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Trolling For Sexy Talkers

By: Captain Midnight



This is my first effort at doing a story. I have some sexual-fiction stories in the pipeline, but the story " Ramblings of a Mad Porno Surfer" by NaughtyMike really sparked my interest in a review/essay (thank you SO much, NaughtyMike!), and I decided to write about something with which I have considerable acquaintance (alas!).

I was something of a latecomer to Internet adult sites (as they are euphemistically known). I found basically that there were two types: a woman's personal site, where she puts up nude-or-beyond pictures of herself, and the chat rooms, sponsored by some company or another, where a woman sits in a studio bedroom and talks back and forth on a webcam with various visitors. There are good and bad aspects to both.

Women's personal sites vary astonishingly in quality. Yes, I found Tawnee Stone's site and yes, I lived to regret it. But sometimes the bad or indifferent sites have links that take you to the good sites. 

So what constitutes a good site? Putting the technical aspects aside for a later paragraph, I'd say the good sites have women who like people. I am NOT interested in women just for sex, thank you very much. If a woman puts up her other interests, that is a major plus. 

A lot of women seem to work for the same group, so the homepages look all too similar. That means their interests are going to be pretty much the same. I like it when women show some diversity. If they travel, I like to hear about it, if they like to cook or read books, I like that, if they have kids and don't mind talking about them, that's also good. If I can write them and get a good chat conversation going, that is the best of all. 

I still mourn the loss of one Canadian flight attendant whom I considered a close friend, who closed down her site after the blackout of September 2003 messed up her schedule. Besides being a good talker and a good listener, she had lots of travel pictures and stories about the men and women she had met. In short, she was a human being who enjoyed sex, not some show tune played over and over. (See if you can decipher that!)

That leads to the technical part. I have a dial-up server, the horse and buggy of the computer age. I have a very old computer with tons of stuff on it. So I'm rather likely to grow a beard while waiting for a lot of the more elaborate stuff to load – and that's if I'm lucky. If I'm unlucky, the whole computer locks down and I have to turn off the power and turn it back on. Yes, that is as bad as it sounds. There was one site that promised lots of good content – poetry, short stories, pictures, downloaded clips – but it froze my computer whenever I tried to access it. 

The same occurs when one of the women does a live show (usually an hour long) on one of two cam sites associated with the personal sites. Great fun, but what I get -- again, if I'm lucky -- is a lot of frozen video before the next picture loads. It's like watching a bad Saturday-morning cartoon with two-thirds of the remaining frames of film cut out. And as for downloaded video, it strangles my computer. I'd love to see a good sex show between a man and a woman, or two women, or a woman solo, but can't do it. 

That segues into the next topic – the sites which run women posing on camera and "going private" with a guy if he buys time with them. Each token is $1.19 and is good for 12 seconds. Surprisingly, a lot of men do buy those tokens! Since this is the regular job of each woman, it stands to reason that she won't make any money – and disappear from the site – if she doesn't go private. 

Needless to say, the site is getting "a bird's nest on the ground" because it pockets most of the money and pays the women so much per minute they are in private, and nothing for the time they are in public (sound familiar?). The only reason to tolerate this sort of stuff is that sometimes you CAN find a good woman in chat (or I can, anyway), genuinely like her, and feel generous toward her. 

Chat rooms are public when the women aren't in private session, so that means every Tom, Dick, Harry and Jackass can come in. The Jackasses are the ones who haven't become members of the site. They are identified by the code numbers on their computers, so they are called "numbers". 

You would not believe some of the things the numbers say. "Show ass plz, show tits plz, show pussy plz, finger yrslf plz, do yu like anal (frequently!), put finger in ass, spread legs plz, use dildo plz", or just nothing at all – they lean on their ENTER key so their number comes up a dozen times in succession. 

And yes, the spelling and capitalization in that quote is deliberate, because that's how poorly they type (not counting computerspeak abbreviations). Sometimes they like to write in ALL CAPS so they will get noticed. And they will repeat the "requests" dozens of times.

