Last
autumn I sat in a midtown cubicle sorting receipts for my boss’s monthly
expense report. I had recently earned my master’s degree from Harvard
and had accepted a coveted yet thankless entry-level position at a
well-known philanthropic organization in New York City. My parents were
proud of me, and I was proud that they were proud of me. Convinced that I
was doing the “right thing,” I spent a year botching Excel spreadsheets
and crying in office bathroom stalls.
At
best, I completed simple administrative tasks, such as printing paper
and hoarding Post-its, with mild competence. I relished these peaceful
moments, for the majority of the time I felt more like a 2-year-old
filing estate taxes with crayons. At my annual employee review, my boss
placed me on “Performance Probation,” citing at least five or six
reasons why I could not be trusted with so much as a stapler. She added
that in spite of my attempts to
and other mildly suggestive office essentials, my communication skills were “not improving.”
I
now think, staring at the unlikely reflection of a smoky-eyed
25-year-old woman in my lipstick-strewn bathroom. Marina, my online
alter ego on a popular adult webcamming site, is the new and improved
“me.” She dazzles men with discussions of Indo-European languages while
seducing them with her perky derriere, bending over before the camera to
reach for her pen, with which she scrawls on a memo pad:
. That username, one of over a hundred in her chat room, is simply too good to forget.
Upon
first glance, the only semblance Marina bears to her office-dwelling
predecessor is her penchant for Post-its, which now testify to a to-do
list decidedly more perverse:
And
yet, as she poses in lacy white stockings – a gift from a virtual
admirer – atop her squeaky Ikea armchair, the only thing that surprises
her is how ordinary it all feels.
The
afternoon that I was placed on Performance Probation, I left work
early. Riding the N train back to Queens, I quietly wept upon the
sympathetic cashmere shoulder of Ann Taylor and brainstormed responses
to my imminent dismissal.
Should I go back to school? I
wondered. No way – my aversion to scholarly discussion is so intense
that I still wince whenever I see a round table – even the kind with an
umbrella.
Another nonprofit job? A new set of directions to botch, a fresh cohort from which to alienate myself!
Motherhood? Now that’s a perfectly respectable excuse not to pursue a career! But who am I kidding? I hate kids.
For
the first time, my intellect and perfectionist work ethic had failed
me. Without these crutches, I had nothing. Except, perhaps, for my body.
I remembered a conversation I had several months earlier with an
acquaintance, whose ex-girlfriend, he claimed, made a decent living as a
camgirl. “What exactly does a camgirl do?” I asked him, familiar with
the phenomenon only through sidebar Internet advertisements claiming
that Jessie19, conveniently located in my neighborhood, wanted to fuck,
like,
tonight!!
“Well,” he said, “usually they just
strip, tease and get themselves off in front of guys online in exchange
for money and gifts. It’s super easy – most guys aren’t looking for some
airbrushed Barbie. They want real, intelligent girls – like you.”
Now I’ve heard everything, I thought.
What guy in his right mind would pay to see someone like me to take off her …
I paused, looking down at my austere gray cardigan. While I’m not
unattractive, my waxen face, sturdy brown glasses and easily detectable
baggage (both under-eye and emotional) hardly suggest that I’m someone
you might want to see naked. And while most camgirls are veritable
social butterflies, fluttering from one flirtatious conversation to the
next, I am more like a moth, perched in the shadows for fear of crashing
and burning into a floor lamp. In short, not your average adult
entertainer.
Deep down, I also felt that I was “above” sex work.
Much like waitressing or washing floors, professional masturbation was
simply incommensurate with my educational background and perceived level
of dignity. While others were free to parade around naked on the
Internet, and even had my respect for it, I was intended for some
higher, nobler cause – something that would make people gasp in a good
way, and not out of horror.
