Overall, 2023 has been a pretty good year for me, and I hope it’s been mostly good for everyone reading this. There were the inevitable ups and downs, and it really did fly by! In no time at all it’ll be January 1st – hopefully I won’t be lying in bed that morning with too bad of a hangover!
There were some memorable photoshoots this year, too many to list them all, but here are some highlights: The recent Velma shoot with Jessica Kat was just a lot of fun and it’s definitely going to be one of my all-time favorites. I really put Jessica through the wringer, and she handled it like a pro. Also, the recent spreadeagle scene with Milf Jeanne was also a lot of fun. We stayed in a funky little motel on the coast, the kind of place I normally would never check into, but the room turned out to have a bed with a massive frame to lash someone off to – it was perfect for a spreadeagle. And Jeanne looked sexy and helpless all stretched out!
It was also great to finally meet up with Chrissina Lovegag, who came all the way from Germany for a vacation in L.A. We had a lot of fun and of course she’s totally into it!
There were also several new models this year, including TS Natalie Carnot, who’s talented and enthusiastic, and of course amazing looking. And there were lots of other fun and hot scenes, especially with Ruby Bunny and Klintelle Moore, plus several other new models this year including Marissa Nicole, Mink Deville, and TS Ana, all of whom appeared in some nice scenes.
As always, I’m extremely grateful for all the loyal visitors to the site who’ve joined and become paying members and supporters of the site. And to the long-term members – you know who you are – thank you all so much! I plan to keep the site going for as long as I can, and I really could not do it without all of you! (Continued below):
My So-Called Life – In some ways I’m married to Trannies in Trouble. The site really does run my life and I’m usually doing something to manage the site every day. I try to take some days off, but I know I don’t take as many as I should. I’ve gotten many positive emails over the year, though, including from people who have written to say the site has helped them accept themselves and accept their kinks or their dressing or their gender identity in a significant way. Most of the time I do think that Trannies in Trouble is the best thing I’ve ever done with my life. But I’ll admit, on some days when I’m feeling tired and worn out, I sometimes wonder if it was the wisest career path to take. There’s certainly no pension for folks running tranny bondage websites, and it is work that’s far out of the norm in this sex-negative society that we live in – that reality can come with some stress. Some of those emails, though, that I’ve received over the years really do make it worthwhile. I know the site has meant a lot to many people over the years – and that’s very satisfying.
I started Trannies in Trouble because, first, I wanted to see a website that featured the kind of bondage you’d see in the Harmony Concepts magazines from the ’80s and ’90s but featuring crossdressers. Another big reason for starting the site, though, is that I really didn’t know in my late thirties what kind of work to pursue. I’d already done several jobs, some of them quite odd, like the adult bookstore clerk gig, but nothing seemed to really fit, and I’ve always been a bit of a loner and an odd duck. So I had this crazy dream that maybe I could make a living with a tranny bondage website. It’s pretty much worked out that way, though if I’d known then what I know now I honestly don’t know if I would have done things the same.
Of course, I’m not saying all of this to get any sympathy from anyone. We all have days when we question the significance of what we’re doing in life, and I’m certainly no different in that regard. The fact that I’m doing something out of the mainstream probably only leads me to question things even more, especially as I get older and more reflective. But don’t get me wrong. I’m very pleased that the website is closing in on twenty-one years online. And I want to keep it going for as long as I can since there are so few sites out there that feature CDs and trans girls in bondage. It really surprises me that there aren’t more sites like T’s in Trouble. When it comes to genetic females, of course, there are loads of them.
By the way, on social media I almost always refer to Trannies in Trouble as T’s in Trouble due to the controversy over the T-word. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually my Twitter account were to get deleted since both Twitter and Facebook consider the word tranny to be hate speech. (More here if you haven’t already read my recent post on the subject.)
The Tubes – There are of course inevitable challenges in running a paysite, especially in the age of Pornhub. I generally try to avoid lecturing people who watch videos on Boundhub and other rip-off sites like xHamster, since most people aren’t even aware of how those sites work. Many even think that I have something to do with my videos being posted on the tube sites – Believe me, I don’t.
The tube sites basically provide a platform to repost producers’ videos without their permission, and the tube site itself is the one that earns money off this stolen material through advertising and sometimes their own paid memberships. Pornhub has actually cleaned up its act quite a bit after being busted by the NY Times, but most of the tube sites are full of stolen videos reposted without permission. I always say that if Steve Villa and Jim Hunter (and all the other producers out there) got a dime for every viewing on those sites, they (and I) would all be rich many times over.
But the tube sites aren’t going away. Most of them are hosted in foreign countries and even if they were in the States, they’re actually protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against liability for what their users upload. In a way their business model is brilliant. It’s morally dubious but appears completely legit, offering the user the digital equivalent of shoplifting but without any sense of wrongdoing attached. But Pornhub is really the one that initially changed the landscape of online fetish material and how people view it nowadays. If I’d known this was coming twenty years ago, I don’t know but I might have done things differently.
What Do All These Buttons Do? – Though some are of course better than others, the videos I’m shooting now are probably some of the best I’ve ever done. But I admit there may be a rawness to the early videos from the 2000s that I just can’t capture anymore. I really didn’t know what I was doing with the camera back then, and I know some viewers actually prefer that less polished, “amateur” look. There was one loyal member (who’s since died, I’m pretty sure) who absolutely loved my site but when he wrote he would always refer to things that I shot in like 2009! The really early stuff, though, just makes me wince. Even with the rawness factor taken into consideration, from a technical standpoint some of it was just terrible. Even today I keep trying to get better. The sad thing is that now when I watch bondage videos so much of what I see are the mistakes and errors.
In any case I hope this blog post isn’t kind of a bummer or give the false impression that I think running my website for over twenty years was all a huge mistake. It’s certainly not. But the reality of running a website today versus the daydreams I had back in the day are very different. Still, even with the challenges, it’s been satisfying and rewarding.
On that note, let me just say thank you again to all the loyal followers and members and supporters of the site! I hope everyone has a nice time over the holidays and a fun and safe New Year’s Eve. Take care of yourself, and we’ll see you in 2024! Hugs, Sandra
