The Camwhore Chronicles

 I've been fuming ever since I read "Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World," Kurt Eichenwald's recent investigative piece in the New York Times:

Just the headline alone gives you a taste of what's to come, doesn't it? It's all about how an ace reporter rescued a Internet-scarred teen for his own noble motives! He doesn't quite fit the Upton Sinclair role model, though.

This is the subject of my newest In Bed audioshow,  #233.

At the top of Times' story, we view a sexy picture of the teenage subject, Justin, posing provocatively for his webcam. —This, in a story about child exploitation!

The last photo of the article shows James again, in choir robes, singing in his Christian choir, SAVED AT LAST.  You see, you can be born again—  all the effects of child abuse and homosexuality can be cured by prayer and a witness protection program.

(Note: my link to the story does not contain the photos, because I am NOT going to  perpetuate this shit).

As far as I'm concerned, the Times is another enabler and exploiter in the "sordid" story. At this point, they're the stinkiest part of it, since they're the only ones not copping either a plea or any responsibility! They've scared ignorant parents out of their wits about their kids using computers, and exploited their victim to sell papers. They should be ashamed of themselves.

If you read the whole saga, you'll find out some second-tier "details" that I find more telling than than the bandwidth connection. Justin's parents are terrifying examples of physical abuse, pimping, and neglect. The father beat his kid senseless into the hospital, and then disappeared for years. The mom "never knew" her son to have any friends, and had "no idea" why he went on long trips with strangers or hid in his room with his computer.

When Justin eventually found his father, and confessed that he was an online prostitute,  his dad decided to get in on the profits! None of this family picture is analyzed by our brave reporter. The reason the Times believes James went down the wrong path is because he had a fast DSL connection and one thing just led to another. Sure, his parents were awful, but he got great grades in school until  that computer made him turn bad!

We've seen these stories before, but this example is the worst. They've created fear and titillation instead of explaining how young people are put at risk for abuse and exploitation— cycles that can't be stopped by simply pulling a plug.

There are thousands of kids who suffer incest, beating, and profound neglect. 99% of them aren't on a web cam. No one gives a damn— the Times hasn't called in the calvary.

The extra sicko twist is that this story came out during the Christmas holidays. It was published right after the Times had been disgraced for the Judith Miller Credibility Gap. This was supposed to be their big uplifting redemption! "Sordid" doesn't even begin to describe it.

I'm proud that my teenager, and so many of her friends, know how to navigate the Internet. She is not at any more risk of being conned on the Web than she is taking the bus to school... in fact, I think our local bus system possibly has MORE trolls and predators than the internet.

Of course this confidence comes with knowledge and preparation... but that was a pleasure. I loved turning her onto computers the same way I loved reading to her when she was little. Her computer literacy is just another part of life now.

I like talking to her about music, movies, politics, and professors— the stuff that we found online yesterday, or the day before. It's one of the few things that young people get to do these days that makes them feel powerful and independent.

If you can teach your kid to "look both ways before you cross the street" you can do the same for them online. But it's not rules and cautions that makes the difference... it's who you are as a family.

Anyone can learn how to use an umbrella— or a filter— but you can't snap yourself out of an abusive home. The loneliness, desperation, and self-loathing this kid Justin lived with is indeed heartbreaking. If he hadn't "acted out" on his web cam, you can be sure he would self-destructed in one of the more old-fashioned ways.  But then... Mr. Eichenwald wouldn't have taken such a interest.

This coming year we are going to hear more than ever that online pornography is the most serious and profound problem the world faces. Witness the government's recent grab for Google's records in the name of investigating "child pornography" — cough, cough. They've rendered these words into nothing more than pulp novel manipulation.

Meanwhile, the ice caps melt, the war rages on, and kids all over the world are living in poverty, violence, and disgrace that boggles the imagination. Sexual ignorance is killing people. But "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" —There's a web cam on the loose! 

Let's name this con when we see it.

The CamWhore Chronicles

Aside my rant on this topic, in this In Bed episode, I also answer a letter from a young woman who wonders if she's one of those females who simply can't have an orgasm... and I read a gladdening story by a grandma who's bored to tears with her daughter's polyamory. If you've never heard my audio show, and would like a free coupon to listen, email me with the words "Golden Ticket" in the subject line, and I'll send you one right over.

