We recently had the chance to connect with AM Davies and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning AM, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is a normal day like for you right now?
I work nearly every day of my life, but I spend that time doing the things I love most: supporting sex workers, caring for our animals, and tending to our home. My days are full of organizing, coordinating with community members through meetings, panels, and social media projects.
At the same time, I devote myself to animal care and rehabilitation. That means feeding and looking after turtles, fish, snakes, and even alligators, alongside our house pets, dogs, cats, and a bearded dragon. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also a life that’s deeply meaningful to me.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Right now, I’m focused on building YAS Work, the nonprofit my team and I started to shift public perception of adult work through media and consulting. One of our central projects is the YAS Podcast (formerly known as Yes, a Stripper Podcast), which has been running since 2020 with an incredible roster of hosts including Daisy Ducati, Onyx Sachi, GiGi Holliday, and Lisa Michelle.
When I had to step away from in-person adult entertainment, I turned my energy toward advocacy. Becoming a below-the-knee amputee was devastating, but it also placed me in a position of privilege, giving me the time and resources to fight for the community I love most.
Today, YAS Work is raising funds to expand our efforts: creating opportunities for adult workers to share their expertise and use their lived experience to educate the broader public. This work is not easy — especially in the current climate, with economic strain and hostile political decisions, but we continue to build, create, and persist. Because our community deserves nothing less.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
Losing my lower left limb was a life changing experience for me. It has been extremely humbling and allowed me to experience true hardship, discrimination and being othered. Once I could no longer work as a stripper, I was forced to become more introspective, as I had a lot of time on my hands. I realized, once I was no longer hyper-feminizing myself for my work, that I identify as bigender. It also gave me perspective on what it’s like to be treated differently. Before my accident, I moved through the world as a white, able bodied woman, who had an easy time finding opportunities all around me. Since becoming disabled, I’ve felt first had what it’s like to be dismissed, disregarded and forgotten about.
The experience of becoming disabled and identifying differently has shown me firsthand what others have been dealing with in a society that rewards normative behaviors and appearances. It has also helped me reflect on what is important to me regarding relationships in my life, what I will and won’t allow into my space. In survival mode, before my accident and during my healing time, I was making decisions about relationships based on what I needed to sustain, whether that was for sex, money or community acceptance. Since I’ve found myself in a safe place, the choices I make of who and what I allow into my orbit are very different than the choices I’ve made in the past.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering has taught me about success. It taught me to ask myself, “what is the definition of success?” Which is something I never asked myself before. I used to think that success was about how much money someone made. Buying a house and nice cars and having nice things. But since experiencing a massive amount of loss from my accident, which was not just my leg, but my career, my main source of income, so many friends I can’t even count, the place I lived in for 22 years, identity, a sense of belonging and the admiration of thousands of people, my view of success is vastly different.
Now, I believe success is measured on having love, peace and stability in life, no matter how much money we have. If there is food, if there is a roof, if there is love, honesty, affection and support, I believe that is success. I have realized how much emphasis society, messaging from media and social media puts on amassing millions of dollars, and less on relationship health and wellbeing. If we are to live together, we must learn how to be together, tolerate each other and be open to learning from each other. We learn about George Washington in school, but not about how to speak to each other, or how to listen, or what consent even means. Pushing back on the conditioning by society, stepping out of the mainstream thinking and seeing the world for what it really is, is success.
The constructs that we have built as a society is meant to keep us under control, and breaking free of that conditioning is, in my opinion, the first step to success. Success to me is happiness and a regulated nervous system, and not about monetization. Success to me is decolonizing the mind and breaking free of the messaging, “if you don’t have all this money, you are not successful.” If I didn’t suffer for several years from physical, emotional and mental anguish, I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to figure it all out, as a once “successful” and able bodied person.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
I used to believe that Democrats were better than Republicans, that we can trust them to do the right thing. I now see that they are also a part of a system that is set up to manipulate the masses and keep us under control. The American system that was set up by white men, was done so by stealing land, murdering Indigenous people and by enslaving Black people, who literally build the structures we have used for centuries. A system built such as ours has never been one that is meant for all classes, races, or sexes.
How can we believe in a government that maintains constructs that have harmed people from the beginning? My devolvement from both parties has given me perspective, as well as learning from Indigenous and other people of color. I am on the side of the people, and what is best for them, and no longer affiliate with one side as I had before. I used to only vote Democrat, and now I vote third party. Even then, I’m not sure if a third party will make a difference, since they would still be operating under the current system.
Where I was naive, was believing that society is educated and tolerant enough to embrace all walks of life, the mentally unwell, the disabled, migrant people. I was wrong thinking that if we had the right person in the White House, meaning a Democrat, that our problems would be lesser. But now I see, they are also playing the game and operating in a system that still pushes out marginalized groups. They also deport, they also exclude, they also follow the rules of America, a country built on kidnapping, murder and lies.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I can say with certainty that I’ve never lived my life by doing what I was told. Quite the opposite. From the beginning, I was born to question everything and push back against what society insists is “normal” or “good.” I’ve been pushing boundaries and making people uncomfortable for as long as I can remember.
When I was ten years old, I boycotted church and told my parents, “If you take me again, it will be with me kicking and screaming.” They never made me go back. In fact, they stopped going too, realizing they were only attending because it was what they thought they were supposed to do, not because they believed.
That instinct, to resist, to question, to refuse to conform, has guided me all my life. It’s what drew me to sex work, a profession that challenges society’s most rigid rules around morality, money, and power. It’s what continues to fuel my advocacy: pushing people to confront systems we were all born into without our consent, and to imagine something freer, more honest, and more human.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://yaswork.org
- Instagram: @amdavies_
- Other: BlueSky: @yaswork
Image Credits
Two people in the desert, left to right, Daisy Ducati, Onyx Sachi. Second person in the podcast image with me on the right: Daisy Ducati
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
