*RoleModel is an interview series highlighting badass individuals we look up to. Photos by Marc Harris Miller.

Lindsay Dye is an artist and sex worker—maybe you’ve seen her smashing a cake with her ass on Instagram?

The multi-faceted performer is primarily known for her webcam work, in which lucky audience members pay for a virtual seat to see Dye perform a series of sexual deeds. Behind the shock factor is a wildy intelligent 30 year-old woman who exercises complete autonomy over her body and career. Badass, indeed.

How do you sexually identify, if you’re comfortable telling me?

Lindsay: I identify as a queer person. And that actually is something that I’ve never talked about in an interview before. I’m always a part of queer-positive [events], but I’ve actually never said it out loud in an interview. So it’s new for me.

Well I’m glad that we can be the ones to put that out there. For those that don’t know you or know what you do, how would you describe what you do?

I see myself as having many different jobs. My main work—the way I make money and support myself—is by working as a webcam model.

What webcamming has given me, though, is the juice for my artwork. While I’m a webcam model, I’ve ventured into new territory of performance art. Camming brought me to cake-sitting, and I think that’s how most people see my job title, as a cake-sitter. As if that’s the only thing I do, and the number one way I make money and highest grossing element of my work. But, it’s not. I still have to cam, I still participate in other forms of sex work, I still sell my art on the side. Short answer: sex worker artist.

Yeah, you’re like a multi-disciplinary renaissance woman!

But they all feed into each other. The camming feeds into the art-making, that feeds into the caming. I need that circularity.

Are your parents chill with your career choice?

So I’ve been doing this for about six years now, and they weren’t. It has only really been through notoriety that I’ve received the respect I feel like I deserve from them in this career. Which is kinda sad [that] they can’t just take my word for it. But we’ve reached a level where we can talk about it, and I send them links to everything I’m doing. There’s a sense of pride from them—that I’ve taken this job that usually has so much shame attached to it, and I’ve been very unashamed and vocal. Like they didn’t know what the term “sex work” meant. So I got to be the teacher of what sex work is and what it can be and what it’s not.

Do you have any words of wisdom for people in a similar career who struggle with the judgement of others?

Well, I’ve never been afraid to lose a relationship. You can’t shame me if I’m not ashamed. It’s something you just have to hold in yourself. It is sticking to your guns and not changing your path or manipulating yourself for anyone else. Just because my parents were uncomfortable with it or didn’t approve—I didn’t stop. It’s persistence.

What would you say is the biggest misconception when it comes to what you do?

That it’s all sex. It’s totally not. Especially with camming, it’s like 75% a waiting game. You’re waiting for the right person, the right time, the right amount of money. Even with cake-sitting shows, I’m thinking about the time of day, who am I gonna interact with. I’m thinking about other peoples’ schedules, outfits I need to order, flavors of cake—all these logistical things that aren’t sexual.

Was it uncomfortable when you first started camming?

I feel like in the beginning and there were no how-to’s or forums or threads about how to access your chat room, how to talk to people. When I started, I pretended that I didn’t have audio because I was so nervous. It took me about a month to fess up that I actually did have audio, and [that] I could verbally speak to them. I was just typing to them in the beginning, because how would one know how to run a chat room?

I’m sure talking is much more intimate than typing.

Absolutely, and not knowing who’s listening, and how I’m being perceived. I still don’t know that now, but I have watched myself on camera enough at this point that I know my voice, I know my body, I know every angle, I know the conversations I am willing to have. [I have] so much experience in it now that it’s totally organic and natural, but in the beginning it totally was not. Definitely a learning curve and [I wish I] could have taken a class to figure out how to be a better cam model.

Do you ever think about how many people online fantasize about having sex with you?

I don’t. There’s definitely a power imbalance in person. With men and women walking down the street and being in public, I feel a power imbalance, I feel unsafe. When I’m on the internet and I’m camming, it is a mutual exchange. I’m participating because I want be here and I’m profiting off of this participation. I feel powerful on the internet, because I do it in a setting where [the exchange] is comfortable and it is mutual. That internet fantasy I’m okay with because that’s mine. That’s why I’m doing it.

Can you kick people off of a chat? Do you have any boundaries for your chatroom?

There is a definite ban button, you can ban someone immediately. You can even let them watch you but they cannot speak. Or you can ignore them for a certain amount of time, like kick them out of your room for 24 hours, or do a lifetime ban and they’ll never be allowed back in your room.

It’s not something I use a lot because there’s not as many trolls as you would think in these chat rooms. You have to make an account, and if you’re making an account, you have to buy tokens. If you’re buying tokens, that means you want to support the people that you’re tipping. So the troll factor is almost nonexistent. [But] I’ve had really intense political conversations where it gets to a certain point where it’s not going anywhere and it’s like ban!

How did you get involved with cake sitting?

It started in my chat room. I’ve told this story, but no one’s ever published it because it’s strange. I was sent a private message and asked to sit on my cat and suffocate my cat. Obviously I didn’t do it—but this lead to researching crushing fetishes. I knew that this was not something like trolling, this was an honest question, someone was gonna pay me to do it.

