Meet Tara Indiana, the Dominatrix Running for President Against Donald Trump

Impact

There are two reasons why Tara Indiana, 48, is running for president. "I'm more honest than Donald Trump and have less skeletons in the closet than Hillary Clinton," the sex worker and independent presidential candidate said in a phone interview. 

"I'm running to bring attention to how messed-up the political process has become...and I'm representing the BDSM community. [We] can affect political change through humor." 

This dominatrix is running for president and she's dedicated to taunting Donald Trump about his (presumably) tiny penis all along the campaign trail. And although Indiana's campaign might be tongue-in-cheek, many of the issues she's highlighting with her candidacy, such as sex workers' rights, are quite serious. 

John Nystrom

Tara Indiana, 48, has been a businesswoman in the kink community for more than two decades. She founded New York City's iconic BDSM club Den of Iniquity and trained hundreds of dominatrixes before relocating to her current home in Los Angeles. 

Last May, Indiana announced that she's running for president at DomCon 2016, a fetish convention in California. Then she started a public Amazon wish list with tiny dildos, urging her supporters to send them to Republican opponent Donald Trump to publicly humiliate him.

Indiana feels Trump's virility is fair game in light of his sexist attacks against female reporters and politicians like Hillary Clinton, as well as the fact that he gloated about the size of his own junk on live TV. 

Trump infamously mocked Marco Rubio's hands during a Republican debate, saying, "if they're small, something else must be small." "I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee you," Trump said. 

"He got up during the Republican [debate] and told the American people that he is well-hung," Indiana said. "So now I feel like he should have to prove it...he has all the hallmarks of somebody with small penis syndrome." 

Mary Burge

As a woman who boasts of dominating thousands of men throughout her career, Indiana believes Trump's impulsiveness, his tendency to pontificate about his 'powerful' businesses and his penchant for putting his name on skyscrapers all point to his dangerous insecurity. 

"As a sex worker, one of the things I've noticed over the years is that the guys with really tiny micro-penises, those are the guys who are the pickiest...and the most critical about female appearance," she said.  (Trump has notoriously attacked women for how they look, notoriously criticizing former rival Carly Fiorina.) 

She believes that Trump must be taken seriously. "He's just dangerous," she said. "He must be stopped." 

Misa Martin

Indiana isn't that this isn't just a media stunt. In fact, as a self-made business person, she thinks she's far more qualified than Trump to run for president, especially because she believes that Trump lacks any semblance of self-control. 

"If he had any sense of self-preservation he would have pivoted to the middle a long time ago...but he can't stop himself," Indiana said. 

Currently, 43 states allow write-in candidates for presidential elections. Indiana, a registered Libertarian, is working with a campaign staff of 15 people to become an official write-in candidate in dozens of states across the country. 

Each state has its own rules: for example, in California Indiana must acquire petition signatures to get on the ballot. But with her personal slave working as her campaign manager and several porn stars endorsing her candidacy, Indiana is optimistic about her prospects. 

Tara Indiana

While one might think Indiana's campaign is something of a joke, she's serious about her campaign platform, which includes decriminalizing sex acts between consenting adults (such as sex workers) and ending discrimination against kink communities. 

The latter issue is especially close to her heart. Law-abiding people in the kink community are often penalized for their sex lives, even if they strive to keep their predilections private. 

For instance, it's not unheard of for parents in the BDSM community to lose custody of their children, and there is scant legal protection for people who might, say, get fired because an employer finds out about their sexual preferences. "I can't count how many of my friends lost their jobs when they got outed [as kinky]," Indiana said.

Indiana hopes her campaign will shine light on some of these issues and show how protecting the rights of kinky Americans is really a fight for individual liberty. 

"It's like we don't exist," she said. "We need our history written down... a people cannot have rights until they have history."