychosis. You know, you still have to be careful since the internet and the, you know, your pictures and stuff could be anywhere. I'm a fetish model on even going back to some bad exes. I let them know that some of their pictures I found on the internet where they weren't supposed to be and they didn't have permission. So, you know, there's 2257 laws for a reason, you know, to make sure that people are safe and of age. So we just have to be more aware of the things legally that we need so that when you are put into a position of vulnerability, you can legally not have to worry as much. I'd like to take a quick step back though because you've brought up information there that I can't help but think might be beneficial to other people. Sure. Please talk a little bit more. You called it, was it an SWOP, is that right? Yes, it's a sex workers union. They work with people who are professional sex workers. And because I do BDSM professionally as a dummy, which I got into when I was actually someone's slave because I needed an income and the recession hit and I could use my sexuality to bring in an income. So I did phone sex work and I still do. I love telling stories. And but there's a little bit of dichotomy on that even in the community because I charge for my time for certain services as a professional dummy. And I've been asked to like remove that information from some of my bios when I've been a presenter because the community doesn't mind selling toys in a dungeon time and space, two dummies. But you go to an event as a presenter or as a player or an event goer, but up in your hotel room you're taking somebody and charging them money. So there's six in one hand, half a dozen the other. We're trying to be open to things but if you march to a slightly different drummer sometimes you get some perceptions that may or may not be misguided. But coming back to the title holding a little bit, what advice do you have for people looking to enter the title holding circuit? Make sure that you understand why you're going in the first place. It's not just a pageant. And also recognize that you really need to make both a time and financial commitment. The basic questions are how much support do you have? Because my entire regional title holding travel fund for about $1,200 went to pay for my hotel at the international. And the rest of it I had to come up with myself. And as a regional, I traveled to like 25 different events in the course of a year and it got expensive even when I joined with other fellow leather brothers and sisters and I'm not shy about helping out but as a presenter for a number of years if you don't have a solid financial basis and good support structure at home it can make or break your relationships too. So I feel like if I had had a little more preparation for both understanding what it was I wanted to get out of being a title holder. I knew it was part of my journey to bring me closer to my own identity but I didn't know how the title holding for me was a good opportunity to perform public service. I'm used to being behind the scenes and supporting other people and stitching a leather corset for them and tying them into it as a stage manager as opposed to the personality platform even though I'm a performer. So it allowed me to find a connection between my social self and my performance art self with my leather and BDSM community and find my brothers and sisters. So that was good. But you used an interesting phrase what we were preparing for this chat and that was sacred sexuality. Tell us, what is that? Well, I don't know anybody else who could disagree with me that orgasms are not divine. Would you say that orgasms are divine? I know I would, come on. I guess it would depend on the situation. I mean, I suppose any orgasm to me is divine but I mean, sacred sexuality is really about bringing in the energy to the moment of your sexuality until I unlocked some of these things like the oral fixations and by oral, I also mean oral, all the senses. I have some health issues that give me some nervous disorder some ticks and some sensitivity things and it's like, I realize that there's a sacredness because I was born this way. So, you know, Lady Gaga song about being born this way or if you're a transgender person or somebody who's not sure about who you are it's kind of there's a certain sacredness in finding your sexuality and finding out that it's not grounded in any one thing. You know, it's not, it's fluid. It's a part of the universe. You know, I wouldn't say that there's necessarily a BDSM Bible, but I cannot say that, you know, there is no divine content when it comes to sex and sexuality because it's a part of who you are. It's part of your innate nature and your makeup from the atomic level. There's just a moment that is so sacred and so divine, you know, that even an orgasm can be something that isn't necessarily physical. It's emotional, it's sensory, it's mental, you know and I could be having one right now, you don't know. So, that's kind of what I mean. It's like recognizing that everything has an energy and that if you put that sense of spirituality and wonder and divine oneness with your own nature that you learn a lot about yourself and about, you know, how to deal with control issues and daddy issues and pain and, you know, whatever else comes across because, you know, it's too wondrous not to be aware of it. Well, where do you see the BDSM kink overall community evolving in the next few years? Currently, I think it's kind of a little bit of an amoeba stage, you know, 10 years ago it was a little secular and we had like rope artists in one area and kinksters in one area and gay, lesbian, queer kind of pansexual all in a different area and there were some Venn diagrams where they kind of overlapped but now I feel kind of like with BDSM and alternative lifestyles in general being more open to the mainstream. I feel like we have both a grand opportunity to practice what we preach is probably the best way to put it because sometimes we say that we don't care what kind of drummer you march to but occasionally there's a few drum beats we don't wanna have in our