Research & Publications
My research examines the fantasies and sexual drives that organize the regulation of sexuality, race, and labor in the United States. I performed ethnographic fieldwork in commercial dungeons and with independent dominatrixes in NYC from 2022-2023.
You can find a recording of my public talk as the 2025-2026 Scholar-in-Residence at CLAGS: The Center for LBTQ Studies here.
Recent Publications:
Sparks, Kassandra. 2025. Theaters of Perversity: The BDSM Sex Economy in New York City. PhD Dissertation, University of California.
Sparks, Kasasndra. 2024. “Missing the Mark. “Missing the Mark”: Objectified Fantasies of Self and Other in Commercial BDSM.” WSQ 52(3-4).
Chen, Lena and Kassandra Sparks. 2024. “The Erotic Intimacy of Gift Exchange.” Sex Work Now. Barton, Bernadette, Brents Barbara, and Angela Jones, eds. New York: New York University Press.
Coombes, Emily, Danielle Blunt, Ariel Wolf, and Kassandra Sparks, 2022. “Disabled Sex Workers’ Fight for Digital Rights and Platform Accessibility.” Disabled Studies Quarterly. 42(2).
Sparks, Kassandra. 2022. “Sex Work, the Victim, and the Anti-Trafficking Movement,” Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays. Fischer, Nancy and Laurel Westbrook, eds. Abingdon: Routledge.