They want all this for free, mind you. We members consider the former begging and the latter shouting. Some of the beggars and shouters can get downright vicious if they don't get freebies. It can drive away some good women. By "good," I mean women who smile a lot, who talk to the men on a one-to-one basis, and – yes – perform astonishing physical feats in private. 

Sometimes the anatomical feats are contortional, but sometimes the women really love to caress and touch themselves. Those women are keepers. Some of them will give out their private E-mail addresses and will write back and forth to you. (Respect their private lives in those cases, very important!) The ladies may also use poor spelling and grammar and capitalization too (often all in the same sentence), but when you're trying to write 37 people at once, it's more understandable.

I need to mildly chide NaughtyMike for one thing. The site where I go has quite a number of Czech, Russian and Polish ladies. Those ladies are not "skanks" by any stretch of the imagination. They can be very pretty at times. Most of them learn English as a second or third language, and sometimes they are very friendly and caring. Please keep your derisive snorts to yourselves.

The upshot of it is – if you like women, you have a fair chance at meeting some nice ones for looking and talking – and nothing more – on these sites. They may be very difficult to access, and you had better hold back your money until you find the person or people you like. But it can be worth it.

(Special thanks to Laurie, to patricia51 and to Paul G for checking out this story. They weren't familiar with Webcam sites, and Laurie joked that if she could make $1.19 for 12 seconds, she ought to get into a new profession! Actually, most women's sites sell memberships (and pay massive expenses), and most cam sites keep almost all the money, so I wouldn't recommend Laurie quitting her day job. But I really appreciated the comments. I hope you enjoy this as much as they did, and I hope I've struck a blow for the cam girls.) 

Trolling For Sexy Talkers Ch. 02



Things can change a lot in three months.

As those of you who have read my bio know, I gave up on chat sites (and other adult sites) in early June 2004, following an incident which I don’t want to discuss. What I can discuss is what had happened a couple weeks before the incident, when the home computer literally wheezed its last. It took two weeks and a lot of money to get a new machine and get things copied to it, and then I was unable to transfer all my favorites and all the stored e-mail messages. (I recovered some of them.)

When I finally went back to the sites in July, it seemed everything had changed. Only two women whom I knew from sexxxychat (the main source material for the first article) were left, and only one of the two was appearing regularly (she’s the most popular woman there). (Later, another woman I knew started showing up on a very occasional basis.) What happened to the others? Presumably they got burned out and quit. What are they doing now? Search me. I liked them personally and really wanted to keep in touch with them through regular e-mail (I did have some of their addresses, acquired through barter). No luck. 

Why should I write an article like this? Mainly to tell you – mostly males, maybe some women as well – that the recreational-sex industry is notoriously transient. Before you reply “Duh!” or its equivalents, ask yourselves why. Please. And then ask what can we, as fans of recreational sex, can do to make it less difficult and troublesome for the people who let us have our fun.

One big issue is money. As I’ve pointed out, sexxxychat sells “private show time” to customers in 5-minute blocks, measured at five tokens per minute. You pay $1.19 for each token, with a slight discount for bigger blocks of time (200 tokens at $1.04 is the maximum purchase). Since you could walk into some of Our Finer Houses of Ill Repute and purchase blocks of time with a real woman (and, presumably, real sex with that real woman) for roughly the same rate, most of the customers choose not to put down such an outlay. 

Sexxxychat will give 25 tokens, or 5 minutes, free for each new customer who signs up and gets a “handle,” instead of the Internet registration number on their computers. Well, of course they would!  Numbers crowd every room, hoping to get sex shows for free. Sometimes a lady will give a peek of various parts of her anatomy, especially if a watcher is contracting for a private show during that time, but those occasions are relatively rare and, oddly, unsatisfying. To the old rhetorical question, “Why would you buy the cow when you could get the milk for free?” comes my retort: “Why would you get free milk in the first place – is it spoiled?” 

Yes. Sometimes a woman looks better with her clothes on, and sometimes the tease will send horny guys into an agony of frustration. The latter is relatively rare, but believe me, it can happen. A few sips of free milk aren’t nearly enough, and they may also distract from the woman herself. What if you genuinely like her? What if she is happy to see you? Wouldn’t you want her to yourself? In some cases, darn tooting you would. Even if you couldn’t possibly marry her (most guys know that), you’d still like her as a friend and just maybe care for her. The proprietors of the site know that. When you get those 25 tokens, you are biting at the fish hook.

