JULY 2 UPDATE: @BARDOTSMITH is now @ICONOCLASTIAE

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Darlings. 

It's finally happened. We've all seen this coming for a while, given the state of technofascism under which we currently exist. But the impotent cowards at twitter have finally banned my account @BARDOTSMITH. The specific reason is not important (I told some rapey bitch hobbyist account to seppuku, if you must know), but the technique of inconsistently enforcing their TOS to ban radicals, queers, activists, and whores is apparent daily now. 

We've been watching as sites that built their platform on the backs of adult producers, cow to the demands of their "investors." (Investors, by the way, who FREQUENTLY patronize sex workers). These platforms would not have had the traction that they had in order to secure investment in the first place without us. They are cowards, and traitors to their own generation. 

Their blood must not be spared in this revolution.

With the internet being nearly HALF adult content and search traffic...The HYPOCRISY of contorting the web's development in ways that make it more difficult for individual producers to monetize their content while loudly screaming about INNOVATION and THE NEW ECONOMY is STUNNING.

Beyond that, it is THEFT. 

These companies are able to use our traffic flows to monetize their products and services, while we are expected to starve for the privilege. 

In 2015, I wrote about tech & finance's looming interoperability for the now-defunct MODEL VIEW CULTURE. NOW, As adult content creators are pushed off of financial technology, we lose access to the very SYSTEM of financial services that allow us to function in society. 

This is a modern form of redlining, and you BEST BELIEVE that it is the model for marginalization of other populations. 

This isn't even about sex work fundamentally. It is about whether or not a centralized, privately owned technology company has the right to decide whether you are "allowed" to charge and accept money for anything that you do or make. The amazing fuckery of the situation can be evidenced in the failure of free-market enthusiasts to spend a breath on this issue. Capitalism commoditizes everything about us, especially our time and bodies. Defaulting suddenly to a moralistic argument when (predominantly) women/queer/poc stand to benefit in ways that society deems them unworthy of benefit should tell you all you need to know about what's happening here. 

STAY VIGILANT.

In response to GIVE YOUR MONEY TO WOMEN, so many misguided responses involve schadenfreude / envy over the fact that its creators were getting money "for nothing," and many people lashed out defensively saying they would use fintech to accept payments for their "real" work but that demanding reparations/tribute/ or paywalling access to ourselves  was "greedy." You have all missed the point, and, as I said then, you would catch up eventually. We are poised on the the brink of war over our right to survive. 

Without having the same access to technology that every single civilian has, we are further marginalized. I fought for every person's right to paywall and monetize content, only to be met with sophomoric analysis and the variety of poorly sublimated-envy I've been working against my entire life. It's time to move beyond your experience of ME and deal with the information that I present. I've proven my forecasting abilities again and again. I'll not defend them anymore. I know what I'm saying, I can see where most cant. I'm never going to be sorry about.

I'm never going to shut up.

My new twitter account is @ICONOCLASTIAE, and shortly my tweet archive from @bardotsmith will be mirrored in html FOREVER. I know I have influenced many people to demand more for themselves, and if that alone renders me an outlaw, so be it. I was born a revolutionary, every abuse I've defeated has brought me to this point. I accept this. Come what may.

Beneath this mask there is more than flesh, Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.

When I began writing under @bardotsmith at the end of 2013, I knew that the world would always be able to dismiss any individual woman's perspective...but that in creating virality out of my ideas...by letting them live outside of me and beyond me, they would auto-propagate, and take hold in others. They would outlive me. 

This has never been about a name.
The last thing they want is for us to realize how powerful we are.
I want you to understand this, too.
 

#ONWARD,
xx, Ms Smith. 

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UPDATES: 

• I WILL BE IN LOS ANGELES FROM JULY 14-20. I have limited time for appointments, good boys can also offer to take care of errands and tasks for me while I'm there. 
   
• You can also sign up for my newsletter here. 
   
• Lauren Chief Elk and I will also be teaching the 4th installment of INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, called INTERLOCKING SYSTEMS. Stay tuned to twitter or this space for an announcement. 

Adoration.

YOU ARE ON THE LEDGE. AFRAID TO STEP OFF.

With each second that passes. The weight of your thoughts becomes heavier. 

You are coming undone. 

You've fought for a long time now to prevent yourself from falling. 

You understand that some powers are impossible to resist, and

some forces are inevitable. 

your trajectory is sealed. 

and as the clock ticks off the seconds of your life...

you know that you owe each one to me. 

XO, BARDOT. 

p.s. With each item, the story unfolds...

Brave Enough to Change the Worlds of Business & Sex

 I was recently A guest poster for MAKE LOVE NOT PORN.

headed by Cindy Gallop and curated by her Madam Curator, Sarah Beall. 

I chose to focus on the business of the sex industry and how my work here intersects with the financial, technological, and social issues at play.  

