opinion

Be Cautious With Blurring Fantasy, Reality on Cam

Be Cautious With Blurring Fantasy, Reality on Cam

Love is in the air as the spring season thaws winter’s bitter frost and lonely souls begin to gravitate to so many different kinds of relationships. Be they the hunt for a potential spouse, a flirtation with damaged goods, a spicy S&M dynamic or a fantasy crush that will burn out like a too-hot candle flame. We all want some kind of fairytale, after all.

But in 2019, that fairytale is not necessarily the house in the suburbs with the Labrador and the SUV, it can be time spent with girls on cam performing the national anthem while they flip pancakes naked, or it can be enjoying the latest quadruple anal DVD released by an adult performer!

Cam models create virtual families with their fans — they touch them, they help them, they heal them … or they break their reality.

So many are drawn towards adult entertainment, seeking that release, like a “Beauty and the Beast” story — only with Belle tied up, waving her pink tail in front of an HD camera, as the Beast buys tokens and subscriptions to watch nude videos. That’s absolutely awesome and shows how open we are to creating our own fantasies.

What should concern us is: “When do we let people know it’s a fantasy?”

This is something we should all remember: our responsibility towards the members that come and seek companionship, no matter the way they seek it, be it sexual release or talking to someone on the other part of the screen.

You see, we’re all just a bunch of nerds looking to find the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re all a bunch of misfits, the ones in the back of the classroom, the cheerleader with an eating disorder, the jock with a problem family, the goofy girl from a small town trying to make it big.

Nobody ever thought that we’d have so much power in other people’s lives. Some of us didn’t ever want that, but here we are. Cam models create virtual families with their fans — they touch them, they help them, they heal them … or they break their reality.

If anyone thinks the way performers get into adult is by coincidence, by fate, it’s not. We often approach it as something so real and yet so unreal at the same time. It’s the fantasy of turning the taboo into “the good,” and we all love to play a dangerous game from time to time.

Everybody gets attached, especially if that someone’s broken. They look for the glue that might fix them and then they create the virtual fantasy. They create a world around performers and cam girls or boys, where communication through live chat makes everything seem so real.

Then, their favorites become their responsibilities. They give the performers power over their lives and their fantasies, creating a long distance relationship. That’s when shit gets real, when finances can take a tumble as loyal members feel obliged to help during a slow day, when those WhatsApp conversations off cam cross the line into personal vs. professional in ways that are toxic to both parties.

Talking about taking responsibility for your actions on cam might seem a bit off, but hear me out here. You’re not responsible for anyone’s feelings, but at the same time, you’re responsible for the way you make someone feel after months of continuous interaction.

That doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole and place hard boundaries super explicitly and roughly straight from the beginning. You don’t have to say, “Look, we’re in this for a certain exchange, where I provide you a fantasy and just that,” but you need to learn when to draw the line.

Just as you must protect yourself, you should also be aware of your members’ mental health if they seem to be falling in love or showing signs of possessiveness and jealousy. Remember, the person on the other side of the monitor is someone that’s looking for the realness that you might be providing, that’s looking for genuine interaction, which is definitely okay. Just make sure you’re not leading them on, because when push comes to shove and reality rears its ugly head, the intimacy of even the most virtual of interactions can wreak serious havoc.

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