Comments

[C.S. Lewiston]

..."The New York Times is the best newspaper that we've got - alas."

- Tuli Kupferberg, from an early-70's ESP-DISK sampler LP

[Mister Nice Guy]

Awhile back, the Portland Oregonian ran a tearjerker about a teenager who was being put into one involuntary therapy program after another, even though thew worst thing they could say about him was that he wasn't as enthusiastic about being a classical musician as he was when he was nine.

Adults just love to "save" kids -- but only on their own terms, never in any way that the kids themselves might find relevant.

[Josh Jasper]

If you're still living in that Wacky unnamed coastal Californian city, then yes, there are more nutcases riding the bus than there are on the net.

But you're not exactly living in a typical American city.

[jenny factory]

I hope you'll be sending a version of this as a letter to the editor!

[bifemmefatale]

Oh bullcrap, Josh--what *is* "a typical American city"? You think there aren't trolls and perverts on the buses in Chicago, NYC, LA, or even my tiny hamlet of DeKalb, IL, pop. 25,000--well, I want what you're smoking. There are good and bad people everywhere.

Abd Susie, the Feds don't want Google's records to investigate child pornography, they want them to keep our children from finding porn online. Good luck.

I though the GOP was the party of personal responsibility? What ever happened to supervising your kids while they netsurf? And where is the proof that porn actually harms kids anyway? Didn't most of us find the magazines hidden under our big brother's matresses?

[sfmike]

bifemmefatale has a really good point. ("And where is the proof that porn actually harms kids anyway? Didn't most of us find the magazines hidden under our big brother's mattresses?")

It would be impossibly brave to do right now, but somebody like Susie Bright really needs to publish an online adolescent internet sex guide. Here's where to get info. Here's where to find free, non-fetishistic sexy pictures (you've got to let fetishists discover their own kinks on their own or they're not worth having). Maybe it will be a precocious 16-year-old who comes up with the site.

In any case, thanks for the nice essay, and yes, we are sick of prurient, moralizing writers for "The New York Times." I hope that soon they will be considered quaint and hopelessly outdated.

[Jameson]

Its more fear-based freedom bashing. Don't let anyone do it because someone might be bad. I agree with you Susie, it was his home that was the perp here not the webcam. But do we blame the parents? No they are blameless, it was the bad bad men that gave the boy the attention he didn't have anywhere else who are the criminals.

We spend money on health care for the elderly, national defense, and Abstinence classes, we cut budgets for schools, sex ed, and youth programs. With those priorities its I fear for our future generation.

[Susie Bright]

I don't mind being teased about Santa Cruz... after all, I started it. We have popular bumper stickers here that say, "Keep Santa Cruz Weird" ... and I am certainly part of the local flavor.

There's plenty of blame to go around in the story, as you can see if you read it, and valid criminal prosecution to be pursued. Justin's johns were not kindly father figures who helped him get out of the game, or anything like it.

But as I protested, the reporter acts like the culprit is the unholy alliance of "scary" technology and the evil that lurks in men's hearts, and that only avenging angels such as himself can "stop" it. Sorry, but that's not what ends the cycle of sexual abuse.

If you click on the illustration of the pulp novel cover I used to open the story, you'll see a melodramatic tagline that says, "an ace reporter covers a world of vice and intrigue." This book must have been produced 50 years ago, but the tabloid-freak approach is the same thing this article employs today.

[Pope Bandar bin Turtle]

If DSL = Deviant Sex Lovers, then yes, a fast DSL connection would indeed be to blame.

Hmmmm -- where I can I get me one of those?

[Stephen Benson]

i'm in total agreement with you again on this one susie. the best protection for our kids is us. one of the things i noticed early on with "forbidden zones" is that they create "forbidden fruit" which to my tongue has always promised sweetness regardless of the delivered taste. it also amuses the bejeezus out of me when, after reminding myself that the internet was created and designed to survive a nuclear holocaust in operational status, a bunch of arrogant boobs in congress or any other place think that they can control it with the stroke of a pen.

