♪♪
-Hello. -Hi.
How you doing today?
Much better now.
You look beautiful tonight.
Thank you so much.
You look very handsome.
♪♪
I feel like this cam session could get more explicit
if I wasn't, like, awkwardly watching, so apologies for that.
That's quite all right.
♪♪
I'm a writer who works from home,
which basically means that I lay around and masturbate all day,
but thanks to the dying fake-news publishing industry,
the paychecks for my woke thinkpieces
keep getting smaller and smaller.
Ugh. If only there was some other way
I could monetize being horny and lazy.
♪♪
Due to the rise of the Internet,
the porn industry has seen a steady decline.
People have been trading their cum-stained "Playboys"
for free -Tube sites and leaked celebrity sex tapes,
but while the old-school porn business model
has been hurt by the Internet,
our increasingly virtual lives
have spawned a new form of erotic entertainment:
camming.
So I'm about to log into the cam model hosting site Chaturbate.
It's a site where, if you're a cam girl or a cam person,
you can pay to have a profile on here,
and then you can cam
and make money by viewers giving you tips,
and there's, like, everything from 19-year-old girls
to couples, men, women, trans people.
It runs the gamut, so, okay.
This girl is called Chronic Love.
I'm going to tip her 50.
Thank you, Slutever. Mm.
Wait. I actually just...
I like that she just talked to me.
I kind of g-- I suddenly get it.
Will you flash me
if I tip you 100?
Those tokens would just be helping me
get to the AVN Awards.
She's talking to me while fingering her butthole.
I feel so special.
So let's go to a different profile to see what's out there.
Woman: Hey! Slutever! How are you?
[ Giggles ]
-I feel like she can see me. -Yes! How are you?
I love attention. Okay.
So let's tip her. [ Coins jingling ]
Wait. She's really excited.
Oh, wow!
Thank you so, so, so much!
You're welcome so much! This is so fun.
Yeah. I kind of feel like, weirdly,
like, a patron to the arts,
but, like, the slutty arts.
Let's visit someone else.
Oh, this one's intense.
-[ Moaning ] -It's just, like, a woman, like,
straight up, like, dropping down on a giant dick, but, like...
Oh, God, it feels good.
New model. Okay. This is Ms. Kelly Pierce.
Information about her: She's 35. She's trans.
I'm going to say, "Do you think camming
is the future of porn?" [ Beeping ]
I definitely do think camming is the future of porn
only because of the interaction
and because porn is so saturated.
It's so much more personal.
I -- I find this more to be a reality show than porn.
-That's funny. -It's my reality porn.
So I had a lot of fun Chaturbating.
The attention was really fun, which is obviously,
like, completely unique and different
to your average porn experience,
and it does seem like these women
can make quite a significant amount of money
in the course of an evening.
So after spending some time
navigating the world of Chaturbate,
I'm headed to Studio 20,
which is currently one of the largest
cam franchises in the world.
Think the Paramount Pictures of virtual striptease artists,
and it's predictably located in a dingy strip mall in Hollywood.
Ah, I love L.A.
Studio 20 hosts 10 themed rooms from which girls
can broadcast their digital peep shows.
So let me show you around a few of the rooms.
What you're going to notice in every rooms
are the camera lights, the camera, and we also...
We always like to put, like, the little
Post-its for the girls.
"Who's the cutest, sexiest girl? You are. #GetTheirMoney."
Exactly. Just the thing.
When you have a model working for Studio 20,
do they work independently from their house,
or do they work from the studio?
We do like to have them in the studio because it's easier.
We provide the technical equipment,
the lighting, the training,
everything that you need to go online.
How does one become a Studio 20 model?
She needs to be fun. She needs to be smart.
It doesn't matter if she's white, black, chubby, skinny,
big boobs, small boobs
because we found out in this business
that everybody is somebody's type.
If you go to live cams and click here, you can see all the girls.
So these are all girls that are live right now?
You keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.
There are so many girls. Wow.
So this one of the best earners and another one.
Wh-- How much would they make, like, in a ballpark?
The best earner made 29,000 in a period.
That means two weeks.
So does that mean that she takes away 29,000,
or then she would get half of that?
She gets half of that.
So $15,000 in 2 weeks is a lot, though.
It's a lot for anyone.
Uh, you can also see on the website,
you can the willingnesses.
