I Spent A Month Living In A Romanian Sexcam Studio

http://m.vice.com/read/bucharest-webcam-studios-america-outsourcing-sex-trade?utm_source=vicetumblrus

by tchalla • 13 years ago

203 185 13 years ago

m.vice.com

ajiang• 13 years ago

Non-mobile link for those not on a phone

http://www.vice.com/read/bucharest-webcam-studios-america-ou...

cheapsteak• 13 years ago

In this case the mobile one is actually the better viewing experience.

wehadfun• 13 years ago

Well I could comment but I'm at work

buckbova2• 13 years ago

Hard at work in a sexcam studio?

Honestly is this SFW and is it a video or article?

troygoode• 13 years ago

It is SFW and is in article format.

dangrossman2• 13 years ago

There are "sex cam studios" in every country, including America. There are several in Arizona and Nevada. They're just like the coworking spaces us devs/designers have available to us -- space to work in, a solid internet connection, and a network of people in the same industry as you, some of whom will pair up to serve "clients" whose needs are too much for one "contractor".

LukeWalsh3• 13 years ago

While this is technically true, I disagree with the undertone. I think the industry is fundamentally different and in its most extreme realizations has been shown to cause severe emotional harm to exploited workers.

sbov• 13 years ago

Extreme realizations and exploiting workers is a problem in any industry. People have died farming gold in video games. Its why we have labor laws.

ocharles• 13 years ago

In its most extreme realizations has been shown to cause severe emotional harm to exploited workers.

Care to share these findings?

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

I think the industry is fundamentally different and in its most extreme realizations has been shown to cause severe emotional harm to exploited workers.

The "most extreme realizations" of most industries have been shown to cause severe harm -- often both physical and emotional -- to exploited workers.

I mean, really, we see this fairly regularly with the all kinds industries that don't involve sex, and then we blame it on the particular abusive practices, and don't try to claim its fundamental to having an industy that deals in, say, garments, or electronics.

malandrew• 13 years ago

Severe? Hardly. It's not like these people are being beaten or abused. They're there voluntarily. They're just getting the short-end of the economic stick and their clients got the short-end of the sexual capital[0] stick.

It's only emotional harm if you attach a lot of emotional value in the work you do. It's not really any different than whoring yourself out to Wall Street. If you have ethical concerns with the work, it will cause you anguish. If you don't and you're happy with the money you won't be bothered or emotionally harmed that much.

As the author of this piece pointed out, it's all incredibly pedestrian. The emotional harm really is the emotional pain of having no better options to make a living than participating in an exploitative system they don't fully agree with.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_capital

BSousa• 13 years ago

Are we talking about startups or sex industry? Cause burnout/long working hours have taken a toll in many of our brightest engineers and ruined a few families as well. And hey, if you are not doing 80 hours work you are a cop-out right?

calvinwest6• 13 years ago

Your point of view couldn't be more incorrect. Coworking spaces aren't modeled around a brothel atmosphere as most cam dens are. There are "humane" cam studios in some countries like Germany where there are regulations for sex workers, but this is usually the exception.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

They're just like the coworking spaces us devs/designers have available to us

This is one of the more out of touch bits of false equivalency I've seen on HN recently, and that's saying something. It's a bit of pop philosophy that says that sex workers are just like any other service provider. However, it totally ignores the psychology and power differentials in the industry. In America and especially in developing countries. The point 'LukeWalsh makes about child sex workers is relevant. The phat answer is: "well that's different, because children can't consent and nobody can consent on their behalf." Neat and clean. But the psychology that leads someone to push their child into sex work is not susceptible to a neat answer or pop philosophy. Whatever psychological phenomenon is at play, might a lesser but qualitatively similar sort of phenomenon be at play with less extreme examples of sex workers?

selmnoo• 13 years ago

I'm guessing probably because the secular crowd doesn't ascribe so much power significance to sexual matters. They don't see a girl being forced to do sex work (of any variety) as having been exploited in any way. What's interesting, I suppose, is that a new form feminism brewing (especially among women of younger age) shares these values -- they see sex work just like any other work to get money, and so the sex work is just fine and should be let as is according to them.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this if you have any.

antoinec• 13 years ago

...and this spaces are full of people that are doing their job by passion and not because they don't have the choice, right? This is sad to read such a comment.

dangrossman2• 13 years ago

Yes. I know about the ones in Arizona and Nevada because I know (offline) two friends that work in them; one with a boyfriend, one with a husband, both go to college and "cam" in the studio after classes a few nights a week for extra money. The boyfriend is in his girlfriend's page most of those nights so they can chat whenever it's not busy. They're both also active in their local kink community; they have a passion for voyeurism and get paid for it.

