- In high school, I used to charge boys
to have like phone sex with me and stuff.
(women laughing)
Yeah. So I guess I've always just kind of been like
"This is what I'm here to be."
- [Narrator] Pornography is everywhere.
Behind closed doors many people may be well acquainted
with sex workers but out in the open it's a taboo topic.
Sex workers are often judged for their career choice
but who are they when the cameras are off?
We invited strangers from around the world
to come online and ask a cam girl anything.
(mellow music)
- Hi, my name is Sheena Rose and I am a cam girl.
(mellow music)
- So just to get started,
how exactly would you define your job?
- I log on live to a cam site every Monday through Friday
for four hours at a time 20 hours a week
and I talk to people and make money (laughs).
- Especially right now, have you seen a peak in business?
Like has it gone up since COVID 19?
- Yeah, definitely.
So last week was probably one of my best weeks
that I've had in 2020, so.
- Does it end up being like fairly lucrative?
Is this like your full-time gig?
- For sure, I don't have like a vanilla job
or anything like that.
I can make six figures a year on camming,
whether it's in a paid show where I get paid per minute,
or if they're tipping me.
Everything that they give me I get a percentage from.
- Do you have a dedicated space for camming
that's separate from the rest of your life?
- So I have my cam room, I have like this right here
which is where I cam, I (indistinct) a closet
where I get ready.
I have a whole wall full of toys, like (laughs).
- What is the weirdest request
that you've ever gotten from someone that-
- (sighs) I can write a book on that.
Viewing cops on their cam in their cop car
and seeing guys stake baseball bats up places,
very large things.
I used to have this customer who would come like every week
he would turn around and face the cam
and he would like poo.
He would turn back around,
he would take it and he would eat it.
He would ejaculate just by eating it
and like not touching anything.
In my life and I've never seen anything else like that.
It's a fetish and I really hate kink shaming,
but that's just extreme, right?
- How do you set boundaries with clients?
Like I understand like being a cam girl
you are like behind a camera and everything,
but there are some certain aspects
that are kind of, I dunno, scary to me.
- I don't do every request in every cam show.
There's a lot of people who come on and ask for racial play.
That is something that I'm just not comfortable with.
I don't do that.
If someone comes into my room
and I don't like what they're saying
or I don't like what their fetish is
I can just block them and kick them out.
- Do trans women, as well as African American women
receive the same opportunities in your field profession
as Caucasian white women do, maybe as far as payment
and things and such?
- Privilege is in every industry and in everything.
And I am not blind or ignorant to mine.
Trans women and African American women
do have a harder time in my industry making more money.
That's just some of their complaints and it's 100% real.
- Do you ever want kids?
- All throughout my life I always knew
that I never wanted children.
It just wasn't the type of person I was.
Now I think about it
because I've been with my same person for years now,
though I do wonder on how my lifestyle
and such is going to change if I do decide to have a child.
- How do you think you will explain that to a child
that is like, "Mommy, what do you do?"
- I have some friends who are very, very open with it.
And then there are some women that I know that just hide it.
I do want my child to respect everyone
and to be open and to know,
but I understand that when they get older
and they start going to high school
is when kids can start being mean
and start bullying them and stuff.
- So is your partner in the same industry as you or no?
- No, he is civilian.
He does regular stuff, regular life.
He doesn't even have any type of social media
or anything like that, he's just really normal.
- So do you consider your relationship open?
- No, we're very monogamous.
The only content that I shoot with other people
is girl, girl content, and it is only for filming.
I don't sleep with girls outside of filming.
- Yeah-
- He doesn't sleep anyone else at all period.
- Did you feel any pushback from other people in your life
like your family or friends
when you decided to go into the industry?
- At first of course, my dad was kinda like,
"Why? You can do so much, like why?"
I majored in law, minored in psychology.
I made the Dean's list every semester,
but it was always like in the back of my mind
knowing what I wanted to do.
Like I've always been a sexual being,
very interested in porn, very interested...
"Like that's what I wanna do."
- Recently I've noticed that there's been
a lot of popularity with OnlyFans.
Has that affected your work lately?
- For me, that's part of my income.
Half of my income is camming and the other half is OnlyFans,
is mySnapp, is custom videos, the clip sites.
But I do feel bad that a lot of girls
kind of hopped on it as maybe a trend
or a way to make money fast
and they weren't planning on getting in the adult industry
that at the end of the day, that's gonna be on the internet.
And what's on the internet can't be burned.
And so I just really wish that girls
would like think about it
before they decided to put themselves
on the internet like that.
- I read in an article prepping for this
that a webcam girl describes herself
as like a therapist for some of her clients
because they were able to be vulnerable in front of someone
for like the first time.
Do you relate to that in any way?
- I have clients who they would never tell their partner
or future partners what their fetish is
and what they personally like
because they may be too embarrassed.
I have men who come in and just like,
will need that release.
Maybe they're married and have kids,
but it's not going so well
and he just needs to come in and talk to somebody
who's not gonna judge them about it.
I think that a lot of men use cam models as an outlet
to be able to express things that they couldn't express
to people who just really know them.
- What do you think is really misunderstood
about the industry you work in by the general public?
- That, "Sex workers, this is their last resort
or they're doing it because it's trendy
or they're drug addicts or," things like that.
There are some women and people who are just in sex work
because they want to be
because this is what they like to do.
I wish that people would understand that more of like,
"Oh, this girl, she must have daddy issues."
No, like, I just really love what I do.
- Do you see yourself kind of doing this
for like a long period of time?
What do you see yourself doing as an career?
- I believe that the adult industry
is where I am supposed to be.
And honestly, if I wanted to do this until I was 60,
70 years old, there are women who do that and they excel
and they do it really well.
But as far as being a performer for the rest of my life
I don't think so.
I think I'm going to venture wrong into owning a cam studio
and training cam girls and stuff like that.
I think I'm just gonna be a boss lady one day (laughs).
- Thank you so much, this was really cool.
- Thank you so much, Luke. I hope you have a great day.
Stay safe.
- Thank you so much for talking to me.
This was a great conversation.
- It was really nice to meet you.
- Bye. Thank you. (indistinct)
- Bye bye.
(mellow music) (indistinct)