So what this means is, what she is willing to do
in private chat, so...
Camel toe?
It's so... They're willing to just, like,
pull their underwear up their vagina?
Yeah. So camel toe is in high demand
right now if you're a cam girl? Camel toe is in high demand.
Sissy training is in high demand.
So let's look at Nikita.
Nikita Banx is one of our models from the L.A. studio.
So she is here right now? Yeah.
She is here right now, like, right behind us.
Oh, cool. Yeah. Okay.
Starstruck. [ Laughs ]
Small penis humiliation.
Are you good at it?
I know how to turn it on, turn it off.
Yeah. That's nice.
It's about the curves. It's about the ass.
What do you do normally when you...
Let's say, you're talking online with your friends?
Should I be like this?
I'm here at Studio 20, the world's largest camming studio,
and I'm about to meet one of their stars.
♪♪
-Hello. -Hey.
How are you? -Good.
It's sexy in here.
It is.
So what do most people usually ask you for?
I'd say feet is the most popular, fetishes with feet,
and then I would say the SPH. What's that?
Which is the small penis humiliation.
Oh. So there's, yeah,
guys that actually seek for you
to kind of humiliate them on their size.
Are you good at it?
Uh, I got good at it.
I know how to turn it on, turn it off.
And then so what's the typical day
like for you when you come in?
It's like a -- a regular job, like, 40 hours a week.
Of course, we get our breaks and things like that, but yeah,
on-cam for 8 hours
because that's what's going to get you to the top
is the fact that you're on there
and people know that you're there.
There's a lot of guys that even come on
just to have a conversation about maybe something
that they want to experience
with their wife, and they want my opinion.
Y-you are like a therapist for these people.
Yeah, I would say so.
It's just more about relating to people
and being willing to listen most of the time.
Weird! It seems that many guys
prefer to have a conversation about feelings
rather than watch a woman finger her butthole.
Wait. Have I been lied to my whole life?
Do most cam sessions result in something sexual happening?
I would say about 60 percent.
Wow. That's less than I thought.
Yes. If someone wants an easy get-off,
they can go to porn.
If you want something more, you can go to camming.
That's when you actually create the relationship,
and I think it's going to be bigger and bigger
because a lot of people don't have time
or don't want to create relationships
in real life nowadays,
and that's really sad, but it helps camming.
That's so interesting because, the more you talk about it,
the more I realize how broad
the job description of a cam girl is.
It's, like, you have to be a therapist.
You have to be sexy.
You have to be like a girlfriend,
but you have to also be, like,
a dominatrix if someone wants it.
You have to be a woman.
That's a woman's job.
We have... No.
A woman must have it all.
This is stressful.
Studio 20 is clearly a cam-girl Mecca,
and while the women here benefit
from the studio's name and resources,
they do have to give up some slutty creative control
and half of their profit.
♪♪
Now that I've seen the world of corporate camming,
I wonder what the indie scene is like,
so I'm going to meet up with a successful independent cam girl
named Ona Artist,
who's known for her sweet girl-next-door look
and, more importantly, her butt,
which has over 1 million followers.
Ona: This is my famous "Toys on a Peach."
It's about the curves. It's about the ass.
Yeah. That's nice. Good.
My name is Ona Artist, and I have a really big Instagram,
and I am an artist and musician and model.
What are these photographs for?
They're all for my Instagram,
and the goal is to get what I call
Instagram classics... Good.
Photos that, like, really pop, that, like,
really hit the algorithm really well.
Did you have a sexy Instagram before
you actually started selling cam sessions?
Yeah. I had a photo on this page called The Butt Blog,
and, um, that was a big turning point for me
because I, like, suddenly had, like, ha--
like, 5,000 new followers.
Like, my follower count doubled in a day
when they posted my photo, and I was like, "Hmm.
People seem to like my butt photos.
Maybe I should do more of that."
♪♪
Right now, I have over a million followers,
and basically, I just use my Instagram to market.
It's like my advertising.
Can people also pay to individually cam with you?
Yes, so it's all sort of structured that, like,
if you want more, you pay more, and you get more.
So, basically, Ona capitalizes on our digital addiction
to Instagram and Snapchat to boost her visibility.
Once you fall in love with her free pics,
you'll obviously want a stronger fix,
and that's when you have to hand over cash to see her nude photos
or go for the VIP option,
a Facetime striptease with Ona one-on-one.
