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A 63-year-old dominatrix was unable to go out and work as normal due to the pandemic. So, she has made thousands of dollars by selling kinky pictures and videos online instead.
Working in the adult industry since she was 27, Diane Combs has done everything from dancing in go-go bars to tying up clients in S&M dungeons.
Because of the lockdown, she began to fear about how she would continue to make money.
That was until she hit upon the idea of webcam work, and has since made around $6,000 by selling X-Rated content to subscribers.
“I used to go and meet my clients in person at hotels, their houses, or sometimes even their offices, but COVID-19 made that impossible," Combs said.
“When the lockdown first came into force, I thought about how I was going to make money. But thanks to camming I've made about $6,000 and have been able to carry on doing dominatrix and S&M work which I love."
“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," she said.
Combs has been in adult entertainment virtually her entire working life, making her first foray into the industry aged 27, when she landed a job as a go-go dancer.
“There was lots of competition. The bars I worked at played favorites 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," she said.
“I did feel desirable when I did it, though. Being a go-go dancer meant I had a certain type of look. I had blonde hair wore nice makeup and worked hard on my body, too," she said.
In the early 1990s, Combs found her opportunities for work were quickly drying up.
“There weren't as many guys going to go-go bars anymore, so I'd find that my shifts were getting cancelled or ending early," she said.
Keen to find another way to support herself, in 1992, she decided to start working as a dominatrix.
At first, she mostly worked with bachelor parties, putting on a show for the groom and his friends. But before long, she was being approached by clients wanting one-on-one sessions.
“There was no sex involved. I've never done that, and always made it very clear to my clients that's not what I do. It was more jokey stuff. I'd tie the groom up in front of his buddies and do an S&M show," she said.
“But I soon started getting individual men coming up to me asking for sessions at home. It was all new to me so at first I'd ask them to take the lead and explain to me what they wanted," she added.
As she learnt the ropes, she became more confident and eventually began working out of fetish dungeons around Manhattan, New York.
There, she entertained clients offering to spank, trample and verbally abuse them in exchange for cash.
“I loved being a dominatrix. It was great to be working in a dungeon alongside other women like me," she said.
“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."
“Some of the dungeons even had suspension equipment where I could tie and hang them up. I changed up my look as a dominatrix and did the whole black hair, red lip thing."
By 1994, Combs was experienced enough to begin working for herself. She could make up to $2,000 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, Combs tried to take her business online by setting up a website for herself.
But as the web was still in its early days, most of her work came from advertising in the classified pages of specialist S&M magazines and newspapers.
“People always think that the internet would make my job easier, but actually it's made it harder," she said. “It's meant a lot of the magazines and newspapers that I used to advertise in got closed down."
“There are online equivalents, but people don't always know where to find them and many of them end up shutting down, too," Diane said.
Still, Combs continued to work around New York and New Jersey, also making money over the phone from sex lines.
“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," she said.
And though she has always felt empowered and confident about what she does, she has been sure to be discreet about her chosen profession.
“If someone didn't need to know what I did, I didn't tell them," she said. “Friends were often worried about my safety and would always tell me to be careful."
“But I would reassure them that I would screen clients, making sure they were who they said they were, that they weren't drunk or that I didn't just get a general feeling from them that something was off."
“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," she continued. “They knew exactly what they would and wouldn't get from me."
In 2018, Diane decided to give the internet another try and began cam work. But, she did not attract many customers.
So, to supplement the dwindling income she became a part-time Uber and Lyft driver before ditching that to instead deliver food via apps like Grubhub and DoorDash.
“I was still doing dominatrix and S&M sessions where I could, as well as phone work, but having another job helped to make up for the money I was losing by the websites I used to advertise my services closing down," she said.
Then, in March 2020, when the world went into lockdown, Combs was forced to shield at home.
While looking for ways she could make money from her bedroom she discovered SoSpoilt, a platform for influencers to earn money by creating exclusive content for their fans through subscriptions, live-streams and pay-per-minute one-to-one chats.
Creators have full control over what and when they post and how much they charge and can use the site to monetize anything from workout routines to makeup tutorials.
“I learnt about all the things I could do to make money, like Skype shows and getting people to subscribe to my pictures and videos," she said.
Setting up an account in April, she has since been regularly uploading kinky content.
And, though she is now back at work, she is so impressed with SoSpoilt that she is still posting once a week on her day off.
Finally cracking into the world of digital adult entertainment and seeing how popular her posts are has done wonders for her confidence.
“It's so nice to feel desirable again," she said.
For information, visit www.sospoilt.com