As we’ve found out in the last few months, the world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons can be many things, from an art gallery to a music video set. Now, it’s also serving as a (slightly more NSFW) space for a dominatrix to connect with quarantined clients.
With their jobs as a hairdresser and dominatrix impacted by San Francisco’s coronavirus measures, Denali Winter has taken to the game to continue interacting with clients, who are paying bells (the in-game currency, in case you’re out of the loop) to be made to water flowers and get digitally humiliated.
“Sex workers are always adapting, and this is just another layer of adaptation,” Winter tells the Guardian. “I need to connect with my clients somehow.”
Other online workarounds for sex workers have included a migration to sites like OnlyFans, but this doesn’t offer quite the same level of interaction available in a video game (even if it is only between cartoon avatars).
In Animal Crossing, when the clients have been “bad”, they can be smacked – with a butterfly net, ofc – and even placed in a virtual cage by Winter, who mostly doesn’t take real money as payment.
As a non-binary dominatrix, Winter also says that a lot of their clients are interested in gender play or cross dressing, activities that are easily accessible due to the game’s customisation options.
“Video games have been a way for people to explore their identity for a long time,” Winter adds. “It’s completely safe to submit to someone in an Animal Crossing game – if you don’t like it, you can log off at any moment.”
To supplement lost income amid the coronavirus pandemic, Animal Crossing users have also been getting paid to design other player’s homes, while yet another company has hired people to design specific islands in the game.