Expressing the Dark Feminine Through Sensual Movement
Crimson Minx, owner of Austin's Minx + Muse feminine playhouse, shares her journey to sexual empowerment.
Here at Yes, Misstrix, I often have the pleasure of speaking with amazing people doing fascinating work in the realm of sex, sensuality, sexuality and desire. This week, I’m sharing part one of my conversation with Crimson Minx. Ms. Minx is the founder of Austin's Minx + Muse feminine playhouse and a badass teacher of sensual movement and esoerotic dance. In this portion of our conversation, she shares her journey to sexual empowerment.
Yes, Misstrix: Let’s start with an introduction. Please tell the readers a little bit about yourself, and how you became the Creatrix behind Minx and Muse.
Crimson Minx: My name is Crimson, and goodness, that's a tough one. So, I guess my backstory within this industry is that around 2013, I started my sensual dance journey as well as my witchcraft journey. I discovered these two new self-empowering paths around the same time, and I became completely immersed in both of them.
I'm from New Jersey, but at this time, I was living in Los Angeles. A few years later, I moved to Austin in 2016. I opened the studio in October 2017. The whole intention of the studio was to embrace the dark feminine—this sexual, sensual, taboo style of dance along with the dark feminine energy of magic and witchcraft. And so, within the studio, we've really embraced and practice both of these things.
YM: Very cool! Can you tell me a little more about how your journey of sensual movement began, and how that became intertwined with this journey of witchcraft?
CM: I’d spent most of my adult life in New York City up into that point, so when I moved to Los Angeles around 2012, I really didn’t have friends, and I was looking for a social network there. I remember when I was at work, there was this place near my office that I would see when we went to lunch. It said Secret Pole Dance Studio in big red letters across the top. And I was like, oh my gosh. I so naïve at the time because pole dancing wasn't as big back then, but I thought it was a stripper training place. That’s why I never judge people when they just assume anyone who sensual dances or pole dances is a stripper. Because I get it. I’ve been there.
But yeah, there was a site called LifeBooker, which was similar to Groupon and it was really big at the time. It came up that you could buy classes to the studio, and I was like, ‘Wait, that’s some place I could go just as a mere human.’ So, I got the class special, and I went and checked it out. I was completely obsessed from class one because when I walked in, I've been very blessed that this studio that I started this sensual feminine dance journey was very unapologetic, very sex-positive, very sensuous in their movement.
When I took my first class, people were in bikinis and high heels. I was so amazed by the freedom and so many feminine bodies and how fun and friendly everyone was. That's really what lured me in. I think that if I had pursued dance or pole dance in a more fitness-focused or even a classically trained dance environment, I would have dropped out immediately because that was not the allure to me. I'm really blessed that I found a studio that did not highlight those things and was very much about finding your sexy, loving your body and dirty dancing [laughs]. I was there until I left Los Angeles, so I took classes for maybe like three-and-a-half, four years.
I definitely went and tried out different places just to get a taste of what was going on elsewhere. I would go to pole dance conventions and expos and travel to see shows and take workshops and stuff. So, I definitely saw what was out there, and I was just really into it. But I also knew that I wanted to leave Los Angeles. I kind of had it in my mind that I wanted to open my own studio, but I wanted it to be very different from most of the places I saw out there.
I started because the pole dance, but I stayed because of the sensual dance in general. I, like many people, fell into the trappings of wanting to learn all of the tricks, and it can get very fitness- and strength-based. Well, I kept injuring myself every time I tried to do that, and you know, in retrospect, that's the Universe saying, ‘That's not what you're here to do. Stop.’ After getting injured enough, aha, it became really clear to me that that wasn't even what lit me up. Those weren't even the classes that I liked, and I was putting unnecessary pressure on myself. So, I went back to the dance aspect and the floorwork and the striptease. All of those things were really what turns me on about sensual dance.
I wanted to have a studio that really held those boundaries, and that is really what we do. We don't do any kind of inversions or aerial tricks here at the studio. In fact, we are very limited in the pole classes that we offer. We really prioritize all kinds of sensual dance. That's floorwork, that’s striptease and chair work, and that’s different standing-style dances. We do all different kinds of styles of dances that do not necessitate a pole and are very sensual, embodied and esoerotic in nature.
