Camgirl Meeting – Part 2: Behind the Scenes

This was originally a response to a comment, but I’d like to put it out there, as its own topic of discussion and gather some opinions on this.

In response to “uninformed” (welcome to my blog, by the way!), who wrote https://amanda36c.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/camgirl-meeting-date-time-and-place/#comment-644 

Thanks for your input, Uninformed. I always enjoy a good discussion about the biz, so here goes; my 2 cents.

You wrote: “No matter what, this is a service industry. I can understand the frustration from the client end. Not that I don’t see the opposite true with very mean people making comments. However, it is a service industry and it is to be expected.”

I understand your point completely and agree to an extent but customer service isn’t so cut and dry in our industry. Having been a part of this as long as I have (15 years), I’ve observed plenty. Here’s my point of view, and you know from which side of the fence this is coming:

Nowhere on earth are workers more a target of verbal abuse than in our industry, in large part thanks to the anonymity of the internet, giving people carte blanche to insult, belittle, degrade, punish, harrass, stalk, pester, impersonate, etc. using internet chatrooms as their own personal playground. Add to the mix now, the nature of what we do which makes us even bigger targets of this behavior because we appear so open-minded, so vulnerable and let’s face it; the adult industry, tucked away in its own little corner of society doesn’t exactly get a lot of support from law enforcement when it comes to the aforementioned behavior, which, in any other workplace, actually carries criminal charges, punishable by law. The simple act of removing our clothes in exchange for money means to forfeit our rights to be treated as an equal in society, especially where human rights are concerned. Or so it seems.

The way I see it, generally speaking, society already looks down upon this industry and everyone in it fits into some assigned stereotype. From the lowest level, the sex workers, to the middlemen webpimps, to the highest level of control, the mob bosses, we all have our little place in this game and unlike chess, there is no pawn-to-queen advancement. It remains controlled by the same entities, the same people, the same attitudes that allow this behavior to continue, with one focus; the almighty buck. 

If you can jog your mind back to a time, before you were involved in this industry, do you remember what your initial thoughts of sex workers were, on a whole? Draw a quick conclusion, with as little analysis as possible. Were you  thinking about a brothel, a strip club, peep show, perhaps? Knowing any industry is knowing what lies at the backbone of it. Who is pulling the strings and what motivates them. Who is the big boss and why? In an industry where women are clearly the main attraction, why is it so controlled by men? Why are men the ones making all the money? Not to make this a battle of the sexes, because it really isn’t, but women drive this industry and yet the abuse is all on them. Again though – we reap what we sow, don’t we? We teach others how to treat us.

All that said, I think when it comes to the customer service ideal, we fit into a different category of workers; one that has to police, protect and defend itself. One with little to no rights and at times, admittedly, frustration begins to set in, and I start to question why I put up with a lot of what I do in my chatroom. The “customer comes first” ideal was not created with someone in mind who, as a customer, enters your place of business and barks out rude insults at you and expects you to accept it as par for the course. I have no problem telling people like that exactly where they can shove it, quite frankly.

It’s easy to be on the outside and offer advice to anyone with a problem, but until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, or have had to endure that  harrassment yourself for 2 years, then just take a backseat and listen. It’s really all you can do.
 

I consider myself to have a good amount of respect for people but that doesn’t mean I owe anyone a damn thing as far as a customer-oriented attitude in this industry, considering what I receive in return. They set the precedent with their initial treatment of me. I draw mine from there and if my response is anything less than accommodating, well they only have themselves to blame. 

In my world, you get what you give and if someone is going to come into my place of business and insult me, I’m going to let him have it. All that “customer comes first” goes right out the window in favor of  “do unto others…” and “you reap what you sow”. If others are present when that happens, so be it. There’s another expression I love to use and that is “you teach others how to treat you”. So, for the others, it’s a lesson in manners. As far as this being a service industry and rudeness in chatrooms are “to be expected”. Does that also mean to be complacent? I don’t buy that at all. Rudeness should not be tolerated. The mindset is this; we allow this behavior, therefore, we accept it. If we accept it, therefore, we encourage it. For me, it’s simple, respect myself or get used to being treated this way all the time.

Interesting thoughts you have on the market. To have a true understanding of the market, without a social sciences degree or the equivalent in some form, the marketer would have to really understand human nature, habits, tendencies, instincts, etc. because we are dealing with people that are from all walks of life, not specific to one occupation, one religion, one race, one age group, etc. I think “etc.” pretty much summarizes my point. I’d have to say that the only people who really know this market are those successful in the industry, with a proven track record. People who have made not only a career in the industry but a name in it, as well. There are innovators, thinkers, who transform everything they touch into something incredibly lucrative. The Donald Trumps of the porn industry are so few and far between though. When I think ‘porn giants’, my mind goes to Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt. I only know of the big players in the industry because I perform searches and look at stats all the time.
 So, in closing on this topic, I believe that it is too vast a market to narrow anything down in terms of marketing. Your niche would determine your market. If you don’t have a niche, everything is open but you’d better have money.

It isn’t as though we’re selling shoes, who we would be targeting women between the ages of 22 and 50, which, hell I may be off because I’m not in, nor have I studied the shoe industry, but I can assume based on what I deem logical, that would be the average age range and gender of the people who buy the most shoes in the world. I have been buying shoes all my life but I could be completely wrong about that. I can’t pretend to know about that industry, so I can’t understand how anyone can pretend to know about this industry, with an even broader market. Even with the current economy the way it is, this market is still thriving. That is a sure indicator of the strength this industry has on a global scale.
Some ways I think the sites could adapt better to the needs of their performers:

From a performer’s standpoint, if the sites would curb their paranoia of the possibility of traffic diversion, long enough to see the benefits in allowing a Twitter button to appear in the girl’s profile page on the site, they would thrive. Perhaps give us a feature that would allow us to promote our shows to existing customers with one simple e-mail message (not have to copy and paste several e-mail account codes to send to x-number of members at a time). If they would just implement some features crucial to promoting our shows, we would have a far better platform that girls would be happy to be a part of. Oh and increasing productivity never hurt any business.

The sites do need to loosen up and allow us girls to interact with members a little more. Their fear of losing customers to traffic-diverting girls is a silly fear that wouldn’t essentially be as harmful in the long term as restricting our communication with these members. If a member really likes a girl, he will drag his ass to Google and perform a search for her there. If she’s the least bit wise, she’ll have a Twitter or Facebook account which will pop up as the first link and voila – he’s found his girl. You have such a great platform? Then you have nothing to worry about in terms of customers returning to the site. 

 

 
That site you mentioned, Xhamstercams.com is actually owned by FCI (Streamate’s parent company).