2020 was going to be such a big year for me. I had so many appearances and festivals booked. I was going to be the face of the German Fetish Ball too—but now most of those events have been cancelled.

But because of the way I’ve structured my business, I feel pretty safe. I live with my main slave, and then have a few inner-circle slaves I regularly see, so I have them as a safety net.

Apart from those, I have not been able to meet the other slaves I used to see. Many are in China, which was on lockdown, while many others can’t travel to see me.

I have been focusing on my inner-circle now. But even if they are loyal and we trust each other, I still screen them.

The Singapore government has been successful at reducing the spread of the virus, so I try to mirror their policies with my slaves. I try to emulate what countries they have implemented border controls on, and so on. At the moment, they are not accepting anyone from France, Spain, Italy, Iran, South Korea, and a few others, so I try to keep that in mind. I also keep a tab on all the travel itineraries of my inner-circle slaves, so I can see where they have been going.

Since I already do a lot of humiliation play, I incorporate all the screening and the tropes of the virus in my play. I like to work with the idea of touch, distance, and the limits of when they are allowed to come into my space and when not. So I make them get into hoods, and when we are out I make sure they are always 3 feet away from me.

As for keeping hygiene standards high, I would say not much has changed. Because we work with a lot of bodily fluids and tools, we are trained from the get-go on how to handle these things. We use different disinfectants for different surfaces and tools, so we are actually better equipped than other businesses in that sense.

One aspect of my business that is improving is online. In the last few days, I have seen a huge surge in online purchases for my subscriptions, courses, and behind the scenes access. I think that is something the whole industry will be moving towards. I personally don’t do much online outside of my subscriptions and courses, but for some of my Chinese clients in isolation I did.

Some of the very old school offline dungeon mistresses I knew have now been offering online services as well. No one can go to their dungeons, so they use it as their backdrop.

The way I get paid has also been affected. All of my slaves are either CEOs or board members, but some of them have asked for more time to liquidate their money to pay me. And because of the financial crash that is happening, they don’t want to cash that money out. They keep wanting to wait for a better day, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.

But even if some of them couldn’t pay for a month—which hasn’t happened—I wouldn’t just drop them. I have invested in building a relationship with them. I actually have a business background myself, so if anything I would step in and help them with their businesses.

But others in the industry have it a lot worse. Especially for the sole-traders who don’t have a consistency in clients. They don’t have a security net to fall back on or a government who recognises what they do, and all of a sudden all their bookings are being cancelled. I have seen a few GoFundMe pages that they are using to raise money.

Fairul: A Drag Queen