That was a long paragraph when I wrote it (I broke it down later). The second portion of the question involves: “How much of that money goes to the lady herself, and how much goes into someone else’s pocket?” That’s a general question, applicable pretty much everywhere.  Except for the lucky few independent contractors with good reputations, a substantial chunk of the money goes to someone else. With the independents, they have to take care of their own advertising, maintenance costs, yada yada yada. 

And with all the women, no exceptions, they have to be online and be taken private in some form or fashion before they see one thin dime. The most popular woman online has estimated she has to be in private for two hours out of every eight – 600 tokens, around seven hundred dollars a night – before she pockets enough to make a living. And it’s no surprise that, after a fling with Sheri’s Ranch in a town near Las Vegas (where the girls did sexxxychat on the side while working in their rooms), Sexxxychat outsources to a wide variety of countries far away from the United States. 

Because Brazilian cruzeiros, Czech zloty and Russian rubles are hard to come by in those countries, a large majority of sexxxychat women come from those three locations, where they can be paid off in what we Americans would call pocket change. (A few women worked out of a studio in Vegas, but it seems to have closed down; a few others worked from home and bought spaces on the system. All of those women are gone now.) 

I’m not trying to pick on sexxxychat to the exclusion of other places. If you want to find places where women don’t make a lot of money and are charged for the privilege of working there in the first place, walk into your neighborhood sexual-dance club or house of ill repute and strike up a conversation with a dancer (it’s almost a guarantee she’ll tell you). If you want to see customers being rude to providers (and vice versa), stay in that same club for a while. 

It would be very nice to say that the providers were genuinely nice women who liked men (and, sometimes, women) for who they are rather than what was in their wallets. It would be very nice to say the customers genuinely admired the women for their difficult work (I’ve tried to dance for 30 minutes straight, or longer, on a stage for fun or as part of a role – it’s hard labor to say the least).  It would be nice to say that I was the one who finally beat Ken Jennings on "Jeopardy!" and started a run even longer than his. To all three, I can answer, “Yes, it’s possible but extremely unlikely.”  

In their own way, the women – and the men who patronize them – are similar. None of them trusts anyone else and will be quick to believe any rumor about anyone, so long as the rumor is bad. If this seems beside the point, I’d just like to note that you can hear similar rumors most anywhere if you listen long enough and to enough people. But, perhaps because this is an election year, everyone seems to be very hypersensitive and quick to take offense. 

During preparation for this article, I shoved my foot right down my throat, and alienated one of the three remaining ladies I liked, by making some comment about her. Never mind what it was. It was based on a misunderstanding, I can tell you that much. This happens a lot. Another time, quite recently, a man brought out some things which the woman would prefer not to have made public. What were those things? I don’t know. I was off playing an online game anyway, and I wouldn’t have understood it even if I did.

Most men who patronize sites like that one (and some other chat sites which have escaped this article) are looking to get their rocks off, looking at a sexy woman. Okay. It seems terribly empty to me, but I’m different from other men (and not always in a good way). For many years, I’ve been trying to push my sexual attraction to women under the rug. The answer to the obvious question is no, it’s just that I respect women a lot and want them to respect me. 

These days, it is extremely hard to find someone you know, like, and above all trust. The “you” is across the board. Most women I know have husbands or boyfriends, so there will always be that undercurrent of suspicion on the woman’s side (Why is he being so nice to me? Is he trying to get into my pants? Doesn’t he know I’m happy with my guy?) After watching some of those reality shows on TV, with various members of one gender trying someone of the other gender like he/she is the flavor of the month, it’s easy to understand why people are suspicious. 