Yes, there are "sex workers" that are being exploited or coerced into their situation all over the world. Not everyone who turns on their webcam and disrobes for money is one of those people, and the fact that there are companies catering to them isn't in itself a "sad" thing. They're not part of some underground -- you can find the job listings for the studio's building managers, website maintenance and such on Monster.com. If you've ever visited Philadelphia and walked the tourist attractions, you unknowingly walked by the nation's largest phone sex hotline too. It's a cubicle-farm call center, the employees wearing normal work attire while working FT shifts for FT pay, benefits and bonuses.

agumonkey• 13 years ago

I mostly agree, but nothing is pure and perfect. I've seen many people in dev out of necessity rather than appreciation or even desire/passion. Many people despise it deeply (managerial harassment, being undervalued as a person, high stress, absurd workplace processes). It's better for social status and pay.

DanBC9• 13 years ago

Many people would pay for non-sexual fully clothed friendship services.

Get the price right, get the training right, make sure there is strong blocking to protect against creeps (and set expectations from the start) and I think you'd get considerable business.

mountaineer• 13 years ago

Here is some evidence of that - http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/11/profess...

jaredsohn• 13 years ago

Interestingly, the Cuddle House in Madison, WI (mentioned in the article) was reported as shut down today.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/wisconsin-snuggle-s...

They had panic buttons and security cameras in each room and offered to let city officials watch the raw footage.

pokpokpok• 13 years ago

if the training was correct, this could be a really strong psychological aid in many cases... but could be toxic or emotionally draining in others

DanBC9• 13 years ago

Yes, it would need to be carefully applied.

dm2• 13 years ago

Like a virtual community center?

It would need games and activities as well as profiles.

How would it differ from facebook? Not that I approve of what facebook has become but I can imagine spending a lot of time developing this awesome site only to have it be nothing more than a social media clone.

gabemart• 13 years ago

Is it common for people to "meet" new friends on facebook? I have no experience of people doing so. If someone I had never met contacted me on facebook to try and forge a social relationship, I would find it inappropriate.

DanBC9• 13 years ago

The relationship is different, thus so long as the clients are obeying the rules they are guaranteed someone who will pretend to like them and who will engage them in conversation.

Social networks sort of work for people who have friends. People willing to pay for fake friendship probably do not have many friends. It's alarming to see numbers for people who haven't spoken to anyone for the past week, for example.

ics• 13 years ago

I wonder if there are any rigorous studies on the side-effects of Japan's host industry (which is exactly what you described). Business seems to be pretty good judging by the number of clubs you come across in Kabukicho alone...

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

Business is indeed extremely good but those hostesses themselves are in debt or adore lonely and resort to going to host clubs (the male equivalent) where they get entertained.

Vicious cycle. Exists in Korea too from what friends there have told me. In the early evening you see salons packed with young hostess women getting ready and getting their hair done, and a few hours later the same salons are packed with young men hosts who are getting ready to entertain the hostesses when they get off their shift.

rdtsc• 13 years ago

It is hard to sell that and divorce it from the sexual nature or the insinuation that it has sex in it.

"What does your start-up do?" "We are an escort service, we provide companionship". "Oh so hookers?". "No, no, just talking" "Riiiiight...sure...."

Kind of like. One would have to go to great length to really convince or explain to the others (investors, friends, anyone) that this business does not sex as the underlying service.

calvinwest6• 13 years ago

Several years ago I worked at an adult entertainment company. They were involved in pretty much every vertical of adult content except perhaps print. When I read articles like this one I'm always amazed at how well the tone of numbness carries through. This is the essential characteristic of the adult industry, as everyone involved in it, top to bottom, is numb or becomes numb.

MichaelGG4• 13 years ago

Numb in what way? Numb to the mundane in-and-out stuff of the business? I'm sure many people in many industries become numb to things.

calvinwest6• 13 years ago

It's a numbness to being objectified, passed around and drained of value. It's not only the "talent" (as the performers are called) that is treated in that manner. All employees are subject to it - from HR, secretaries, video editors, developers, IT, marketing associates, all the way up to executives.