[TSG_Cavalier]

SFMike,

You inspired me to create just that kind of website: www.theteensexguide.com

[Thomas Roche]

Susie, I've kind of been curious what your take on this case would be. I have not seen the NYT article, just heard about it from various people. Seems like a real case of media frenzy without much insight. I'm very glad you wrote this, and it's particularly good to hear your perspective as a mother.

Ah, mass transit...

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/uploads/creeps.jpg

[C.S. Lewiston]

Hey Mr. anonymous from Vancouver: Where can I catch one of those buses? They sound interesting!

Speaking of mass transit, I once viewed an animated, soundless ad for Lincoln Continentals through the window of a New York subway car as the train streaked downtown through an otherwise unlit tunnel. Commercials are everywhere these days I guess.

As for the NY Times article and others like it, I never thought I'd see the Times embracing Hearstian yellow-journalism, silly me (i.e. "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war!"), but there it is.

Cavalier: Your intentions are certainly noble, but somebody has already beaten you to it.
( http://www.scarleteen.com )

[algreen589]

I don't want to be a wet blanket on the whole media lynch mob thing, but I thought the kid was offered money to take his clothes off on cam. What I read was that he had his cam on one day and a guy messaged him and offered him $50 bucks to take his clothes off. If that's a fine line in your world you shouldn't talk about it until you're seeing a paid professional, and even then I'd be careful.

[Peter]

Thanks for mentioning that show number 233 is up, Susie - I don't see it on my Audible subscription page, so I guess that means I need to renew my subscription.

The thing is, Audible never reminds you you're subscriptions over, they just unceremoniously end it.

[Peter]

There's some interesting details about this story on Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2132702

It seems that by the time Eichenwald found Justin on the net, Justin was an adult (he's now 19), so the angle of saving the poor child from the clutches of a pedophile ring are a bit of a stretch. (Though admittedly, Justin wasn't exactly in good shape, in any event.) The timeline of the story is pretty muddled and unclear, but it seems like by the time he started Justinsfriends.com, he was 18, and hencehad a legal webcam site going - barely legal, but legal nonetheless. Nonetheless, I imagine the customers of this site, presumably gay men with a taste for barely legal trade, are going to be swept up in a huge federal "pedophile" sting as a result of this story.

Salon did a slightly less panicky story on the "cam whore" phenomena a few years back:

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/13/cam_girls/index.html

For my part, I don't buy the angle of teen camwhore as pure exploited victim. It seems to me that many if not most of these camwhores (the vast majority of whom don't do anything that could be considered hardcore pornography) are quite complicit in their own objectification and very consciously playing on it for financial gain. Obviously, Justin's case was an exceptionally bad one, with an abusive parent/pimp in the picture - it sounds like the classic story of young gay men turned out into the streets as hustlers, except that he didn't even have to leave home to end up that way.

And don't even get me started on draconian US age-of-consent laws which threaten to entrap anyone who - horror of horrors - might feel the slightest desire for an older teenager. This is America's dirty little double standard and "gotcha" game - we think teenagers are sexy, and we think finding teenagers sexy makes you a pedophile!

Peter

[Michael Camp]

Susie,
You're spot on in your evaluation. In the beginning, the article makes it appear like a "soccer-playing honor student" just stumbled into online prostitution. It says Justin is "the collateral effect of recent technological advances." Actually he's the collateral effect of a dysfunctional and abusive family!! The father beats him and leaves and after five years the mother didn't have a clue??

The webcam and Internet are merely the tools he uses to get the attention and love he craves because of the neglect in the home. People who are abused at home, or abused sexually, will attract abusers by their attention-craving personalities. If there were no Internet, he would have looked elsewhere. In this case, the solution isn't regulating the Internet, but having loving, monitoring parents.

[Don Baird-rockfag]

Thank you so much for making sense of this whole despicable wanton manipulation by the new york times--I just hate the way the mainstream media just aches to stir up the knee jerk reaction of the uneducated masses to literally build a war against sex. oooh think of the fun games prisoners of that war will endure! You are just so damned good at what you do, and your position on all of this as a mother is so refreshing and intelligent. wow yet another thing you do well, and its a big one--you are an awesome parent. you truly rock...so enjoying your site daily