Every morning, Jessica Gould, 32, gets out of bed in a small town called Ennismore in Ontario, Canada. It's early, usually at 7:30 a.m., but she has plenty to do. She pours herself a cup of coffee, opens Instagram and starts checking her direct messages. But unlike the rest of us who do the same, laughing at the memes our friends tagged us in, or checking to see if this guy responded, she's looking for work.
Jessica is one of the growing number of women who are starting a lucrative business in a new corner of the sex industry: using Instagram to connect with men looking to satisfy their sexual desires. While street corners, phone lines and classifieds once dominated, hashtag, flattering filters, and social media are slowly replacing them.
A star (foot fetishist) is born
For Jessica, her journey into the underworld of Instagram began by accident. Looking for a hobby to occupy her time, she stumbled upon a local job posting looking for female foot fetish models. She scoffed. “I never for a moment thought that anyone would be interested in my feet,” she laughs. “At the time, I had no idea how wrong I was, or how much I would ever find myself in the fetish world.
Intrigued, she had professional photos taken and her alter ego, Miss Scarlett Vixxen, was born. With a new career.
“It took a while to understand the depth and detail of the fandom of the feet - from particular parts of the feet such as arches or soles, to the men and women who virtually wish to serve my feet, known as the name of 'footboys,' ”she said. “That's when I started to realize that many were willing to pay for the honor. From there, it didn't take long to learn how to use my self-image to tease and attract potential clients. "
Her Instagram started to grow quickly, as she expanded her work beyond photography of feet. She quickly started posting around three to four photos a day with hashtag specifically focused on financial dominance, also known as fin-dom.
Money, money, money
Simply put, slaves, submissives, pets, or "pay pigs" as they are called in the fin-dom world, transfer sums of money to women over the Internet. Although the nuances vary, slaves offer "tributes" that could be anything from regular monetary donations to gifts from Mistresses' Amazon wishlists. In some extreme cases, they even give up full control of their finances.
Some mistresses claim to earn over £ 4 a month. While the fetish itself is not inherently sexual, the act of being "raped by a wallet," as it is called, turns them on.
Instagram, says Jessica, is the most vital tool for her work; this is its “cornerstone”.
Women make money on the platform by posting suggestive photos of themselves with hashtag such as #findom (which has been used over 300000 times), #paypigs, (used over 100000 times), # financialdomination or #walletrape. These encourage men to check their profiles and find links in their bio that take them to payment sites where they can send tributes.
“One by one, I slowly read every direct message that comes in, [weeding] about the unsolicited dick pics and inappropriate comments that bombard anyone who works in any area of the sex industry.
And although only a handful of men sliding into her DMs are true fin-dom enthusiasts, she makes her money selling custom photos or pre-made photo packages via a link in her Instagram bio. Some repeat customers add a little more to make her happy and keep a positive rapport, and they may receive "special treatment."
X- (rated) -Pro II
Mistress Rebelle Fleur, 20, is another of the many women who rely on the photo-centric social platform for a living. Fleur says she doesn't even need a "normal job" - and never has one; she has men who have served her since before she was even legal, at only 16 years old. Recently, however, like a vast majority of women in this world, her Instagram profile was deleted.
Other women, like "Loli", 25, do this as a side concert while they are working full time. Loli, who goes by @lolis_feet on Instagram, is a graphic designer by trade and she has just found herself in the fin-dom world. Like Jessica, she started out by selling pictures of her feet via social media.
Getty Images
“My working method is simple: I put pictures of my feet and, if they want to get more exclusive photos, they DM me,” she says. "Sometimes they ask me to dominate them in the form of insults, and sometimes to send nude photos."
They also pay her through Paypal before she sends any photos, including topless ones. She will even send videos of herself masturbating or rubbing her breasts, but says she never shows her face.
With over 50000 uses of #escort, around 30000 of #girlfriendexperience or #gfe, and over 15000 using #callgirls, it's clear that the #findom world is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sex work on social networks. But what is Instagram doing in this growing industry on the app?
Zero tolerance
Instagram has policies against explicit posts and unsolicited images. A global team of trained reviewers respond to reports 24 hours a day, and content is removed if it violates the policy.
"If someone you aren't following sends you a message, it'll show up as a request in your inbox," says Instagram rep Emily Cain, who protects many Mistresses from flooded inboxes. “That means you can choose to decline it so that it doesn't appear, or you can choose to approve it so you can read it.
“We have zero tolerance when it comes to sharing non-consensual intimate images on the platform. We are working with law enforcement to investigate these crimes. And we are now using artificial intelligence and image recognition to prevent these images from being shared across all of our platforms. "
For Jessica at least, it's a two-way street and she sees her work as a partnership more than a lucrative one.
“Nothing we do is dangerous or dangerous,” she says. “What I do is provide a power exchange at the request of my clients. I like to think that we are both providing mutual service, where judgment just doesn't exist. I play a role and fill a role; they're begging me to play - whether their reasons are sexual in nature or not. "
She hopes that if she starts dating her, she will find a partner who supports these other partnerships. This work is for her nothing more than a tool to satisfy her personal interests and bring her additional income. Having said that, she would be willing to delete her profile if a partner wasn't comfortable.
Until then, his goal is simple: to develop his subscribers and his bank account.
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