In adult entertainment you are not an individual, but rather a resource to be exploited. I've worked in a few other industries and I've never felt the callousness that I did while working in the adult industry. Because everyone is numb, it ends up creating an environment where there is no support and you'll eagerly step over a fallen comrade and right into the meat grinder yourself.

I remember sitting at a pub with a group of 8 coworkers, one of whom had just given his two-weeks notice. He confided in us, over beers, that he was extremely depressed. No one at the table said anything in response; no reassurances, no thoughtful gestures. We sat quietly for a few moments before someone changed the conversation, but we all knew why he felt that way.

stplsd• 13 years ago

I would add humourlessness. There is good old article on adult industry by Martin Amis:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/mar/17/society.martina...

"But then humourlessness, universal and institutionalised humourlessness, is the lifeblood of porno"

pvnick• 13 years ago

That was a fascinating, well-written, and yet incredibly sad read. It's easy to lose touch in the relative comfort of the first world, both geographically as well as virtually. I loved the comparison to the red light district. Desperately lonely divorced Western men spending a fortune on these young foreign girls and boys for companionship and sexual gratification, and the young folks drawn into whoring out their bodies over the internet just to make rent and buy food. Or, evidently, to squander their money "Gangnam Style" on luxuries to feel rich. The whole thing reaches a level of depravity almost to the point of absurdity. Interestingly enough, Romania turns out to have among the fastest average broadband connection speeds in the world [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania#Average_Spe...

yogo2• 13 years ago

I see it as basic economics, with a history going back as far as biblical times. The real first world problem is looking at this as depraved when in fact it's a real business, with a real demand, that makes money versus some shitty startup.

bayesianhorse13• 13 years ago

No. Sex trade is never "basic economics". Sexuality is always a big part of the identity, so much so, that violating sexual self-determination leaves victims scarred for life. And yes, sex-cams count. Some models might enjoy this, or are neutral about it. Others don't have an alternative or are even forced, directly or indirectly to do it.

All this "basic economics" talk tries to obscure the exploitation that is necessary to provide sex labor at "acceptable" prices.

Rape is rape, whatever you pay the pimp.

coldtea4• 13 years ago

I see it as basic economics, with a history going back as far as biblical times.

The same could be said for slavery.

_b8r0• 13 years ago

Part of the reason they squander the money is similar to many from former Soviet countries. The Soviets took wealth from people to redistribute it. Especially towards the end of the Soviet Union many people were exceptionally poor and struggling to get food without using the black market. For many people out towards that end of the world, a sense of enjoying what you have today because it might all be taken away from you tomorrow is pretty much the norm.

gexla• 13 years ago

I think it's more simple than that. The idea of "nobody thinks about tomorrow" is common in the Philippines as well. I think it's more a lack of education. When you haven't had money and your parents haven't had money, then you don't really know how to handle it.

It's the same with family planning. Since having lots of kids is the norm, people don't think much of it (not to mention that birth control is an extra expense for people already tight on cash.)

It's not until someone can break out numbers, charts, graphs and help these people understand the basics of thriving in a modern economy that they will begin to make better choices.

Also, are people in the U.S. really that much different? How many people have the skills and discipline to properly plan for retirement or an emergency? Sure, many people are just scraping by. For many people in the middle class, their monthly budget just swells to eat up their pay. I remember a lot of friends right out of high school landing well paying labor jobs (while everyone else was poor and going to college) and blowing it all on trucks and big boy toys. This is an extreme example, but what percentage of high paid pro athletes go broke within 5 years after they quit playing? Big lotto winners?

Budgeting is one of those life tasks which can be very simple, but still difficult for many people. Time management is another. The brain sometimes has difficulty dealing with these abstract things. These people don't do well unless you constrain them. Their budgets are constrained by what they bring home. Their time management is constrained by punching a clock and given specific tasks to do within certain times. Show up at X time. Take a lunch at X time. Leave at X time. In between, stand in X spot and deal with customers. Give them a vague job like running a business where they have to plan their own day and they would probably fall apart.

olalonde4• 13 years ago

I would speculate that "cam girls" simply have on average a lower control for delayed gratification (i.e. they failed the Stanford marshmallow experiment).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

josu2• 13 years ago

Total number of active providers, as of Dec 31 2007: 1338

That's the reason why Romania has one of the fastest broadband connections.

adventured• 13 years ago

The people getting rich off of this industry are the cam sites, such as MyFreeCams or LiveJasmin, typically taking half of the earnings brought in (models get the other half, often split down to a quarter if a studio is involved). Several of them are generating tens of millions in revenue at this point, and are among the top 500 sites globally in traffic.

