Source: Metro.co.uk.
USA – When the pandemic started earlier in the year, 63-year-old Diane Combs had to shield at home, leaving her to worry about how she was going to make money.
The dominatrix – who began her career as a go-go dancer aged 27 – used to make her income from visiting clients in real life but she stopped that to become a food delivery driver.
Confined to the home, Diane had the idea to start camming – when a person performs in front of a webcam for paying clients.
Since then Diane, from New Jersey, has made around $6,000 (£4,685) by selling adult content to subscribers.
Now she can carry on doing her dominatrix and S&M work which she loves.
Diane said: ‘The response I’ve had has renewed my feelings of being attractive and desirable which, being in my sixties, is a nice way to feel again.
‘There was lots of competition when I started. The bars I worked at played favourites and I wasn’t one of them, so it took a while to work out where I belonged.
‘It was strenuous work. I’d be on my feet all night dancing in heels and would be very sore at the end of each shift.
‘I did feel desirable when I did it, though. Being a go-go dancer meant I had a certain type of look.’
In the early 1990s, when the U.S hit a recession, Diane found her opportunities for work were quickly drying up.
Keen to find another way to support herself, in 1992, she decided to start working as a dominatrix on the side.
At first, she mostly worked with stag parties but before long, she was being approached by clients wanting one-on-one sessions.
As she learned the ropes, she became more confident and eventually began working out of fetish dungeons around Manhattan, New York.
There, she entertained clients – who she said were usually submissive men – offering to spank, trample, and verbally abuse them in exchange for cash.
She said: ‘I loved being a dominatrix. It was great to be working in a dungeon alongside other women like me.
‘I never had sex with my clients but there were lots of other things I could do. I did spanking, bondage, trampling on them in heels – all sorts.’
By 1994, Diane was experienced enough to begin working for herself.
Also offering erotic massages, she could make up to $2,000 (£1,556) a month from a single client.
‘Obviously the amount I made fluctuated from month to month,’ she explained.
‘It would all depend on how many men wanted a session and how many actually went through with it, rather than just phoning me, booking one and chickening out.
‘The best was when I got regular clients that I saw every couple of weeks.
‘I could make a lot of money that way. I remember a couple of guys who would pay me $2,000 a month.’
As the internet grew towards the end of the 1990s, Diane tried to take her business online, setting up a website for herself but struggled to land new clients through it.
Most of her work came from advertising in the classified pages of specialist S&M magazines and newspapers.
Still, Diane continued to work around New York and New Jersey, also making money over the phone from sex lines.
She added: ‘You could choose what you’d talk about. Some men wanted to talk about S&M, some about foot fetishes, and some about anything at all.
‘I’d always be very clear and tell them, “I’m never going to sleep with you,” so it wasn’t like I was meeting men expecting sex.
‘They knew exactly what they would and wouldn’t get from me.’
Though she has always felt empowered and confident about what she does, she has been sure to be discreet about her chosen profession.
