The Dark Net (21 page)

‘Hey!’ I say.

‘Hey, sexy.’

‘So what do you do, Julia?’

‘I dance, strip and fuck, all for money,’ she quickly replies.

Julia is a ‘verified’ working girl, which means she has a picture of the real her linked to her avatar. The online Julia is a tall, tanned, sultry twenty-five-year-old. The real Julia is a nurse from Kent in her mid-fifties who is happily married with five children. Julia’s main business here is selling cybersex – making your avatars have sex onscreen, while typing explicit commentary into a chat box. Julia tells me she is very good at cybersex. Some days, she has five or six customers who all want thirty minutes or even an hour of cyber-sex with her. That’s three hours of work, for perhaps $20. It’s not enough to provide a real-world income, but it pays for a VIP account here. She does it, she tells me, ‘for the Rays and the buzz’.

‘Doesn’t that get a bit tiring, all that endless dirty talk?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, sometimes,’ says Julia.

‘And does cybersex actually turn you on?’ I ask.

‘No, not really,’ she replies.

Displaying your naked body live onscreen certainly has its downsides. Most cam-models have the occasional slow room, difficult days and strange requests; these are just occupational hazards. ‘Personally, my worst nights are where no one is interacting,’ Blath told me, as she was getting ready for the show. The silent chat box
is a cam-model’s nightmare. There’s no feedback mechanism. You don’t even know if anyone is paying attention. ‘It’s unnerving.’ Vex recalls that private shows used to be especially difficult. One fan wanted her to instruct him to take poppers.

But these are the least of a cam-model’s concerns. According to Shirley, Chaturbate issues several Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices every day, because some viewers record shows and then repost them on other pornography sites, which is illegal without the site’s permission. ‘You’ll probably end up on a free porn site,’ Vex told me, laughing, after my short cameo. And by putting themselves onscreen, cam-models have long been a target for trolls. In August 2012, one camgirl had what appeared to be a live emotional breakdown on cam after being repeatedly trolled by users of 4chan. ‘God forgot I existed,’ she said, in tears. ‘Twelve years, I’ve been waiting for a man to love me. God doesn’t care. I want to die.’

And it’s not only cam-models who are at risk. The growing volume of sexually explicit material that we share online or with each other has spurred a remarkable growth in what is called ‘revenge porn’: the posting or sharing of explicit photos or videos of a person without their permission. In late 2013, Kevin Bollaert, a twenty-seven-year-old from San Diego, was arrested in relation to a revenge site he operated. It was found that he had amassed over 10,000 explicit images, all without the knowledge or permission of the subjects. Myex.com is a similar site, which was still functioning at the time of writing. Users post pictures of their ex-partners (often naked, occasionally fully clothed), accompanied by a short caption explaining why they’ve chosen to post: ‘While I was in Iraq this hoe cheated on me,’ wrote one. ‘This girl will lie to you . . . I would
suggest staying away from her,’ wrote another. The only way to remove the pictures from myex.com was through an ‘independent arbitration company’, who myex.com advised you to contact ‘if you feel you have been submitted to this site wrongfully’. Removal of images would cost you $499.99. A recent civil rights report found that half of all victims of revenge porn reported that their naked photos appeared next to their full name and social network handle; 20 per cent said that their emails and telephone numbers also appeared. Similar things are happening in schools, too, as cam or sexting pictures end up being shared around the class or school or friendship group. The effect is, of course, devastating. Jessica Logan from Ohio committed suicide after a nude photograph she had sent to an ex-boyfriend was shared around her school. In another American high school, a group of boys were found collecting ‘sexy selfies’ of their fellow students, which they were using to demand ever more explicit photos from the subjects.

Vulnerable teenagers, willingly or unwillingly, can also be sucked into the world of webcams. There is a good reason why Chaturbate is so strict about verifying the age of its performers. In 2000, thirteen-year-old Justin Berry set up a webcam. Initially, he was offered $50 to take off his shirt and sit bare-chested onscreen for three minutes. He was soon being asked to pose in his underwear for a little over $100. It was the beginning of a cycle of online abuse. For over five years Berry earnt thousands of dollars doing various sexual shows for hundreds of paying subscribers before the site was shut down. It was an early warning of the dangers of the webcam world.

