Cream dreams

Girls-next-door who stand 4' 10". Men who admit to being nymphomaniacs. Real-time video-streamed triple penetration. Welcome to the world of "amateur" Internet porn, where Montreal is king

By GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

It's Saturday night and the inside of Club Cream is extra dark and only slightly warmer than outside's wind-chilled minus 50. A smoke machine breathes white mist over the empty dancefloor. Two spandex-encased, voluptuous women venture out on the barren floor and begin dancing flirtatiously.

They wiggle about and feel each other up coyly as a small circle of men gathers round. A couple of flash bulbs go off. The high-energy house beat thumps on. The girls squeeze each others' breasts and as one bends over, lifts the other's skirt and playfully kisses her behind, I lose interest and wander back to the bar.

There I meet Carol Cox, dedicated exhibitionist, veteran Internet-porn amateur and founder of the 800-member-strong international Internet Amateurs Network. Tonight is the Network's monthly party. A bright-eyed, smiling bleach blonde in her early 40s, Carol sits at the corner of the bar greeting people and catching up with old acquaintances.

Not surprisingly, most folks in the house tonight are of the male persuasion. Three or four guys have cameras hanging from their necks, one has a video camera. The majority of the ladies in attendance have the telltale signs of being in the adult entertainment business: excess makeup, come-fuck-me shoes (shiny, spike-heeled and platform), porno nails (long, fake and French manicured), dangerously plunging neck lines and silver PVC miniskirts.

When I ask Carol what usually happens at these gatherings, she is quick to dismiss the idea that any sex takes place on the premises. I'm reminded of the MUC police minivan conspicuously parked in the gas station parking lot next door. "It's simply a chance for the amateurs to meet their fans," she says. "Although some guys do come here expecting to get laid. It's like they think all you do is have sex all day. They would never think that I have three kids, I change diapers, I work."

Swingers on the prowl
In the early '90s, Carol and her husband Danny were swingers on the prowl. They often visited primitive swingers' chat sites and realized that people wanted to see what their fellow swingers looked like before meeting up in person. Carol started the Internet Amateurs Network about six years ago, back in the day when it took an hour to download a picture from the Net. However, what started out as a way for her to experiment with exhibitionism and for her and her husband to meet other swingers, has become the largest amateur porno site on the Net today, and still growing fast. Carol claims that her personal Web site (www.carolcox.com) gets the most traffic of all amateur sites in the world.

Carol's husband Danny is CEO and president of Montreal-based Wild Rose Productions, which he boasts is the world's leading Internet amateur porn company. "It's a very lucrative business. We've got 20,000 paid subscribers each paying $16.95 U.S. per month. So, you do the math," Danny boasts.

Given that "amateurs" have carved such a lucrative niche in the billion-dollar porn industry, one wonders how the term can still mean anything when you've got millionaire amateurs doing better business than so-called pros.

Says Danny: "A lot of people say, 'How can you be amateur if you're making money?' Well, if you look in the dictionary, under amateur, according to Websters', it means doing something you love regardless of payment. Amateurs are housewives, college students, the girl next door, who are doing this for fun, for money, for everything. You can still claim amateur status and get paid--as our Olympians do."

According to the Cox's, the term "amateur," as it relates to the Internet, refers to anyone who doesn't work in other aspects of the adult entertainment business (as a stripper, model or porn "actor"). They throw around the term "girl next door" often. According to them, Internet amateurs remain just that, even if their "hobby" happens to be making them rich.

Indeed, with the increased popularity of amateur porn in the last few years, there has been a parallel increase in faux-amateurs. "We call them 'corporate amateurs,'" Danny explains. "Vancouver's got a lot of them. They're hired models. Guys pay to take their picture, build Web sites, make up names and bios and pass them off as real girls. I'd say about half of the so-called 'amateurs' on the Net are fake."