So… crushing and sitting fetishes are a thing, and crushing and sitting fetishes, with small insects to small animals, is also a thing. But within this I found wet and messy play, which is sitting and playing with and soaking yourself with different types of food and liquids and substances. While researching one kind of morbid fetish, I found a more humorous fetish that I could actually act out in my chat room. I [also] thought it would be really beautiful, aesthetically, to sit on something that is sculptural and leaving an imprint or having some type of color exchange on my skin. There was something artistic about it. No one was asking me, “Hey, will you sit on a cake for me?” I kind of forced it upon them and was like, okay I have this dark experience and I want to see if y’all will be into this lighter, but still sexual fetish.

Have you ever felt judged in your dating life because of your career?

Yes. I am seen as 100 percent novelty, like I wanna have sex with you because you’re either a camgirl, a cake-sitter, an artist, but I do not want a relationship with a camgirl, a cake-sitter, an artist. I don’t date. I don’t have long term relationships anymore, where I very much did before I participated in any type of sex work or my art being so sexually charged. It’s become less important, and the intimacy that I have comes from my relationships with people in my chat room and other sex workers that are friends. It comes from my community now.

Now for some fun questions. Dating apps or in real life?

Oh my gosh. They’re both kind of hard for me.*laughs* I’m gonna say IRL.

Hand job or oral?

Definitely oral.

Sub or dom?

I mean, I’m a sub, and I like to dom-ed.

Favorite position?

It’s been so long, Eileen—can that be my answer? Actually masturbating.

Sex on the first date or no?

I’ve never not had sex on the first date.

How do you let someone know you like them?

I’d probably make fun of them.

Have you ever hooked up with someone from a DM?

Actually yeah, I’m gonna change my answer to the first question. It’s not dating apps, it’s not IRL—it’s definitely DMs. That’s some of the best sex I’ve ever had.

Have you ever sent a DM trying to hook up with someone, or is it more like you receive them and then…?

I’m on the receiving end. I haven’t found it necessary to send or I haven’t gone through with it because I’m such a sub. I like to be pursued.

Do you send nudes? Like non-work related?

*laughs* No, because it feels wrong not to receive money for it.

Do you have any advice on taking nudes?

Interesting. Yeah, lighting. I have a blue light in my room that diffuses all cellulite. I don’t know if that’s just on me, but you can get an LED blue light strip, and it’s kind of like PhotoShop. I do not cam or take selfies or nudes without this neon-fluorescent blue light. It just makes everything look perfect.

How do you deal with rejection?

That’s something that I actually learned to deal with in my chat room. I have been told the absolute worst things about myself in my chat room.

What?!

But I’ve been told the absolute best things, so I know that there are people who aren’t attracted to me, and I know that there are people that are attracted to me. I don’t feel it as a rejection, it just is.

That’s a really mature way to look at it.

But also it’s the truth.

But I think a lot of people live in that denial zone.

I think that people want to be attractive to everyone, but you’re never gonna fulfill that, so why focus on something that you can never fulfill? There’s so much time lost in that. Focus on the people that are [attracted] to you.

Do you have people who return to your chat room?

I have people in my chat room from like day one that I’ve known for six years, since I started. I have people that I go out to drinks with and have completely platonic relationships with. Like I mentioned before, the intimacy in my life literally comes from my chat room. These people have become my IRL friends, because it’s like going out to drinks after work with your coworkers. It’s a no-judgement thing, also.

How do you get it to that point, can you walk me through the process?

I’m thinking about one person in particular. We have the same taste in music, and we send each other Spotify links all day. Once I realize a person is gonna keep tipping me and we get along, I don’t have a problem giving someone whose been so supportive of me my phone number and communicating outside of the chatroom. [But] it takes a long time, it’s not as quick as meeting someone in person. They’re just as tentative as I am. They don’t want their information shared; there’s a trust that has been build. There’s an honest friendship that might stem from masturbating together. Just because you did that doesn’t mean you can’t send a cool song to me later on.

It’s a different level of intimacy.

Yeah, and it’s like a relationship that hasn’t been defined yet, because camming hasn’t been around that long. The duality of a relationship, it’s like a friends with benefits type thing, but for the internet?

Do you ever feel like there’s a lot of shame on the other side? I think it’d be interesting if you could talk to everyone about how they’re feeling and ask them their reason for camming.

I feel like the people that are in my room are just horny, and/or wanna chat. I feel like it’s almost old school to say that people that seek out this type of relationship are ashamed or socially unaware. Like no, I just think it’s a different interaction. There’s a certain amount of confidence you have to have to engage with a person performing on the internet, because camming with someone is a step further than porn. If you wanna attach shame to it and just get it done, then go on a free site and watch some illegally downloaded shit. When you go on a cam site you are choosing to interact with someone, you’re choosing to pay someone. I actually think there’s pride in it—which is really special. I’m not naive in thinking that there’s no fetish attached to giving someone money for a sexual exchange, but I also think there is pride in it.

What is something that you’re hopeful for?

The current political climate sucks—it is actually targeting sex workers and the sex industry, which in turn has given sex workers and the sex industry a huge boost and bigger platform to speak about what we do. So even in this negativity, we’re more visible and I think we’re being humanized. That’s light to me. We’re getting shit-on, but people can see us and there’s more conversation being had and I think people care more. I think that’s the positivity in it that I can lend. I feel like I have a voice right now.

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