Vex has never met her viewers, and doesn’t plan to. Her relationship with her regulars exists strictly online, a boundary she is determined to keep. But part of Vex’s appeal is that she is obviously real. Her shows are unashamedly home-made – a mixture of porn and, as one regular viewer describes it, a Skype chat with your girlfriend. Shirley tells me that camming is so popular because people want ‘the real girlfriend’ experience, warts and all. If people are going to use the internet for sexual satisfaction – and they will – camming is a more realistic and meaningful experience. Things go wrong, there are mistakes, there’s chat, cats wander in and out. Vex might emphasise her ums and ahs, but she doesn’t make them up. Everything is real. That’s healthy. For all the social panic about the ubiquity of hard-core porn on the net, there is something quite comforting about this. The net has always been accompanied by utopian dreams of sex without limits, of fantasies without boundaries. In his famous 1990 article about the future of sex in the magazine
Mondo 2000
, Howard Rheingold argued that ‘the definition of Eros’ would ‘soon be up for grabs’, because everyone will be as beautiful as they want and will be able to have virtual sex with anyone, anywhere. But most people don’t want fantastical sex with robots or supermodels. They want ordinary sex with real people.

Yet something about the phrase ‘real girlfriend experience’ bothers me. I like Vex a lot. I understand why her fans keep coming back. You really do get an excellent ‘girlfriend experience’ with her. And that’s the problem. The men in her room aren’t her boyfriend. Vex’s boyfriend – who is a very cordial and friendly man – is currently downstairs, listening to the football on the radio.

When it’s stripped down to its bare essence, camming is a transaction. This is Vex’s job. Danny – a loyal Vex fan – explains the downside to me of ‘the girlfriend experience’: ‘You have to keep reminding yourself that you will never meet these women in person, and
they do not want to fuck you
. Once I came to that conclusion, I found myself a much happier member of the cam-rooms I frequent.’

Vex never says this to me directly, but I have the impression she is aware of this tension. She has come to genuinely like many of her fans – especially the regulars – some of whom she knows quite well. With one she often exchanges tips on books and new music, with another she discusses politics. She does not view her fans as cash cows. I think the reason people like Vex is not because she acts as though she genuinely cares, but because she really does. But to keep this show on the road, Vex also needs their tokens. The big, regular tippers could at any moment transfer allegiance to another model. Vex has her leaderboard of top tippers. She devises games to encourage them to transfer more tokens into her account. She treats regular spenders with particular care. Vex’s real skill is to somehow keep this all in a workable balance. Not everyone can. Occasionally, the uneasy model–viewer relationship explodes into direct confrontation. ‘You guys need to do better,’ wrote one well-known cam-model in an ‘open letter’ to the viewers of MyFreeCams. ‘The lack of tipping and support . . . That shit needs to STOP,’ she fumed. ‘At some point, a bit of the responsibility falls on you . . . Don’t throw excuses around about being unemployed, being short on cash, etc. Don’t have a job? Well, stop spending your days on MFC and look for one!’ One irate viewer responded: ‘This is a business and your job is selling your body, your personality, your
services. I know it sucks sometimes. Welcome to the real world! We’re not a community of philanthropists.’

Tonight’s show finally draws to a close. As Vex climaxes she rolls over to the side of the bed, just off-camera, and gives me a thumbs-up. It was a truly phenomenal performance by all the girls, and the fans rewarded them for it. Over 5,000 people had joined Vex’s room in total, and the majority tipped, and tipped well.
^fn2
The girls have earnt about £300 each for close to three hours online.

With the main event successfully accomplished, Vex shouts ‘Pile-on!’ and the three of them jump on top of each other. ‘Music!’ Vex laughs, from the bottom of the pile. ‘Let’s put on some music!’ The girls have just enough time left for a dance for their satisfied fans, as Duchamp and I look on.

^fn1
Cats wandering in and out of amateur pornography has become an internet meme all of its own. There is an excellent blog dedicated to ‘Indifferent Cats in Amateur Porn’. Duchamp’s sister Liesl has made an appearance there.