drum circle, you know and I find that that might be a negative but that's changeable, all of that's changeable and with currently the increased attention to speech while I'm not in generally fond of political correctness you know, political correctness speech for political correctness sake I believe in saying a truth and speaking your own authentic truth but sometimes that gets me into trouble because I'm kind of like a devil's advocate and that may make me a pariah in some circles of the community still does but Please give me an example of what you mean by that. Well, you know, recently a lot of people there's been politics on both sides and so you learn like, you know if you're on one end of the spectrum of politics versus the other that if you say something on social media, you know somebody who's been essential in bringing about things like a mama for mama's family, you know she was recently ostracized and criticized for saying some things on social media and people are forgetting that, hey we all make mistakes, you know and we all have to, you can't point out to some other person, you know what their mistake is without opening up a whole nother can of worms and you have to kind of look at yourself first before you open up that can of worms and so, you know there's been a lot of people who, you know I'm against cancel culture because I think we learn from history and if we cancel one part of history out we can't learn from it. So that's where I'm coming from on this. I'm not saying that the things we are learning or representing from that culture are good or right or anything but I feel like the BDSM community has hidden a lot of things like maybe some homophobism, you know from the heterosexual community or even God forbid I point this out from the gay community having some heterosexual phobia you know, it's there's a little on both sides and I think we're a little more open now to being able to talk about it because we had some sudden shocks and people kind of got all over themselves and you know, create a drama and now that things have settled down we can maybe approach things in a better way and a more meaningful way. What's the biggest misconception about you? Because I use humor and have some ADHD obsessive compulsive components to my personality and quirks that people don't understand I think I'm misperceived or misconstrued when I'm really trying to have an intent of communicating knowledge or passion and they just think some of my stories are stories and to me, I mean, sure they're stories and I'm currently rewriting a new story and a new opportunity I'm gonna try to in the next couple of years build a sanctuary for people like me who've had issues with domestic violence or their personality and sexuality and need a place to go but can't bring their pets or are afraid they can't bring their kids or something I'm gonna eventually work on something that helps give back to the public but I need to be able to do that in a constructive way and I don't think people take me seriously. I'd say that's true of a lot of us in the community. Yeah. Yeah. But in conclusion, you just alluded a few minutes to go to some future plans of building some kind of a sanctuary for people who require that kind of support in the community. Please tell us what your plans are with that. Well, I've already started on a business model. I kind of feel like it's almost has to be a not-for-profit. I mean, we have like the Carter Johnson Library for the LGBT periodicals and things and we have the Leather Archives Museum and there are good quality counseling centers like the Center on Halstead has all sorts of resources and things for LGBT youth. Howard Brown, I've used them for years. That's where I get my therapy from now but I want to provide a sanctuary, a safe space where you use traditional arts and crafts and disciplines like the leatherwork or cooking or hospitality services like a bed and breakfast to help people heal. But I want people to be able to use performance arts, taking care of animals. I literally had the choice of killing my cat or moving into a safe space. I mean, my cat had medical issues and was 17 years old but it took me three months to decide to put him down and move into a safe space once I got a divorce. No one should ever have to do that. I mean, my cat could have lived another couple of years but it's like making those kinds of choices. I don't want people to have to worry about. Like I said, five minutes before I got on site of a BDSM event, I had to give up custody of my son and make a determination legally because of my lifestyle. I want people to feel safe. I want people to know that they have a place to go where they can start over. And if they stay there for years, that's fabulous but we want to be able to teach you crafts so that we can sell your gifts in the gift shop, that kind of thing and help put that back in towards, we'll take a modest commission like the Leather Archives does with all the museum gift shops and things like that to help support the process. But house rules, a board of certified board, just like the museums and things for a not-for-profit that's my goal in the next three to five years so that there is a place for people to go when they're hit by a pandemic like we've been and lose their jobs and don't have some place except the streets to go out, especially young people who end up having to be on the street like me at 15 and pretty much selling myself in order to survive. And it's a good thing that I can take this abuse and the childhood trauma that I've survived and put it into good works. But I do think that the transformational properties that the community in both kink and Leather have allowed me to explore has given me that strength to be able to say this is my goal and I'm gonna work on it, come hell or high water so I can help others. Cherie Jubilee, thank you for an amazing interview and for joining Inside Leather History at Fireside Chat. I appreciate it. I really appreciated the opportunity to say hello to all of the archivists and all the people in the community. It's been a pleasure and pain. No, it's teasing. It's been a pleasure.