The founder of MyFreeCams runs a VC business in the US with his cam wealth.

I wouldn't be surprised if in another five years the cam business is larger than the traditional porn industry, including the large porn sites.

calvinwest6• 13 years ago

It's probably already bigger, but they guard their numbers. Tube sites are just portals to get you to go to a cam site or a dating site. There are fewer regulations with those sites as opposed to professionally produced pornography (2257 regs, condom use laws in LA County, etc.). You also don't have to worry about copyright infringement (executing it or defending yourself from it) with cams and dating sites.

pkl2• 13 years ago

How do they monetize the adult dating sites? Sign up fees? I would think there's not a lot of repeat business there, once the users find out it's a scam. Whereas cam sites can milk people forever.

prawn2• 13 years ago

Anyone selling shovels during the gold rush? That is products or services to the models themselves, like schedule optimisation, gadgets, macro responses, leaderboards, third-party sites with monetisation of secondary products and memorabilia, lighting and furnishings for the rooms, etc?

joshwa• 13 years ago

There's a new class of site that's essentially a hosting platform--anyone can use the site to host a show out of their own home, use the streaming infrastructure, billing, tips system, private shows, pay-per-access pics/vids, etc.

Provided you can manage to stay anonymous, seems like a safe way to be a sex worker without violence/coercion.

maybeguy• 13 years ago

Yea, the owner of LiveJasmin is currently the third wealthiest man of his country (Hungary). Sure it's not a big country but he's worth around half a billion dollars. Interview with him with English subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqKHAgzoiQY

tn13• 13 years ago

Well written article. I spend regularly on the cam sites and find the whole model fascinating. Very few models however actually give any meta details such as those provided in this article.

yarou2• 13 years ago

I actually don't find this story all too surprising. What really irked me was the piece on how Japan commodified various aspects of a relationship (i.e. "cuddle cafes"[0], those bar/club places where people pay top dollar to tell their problems to complete strangers). Maybe this is the logical "next step" of human relationships; however, such a conclusion is thoroughly disheartening.

[0]http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-japanese-lo...

shadowfox• 13 years ago

where people pay top dollar to tell their problems to complete strangers

In a way that is what often happens in therapy too. (Of course therapists tend to have training)

mschuster913• 13 years ago

And, well, in a lot of cases psychological training is absolutely needed!

saraid2163• 13 years ago

Maybe this is the logical "next step" of human relationships

It might be a logical one, but it's not one we ought to aim for. There's a weak, but building movement going on trying to push us in a different direction. See stuff like Jeremy Rifkin's RSA talk or Enrique Peñalosa's TED talk. I'm sorry about the vagueness, but I'm having trouble coming up with a way to summarize it usefully. =/

jseliger• 13 years ago

It might be a logical one, but it's not one we ought to aim for

I'm also not convinced, for reasons related to Coase's "The Nature of the Firm" that I describe in more detail here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/an-economic-model-o... . The short version is that people reap efficiency gains from not having to negotiate every interaction, which probably points to ongoing couple / small group formation.

yarou2• 13 years ago

I think fundamentally, people are growing more lonely as we shift from the purely physical realm into the abstract world of the web. You have startups like Grouper trying to solve loneliness, but in reality they may even be exacerbating it. We all get a little lonely sometimes, and I don't think there's a viable substitute to physically meeting someone. Barring a fundamental change in our brain chemistry.

Mikeb85• 13 years ago

places where people pay top dollar to tell their problems to complete strangers

Isn't this what bartenders are for?

swalsh• 13 years ago

I didn't realize it was real people, I always thought it was some "AI" with loops, kind of like that viral burger king campaign with the chicken.

girvo5• 13 years ago

Some are indeed just video loops. They don't do very well though, it's not just the naked body that's needed, it's the interaction that matters more.

marincounty• 13 years ago

Wasen't this why the Internet and Cams were invented? I'm being facetious(a word my father abused), but kinda serious. I remember talking to Rick about a way to annonymously talk to chicks in the early ninties. It has gotten disgusting though, and I'm sorry, I don't blame guys completely; girls have changed. They care more about money than ever before. Girls in the eighties and ninties didn't know what power they possessed, and I think they had better morals? As to any masoginistic claims; I used "girl", because you in my time women didn't spread their legs for clicks.

