The Cam Girls Behind the Pop-Up Ads

[Domino’s story]
Domino wakes up at 8 am every morning and performs booked shows for clients paying between $90 and $120 an hour. That’s about sixteen times her state minimum wage, and she doesn’t have to leave her bedroom. If a client wants to book through MyFreeCams rather than sending money directly, Domino charges double. There’s not a cent lost to a middle man. It seems like a pretty swell setup: “I love my job,” Domino gushes. “I can work when I want to, as much as I want to, [and] nobody can tell me how to do my job.”

…

[Anna’s story]
Her friend, “gave [her] sex toys,” and she was on her way, waking at 6 a.m. each morning in order to hit American Internet primetime. She hopped from studio to studio, at times living with her employers (and their unwanted advances), still far enough from self-sufficiency that she had to depend on them for support. One had a wife who insulted her constantly. She had to work, almost every day, on strict, long, tiring shifts, doing the same performances over, and over, and over again.

Over at Gizmodo, Sam Biddle has an excellent story about the women (and to a lesser extent, men) who work on the web stripping, and sometimes having live sex, for cam networks. A few make a decent living (i.e. Domino’s story), while others are doing what they can to get out of poverty (i.e. Anna’s story). The big question is, who’s behind these cam sites? That’s a question that’s left unanswered, because the people behind the sites could be criminals related to the mob. As one of the cam girls says, “Cam sites are ideal for laundering.”

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