- By Vanessa Belmond - Ex-Porn Star, Stripper, Camgirl and Escort

- Anti-Porn & Anti-Prostitution Writer, Speaker & Activist. AntiPornography.org Volunteer

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WARNING! VERY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING CONTENT BELOW!

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So you may have read some of my articles about working in the porn industry, or in stripping or prostitution, and have decided that none of these "careers" are for you. "But," you say, "what about being a 'camgirl' and doing webcam work? I could work alone from the comfort of my own home! How could that be bad?" 

It sounds like no big deal, right? I mean, all you're doing is solo masturbation. You make your own hours, set your own rules, and you never have leave the house! What could be better? That's what I and many other women assumed when entering the webcam business, and because of these same false assumptions, lots of other women in porn have recently switched over to camming, thinking that it will be easier and safer for them.

Webcam was my main source of income for the last 2-3 years of my time in the sex industry. I got into it thinking that I would make more consistent money than I did in porn, that it would be less gross than prostitution, and that it would be easier than stripping. I mean, there's no way webcam work could have any major drawbacks, right? Wrong! Don't be fooled. Webcam work has its own set of problems, which I will now outline.

First of all, although doing webcam work is solo work, ultimately it's still based on interaction with others. (A few women work with partners, but the majority of webcammers are women masturbating on their own for 'clients,' or engaging in various fetishes for them.) On most webcam sites, if you want to make any money at all, you have to sit in what is called "free chat." 

In free chat you are expected to act cute, fun, or sensual... whatever fits your "cam persona." You have to deal with extremely rude people telling you that you're fat, ugly, and so on, even if you have Playboy model looks. You have to engage with a room full of demanding men that expect you to perform for free, because, after all, you're only there for 'fun,' not money! Yes, these guys really think that.

These men see you as no more than some slut or whore on their computer screen. You're not dealing with them in person, so they get bold and say the meanest things that you can think of. (It's no secret that people tend to say things online that they would never say in real life.) Sure, you can kick them out or block them, but if you kick out every guy that annoys you, you won't have anyone left in your chat room!

Free chat was one of the things that I hated the most. Sometimes, no matter how I looked or acted, I'd sit in free chat for hours without a private show or tip, which meant NO money. These sites don't pay you, by the way -- you pay them. Some of the most popular sites take 65% of your earnings -- that's right, you only get 35%! Can you imagine how frustrating that is? 

I was far from the only cam performer to experience this issue of spending hours in free chat making no money whatsoever. The "camgirl" forum I was on was (and still is) full of women complaining about spending hours in free chat making nothing. It also takes a major toll on your self-esteem when you're sitting on cam in a revealing outfit being as "sexy" as you can, and no one will spend a dime on you.

But of course there were plenty of days when I got "taken private." That means that a customer decided to pay for a "private show." Sometimes it was a "group" private, during which other "clients" could jump in, and they all watch you at the same time. These group shows can be extremely draining, because you have an entire group of men telling you what to do. Here are some examples of typical demands that I would get in a group show:

- "Faster, faster. Come on!"

- "Harder!"

- "Louder! I wanna hear you scream." 

- "Don't you have a bigger toy?" 

- "Anal!" 

- "Boring. Come on, get naked. Hurry up." 

And those are just a few of the least explicit and more polite examples of rude things that men would say.

I was considered pretty hardcore, as far as webcam performers go. I masturbated with big "toys," and did anal, double penetration, and almost any fetish imaginable. But it still wasn't enough. Even when I was using one of my biggest toys, which was a large and sometimes painful butt plug, there was always at least one guy telling me that it "wasn't big enough," or that I wasn't putting it in "deep enough" or "fast enough."

It actually disturbed me sometimes that even when I was engaging in extremely hardcore acts, that it still wasn't enough! It was like these men wanted to see me in pain, to see me uncomfortable and doing something outside of my limits. I firmly believe that many of these webcam "customers" (johns) are looking for a freak show, just like mainstream porn "customers." No matter how "hardcore" you get, they will always demand more. 

I had plenty of regular "clients" that started off with simple requests, like just seeing me strip out of a sexy outfit. Then they'd ask for vaginal penetration. Then anal. Then double penetration. Then bigger toys. Then faster and harder penetration, or louder screaming. Sometimes they asked me to stick a random object into my vagina or rectum, such as a vegetable, cigarette, or the heel of one of my shoes -- just to name a few requested objects. And so on. It always escalated. 

That's one of the scary things about this business -- it starts out innocently enough, but always ends up escalating to more and more extreme and harmful acts. The consumers are never satisfied -- they get bored and expect the performer to up the ante. They don't care about the performer's pleasure or feelings, (although they'll often pretend like they do), they just care about what crazy thing they can get her to do next.

Now on to the "one-on-one shows." Often these shows were just as full of demands and orders as the group shows, except that I would only have to comply with the demands of one guy, instead of five or so. I hated doing these shows too, but for different reasons than the group shows. Often the guy would try to "get to know me," by asking me where I lived, did I have a boyfriend, would I ever meet up with him, what does my family think, and so on. Of course you can choose to not answer these questions, or to lie, but having strange men quiz you on your personal life gets old really fast. Most webcam performers I knew would actually rather do a masturbation show than deal with the "I wanna get to know the 'real you' guys."