Do you make enough money doing this that this is your job?
Yes. It's a pretty good living.
I'm really pleased with it.
And what are the repercussions?
I mean, I haven't tried to get any other job,
but I'm sure I couldn't. Um, you know?
I'm pretty much, like, always going to
have to be self-employed,
um, but, hopefully, that won't be a problem.
Um, and I've also had issues with my family.
It's been a big process of, like, working through,
and for a while, it wasn't so good,
and I wasn't talking to a lot of them, so...
All because of an ass photo on Instagram.
Yeah, but that's why I think it's important.
That's why, like, sluts have to, like, come out
and be really confident to just, like, normalize it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Totally.
Okay, so next, what you should do is click the link in my bio,
and then you can join the full party today
on this beautiful Monday.
♪♪
I think that a lot of people, when they end up on
Instagram models' pages that are big,
tend to not realize maybe how much work goes into it.
So I work completely independently,
and I have from the beginning.
I build my own websites.
I self-host them, and so I keep all the money.
It all goes to me.
Wow. Being a cam girl is a lot of work, randomly.
After spending time with Ona,
I have so much respect for her slutty industriousness.
I think of cam girls as the rock-and-roll stars of our day,
just saying, like, you know, "Fuck you," to the mainstream,
and, like, I'm going to do what I want.
I'm going to make money, and I'm going to have fun,
and I'm going to be sexual with my fans.
Do you think that camming is the future
of how people will consume pornography?
Yeah, so I do think it's the future.
And I think it's already here, actually.
So if camming really is the future of porn,
what does that mean for us, AKA the horny masses?
It's a little piece of sunshine in the day.
Yeah. You know what I mean?
Escape from my own existence.
Karley: It's clear that camming is gaining popularity
across the world,
but is there more to this trend than our preference
for talking to a screen than a real-life human?
Who better to ask than a self-proclaimed whorestorian?
Mindy Chateauvert is a sexpert on the history of porn.
Why do you think it is that camming has become
increasingly popular in recent years?
I think camming has been popular for a long time,
and I think that the rise of camming was aided
by not only changes in technology
and the fact that a lot of women who were interested in camming
could do it by themselves, but also, for a lot of women,
this was a safe way of doing sex work
but not actually having contact with clients.
Do you think that camming will replace
pornography for that reason,
or do you think that camming is something separate, like,
an added bonus to the industry?
I think it's very separate.
It's a different kind of performance,
but I don't think one will replace the other.
Some of the cam girls that I've met have said
that their clients just want to talk sometimes.
People want to have somebody who they think
they can talk to about things
that they may not want to share with,
you know, a person that they consider respectable.
That's so interesting. So in a way,
the sex worker is nonjudgmental
because they're in a position that is, like,
sort of seedy. Right.
I mean, their view is that the sex worker ha--
has experienced everything or knows everything
and is not going to make the judgment
and also because we expect sex workers to be confidential,
and that's, you know, super,
kind, of rule number one in the trade is,
you don't betray a client's secrets.
Paying for a cam session
is a bit like going to slutty confession,
and so it's not surprising that many cam enthusiasts
are private about their voyeuristic hobby,
but luckily, one of Ona's biggest fans
was willing to let me third wheel on his sultry striptease.
My name is Evan.
I'm an automotive mechanic.
How long have you been following Ona for?
Probably a year and a half to two years.
It's a little piece of sunshine in the day.
Yeah. You know what I mean?
Escape from my own existence.
[ Ringing ]
Hello.
Hi.
You look beautiful tonight.
Thank you so much.
You look very handsome.
Thank you. You make me blush.
How -- How are you doing today?
Much better now. I hear you live in New York.
That's pretty cool. I've never been there.
Yes, I do. I do.
I like it here.
I feel like this cam session could get more explicit
if I wasn't, like, awkwardly watching, so apologies for that.
That's quite all right.
So what are your favorite things to do?
I ride motorcycles...
Oh, cool.
Body -- body surf, body board, drop knee.
I also like to go to the bar and shoot pool
and get hammered at least once a week, so...
You're kind of, like, weird in that you're super hot
and obviously have a lot of fans, but you are not...
Um, you're, like, really sweet and not intimidating.
You know what I mean?
She seems approachable,
and she doesn't seem like a fake person,
and I don't mean personality-wise.
