In the past year, Windsor has been one of several cities to see its library stacks commandeered by women working as “cam girls,” or adult performers who put on live web cam shows for paying online viewers. While the gig brings in some nice pocket change, it also carries risks like indecent exposure and lifetime bans from cam girl sites. The woman who has been spotted performing in the city’s libraries, identified by her screen name “lilsecrett,” says she wants to remain anonymous because of the threats she faces from people who have seen videos of her masturbating in public.
She takes me to the room that’s home to her sex-making machine, a small bedroom decked out with polka-dot bedding and a blow-up unicorn head mounted above her bed. There’s a “tickle chest” filled with more than 100 sex toys and a closet bursting with lingerie and flashy accessories, including a white faux-fur animal hood and LED lights that flash in the shape of hearts and lightning bolts.
Kush has been working as a cam model for more than 10 years now. She’s a hardworking Montreal native who works around the clock and lives off of tips from viewers on websites like Chaturbate. She doesn’t get rich, but she has a steady stream of income that allows her to buy food and rent a place to stay.
Her work is legal, because under Canada’s new Prostitution Criminal Law Reform, the only requirement for a cam girl is that she be alone in the room with her client. But Kush’s not interested in simply bringing pleasure to her audience. She wants to make porn political.
Her most recent show discusses FOSTA, a bill in the United States that would allow federal investigators to search and seize private information from websites that host explicit content. In addition to pointing out how the bill could affect her own business, Kush also points out that it would make it easier for authorities to censor the internet. “As a female in the industry, it’s important to me to speak out against this type of legislation,” she says. “We need to be able to communicate and express ourselves freely.”