But now, none of that mattered, as
though losing face before a single human resources department was
tantamount to being condemned by humanity as a whole. So I did what any
reasonable young professional would do: I purchased a high-definition
Web camera, excavated a cache of lingerie from the basement and
submitted photocopies of my driver’s license to become an adult webcam
model. Even if my employers discovered this sack-worthy secret, it was
empowering to know that I was deliberately sabotaging my own career, as
opposed to letting it deteriorate organically.
The first time that
I logged on as “Marina,” I wore a tight black tank top and a
comfortable pair of shorts, figuring that if the camming thing didn’t
work out, I would at least be dressed for consolation pastries
afterward. But before I could even finish doubting myself, a swarm of
users flooded my chat room, tipping liberally with “tokens,” the
website’s local currency, and barraging me with questions. (
Pervs love new girls,
someone later explained.) Needless to say, the only buns purchased that
night were my own, freshly delivered to the computer screens of over
300 strangers.
“Why did you start camming?” asked someone with the
username TiredForearm. “Well, I came here because I hate my real job
and wanted to see if this could be a viable financial alternative,” I
said, tweaking my nipples a bit in hopes of resuscitating some of the
erections I undoubtedly just lost. “How does it feel getting naked in
front of hundreds of guys?” asked OldnFat1 – a user who deserves kudos
for his realism. “It’s OK, I guess. Neither here nor there,” I said
instinctively before correcting myself, “but I still have my panties on,
so let’s get them off and see what I feel like after!” Much to my
surprise, I was infinitely more embarrassed to call my underwear
“panties” than I was to remove them.
I began leaving the office
sharply at 5 p.m., applying my makeup on the subway ride home and often
skipping dinner in order to log online faster. I broadcast my webcam
show until 10 or 11 p.m., then rolled into bed exhausted, exhilarated
and up to $600 richer. After only a week of moonlighting as a camgirl,
earning twice the wages of my desk job in half of the time, I handed in
my notice. “Freelance work,” I told my boss and parents alike. “I’m
going to take the certification exam for Russian-to-English
translation.” While not entirely ludicrous – I am fluent in Russian – I
saw no hurry to pursue this option so long as I was still certified to
flash my boobs over the Internet.
For weeks, I fielded calls from
anxious relatives, inventing excuse after excuse as to why I had still
not produced a groundbreaking retranslation of “War and Peace.” “So,
you’re just … doing nothing?” my father finally asked, his voice leaden
and despondent, as though his Rottweiler had just died. I couldn’t take
it anymore. If there was going to be a funeral, I thought,
at least let me dig my own grave.
“You know what?” I snapped up in my chair, clenching the phone. “In fact, I
am doing
something. I’m not just some lazy ass. I’m a camgirl. If you’re not
familiar with it, that means I take off my clothes for random people on
the Internet. Don’t worry, the pay is great.” For some reason, I
actually thought this news would cheer up my father.
“Camming is
the gateway!” he said, echoing erroneous anti-vice rhetoric of my
childhood. Much like cannabis use supposedly opens doors to heroin and
coke, it was only a matter of time before I’d be turning tricks on the
Bowery for some drugged-out pimp, who might as well be wearing a purple
suit with leopard-skin lapels. “This was your idea,” my father railed
against my mother, who once worked in the sex industry herself.
My
mother always told me I could be whatever I wanted to be in life.
Still, I doubt she ever considered “amateur porn peddler” as even a
remote possibility. “I’m not going to judge,” she assured me upon
learning of my new activities, “But
you? You’re so reserved!”
While it is true that my mother used to have to physically pry the
threadbare notebooks and Vivaldi CDs out of my hands to get me to “go
play” with the neighborhood kids, money changes everything. Had she been
bribing me with hundred dollar bills, I might have socialized more
readily. And, if my camming experience is any indication, I might have
even liked it.
* * *
The men I
meet online rarely fall into the category of “anonymous assholes who
have abandoned all social etiquette,” nor do they resemble the pasty,
calculator-wristwatch-wearing forebears of chat rooms past. Many, in
fact, are successful professionals in their field – whether it be law,
the arts or academia. “I came for the tits, but stayed for the
intellectual banter,” remarked one visitor. In addition to more classic
webcam performances – wet T-shirts, oil slathering or run-of-the-mill
masturbation – some of my most popular performances entail me reading
erotica, perhaps Anais Nin or the Marquis de Sade, in the buff.