I mean, I don't feel like you have an army of people
making you look good is what I'm trying to say.
You're a natural beauty. Thank you.
Do you -- Shall we, uh... Undress?
Would you like to?
I think I would if there weren't other people in the room.
I could still do it. I'm happy to.
Please do.
Okay. Great.
♪♪
Yeah, awkward.
Do you think that camming will fill in
for actual human relationships?
No. I don't see us going to some sort of sci-fi future
where we're 12 people living in the same room
and only talking to other people via Internet,
but I think camming actually facilitates interaction
in a way that is much more comfortable and safer and open.
♪♪
Well, you are just drop-dead gorgeous.
Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much.
Interacting with you is awesome.
Awesome. Good.
Um, well, have a really, really good night.
You too.
♪♪
That was fun, right? Mm-hmm.
How does her butt get like that?
The woman's body, in general, is a work of art.
Like, I want to know, though. How does her butt get like that?
And so, like, how should I pose? Like...
Oh, of course not. No. This?
That's not what you do.
Karley: Now that I've experienced
what it's like to be the viewer,
I want to know what it feels like to be
the person inside the computer screen,
so I'm going back to Studio 20
to try out their infamous cam-girl boot camp.
[ Buzz ]
Hi! Oh, you're back! Come on.
Come on in. We're going to start you off
on your first day of training, okay?
Okay.
You're going to do training with Lilia today,
so we picked up the pink room for you.
Have fun. Enjoy your training.
Thank you. Bye, bye.
Come on. Okay.
I like it.
I feel like I identify with this room already.
The reality of this is that guys are not going to come in here
and go like this and throw the money at you
just because you're a pretty girl.
There's thousands of pretty girls on the website.
Okay. So basically, I'm going to have to work a little bit?
Oh, you're going to definitely have to work.
With your name, you're going to create your character.
You look like a California girl,
so I would go with, you know, something like...
Kelly. Kelly. Kelly is a good name.
That's, like, a basic girl name.
I feel like maybe my personality for camming should be,
like, basic girl.
Just, like, I love, like, the sun.
I love, like, texting and selfies
and, like, hanging out with my friends.
That's not a basic girl. That's just every girl.
Don't think of it like, "This is just like online porn."
You know? Okay.
We want to be classy,
like, for instance, you know, not using pussy.
I would say, "My kitty," or, "My... my pie."
I don't know. Really? My pie?
My pink taco.
My pink taco sounds
way more insane.
Not really because it's playful, and guys will laugh.
Okay. Yeah. I'll call my [bleep]
a "pink taco" over my dead body.
♪♪
That's a little bit much.
Um, I can actually help you if you like.
You used this. This is not makeup.
This is not makeup? No.
This is actually for blemishes,
like, corrector.
I like it. Oh. You like it?
No! It's not going to look good on cam.
Maybe I should wear this. No.
No?
Honestly, this is good.
No.
This is intense.
Um... Maybe try jacket and the skirt.
I don't identify with a leather jacket.
So I'm going to turn on the camera for you.
Okay. The lighting here is good.
Wait. I feel like this camera
makes you look skinnier than you are.
Oh, no. Actually, never mind.
So normally, the chat is going on here.
Your camera is here, so that way,
you can actually look into the camera
after you see whatever they're writing,
if they're talking to you, asking you questions,
and then look at the camera. -Okay.
And so, like, how should I pose?
Like, should I be, like...
Oh, of course not.
What do you do normally when you...
Let's say you're talking online with your friends?
No. That's not what you do.
Okay. I think most people
think like, "Yeah, that's what the guys want to see," but...
They don't?
There's other platforms they could go to that that happens,
but this particular website we work with is very classy.
You know what? [Bleep] training.
Ultimately, what's great about camming
is that you just get to do you, unedited.
The average person might not think of cam girls
as sexually empowered feminist entrepreneurs,
but in a world where women's bodies
are regularly commodified,
why shouldn't women also take home a piece of the pink taco?
At its core, sexual freedom is about a woman's
right to make her own decisions,
and if that means deciding to finger herself
for randoms on a webcam for rent money,
so be it.
While camming might not replace porn,
it has created a booming new industry
of interactive, intimate and vaguely Freudian
virtual jerk-off sessions.
I mean, it's good to have options.
Click you later, sluts.