YM: Tell me about the term ‘esoerotic’. What does it mean and how does it come into play at the studio?
CM: So, I coined the word ‘esoerotic’ to try to describe this style of dance because I didn't want it to be performative. I didn't want it to be like, ‘Oh, you're doing this to please your man’ or ‘You're doing this because you want to go make money somewhere.’ This was literally about an internal transformation. I don't really care what people on Instagram think about it or anything like that. It’s totally meant for you.
Esoerotic is the combination of the words ‘esoteric’ and ‘erotic.’ We know erotic. It’s a very sexy, sensual, raw style of movement, but then ‘eso’ means internal. So, it's an internal practice that we use to connect to our bodies and our Goddess-given sensuality. That is really what we try to practice at the studio. We are helping people connect to their bodies, reclaim their sexual sovereignty, and find the power and pleasure in owning their sexual and sensual expression.
We’re also really trying to bring the feminine back to this style movement, but not in such a characteristically pure and ethereal way. We like weird. We're the dark feminine, so we go deep [laughs].
YM: I love that, and I would love to hear a little bit about what the dark feminine is. How does that come into play during the classes? What can it look like in practice?
CM: Sure, so, the dark feminine are the tabooer aspects of feminine energy. Some aspects of the dark feminine are sexuality, witchcraft, the shadow, pleasure, necessary destruction, fears, protection and things like that. If you want to think about this in terms of Goddesses, you think of Kali, Hecate, Sekhmet—these powerful dark Goddesses. Lilith, that’s a big one at the studio. We like to align with that energy.
A lot of times, when we picture the feminine, we picture a white caftan twirling in a field, but really, the feminine is the darkness, you know? It is the shadow; it's the subconscious. That's what we embrace. That means our movement is very sensual and pleasure based. That means that we don't shy away from sexual expression, and it means that we actually find a connection to our sexual energy through dance and outside of intercourse, which is really big to us. It’s important to reclaim your sexual energy and not feel like it's something that is reserved for someone else or even just for self-pleasure or masturbation or something like that.
You can harness and connect with your sexual energy through a very specific style of dance. That has a lot of hip movements and gyration. This is why we do a lot of the witchcraft, magical and soulful aspects of the dark feminine in here as well. We also offer a lot of classes that include journaling and self-reflection, so we can tap into that shadow aspect of ourselves and really unearth something deeper. Then we can move those things somatically through our body using dance or movement.
We have classes where students can learn tarot and astrology and spell-casting and all that, but we go even deeper. It’s about this aspect of reflecting upon yourself and finding how you can show up in your power. It’s finding how we can work with ourselves energetically. And, of course, sensual dance is a very powerful way to impact your energy body.
We wanted to be holistic. We don't want to just dance, right? We want to ask, ‘What are we dancing through? or What are we dancing into and how can we use dance and movement to shift our energy? How can we then use this energy that we’ve just cultivated outside of the dance classes? How can we intentionally use it to magically craft the world around us?’
So, because when we harnessing all this energy, we’re showing up in our life in a much more ignited, creatrix energy. Our sexual energy is our magnetism, it's our ability to manifest, it's our lifeforce energy. It's our creativity, you know? We learn how to access it here. We also talk about how we use this to reclaim this side of ourselves. Then, we talk about what happens afterward.
Now that you’ve reclaimed this aspect of yourself and cleared out or passed stuck energy, and now that you're really showing up in an abundance of this energy, how are you going to intentionally use that outside of class, throughout your day or in your spellcasting or in your intention setting? How are you going to use the energy to create your dream life?
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
P.S. Did you enjoy part one of my interview with Crimson Minx? Stay tuned next week as we continue our conversation. We’ll be talking about embodying sexual energy, the importance of shadow work and why Sex and the City may not be the best resource for learning to own your sexuality.
P.P.S. Know someone who is working on sexual empowerment or who might benefit from Crimson’s wisdom? Share the post using the link below.