One of the best parts of my service to the community is getting to meet new people whether it be Face to Face or over the world of Zoom. Putting faces and personalities to online badasses that just WOW folx with their values and morals. Interviewing these awesome humans in our community is starting to become a kink of mine. LOL.
This month, I got to sit down and chat with one of the coolest, down-to-earth badass that I’ve met in a while. The owner and administrator of We Are Better Together “WABT”, Jessica Em.
Jessica (she/her). Like many others, her lifestyle page differs from her vanilla page. However, Jessica is Jessica.
Jessica entered the BDSM lifestyle at the young age of 16 and went to her first event at the age of 17 with her girlfriend/Dominant. At the age of 39, a lot has changed about the community and the culture.
Titles and Identifiers are a dime a dozen in these lifestyle streets. If you take a look at FetLife you’ll see so many new identifiers. Jessica expresses that labels, titles, and identifiers help people to connect. However, it has taken her some time to be comfortable with the identity of Fem Leather Dyke. The reason she was drawn to that identifier is not only because that’s what she is, it’s because as a young person entering into BDSM.
Yet, once again like many others who identified as female, she was told she was a submissive. She attempted to be submissive to her girlfriend/dominant Yeah, that only lasted a year before she realized she was on the wrong side of the slash. However, it didn’t stop her from being of service to her community and the affiliations she associated with. I had to giggle when she said she attempted to be submissive. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to meet Jessica, you would know there is not a submissive bone in her body. Jessica identifies as a Fem Leather Dyke. What drew her to this identity is not just because that’s what she is, but also because it’s a form of a rebellious outlaw.
As a rebellious outlaw, she has had to take a stand within the community and her professional career because she is a female. Several years ago she was asked by her father to come back to Jersey to help with the family business in construction. As the only female in the company, she felt as if she had to prove to the majority of her male counterparts that she was capable of handling the job just as well as a man. Not only that, she had to and still has to deal with the internal struggle of coming out to her family as a Lesbian. When we spoke of this, she stated that it may be too late to come out to her family. Not because she is ashamed, but more so because it may ruin business for her family and it would be another uphill battle for her to go against within her field.
However, Jessica is a very positive-minded person. She feels that in the next 20 years, or so, the future generations that are coming up will start to make changes within the white/blue-collar workforce, where females will be treated the same as men when it comes to respect, pay, and upward mobility within companies.
As I mentioned earlier, Jessica joined the game early in life and is now 38. She has created organizations to help the TNGers in Savannah, Georgia called Savannah Kinksters which hosted educational munches and demos for the TNGs. This organization was passed on to a friend to continue the work when she moved to Jersey to help her father and brother with the family business. The Savannah Kinksters are still going strong.
Jessica isn’t new to the games when it comes to creating and establishing groups/organizations. She has been a founder and former member of many groups. Not all of them are successful and some she has had to step up to shed light on others who are consent violators, those who do not uphold the Leather Core Values and put others in harm's way. She decided to step down from the Vixxen’s because of the bullying tactics of a specific board member. Before stepping down she attempted to stop the offender by talking to them about the wrongs they were doing. However, they didn’t stop. Although this person was a friend of Jessica’s it did not stop Jessica from standing up for what was right and shedding light on the issues of the group.
When asked about her thoughts on organizations and conferences nowadays, Jessica mentioned that many think as she does, organizations and conferences are more geared towards cliques and the mean girl mentality. They are more interested in filling those seats than helping the community. This also goes for the title holders and runners. What happened to assisting community members in need or uplifting a community?
To say this interview was a lot of fun is an understatement. Jessica and I were able to openly talk about many things from her identity to affiliations, to what the word Community means to her. But what caught my attention the most was her love for those within her community.
A piece of advice to those who want to create an organization or group would be to “Be Up Front, Be Transparent, and Place Your People First”. One of her regrets when she was the Vice President of the Vixxen was protecting her people.
Jessica has been a judge of contests and over time has seen the changes that have occurred with them. The last contest she judged, she realized then that these contests don’t care about leather values. They are more interested in how a contestant looks. Some gems answered the questions posed to them very well. Proving that they uphold Leather Values.
Her love for the community, vendors, and people in need spoke volumes when she created We Are Better Together. During the beginning of COVID when businesses were having problems staying open or producing items, it started her thinking. What could she do to help the vendors within the BDSM community who were suffering due to COVID-19? Especially when the Federal Government was not granting PDP loans to businesses that were sex-work related or BDSM/Kink related. She decided to create “We Are Better Together” (WABT) in 2020. Her goal was to help vendors within the community who were suffering. However, her group has done way more than that. They have raised over $100,000.00 for organizations such as the Leather Heart Foundation, and Trevor Group. She also holds fundraisers/raffles for people within the community who have lost loved ones, those who’ve lost homes to fires, and any other misfortunes she and her group can assist with. In my opinion, this is what the Leather Community is supposed to be about. We Are Better Together upholds the values of supporting their community.