Wild Rose, though, claims to work only with "real" amateurs. "Our amateurs do their own sites. We do everything else: the hosting, the marketing, the technical support, and we handle the billing." Alongside their team of designers, programmers and marketing personnel, they have people whose prime function is to find new talent.

The charming Dugmor!
The Cox's introduce me to Dugmor! (actual spelling), a Wild Rose production manager and talent scout, originally from New Jersey. Dugmor! produces many of Wild Rose's live, interactive Web shows from his St-Denis street studio. Carol does her bi-weekly show from another studio in the West Island. I am standing next to Dugmor! at the bar. "I jerked off on a pair of shoes, live on the Internet last night," he tells me.

A pretty brunette comes over and greets him with a cheerful two-cheek kiss. Looking down I notice her remarkably ample breasts are in full view through her black mesh top. Dugmor! leans in close to me and says confidentially, "We're gonna do a triple penetration with her on Tuesday." He shakes his head as if still surprised at what he does for a living. I start to feel a little uncomfortable, as something about the term triple penetration just gives me the creeps.

As if sensing this, Dugmor! quickly points out that they're "not just an adult company. We also develop Internet software. We built our own real-time live video streaming (RoseCam) and advanced chat programs (RoseChat) and trademarked them." He invites me to witness a live show at his studio next Thursday. I reluctantly accept, despite the fact that I'm not quite sure I could handle being a spectator in the flesh of such up close and personal hardcore action. In the name of journalistic research, I tell myself, I must go...

Skylah, Bucky and Luke
The following Thursday I find myself in Dugmor!'s St-Denis street studio, in the company of three young amateurs who are about to perform live for a Web audience.

Two guys, silver-haired, horn-rimmed glasses-wearing Bucky Wilde, 19, and dark-haired Luke Loader, a 22-year-old anthropology student, and a girl, tiny blonde Skylah Sweets, 20, sit around chatting. Trip hop plays at conversational level from the stereo in the corner. Skylah wears black jeans and a black sweater. The boys wear identical "Porn Star" T-shirts, baggy pants and beaded necklaces. The conversation moves from the disappointing postponement of the upcoming Slipknot show to the latest wicked reggae compilation out on Trojan records.

Sure, their names may be fake, but there's no mistaking their amateur status: these are boys and girl-next-door, no doubt about it. When asked why they got into the amateur business, Bucky answers confidently. "The human body was built for sex--I figure you might as well get paid to do what comes naturally." He smiles, adding, "also, the fact that I'm a nymphomaniac helps."

At 7 p.m. sharp, the three move over to the computer in the corner of the room and commence chatting with their "fans." It's little Skylah Sweet's first Web show. Bucky and Luke have both done this "a few times already." They giggle amongst themselves as they take turns typing in answers. A camera is set up three feet away from them, filming them for live video-streaming purposes. Somebody out in cyberspace asks Skylah to take off her shirt. She complies and continues the chat in her white lace bra. According to Dugmor!, amateur Internet porno is not at all about good looks and fake breasts, it's about "interaction and personality." "And good hair," Luke Loader pipes in.

Another "fan" wants to know exactly how tall Skylah is. The boys take out a measuring tape and measure her: she is four feet, 10 inches tall. This little measuring exercise makes it suddenly clear to me that I cannot possibly stay in the room when these kids perform triple-X sex acts in real-time for an unknown amount of anonymous Internet voyeurs around the world. Maybe because they're around my age, I feel like I'm about to be forced to watch a couple of my friends do it, like some preposterous Freudian nightmare come true. "Um, I have to go," I stammer, "'cause I gotta be somewhere, actually..."

I politely excuse myself and scurry out the door feeling like a guilty and confused child who's just walked in on something they don't quite understand and somehow feel bad about. I recall Danny Cox's words: "Amateur is just a term. It's not a status."

Just like not everyone with a penchant for exhibitionism may succeed as an Internet amateur, not every curious cat has the stomach to be a live voyeur. :