Venus Cuffs is part of a lineage of Black femmes who have used refusal and strong boundaries to reclaim power.

“I feel the most empowered when I say no,” says Venus Cuffs, an alternative lifestyle expert based in New York City. Cuffs, who once worked as a dominatrix, is part of a lineage of Black femmes who have used their positions to reclaim power — a strategy we’ll unspool post haste.

Mistress Velvet, the late Black femme domme who famously made her white clients read bell hooks, understood the same thing: the queer art of sabotage isn’t about tearing things down. It’s about survival in the form of refusal, boundary and redirection.

“Me saying ‘no’ has been met with like, ‘How dare you?’ My refusal to participate is offensive to people,” Cuffs says, recalling the backlash she faced for refusing race play in predominantly white kink communities. Her words point to a familiar script: the demand that Black femmes be endlessly available, compliant or grateful. Her refusal interrupts that script.

For Cuffs, refusal is the point. Rejecting race play meant rejecting the broader cultural script insisting Black women perform whatever role is demanded of them. “Race is nothing to play about,” she says. That refusal was sabotage. But walking away from the scene allowed Cuffs to stay aligned with her integrity.

Cuffs’ “no” became the foundation for something new. Leaving the scene didn’t just protect her; it opened the door to a creative and personal realignment that became political resistance.

“I broke off from the main scene and started my own dungeon,” she recalls. “I decided I don’t need to deal with this, and neither does my community.”

She founded Spread, a 4,000-square-foot Brooklyn dungeon where queer BDSM practitioners could host sessions and hold power dynamics safely. Spread quickly gained traction. The choice to open it was a declaration as much as a business move: fuck you to exclusionary spaces, fuck yes to something better.

“Refusal means refusing to follow the path we have been told to walk when our instincts tell us otherwise,” Madison Young, a filmmaker and sex educator in the Bay Area, tells........

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