unsigner• 13 years ago

I'm in Bulgaria, not Romania. We have similarly great residential Internet speeds and I think the article is wrong in attributing them to the sex industry. (I have no idea whether there are a significant number of similar businesses here in Sofia.) I think the net connection speeds are due to a combination of two factors: a very dense population (think 10-20 floor cheap residential towers from the times of socialism) a wildly unregulated market. The result was a zillion of small, very aggressive ISPs wiring up neighbourhoods with LAN cables for 5-10 EUR/month "all our router can handle" speeds (only international traffic is metered, national - where the torrent trackers and other torrent users are - is virtually at wire speed).

josu2• 13 years ago

I think that the answer is capitalism:

Total number of active providers[in Romania], as of Dec 31 2007: 1338

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania#Internet_Se...

thenomad• 13 years ago

Whilst there are a lot of impassioned statements of position in this thread, I'm not seeing a lot of discussion of the massive body of research on sex work and sex workers, or the many commentaries on the industry from people working inside it.

Given this is HN, that seems like a bit of a pity. As usual, evidence produces some conclusions which intuition may not.

Here's one study on strippers, for example, from the University of Leeds (Reuters link, can't find the original study, irritatingly):

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/27/us-britain-lapdanc...

patrickaljord2• 13 years ago

She says the girls are exploited by the studio and the clients are exploited by the girls. A typical marxist way to view things. I see no one being exploited here. All I see is consenting adults passing contracts with each others and all getting satisfaction out of it. Nobody is being forced to do anything. The studio makes good money, the women and men work willingly and make a great wage even by american standards. And clients, well, they may be lonely indeed but for all I know, the few minutes they spend on the cam may be the the happiest minutes of their days, no one is forcing them to pay for the service and they seem extremely satisfied by what they're paying for.

So who here is being exploited? All I see is an exchange of transactions between consenting adults that all seem extremely satisfied with what they get out of each deal. What again is wrong with that? Where is the exploitation? I know it sounds good to say these people are all exploited and maybe we should ban these activities to protect these people from hurting themselves because they're too dumb to make their own decisions. This is generating great business for Romania and client satisfactions. Please, don't call it exploitation and let people live their life. Live and let live. Don't judge, don't prohibit things because they offend you.

3pt14159• 13 years ago

Eh, I'm libertarian as they come, but some of those men are addicted. It is possible and unethical to exploit an adult.

patrickaljord2• 13 years ago

They are just satisfying the clients needs for their service, the clients know exactly what they're doing. She even told one guy she had a boyfriend and everything and the guy didn't care, he just enjoyed paying for his fantasy.

phowat• 13 years ago

"Unofficially, someone's put a lot of work into the country’s telecommunication infrastructure, with the result that Romania now has a faster download speed than any G20 nation."

So, low cost of living and great internet infrastructure. Seems like a good place to found a "regular" startup also.

Anyone knows how hard would be to get a visa? Are they part of EU?

rsynnott2• 13 years ago

They're part of the EU, and do have a rapidly growing startup scene.

samsonr• 13 years ago

As a Romanian web developer working remotely for a Western company active in the adult industry and collaborating with video-chat studios in my hometown (Bucharest), I'd like to add my 2 cents:

I'm actually in touch with the studio managers here and I can tell you everything happens 'by the book', we are not a 3rd world country. The girls are not enslaved, abused or forced into anything, instead they are recruited through the usual recruiting methods (media), they even work legally and get their pay-checks in time. They can quit whenever they want, all of this happening in complete discretion. You probably know that the websites they work on are blocked within the same country for obvious reasons. Of course the morality of the girls may come into question, but that is strictly up to them. They are just taking advantage of the economical discrepancy between eastern and western Europe (average monthly wage here is around 400 EUR). Yes, there are people spending massive amounts of money on video-chat and things can degenerate quickly (affecting your private life) but same thing happens with gambling sites and no one bats an eye.

As for working within such a company I could never say that I became numb or feeling morally wrong. I've had the opportunity to work with quality people on challenging technical issues and it has been a prolific period for my career. The way I see it is as being strictly business.

As for Romania, it really is a good place for startups. There are a lot of competent people here wasting their value and time on jobs and wages that some of you would consider ridiculous. But that's just what history left us with and it may take a while for us to get in line.

I Spent A Month Living In A Romanian Sexcam Studio

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