London, UK
The bondage chairs and polished metal whipping tools sit gathering dust on a quiet street near London's trendy Shoreditch neighbourhood -- and Madame Caramel is not pleased.
The coronavirus lockdown has punished the London
dominatrix, whose Hoxton Dungeon Suite has stood silent for weeks.
"In
regards to the dungeon, completely stopped, zero percent, no income whatsoever,
and in regards to Madame Caramel as a professional dominatrix it is exactly the
same," said the red-haired self-proclaimed "femme domme".
"The
one-to-one... is gone, just the online stays," she told AFP.
In Europe's
red-light capital Amsterdam, sex work is due to officially resume in September.
Prostitution in the Netherlands is legal and regulated, which allows for more
support and structure during the coronavirus lockdown.
But many sex
workers in Britain and beyond are now moving online to make ends meet.
Fellow London
dominatrix Mistress Evilyne found success on the largely X-rated entertainment
platform OnlyFans, which has grown in popularity since it was founded in 2016.
She said a relatively successful OnlyFans account can bring
in about £800 ($1,000, 900 euros) a month, and is often supplemented with
content on other sites, such as Clips4Sale or iWantClips.
"Obviously
I can't do in-person meets anymore," Evilyne said.
She works
out of her small flat in southeast London, where chains, whips, gags and other
BDSM (bondage, domination, sado-masochism) apparatus lie unused beneath her
bed.
But she said
many clients are still asking about in-person sessions, despite the risks and
government advice for people to socially distance by two metres (six feet) at
all times outside the home.
"There
are so many people who are emailing every dominatrix I know, including myself,
asking for sessions at the moment who are just totally disregarding the fact
that we need to stay safe," Evilyne said.
Britain
counted about 72,000 sex workers -- 32,000 of them in London -- in 2016,
according to a government report.
Prostitution
is legal in Britain but various related activities such as solicitation are
not, so thousands are operating in the shadows and lack access to government
support and protections.
Although some may have
found a way to make money online, many have been left "doing what they
can" during the lockdown, according to Laura Watson, a spokeswoman for the
English Collective of Prostitutes.
"If you've got three children at home running around,
it's very hard to do online work," she said.
Support
groups such as the UK Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM) have
set up hardship funds to help "sex workers in urgent need".
"It
shouldn't be up to us and up to sex workers themselves to organise their own
way out of this," said Watson, who urged the government to do more.
Similar
initiatives are springing up globally after the pandemic pushed over half of
the world's population into some form of confinement.
In Warsaw, a
group of men and women in the industry set up a fundraiser to help buy
essentials during lockdown.
It began as a
donation-based system, but eventually allowed contributors to access content.
They raised £3,000 in two weeks, sex worker
"Medroxy", one of the organisers, told AFP.
Meanwhile in
Europe's capital Brussels, sex workers are relying on donated parcels of
essentials to survive.
Dolores, 60,
who has worked in the industry for 42 years, said she now relies on the small
paper bag full of essentials such as toiletries that is supplied by a charity
grocery store.
It is
distributed by a sex workers' collective, the Union of Sex Workers Organised
For Independence (UTSOPI), whose volunteers make drop-offs every Wednesday.
"If I
didn't have the parcel, I don't know what I would do," said Dolores, who
also helps with deliveries.
Belgian law
prohibits third-party activities such as renting out rooms for use by
prostitutes or managing a brothel, but regional regulations vary widely.
Even though
prostitutes are liable for income tax, Maxime Maes, a coordinator for the
collective, said most sex workers are not registered to pay taxes.
"All
these people do not have access to everything," he said, noting they
missed out on unemployment support and other government welfare.
Back in
Britain, sex workers registered as self-employed are eligible for government
hardship grants.
Both
Mistress Evilyne and Madame Caramel have applied to receive funds during the
lockdown.
Despite an approaching easing of Britain's
lockdown, uncertainty about how willing people will be to go back to their old
habits in a world filled with a new, dangerous disease leaves sex workers
apprehensive.
"I think there's going to be this real fear of
contact that's probably going to affect a lot of people who are going to
second-guess whether they should go and see a service provider," Evilyne
said.
As for Madame Caramel, she is not taking any risks.
"I just really have to wait until almost
everything is opening... because I want to cover myself as well," she
said.
"Because if someone gets sick in my dungeon, you know I am not insured for that."
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