“I have had a few Cabinet ministers over my knee”

Melissa Todd on kink, comedy, and why she loves her life as a sex worker and writer

Melissa Todd has a show, Gag Writer, at the Faversham Fringe on Sunday 12 October, where she will be joking about her experiences as a kink sex worker. Steven spoke with her to discuss how she started sex work, her books, and who is the most famous person she has ever spanked.

Melissa Todd.

What is your official occupation?
Gosh, I’m a disciplinarian kink model and porn producer, but I also write books and articles, and apparently, I do shows at Faversham Fringe, which is a surprise to me.

Do you have any other additional roles, paid or unpaid?
I have property as well. I’m a landlord, I guess. I’m kind of embarrassed about it, but there it is. Porn brings a lot of money. I didn’t know what else to do with it, and I’m very nice. All my tenants are on benefits with massive dogs.

That’s a whole thing in itself. “I made all this money in porn, I don’t know what to do with it, I’ve become a landlord.”
I get no sympathy.

You’re also a columnist?
Yes, I write for Metro, KentOnline, and Love It! magazine, from whom I got this book out a couple of months ago. It’s my 129 best-ever columns in Love It! It was meant to be 120, but I can’t count it, turns out.

You mentioned your book of columns, but that isn’t your first book. What was your first book?
My first book is called My Body is My Business. That came out in 2021, and it’s a fictionalised account of my career in the sex industry. Moving through from stripping into webcam and into domination and porn. But it is fictionalised. It’s about 80% true, but I don’t really like biographies. I’ve got an MA in Creative Writing. I thought, I’ll make use of that and fictionalise it. That way, if there’s anything my husband objects to, I can just say “Oh, that’s not true.”

How did you first enter sex work?
Oh gosh, I just answered an ad in the Evening Standard. I was reading Philosophy, Politics, Economics, but I went mad, which a lot of people do in their first year. I just hated it. It wasn’t for me. I dropped out and decided to take a year out to become less mad.
During the course of that year, I saw this ad in the Evening Standard saying dancers wanted, you’ll make £600 a night, no experience necessary. I loved dancing and money, and I had no experience of anything at all. I thought this is ideal. That year out became, well, 30 years out and counting. I’d always been naughty. I never really liked following the rules, doing as I was told. I’d always been interested in sex work. My mum used to take me around Soho when I was about seven or eight, and I was fascinated by all the models in the window and the thigh-high boots and all of that. I know feminists always say, ‘No little girl ever dreams of being a stripper,’ but I really did. I always thought that was going to be the life for me. It’s been brilliant, and I regret nothing.

How would you describe kink?
Oh, what an interesting question. I don’t know. I suppose it’s any sort of sexual interest that isn’t straightforward missionary with the lights off.
My particular version of kink is mainly spanking, causing people pain or having pain done to me. But I do other sorts of kink as well. I do people who are interested in feet or splosh or wee occasionally or bursting balloons. Yes, it’s anything that’s sexually interesting that isn’t normally sexualised, I suppose. If you’re into tits, that’s not kink. But if you’re into toenails, that seems more unusual. That’s a really cute question. Why have I never thought to ask myself that?

I’m slightly worried, but I’ve started, so I’ll finish. What is splosh?
Oh, it’s when people get covered in custard and food stuff, baked beans, chilli sauce, yoghurt, meringues. There’s a lot of that about at the moment.

For want of better phrasing, how did you get into kink?
Well, I was stripping in Soho, which I guess is another story. But a man came in, and he was a model talent scout for a spanking magazine. I always had a very nice bum and legs. That was my thing. Still do, not quite as much, but they’re not bad. He asked if I wanted to model for his magazine, Janus, which is a hugely famous thing. It’s still going. There was a Janus shop in Old Compton Street at the time. I didn’t really think about it. I just went, ‘Yeah, that sounds a laugh.’
He took me to the back of his shop. I was such a naive, I still am really. Took down my pants for him, and he gave me a spanking, and I absolutely loved it. I really did. It turned out I passed that audition and made his day. I started modelling for him, and once you’re in, it’s hard to get out, really. I met lots of other models who I started doing videos with. The internet was just starting to be a thing. I was making content for websites. Then all these models seemed to be incredibly wealthy, and they were offering one-to-one sessions with chaps, and I thought, ‘Oh, I bet I could do that.’ It turned out I could. It was a natural ability, just talking shit for an hour and hitting people. Well, the hitting people took me longer to get, actually, the talking shit I managed. I’d never played hockey or tennis or anything. It took me a little while to get my hand-eye coordination in, because hitting people with sticks is actually quite tricky. If you get it wrong, you can do them serious damage. But I’m fine now. I’ve got it sorted after 20 years of effort.

In that time, has the British relationship with kink changed?
Certainly, the relationship with the sex industry has changed. It’s blamed for absolutely everything. Now, obviously, the relationship with porn is changing all the time and becoming much trickier. With kink, I think it’s quite similar. I think maybe it’s become a little bit more mainstream. But it’s still very much nudge, nudge, wink, wink. I think we’re still where we were with gay people, maybe 30 years ago, that it is still the punchline to the joke that nobody asked to hear, particularly with men, actually. I think men who like being hurt recreationally are seen as inevitably ridiculous, particularly in the media. Fat, sweaty twat in a gimp suit is the usual stereotype. I’d probably get off more lightly because the idea of a woman wanting to hurt men is seen as more reasonable. People tend to see me as a hero. But yeah, I think it still is seen as taboo and hilarious and risible. I’m not sure why that is. But we’re not where gay liberation is. Kink liberation is a long way behind.