"Do you see me well or is it blurry?" The webcam points to her cleavage. It is almost 4 pm and Internet users bombard Stéphanie * with messages in the chat. Their sexual requests collide with questions about the containment decreed ten days ago because of the epidemic of coronavirus which shakes France. "Not too hard confinement?" One of them says. " We deal with it. We do not have much choice, we take its pain in patience, “replies the young woman in front of the camera. "Are you new?" Asks another user under username. "No, but I didn't connect often so far", retorts Stéphanie, before going into "private show".
Like her, on this specialized site, many camgirls work. On a sofa, an office chair, in a room sometimes in disarray, a large house or a micro-apartment, these "webcam animators" show off. The virtual as respect for barrier gestures. Some have not changed their connection habits, others are back or have just arrived in the community. Because with the confinement and the ban on having physical contacts, notably projecting prostitution in neutral, just like pornographic production and escorting, the cam is in full boom. Customers on the lookout.
“Right now people are getting bored, looking for occupation, interaction, excitement. And to do their business, they fall on us, ”dissects with 20 Minutes , ClaraHot, 45, 18 years of profession, one of the pioneers of cam in France. "Containment is a chance for us camgirls," she notes.
"The demands increasing since the beginning of containment"
"The requests have been increasing since the start of containment," also confirms to 20 Minutes , Kat Aluna, camgirl for five years and who connects 2-3 hours a day to "meet the demand". “At the moment, we are gaining single clients but we can also lose the men in couples who can no longer go to the livecam sites (…) There are also our followers who are suddenly much more available and ask for more 'be careful,' she says. At 33, the young woman, self-entrepreneur, became a “coach” to help women and couples to get started in this world of amateur cam.
This virtual world, heir to the Minitel Rose - animated by these famous camgirls but also camboys - is also poised to seriously compete with the more classic pornography industry. A kind of uberization of the X? “Almost all of the camgirls are self-employed. The promotion of this type of work is envisaged in this form, with only economic arguments, as for Uber drivers or Deliveroo deliverers ", estimated on France Culture , in 2018, Pierre Brasseur, sociology researcher at the Lille Studies Center and sociological and economic research (CLERSE).
"Right now we're doubling our wages"
At Desir-Cam, a French site created in 2011, we say that we have never seen such a request from either side. “It's a historic peak. Client traffic has increased. We are seeing more registrations, the arrival of new customers and purchases of show minutes. On another livecam site, we confirm the trend: "Our traffic has increased by 20% since the start of containment and people are spending more".
"But what is incredible is the number of women who have registered as camgirls", explains to 20 Minutes , Stéphane, co-founder and manager of Desir-Cam. Where he usually has 2-3 registrations per day, he currently counts 78 registrations in a week. "I even validated 13 hostess registrations this Tuesday morning," added the one who is confined to Colombia.
“Those who had an activity nearby, also get back to it with containment. Right now we're doubling our wages. A girl who was 2,000 euros a month will earn almost 4,000, ”said ClaraHot, who also became a coach. But who are these new recruits on these sites, whose commissions are very variable? And whose sector is dominated by American behemoths.
From paving stone to canvas?
With the recent measures and the obligation to stay at home, the pornographic shootings are running out of steam, the escort activity is flat. Also, prostitution was stopped dead, for a "dramatic" situation. “Part of the population is underestimated, including sex workers. We are the forgotten ones of containment. The activity of sex workers has stopped. Since April 2016 (the vote on the law penalizing prostitute clients), the situation has become much more precarious but this is terrible. There are girls who find themselves having to choose between eating or staying. The confinement aggravated an already very precarious situation. Some burst the slab. There are no more customers, ”says Anaïs de Lenclos, spokesperson for the Sex Work Union (Rhinestone) contacted by 20 Minutes . “Yet we pay our taxes, our taxes. We are a necessary evil, we are also a community psychologist, a sexologist. But we are the untouchables, if we die it doesn't matter, ”she exclaims. The Rhinestones has also set up a kitty to in particular offer packed lunches to sex workers in difficulty.
Are they currently turning to the cam? "For those who made reality, the cam is a fallback solution," confirms ClaraHot. "Yes, but it is not so systematic", nuance Anaïs de Lenclos. "It is mainly escorts and X actresses who connect", however tempers the first. Stéphane confirms the arrival of numerous escorts on his site, which has 3,200 French-speaking webcam hostesses. "We accept all profiles but we do everything not to switch to a virtual prostitution platform," he says. But faced with confinement, not everyone is housed in the same boat and inequalities are widening. Even in sex. Especially in sex.
Thank you to @STRASS_Syndicat for being there for more than 10 years for the TDS community, for having been able to create solidarity between the different professions. We see in this difficult moment that it is mainly the camgirls who give the most precarious and not @najatvb or @laurossignol.
- EVA VOCZ ☀️ (@EvaVocz) March 24, 2020"Doing this in a microscopic apartment, a brothel, and for some with children, it's complicated"
“Lots of people are trying to get on cam, but it's not that simple. You still have to be equipped, have a computer, a connection, a suitable place ”, continues Anaïs de Lenclos. And to clarify: “Not everyone has 300m2. And doing that in a microscopic apartment, in a brothel, and for some with children, it's complicated ... Camgirls row. All the more so with the competition from porn platforms which offer access to free content: “A cowery”, according to some. “It's complicated to land like that on the Internet, to make yourself known, to make a clientele. It takes time. It is a profession, it cannot be improvised ”, continues Anaïs de Lenclos. Same story for Eva Vocz, 27, coordinator of the Red Umbrella federation (formerly Rights and Prostitution collective) and camgirl since 2018.
“To compensate and provide for their financial needs, many use the webcam. For sex workers, this is their form of telework. Except that the platforms take us between 30 and 70% of our income, "laments Eva Vocz. She also recalls that the profession is far from being without risks. In particular on the dangers of outing, cyber harassment, theft of videos, not to mention a future law against online hatred which could penalize camgirls, already affected by the deletion of PayPal account or their online kitty, crit-t -she. And this, with also a risk of real porn revenge , insists the young woman. "What Benjamin Griveaux experienced, it happens all the time and to all camgirls".
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