Intimacy on the Web, With a Crowd

“One of the other models showed me this,” she said, examining herself in the mirror. “It’s for high-def cameras. You don’t get that cake look.” She wore a low-cut purple cocktail dress and her hair was pulled into a loose bun.

“I’m late. I still have to set up the lights.”

She hustled to the corner of the small room to retrieve two inexpensive light stands. On the wall next to the lights hung some of Lacey’s props, including two wooden paddles she uses to spank herself. Most of her other sex toys and accessories were out of sight in a bureau and organized in bins.

It was 10 a.m. at Lacey’s home office, a three-bedroom rental in New Mexico. She was about to start work.

Lacey is a cam model. She performs one-woman sex shows, often from her house, though she has performed in a car, on a hiking trail, and once at an airport. The action is captured by a small, inexpensive camera clipped to the top of her laptop, and made available to anyone who visits a Web site called MyFreeCams.

The cam business, a kind of digital-era peep show, has been around for a few years, but as the technology has become better and cheaper, the concept of camming is proving well more than passing: it has created a money-making opportunity in a pornography business eroded by the distribution of free sexual content on the Internet.

Unlike prerecorded pornography, cam shows, which happen in real time, are hard to pirate. The traffic to the most popular camming Internet sites is substantial, with a handful of the top sites getting 30 million visitors a month, according to  Compete.com, which measures Internet traffic.

At any given time, hundreds of models are online, some being watched by 1,000 or more people, others giving private shows. The money generated by cam sites is hundreds of millions of dollars at least, and very likely a billion or more, according to industry analysts and executives.

The money generally comes not from subscriptions or pay-per-view, but rather from credits or “tips,” electronic tokens viewers give that allow them to interact with the models — instructing them through typed messages to use a certain sex toy or use it in a specific way. The Web sites provide the platform and then collect and distribute the tips to the models.

This payment structure, and the fact that the models can work in a safe place, slyly inverts the traditional power dynamic in the sex trade. A cam model does not need a pimp or protector. But as a decentralized business model in a traditionally sketchy industry, camming has its abuses, with some models driven by economic desperation or even enslavement. And some cam models discover that despite the sense of security the virtual platform provides, they still can be blackmailed, threatened with disclosure to friends and family, and pressured to do acts they didn’t bargain for. Using the Internet to find a mass audience exposes cam models to anonymous, unseen enemies, something Lacey learned the hard way when one customer apparently revealed her real name online.

There came a knock on the door of Lacey’s office. It was Jim Lewis, a retired Navy officer with unkempt gray hair and a goatee who worked as Lacey’s assistant.

“You’re late, Lolli. You want me to send a note?” he asked, meaning an e-mail to waiting viewers.

“I’m ready.”

Lacey’s regulars know many intimate details about her. But they may not realize that she runs a serious business. When she’s not on camera, she tracks metrics and promotes herself on social media, checks in with clients. She can’t see the men she performs for, but she watches their habits closely.

After Mr. Lewis returned to his station in the next room, Lacey picked up the laptop and placed it on a glass table beneath the lights. She let down her hair. It was the last day of the month and she wanted to end strong. In a good month, she says she makes $8,000, nearly six figures a year.

She clicked the laptop to start the camera.

“Hey guys!”

She started her work, a combination of old school titillation with a new economic model and serious new risks, too.

Business Driven by Tips