Another thing that got old really fast was putting on a fake smile while "clients" complained about their "bitch wife," or said things like, "Mmm.. my girlfriend is in the next room, she has no idea I'm doing this." That type of obnoxious behavior will make you lose faith in men, dating, and relationships. I had a wonderful boyfriend during the time I was doing this sort of work, yet after awhile I started to get paranoid and think that he was seeing other women or planning to leave me. I couldn't help it; after hearing one guy after the next talk so badly about their significant others, I lost the ability to trust anyone.

What I've listed above are not even close to the most disturbing things I heard on webcam. I had an alarming amount of men tell me how they wanted to have sex with their step-daughters and sometimes even their biological daughters. Incest and rape were a constant theme. I never went a day without at least one guy talking about these sick fantasies, some which they claimed to have acted on in real life.

Many sites offer the "cam to cam" feature, which means that the female performer can see the "client" via his webcam, while he is watching her on her webcam. Nothing about seeing some guy masturbate and ejaculate turned me on at all, and most webcam performers I talked to felt the same way. But the worst were the submissive/fetish guys. I saw these guys eat their own ejaculate, stick various objects inside of their rectums, and even stick things inside of their urethras -- as in their "pee hole." 

Yeah. I saw a guy stick a pencil inside of his urethra and bleed as a result of it. It was incredibly disturbing. Why would someone hurt themselves to the point of bleeding for sexual gratification? I didn't need to see that, that's for sure. I also saw a man stick a toothbrush in his rectum, pull it out, (covered in feces), and brush his teeth with it. No warning, he just did it. And apparently these guys made their rounds in the webcam world, because I talked to other women on webcam that had seen the same sick things. Am I grossing you out? Well that's the webcam industry, and that's just a small sample of what you'll see if you decide to enter it.

One of my most obsessed webcam customers used to email me, telling me that he "needed me." If I didn't respond quickly enough, he'd message me over and over again, begging me to get online because he "needed to cum." He offered me large amounts of money for my phone number, so that he could "always have access" to me. Creepy.

I never sold my number to that guy, but selling phone numbers is actually a pretty common thing within the webcam industry. You have tons and tons of competition, so you've got to find ways to "connect" with the men and keep them coming back to you. If you don't figure out new ways of "entertaining" and "connecting" with these men, they'll just go to the next girl. 

In any case, I blocked this obsessed "regular" who wanted my phone number, and he just created a new name and used a different IP address to get around the block, and begged me to do more shows for him. No matter what site I worked on, or what I did or said, he wouldn't go away. You think these guys can't get around a site's blocking feature? It's really not hard for anyone with basic computer knowledge to bypass a block. Many of these men don't understand that you're there to make money, not to meet them. They are incredibly delusional, and some will insist that they're "in love" with you, no matter what you say.

I've known more then one webcam performer that had a customer figure out where she lived, (not too hard to do in this day and age), and show up at her home. Or they would wait at her P.O. box, (easy to find out a P.O. box address through Amazon wish lists, commonly used by webcam performers), and approach her once she went to pick up her mail. 

One story that I heard involved the man showing up with a knife. Luckily for the performer, she was with her boyfriend and so the potentially violent stalker backed off quickly. Not everyone is so lucky. There was one incident recently of a woman who did webcam work who was stalked and harassed by a man that had spent a lot of money on her. He found out her address and threatened to kill her and her family. She has since had to move because of this man, and he still harasses her, as far as I know. 

I can't imagine the terror that this woman went through, and probably still goes through. She did nothing but simply play a character on webcam, and now she's dealing with someone who could be very dangerous. The scary truth is, you never know what type of person is on the other side of the computer, what they're thinking, or how mentally unstable they may be.

Additionally in regards to blocking, I'm sure some of you have seen advertising on webcam sites that says that they have a block feature where you can block your entire state or country. And like most women, you may have thought, "Great! Now I don't have to worry about my family or friends seeing me!" Well, as I mentioned before, these block features are very easy to get around. Couple that with the fact that almost every webcam site sells recordings of the performer's shows to pornographic "tube sites," which are sites like YouTube that have huge amounts of free porn available. The webcam sites post or sell these webcam recordings to the tube sites to advertise. (And by the way, the right of the webcam sites to do this is in their contract, and if you don't sign it, you can't work for them.)

On top of that, they use your live free chat and private show performances for pop-ups on those tube sites. These sites are widely used, and I can guarantee you that someone you know, or someone who knows someone you know, will see you on one of these sites. It's just a matter of time. 

To add to that, many customers record shows and take screenshots to pass around or post on the tube sites themselves. You can't stop them from doing it, and there's no way to know when they're doing it or not. And once these images and videos are out there, they're out there forever. No taking it back. Because of this, it's not something you enter into lightly. Think about it: Do you really want pictures and videos of you naked or engaging in some strange fetish out there for the rest of your life? For your family to see -- including maybe future children? And for every future boyfriend, potential husband, or employer to see?

I have more to say about webcam performing, but I believe I've said enough for now. I will leave you with this: you can do better. You can do better than spreading your legs for a group of demanding men that see you as nothing but a slut. You can do better than being cyber-stalked, (and possibly physically stalked), by obsessed "fans." You can do so much better, and I hope that you see that. I could have done so much better myself, and I didn't. I failed myself and the people that loved me, and no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to fully erase the damage that I've done. Please don't be foolish, naive, and in denial of reality like I was. You can be smarter than I was and do so much better, and I really hope that you love yourself enough to do so.

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Read more of Vanessa's powerful and informative writing! Click HERE.