SPEAKING OF WEBCAMS

Cheap, simple video-conferencing technology has brought crowds of horny voyeurs into the lives and bedrooms of eager Internet exhibitionists.

"I love coming home to my Webcam, kicking back, and letting the rest of the world watch," says one slutty Web star. "The thought that guys I'll never see or hear from are jacking off to me makes me happy."

There are commercial Web sites where, for a fee, you can tune into a "studio" - consisting of little more than a bed and a couple of plywood walls - and watch a parade of attractive guys play with themselves (and sometimes, others). Other for-pay sites have more of a Peeping Tom appeal; download this dorm or that student house and watch the ongoing cast of characters grab a cup of coffee, shower, or suck each other off.

And then there are the amateur sites, generally free, though often requiring a fee to a gatekeeper adult verification service to keep kids from seeing the "good parts." Sometimes these sites are scheduled like commercial ventures, with showtimes announced in advance. More often, they provide windows onto the casually random doings of Mr. Open-To-View. In the early days of Webcam fever, several guys attained instant stardom, attracting hundreds and thousands of hits; for one giddy moment, it seemed the whole world was fascinated with watching one fellow sleeping in the raw.

Then other men rushed in to take up the slack, and the woods became so full of Webcams that sites arose devoted to keeping track of them, indexing which sites showed nudity and which showed even more.

Webcammers' approaches vary. Some just have a camera (or multiple cameras) looking on as they go about their business. Others spend a lot of time at the keyboard, chatting with the cybervoyeurs who drop by. Some sites incorporate ongoing diaries, and most include picture galleries that can vary from "Here we are at Disney World" photos to hardcore X. It's possible to visit a site and spend hours staring at an empty bedroom, or to be immediately confronted with a close-up view of extended masturbation. This randomness makes amateur cams both addictive and frustrating. Those in search of immediate gratification are best off paying for commercial jack-off shows, while those with a more Zen approach might keep a cam's window open on their screen for hours, chatting occasionally and enjoying the sex stuff if and when it occurs; in that sense, Webcam sites are a lot like life.

Like anything else that's fun and feels good, virtual voyeurism can get addictive. "When I started out," says one guy, "I did a lot of jumping around from site to site. Eventually I found some favorites. I spent hours and hours watching this one guy in New York. He seemed really neurotic, sleeping all day and wanking all night. I was fascinated, and the fact he was terrifically well-hung didn't hurt."

As everywhere else on the Web, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the world of amateur cams. Some Web-boys hawk custom-made T-shirts with their self-designed logos, while kinkier guys peddle their well-worn briefs or jockstraps. Half a world away, you can be jacking off, watching some stranger stroking it, too, while you're wearing his fan club T-shirt and sniffing his smelly Calvins; if that's not multimedia, what is? Ah, the wonders of technology.

Simon Sheppard

Now here's your chance to meet the man behind this column. OutUK has an interview with Simon Sheppard or you can take a look at some of his books that are currently available:

       

Looking for something very sexy and just as smart? Man on Man collects the best and hottest gay sex writing by Simon, who is also co-editor of Rough Stuff: Tales of Gay Men, Sex, and Power as well as a collection of gay erotica called Hotter Than Hell.

In KINKORAMA : Dispatches from the Front Lines of Perversion he takes readers behind the unmarked doors and black vinyl curtains that lead to the sometimes shocking, often hilarious, relentlessly arousing scenarios of extreme sex. There are also stories of bears in Tales from the Bear Cult: Beat Bear Stories from the Best Magazines.