Oftentimes, the books are gifts from fans, who will probe me for
literary analysis, if I don’t probe myself with something else first.
As
a result, according to numerous viewers, I have unwittingly created a
powerful “brand” for myself: the wild intellectual, the bluestocking in
garters. One regular, an academic from Finland who goes by the name
PantyWashbag, always reminds me: “You are serious woman. And serious
women are best.” I recognize that this is not a brand of woman that most
men want to buy. Whereas most camgirls market themselves in dazzling
packages overflowing with a scientifically engineered ratio of
crave-inducing sugar and fat, my product is sold in a more understated
container. Maybe there is even an impassioned, self-aggrandizing story
on the back of the box describing how I came to be. While most people
will roll their eyes at the mention of “wholesome ingredients” and
“ancient grains,” a select few are left to devour my contents with
gusto.
Of these individuals, my most devoted fan is Bob – a
40-year-old dump truck driver from Delaware. I am still not sure how our
paths crossed, but I am glad they did. If I am online, he will be
there, tipping far too lavishly and making jokes with the other
regulars. Occasionally, some of the more erudite members will publicly
correct Bob’s grammar. “It’s
you’re, not your,” they write. “My
bad,” he always replies, respectfully not giving a damn. Bob is simple
and kind, and understands the economics of camming: camgirls, no matter
who they are, are moved by generosity, not verbosity.
Occasionally,
I enjoy more taboo interactions online. One man wanted to know all
about my sneezes, and then paid me to sniff my cat’s fur on camera in
hopes of eliciting a tantalizing spritz (I am mildly allergic). The cat,
while slightly confused by the advance, was ultimately unperturbed. Yet
another customer spent $150 in a private session for me to wear a panty
liner and sit on my boyfriend’s tie – just sit on it. A hat would have
been better, he said, but sometimes you just have to work with what
you’ve got. After I relayed the story back to my main chat room, someone
asked to purchase the tie.
My customers have written stories for
me, and I have written stories for them. Just recently, I finished
Chapter 5 of a 15,000-word saga for an Adult Baby, a regular who
occasionally calls me Mommy and signs his emails as
Your little snuggle butt. Another day at the office.
* * *
But
once lined with hundred-dollar bills, the pockets of my birthday suit
now jingle with grimy pennies and nickels. By my third month of camming,
I noticed a marked drop in earnings as I struggled to engage a
novelty-driven audience. At first, I sought answers. How come last
week’s
spank-a-thon show yielded record-breaking tips, and this
week – hardly anything? What am I doing wrong? Is it my hair, my
glasses? Try as I might to analyze the causes of my sudden downturn, all
I found was a jumble of arbitrary factors, both endogenous (how
ebullient am I today?) and exogenous (how many high tippers are
online?). In other words, in the mercurial world of camming, logic is as
scant as pubic hair.
As I enter my seventh month, I am only left
with more questions. How much money will I earn this week? How long will
I continue to cam? Who is this painted and coiffed person beaming at me
in the mirror – and is she really as happy as she looks? Where does
Marina end and my true self begin? Does it even matter?
Fortunately,
I still enjoy the occasional lucrative Saturday night. I still receive
support from a handful of devoted followers, several of whom I chat with
during off-hours and consider friends. In spite of an overall decrease
in traffic, I continue to garner new viewers, whose antics never fail to
nourish the soul, if not the bank account. Just this week, I received a
pitch for an erotic story about L. Ron Hubbard, in which “The RAND
Corporation, McCarthyism, and a demented Air Force general make
appearances.” I’ll admit – I never thought L. Ron Hubbard could be sexy.
But then again, I never thought that I could be, either.
A photo of the author 
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