Mandatory quarantines to combat the pandemic have wiped out many economic sectors around the world, but there are some, such as that of webcam sex services, that have seen their demand double in a few weeks.
According to a market study by SkyPrivate, an online platform that connects adult studios and webcam models with clients, there are between 100,000 and 300,000 models in Romania who offer their services via video chat.
This estimate makes the Balkan country one of the three world powers in the sector, along with the United States and Colombia, he adds in a recent report.
MAXIMUM HISTORY OF USERS
“I think we are seeing a record high for both registered subscribers and models because people are at home and spend more time on the Internet,” says Ionut Militaru, head of the video chat agency Unique Studio in Bucharest.
“User traffic has grown 100%, although revenues do not necessarily reflect this increase,” says Militaru, who started as a video chat model for adults when she was 18 and at 32 is a veteran in the sector.
“Many subscribers are locked up in their homes with their families and cannot connect as many hours as when they entered the webcams from work or in a hotel room during their professional trips,” he explains.
His wife, Cristina, describes an explosion of consumption in users who do not have this type of obstacle.
It figures in a 50% increase in income, an upward trend confirmed to Efe by two other video chat studios and other digital platforms that offer the opportunity to advertise to agencies and adult webcam models.
“A subscriber who normally spent three or four hours is now connected up to ten hours, even 14 hours,” says Cristina Militaru, 33, who continues to model her studio.
“Our subscribers are more eager for conversation and more active on the web,” says the owner of this family business, who calls herself Ava Goddess when she performs for the webcam.
ACTRESSES, LOVERS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS
The “webcamers” contacted by Efe reject that it is only a kind of “personalized porn” and emphasize the importance of conversation in this work.
“Here, money is not made with open legs,” says Ava Goddess in a graphic way.
“A man who comes to meet his natural needs can last five, ten minutes. In that time we earn no more than about ten dollars, and he thinks that a high-cache model can take several thousand dollars a day,” he explains.
The money, he continues, is earned “in the hours” of conversation that come after the show.
Depending on age and cache, the adult webcam minute pays between $ 2 and $ 10.
“A model with a high level of general culture with good English and without inhibitions can reach 5,000 and even 10,000 euros a month,” says Cristina Militaru.
“A video chat model has the role of psychologist, confidant, counselor and of course lover,” says Ava in one of the rooms from which she talks to her clients.
“There are subscribers who fall in love; there have been some who have even introduced me to their children,” adds model Renesmezanith, 21.
This young Romanian woman, with her exotic stage name, was about to leave the profession due to a scar left from an operation.
However, the brand on her body has led her to deepen her relationship with a client who underwent the same surgery and with whom she talks for hours about this experience.
MORE APPLICANTS TO MODELS
Confinement and business closure orders in the fight against the pandemic have left millions of people without jobs.
In Romania, thousands of women have looked for a job opportunity on adult webcams.
This is the case of Mirabella, stage name of a 22-year-old girl who, until two months ago, worked as a dealer in a Bucharest casino, now forced to close due to the state of emergency in force in Romania since mid-March.
“When I lost my job, I asked friends about jobs; one of them works as a video chat model and she brought me here,” she tells Efe.
“It is more mental than physical work, and more difficult than people think,” he adds from his room in Unique Studio.
The hospitality and tourism sector has been one of the most affected by the coronavirus crisis, and that is where many of the new models come from.
Others, on the other hand, have come to video chat directly from the sex industry, currently impossible to perform without violating the rules of social distancing.
“Since the pandemic came, a part of the girls who have come are dancers who worked abroad,” Cristian Neagu, manager of the Privat Studio in Bucharest, tells Efe.
“They have come to this sector because they know how to exploit their sexuality and can make money from it,” he says.
However, she remembers the “psychological” side of working on webcams and warns that “having been a good stripper does not mean that your money is going to rain” on this online service.
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