January Seraph Passes Away

LOS ANGELES—January Seraph, an internationally known dominatrix, fetish model and performer, has passed away.  The circumstances of her passing had not been confirmed at post time, but Seraph, also known as Mistress January, was in her early 30s when she died Saturday in San Francisco. Seraph started her adult industry career in 2007, compiling more than 50 credits as a performer including several for Kink.com. A popular pro domme who built a high profile in the tight-knit fetish community, her body of work also included titles for Digital Sin, Severe Society Films, Sweetheart Video, Lakeview Entertainment, Jewell Marceau and Venus Girl Productions as well as several appearances on Latex Fashion TV. “We knew her really well when we were first starting out,” Dee Severe, co-owner of Severe Society Films, told AVN Sunday. “We shot with her a lot and then she moved to San Francisco and we just kind of kept in touch and when she was in town we’d have a lunch or something. “Around 2007-08 when we were starting Severe Society, she was in a lot of our stuff. She was so nice—one of the first people in the business who really was producing fetish porn that we’d met. She was so sweet, so gorgeous. We did all kinds of really fun stuff with her in a lot of our earlier DVDs.” Severe recalled a particularly memorable collaboration when she hired Seraph for her “Tickle Torture” series on Clips4Sale. “I remember both us tickling the hell out of Jewell Marceau, who was the worst tickle victim. It was a hilarious tickle clip,” Severe continued. “She was one of the first people we really had a camaraderie with and we thought OK, we’re really in this fetish production community, we’re a part of it now.” She added, “When I think of her I just think of all the really happy times we had. I’m just really heartbroken. She mentored a lot of people. She was a wonderful person and a role model for so may other dommes.” Seraph, who was also a passionate BDSM educator and prolific fem-dom video producer, owned the production company Seraph OmniMedia and ran JanuarySeraph.net.  Veteran photographer/director Jay Allan shared fond memories of working with Seraph.