The Questions

Here they are. I just sent them out an hour ago to four of the most popular cam girls. I'm hoping they'll respond. If they do, my next post will be "The Girls" and include their URLs. If anyone reading this is a cam girl, feel free to email me at ghahrisa@usc.edu with answers to these questions or anything you want to add.

1) Please state your name, the name of your site, your age, and how long you've had your site.

2) Why did you decide to do the whole cam thing? What do you like most about it? What do you hate about it?

3) Who are the people that pay to see your cam pictures? What do you know about them? Does it matter to you?

4) Do you pose nude? Why or why not?

5) Do you think there's something powerful about being a cam girl? If yes, what?

6) Do you feel objectified in any way? Does it bother you, if you do?

7) Have you ever been stalked or otherwise harrassed by anyone because of your site?

8) How do you feel about the cam girl community? I'm not in it at all, so please be really specific.

9) Do your family and friends know about the site? If so, how do they feel about it? If not, why not?

10) Do you make a lot of money with your site? How (porn links?, etc.)? Do you get a lot of gifts from your wishlist because of it?

11) What are your limits when it comes to posing or allowing access to your daily life? Why have you decided to set these specific limits?

The TV Source?

Oprah's show today was about child internet models, which sort of has to do with my paper topic here.

A little girl named Cindy appeared as the main guest. She is 12 and has been modeling online for about eight months. Most of her fans are middle-aged men. Her family thinks it's going to get her discovered as a model and actress, but it seems pretty obvious that, as another guest (anti-internet child modeling) said, sites like hers are mostly substitutes for child pornography. Oprah asked Cindy's mother, "Do you want your daughter to be the enticement for that kind of perversion?" and the mother said she didn't. I think the mother is in denial though, and insisted that it was strictly for the advancement/instigation of her daughter's career.

This part of it had more to do with my project: The other female guest was a girl who now has her own modeling site (she's 18--and I don't have the URL), but at 16 she was exploited by a man--who happened to be a convicted sex offender--on his modeling site. She made a six-figure income, but she had no control over content or photo shoots and considers herself sexualized. What interested me is that she's still modeling now, but it is "okay" because she has "total control." She also has no delusions about what people (i.e., men) look at her site for, saying "Let's face it...there is autoeroticism." Thus, she doesn't have a problem with the fact that her site is essentially masturbation material; the issue is one of control and autonomy over her depiction of herself, and she didn't seem to care what people perceive as long as she has control over what is being posted.

The token professional advice-giver guy was a psychologist-type named Michael Riera who was quite opposed to the whole internet child model thing (and, by natural extension, I'm assuming he wouldn't be too keen on cam girls either). Two things he said that I really liked were

1) "She's learning to please guys with her body." This is like teaching a girl to sell out to male ideals of what a desirable woman is, and reinforcing the idea that at least part of her identity is validated by men gazing at her. Instead, Riera suggested that her confidence and validation should come from age-appropriate activities and building relationships with her peers.

2) "Very few of us had our fantasy given to us [as children]." This was his reply to the mother's emphasis on getting Cindy "discovered." Riera said that pursuing the modeling thing in such an overt way was countering what Cindy needs to be doing as a 12-year-old girl (kind of like what I wrote in #1). And he said "How many of us are doing now what we wanted to do at 12?" This reminds me of something else someone said to the mother during the show, which was something along the lines of "Your daughter is 12...do you think she really knows what she wants? Do you think she'll appreciate having these pictures of her out there when she's 20?"

So it seems like the cam girl thing (the whole idea of having a pay site with a camera or photos--that's how i'm loosely defining it, anyway) has seeped to a much, MUCH younger age group than I thought. I just wanted to throw this all on here.

I think the most important thing I learned about on the show is the girl who now has her own modeling site, even after being exploited as a child. That was unexpected and is interesting because it brings in the whole sex-power thing, and I think it's interesting that she considers herself "in total control" of herself and her site. How much control does she really have? Isn't being naked and presenting yourself as a launchpoint for autoeroticism essentially objectifying? Or is it empowering, because you're using your sexuality however you like, and you can not take pictures or not wear a certain outfit and that's your prerogative?

By considering the 18-year-old's site as something bad or evil, aren't I just selling out to the male paradigms of female sexuality and what is "appropriate" or "inappropriate" for grown woman to do?

I am confused, but in a somewhat productive way.

The Whining

This cam girl project thing is hard. I have been thinking and thinking, and I don't know what to ask these girls. What would have been really cool is if I had done the cam girl thing myself and written a sort of undercover thing, but alas, this paper is due in a week.

Dag nab me. Perhaps I should just ask ordinary-type questions instead of trying to come up with something brilliant. And I think right now I am thinking too much with a thesis in mind and not enough with my initial curiosity.

Come back, curiosity! Nietzsche once said something like a man without chaos can't give birth to a dancing star, which somewhat applies here. But do I really WANT to birth a dancing star? I think that would hurt a whole bunch.