If you have read some of patricia51’s stories, you will find at least two which deal with, respectively, a tomcat male human and a woman who likes to kick up her heels and rub hubby’s nose in it. The man got the living CRAP beat out of him by a policewoman whom he tried to hit on. The woman’s husband threw her out of the house, and two police officers (the married couple in “To Serve and Protect,” although this is not explicitly stated) were wholly unsympathetic. Several other stories deal with cheating spouses (usually her) who wind up in a whole lot of trouble. Thus Patricia’s unstated but evident reaction to flavor-of-the-month relationships, and I must say I agree with her. Although none of the three primary characters in “To Serve and Protect” are virgins, each one has very carefully considered his or her potential mates and has put a lot of emotional commitment into the relationships. 

Have you ever wondered why the book “Forever” is still a best seller, nearly 30 years after first publication (and, in recent editions, a sheepish note from the author about the danger of STD’s?). It’s because it deals with a close relationship. The sex is mighty steamy, but the characters grow to care for and enjoy each other – for a while. Then she finds another guy and he can’t handle it, and she dumps him like a hot potato. To me, it’s an extreme cautionary tale, and a case for why the cut-off age of 18 for having sex in books and magazines is arbitrary at best. 

This sort of thing, where the sexual and emotional commitment leads to disaster, happens to people in their early teens as well, but also to people in their twenties, thirties and forties. Quite often, these young people who aren’t finished growing up become moms and dads (you see them at low-end jobs a lot, and some of them are on the sites). Moms can be incredibly sexy, but in the back of my mind I wonder what life is like for them after they get off work and go home. How do they handle being sex objects and being adults at the same time?

This brings up another point. As noted, many women on online chat sites (and almost all the women on other sites) are married or have live-in boyfriends. Many of the women have sex with other women. Some of them may be bisexual by nature, but some of them do it because it’s “safe.” They can go to bed with other women and their guys don’t feel threatened (maybe he himself will sleep with the other woman?). But rarely do you find a woman on a site having sex with a man who’s not her guy. Whether or not it’s because of hubby’s jealousy or because she truly loves him and doesn’t want another guy, that’s for her to say. But guys should think about that when they are making propositions to the sexy talkers. Although guys say they tom cat around with lots of women, I think it’s still rare for women to puss cat around with a bunch of men unless hubby specifically wants one to. Double standard? You make the call again. 

IMHO, most women like men. They want to befriend men. They want to chat about their interests, show pictures of their kids, exchange jokes and little notes. But I truly believe most women are monogamous, although they may try a few guys out when they are single. In that case, they are looking for the “right” sort of guy, one who will be a friend first, a lover second, and other things depending on their needs.

So, please, take this into consideration when you men (and some women) deal with women. They are wonderful people and I love them. But I have to treat them right. So should you. 



Trolling For Sexy Talkers: Conclusion



Rest in peace, Sexxxychat.

As the stroke of midnight began June 23, 2005 Eastern Standard Time, visitors to the Sexxxychat site got a simple message:

"This site is closed."

From postings elsewhere, I've been able to pick up what I think is the story. I know that Yahoo! has banned all sexual discussions from their chat rooms (apparently because children were being sexually solicited online and advertisers were pulling out, so Yahoo! closed the rooms unilaterally). 

I wrote to an attorney who posts on Literotica, asking what he knew about the infamous USC 2257. He didn't know much, but referred me to a positing which summarized the points of the code. I'll get to that in a little bit, but I have a question. Did anyone really see this coming? I didn't. I know that the code gave 30 days warning to all the purveyors of nude pictures, but nobody told me and, as we will see, nobody told the people posing for the nude pictures. Not long after the ax fell, I wrote to a friend in St. Petersburg, Russia, who posed for sexxxychat.com herself and knew several other ladies who did likewise. She was at a total loss, trying to contact her Webmaster to find out what had happened. 

What are the ramifications? There could be any answer to that. It's most unlikely we'll see sexxxychat.com again. Other sites, I don't know. It's very easy to browse the Web and see sites featuring women. Usually they are somewhat clothed on the main page, but once you go inside you're going to see a LOT of nudity and overt sex. Is this the doom of an untold number of sites? Only time will tell.