^fn2
Every hour the room with the most viewers wins a $10 prize. Between 8 and 9 p.m., that prize goes to Vex’s room. This turns out to be one of the biggest audiences she has ever had in her room at any one time. ‘Three-girl shows are extremely rare,’ she later explained. Before the show, I asked Vex how many people she might typically have in her room. ‘If you’re just hanging out, could be two hundred people in there, depending on how naked you are. If I’m doing a cum-show, it’s usually about one thousand.’

‘
YAY! WE’RE SO
glad you joined our community. You’re going to love it here!’ Thirteen-year-old Amelia was browsing the internet for dieting tips when this friendly message greeted her. Amelia had recently been bullied by girls at her school about her weight. She was shy, and was becoming increasingly self-conscious about her appearance. This looks nice, she thought. She clicked through.
^fn1

Three years later, Amelia was being driven to hospital by her concerned parents. She was dangerously underweight, and required urgent care. But Amelia didn’t think so. ‘You don’t understand!’ she told them. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me! This is normal. I don’t
want
to recover. I’m
pro
-anorexia.’ At this point, she says, she was so ill that she could barely walk.

Over three years, Amelia had become a popular and committed member of the site she’d stumbled across. It was one of a large number of online ‘peer support’ groups, websites and forums, one dedicated to the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.

When we are feeling ill or under the weather, our first port of call is more often than not the internet. With the click or two of a mouse we can match our symptoms to a range of maladies, and quickly find individuals and communities ready and willing to offer advice and support. Today there are thousands of dedicated online peer support groups covering almost every ailment and illness imaginable, created and maintained by other sufferers, for other sufferers. Eighteen per cent of US internet users report having gone online specifically to seek out people with similar symptoms to their own.

Online peer support groups have been shown to help people at difficult times in their lives. Studies consistently find that speaking to people who have first-hand knowledge and experience of your own condition helps to improve self-esteem, boost confidence and aid well-being. But the ‘pro-ana’ site Amelia had found was part of a branch of online peer support that’s less beneficial. Every day, thousands of people visit the sprawling network of forums, blogs and websites dedicated to various types of self-harm: anorexia, self-mutilation, suicide. Some are designed to illustrate the dangers of a particular condition, to help people to recover, or to advise them to seek help. Others are ambivalent – sites for people to speak openly and honestly about their illness. And a small minority of them are ‘pro’.

Arguably the first ‘pro’ self-harm site was a Usenet newsgroup called alt.suicide.holiday, or ‘a.s.h.’, created by Californian Andrew
Beals in August 1991. The first two posts on a.s.h. (now referred to as its original charter) set out its aim: ‘With the holidays coming up, this newsgroup will be a good resource . . . as we all know, the suicide rate raises around the holidays and this newsgroup is the place to discuss methods and reasons.’ A.s.h. quickly became one of the most notorious groups on the net: a place where hundreds, and then thousands, of visitors would talk about suicide, ask advice on methods to use, or even look for partners with whom to make a ‘pact’. Today there are hundreds of similar suicide forums and sites – many of which still use the infamous a.s.h. welcome: ‘Sorry you’re here.’

By the late nineties the first pro-ana sites (and ‘pro-mia’ sites, for bulimia) began to appear. On these sites, anorexia and bulimia were presented not as dangerous illnesses, but as lifestyle choices. The sites sought to mutually strengthen sufferers’ commitment to weight loss, and provide a space to share advice and tips. According to Dr Emma Bond, who conducted a large review into the English-speaking pro-ana community in 2012, there are between 400 and 500 main pro-ana websites and blogs on the surface web today, along with thousands of smaller blogs. ‘Pro-cutting’ sites are also prevalent on the web, with approximately 500 dedicated sites or forums online by 2006, often linked to pro-ana sites. The number has steadily increased ever since.

The sad truth is that Amelia’s case is not unique. Hundreds of people join self-harm sites each week, learning techniques and tricks, and meeting legions of like-minded individuals. A 2007 study examining the popularity of pro-ana sites found that they were visited by around half a million people. A 2011 EU study revealed that approximately
one in ten eleven to sixteen year olds had seen a pro-ana site. In the UK visitors are overwhelmingly women aged between thirteen and twenty-five. A.s.h. (and a related newsgroup called alt.suicide.methods) still runs to this day, and contains thousands of threads, posts and comments, read by an unknown number of people.