There’s a whole other side to the blogosphere, folks — and it’s older, more tech-savvy, and far more populous than the Sully/Reynolds/Kaus/Marshall realm, which has really only taken off in the last couple of years.

They’re called “cam girls,” and, very generally, they’re teenaged girls who use the Internet, blogs and webcams as a public diary, gossip portal, and, increasingly, sugardaddy.

Salon did a piece on the phenomenon several months ago. Lonely old men log on and ask for web cam shots of a shoulder, or a thigh. The girls oblige, and, using Amazon’s anonymous wishlist function, the old men then pony up for a stereo, or the latest from Franzen, if you’re an optimist.

As unsettling as all this sounds, I think Salon’s got it right. There’s nothing to fear, here. These girls aren’t exploited. They’re doing the exploiting. They’re holding the reins. They make the rules, they decide what they’re gonig to give, and what they’re going to get for giving it. And so long as they’re careful to hide identity or location-revealing information, what’s the hangup?

I’m assuming, of course, that the girls are of age. If a 13 year-old is trading bikini shots of herself to Pete Townshend for Ashanti CDs, well, yes, that’s probably a really bad idea.

If you’re interested, here’s a quick primer on how to break in to the cam girl industry.

On a related note, I’d be happy to send you a polaroid of myself spread out on a bearskin rug in return for a donation to my laptop fund.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2003 at 8:45 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.