One thing that's hard to dispute is that minors certainly COULD access the sites. The various Big Brothers (Government, billing companies and watchdogs-for-hire) can pick up your IP address – the address assigned to your computer's Internet server – with no problem at all. In fact, until you formally joined Sexxxychat and got tokens (a free offer of 25, good for five minutes), your IP number was what showed up on the screen for everybody in the chat room to read. Gee, wouldn't that be great if Johnny Law came knocking on your door and told the householder: "Sorry, but this computer has been linked to 347 adult sites linking to 10,000 more, plus various other sites run by hatemongers, con artists, swindlers, or other folks with criminal agendas." Sure it could happen. All you need is someone accessing those sites.

But who was operating the computer? A grown-up male like me with no children in the household, or some kid just past puberty who sneaked onto the computer and started surfing for Websites? That part is impossible to answer. Anybody can click on a button saying he or she is at least 18 years old, and that's all the screening most of these places need. I suppose it would be possible to identify the individual user by asking him/her questions that fit the person's profile in some kind of database registry, but then it would be limited to the United States of America and to only certain people living there. And imagine what identity thieves would do to certain people: suppose someone stole your identity and used it to access (and post to) sites extolling al-Qaeda or bestiality or pedophilia or Scientology (a pet hate of mine) or heaven knows what else? The more we have to reveal, the more indelible the brand gets.

Another problem comes after you access the site. Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you're doing something legitimate? During several years of surfing Sexxxychat.com, I noticed that very few of the ladies were from the United States. At one point, Sexxxychat was hooked into the girls' rooms at a legal brothel in Nevada, so presumably the talkers were of age. Later, a studio in Las Vegas featured some ladies, probably professional dancers getting some extra money when they weren't on stage. There were a few other American ladies, usually working independently, scattered around the country. 

But the vast majority of the women worked overseas: Eastern Europe was by far the most popular; South Asia was second; Brazil had a number of ladies; most recently Venezuela contributed some young ladies. You could look at their bio pages and read their ages. But quick, how many of you can tell a young woman's true age? Gotcha. 

I never liked the age of 18 as a mandatory cutoff date for adulthood, especially when the legal drinking age was raised to 21. Not that this is a new feature. Every American war except possibly the ones in Iraq has featured soldiers even younger than that, looking old enough to pass and lying about their ages to go over and get shot. So what's to keep young ladies, especially Third World young ladies, from making a living by showing off their bodies and talking about sex? There might have been some scrupulous Webmasters and studio owners, but I have my doubts as to how many. 

And they did show their bodies. Not every young lady showed off her everything, but quite a few showed their nether regions. Some just showed the pubic hair; others showed off their vulvas; a few even gave you a glimpse up inside themselves. This was especially common when a lady was just coming out of a private show, where she would masturbate for a customer. She might proclaim herself extremely horny and ask for another show right away so she could finish what she started. 

And the ladies needed the private shows. Every one of them worked on commission. The viewers bought tokens at a minimum of 25 (for five minutes). The price of 25 tokens was $29.75. How much of that $29.75 did a lady keep? Don't know. Betting it wasn't much. And they all did shift work; 8, 10 or 12 hours at a time. The number of days they worked would vary, but it was quite possible that some of the less attractive (and/or blatant) ladies could work a whole day for absolutely nothing, or maybe 15-20 minutes in private. Meanwhile, the customer was out quite a lot of money for very little (the lady couldn't get off in five minutes, and the customer probably couldn't), and probably had Buyer's Remorse as soon as the show was over. If a customer liked a lot of ladies, as I did, he could jump from room to room looking for a lady he particularly liked, one who wasn't busy fending off 50 or so other guys. 

Presumably, USC 2257 put Sexxxychat out of business forever. But the ladies didn't know it. I didn't know it. My gorge rises at the thought of the ladies being almost literally out on the street. Besides that, I had befriended some of the ladies (or told myself they were my friends, anyway), and now I can't say nice things to them.

Some people will applaud the demise of Sexxxychat.com. I know at least one person who will on moral grounds, and others will say it helps stop the exploitation of women. True, as far as it goes. But I don't know if it helps out the women all that much, and I really don't know if it will help people's morals that much.

Comments are welcome.