When you throw poverty, an abundance of underemployed English-speaking women and exceptionally high internet speeds together, the result is Europe’s biggest sex cam industry. But when it comes to Romania’s girls, they say it’s not about sex and money. They’re in it for the love.
Rose, who works at one of Bucharest’s more successful studios, says she loves being a cam girl, even though it can be tiring and frustrating. “You can see that you’re helping people who have problems in their lives,” she says. “You can give them a shoulder to cry on and ease their loneliness.” Most of her clients come from Western Europe, but she’s had men from as far away as Australia and Japan visit her studio. “They tell me that I am their soul mate,” she says. “That makes me feel really good.”
The industry is legal in Romania, but it’s not regulated or recognised in terms of taxation. The women are treated as online service providers based on a copyright contract. They broadcast up to eight hours a day, and clients pay anywhere from $2 to $10 per minute for a private conversation with the girls. The women share the profits with their studios, which can take up to 50 percent of a girl’s revenue.
In interviews with AFP, studio owners like Maria Boroghina, manager at Best Studios in Bucharest, said she hadn’t heard of the Tates before their arrest and that they never participated in industry events. Her company, which employs 160 models, is one of the country’s largest sex cam operations. She says a typical cam girl’s after-tax monthly salary is $8 000, about 10 times the average Romanian wage.
Many women who work in the business are from villages where jobs are scarce. Others, like Rose, come from broken homes where their parents are working abroad. Almost all say that family support is key to their decision to go before the camera. Most are too young to get a job outside the sex cam industry, and they have little idea about their options.
Some say that they have to do it because they need the money. But they also talk about the fact that it’s not a very respectable profession. “It’s a shame,” says a blunt young student. “It’s a step towards more dangerous activities, like prostitution.”
But the cam girls I spoke to don’t agree with that argument. They say that they should be able to use their earnings in the same way that any other worker would, and that camming shouldn’t be seen as a gateway drug into more dangerous activities. They’re also quick to point out that the men who come to their studios are not necessarily bad guys, and that they have their own issues. For most, a chat with a romanian camgirl is just a way to escape their troubles for a while. It’s a form of virtual romance, they say, just like any other kind of relationship.