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An excerpt: 

I am an analyst turned hustler, and a…Mistress. My work presides at the intersection of financial technology, psychology, behavioral economics…and, the dark pool of the adult industry. I am the proprietress of BardotSmith.com and Mistres.se, a think tank and advisory firm for the intersection of adult industry and financial technology.

At the beginning of operating this enterprise, I chose to embody the ideals of feminine power at all levels of my existence, up to and including my business model. In effect, reversing the concepts of supply and demand in the adult industry to challenge the notion that women who work in any type of “adult” context are only able to operate as a result of male desire, and therefore subject to male power hierarchies, even within the industry.

From the outset, I adopted a unique strategy.

To read the rest of my thoughts on #SEXTECH and the business of KINK, FETISH, and FINANCE, read the full article on their blog. 

If you're not familiar with the MLNP project, it is worthy of the investment of time. Female-powered and innovative, challenging old world views of power, sex, and capital...Just how I like it. 

xo, Bardot. 

Silicon Valley's Cult of Male Ego

I've written an essay on sexual aggression in silicon valley tech and venture capital as a function of the fragility of male ego for Model View Culture. 

The systemic issues affecting the tech and venture capital industries are so deeply internalized that they remain unacknowledged. The effects of this willful ignorance are carried disproportionately by women. While it’s been discussed countless times, most efforts to address the issue in action -- no matter how well-intentioned -- fall flat beyond bandaging its symptoms. The irony of political correctness keeps us from getting to the heart of the issue, which is, naturally, not very polite:

The tech industry serves The Cult of Male Ego. And masculinity defined via the external is notoriously fragile around sexuality.

Read the full article HERE. 

Tinder and Little Boys' Toys.

The State of Tech right now is dire. Here's why.

[Please note, this analysis is not complete, open to conversation on it. Some initial, informal thoughts on the industry. Though, my time is at my own discretion, naturally...]

These thoughts are in reference to the *most* recent examples of misogyny and immaturity on behalf of a founder, Tinder's co-founder Justin Mateen and his dust-up with ex-girlfriend and ousted co-founder Whitney Wolfe. But they are certainly not isolated or applicable only to this instance. 

The issue of sexism in tech is not simply of management. The implications are far broader reaching due to the sheer number of people using products. The potential for global reach is not uncommon or unrealistic.

Much of it has been internalized. But unless you're completely unaware and sycophantic, it's nearly impossibly unpleasant to work in or around tech if you're a woman. Especially if you are an alpha....The disrespect of females at large is so engrained that we refuse to even address it as anything other than "natural." It's evident not only in the culture but its produce. 

Apps like tinder. Where women are encouraged to essentially offer themselves up as commodities. And, before you offer the argument that "men do the same thing." Please consider why men are on the app, and if they'd be there if the women were not. Thanks. 

And we are socially conditioned to consider this a success because of its steep user acquisition. But it's socially destructive and run -- like much of techs "successes" -- by manchildren with controlling and abusive tendencies. 

By viewing this as a personal exception (i.e. "He's just a jerk!") we fail to understand that the belief systems at play are responsible for the dynamics of the apps themselves. They are engineered to be in the interest of their creators and those like them. (Here: Beta males who need a shortcut to sex). 

Achieving market relevance is not sufficient proof that one is capable of sitting at the helm of a business that impacts a major segment of the population. The psychological maturity of men in their 20s is not developed, and this is yet another example, not an exception. 

In the past, younger men were initiated into the world of business by older, more experienced men. The ease of building and deploying apps has made it possible to skip this part of traditional career trajectory. Not entirely a bad thing for commerce, but a very nefarious influence in the social development of the industry itself. 

In my opinion, female leadership is resisted precisely because it is potent. But because it cannot be resisted in a direct manner, women are constantly met with passive-aggressive character assassination and resentment. It would be funny if it weren't so fucking common. 

The underlying psychodynamics of these situations are rarely addressed. They're responsible and explanatory of the behavior. But they're also kryptonite to the self-referential wonderland that tech has become. Micro-scale disturbances bubbling up to macro-scale events.

From my perspective, they are difficult to ignore. The center will not hold... 

Processing.

Imagine walking up. I am seated at a table. In public. Outside. 

Now you are Bowing. 

Transaction briskly Handled. Cash on the table. 

And without a word,

Her eyes sear into your plasma.

You are sent off. With no hope of forgetting. 

You crawl away.

Depleted. Rinsed. 

Did anyone notice? 

Do you even exist? 

xo, Bardot. 

If you've become addicted to My presence yet too fearful to approach, tribute by using Square Cash to email labardotsmith [at] gmail.com or visit My Fetish Shop. 

Venture.

“Darling. When men do it, it’s called a ‘strategic alliance.’”