by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Bertha (name changed to protect the "innocent")

Age: 26

Occupation: Voyeurcam subject

Salary: $1,000 a month

Bio: This bone-raising Mile-End broad was but a poor women's studies major at McGill when a girlfriend tipped her off to the easy riches to be had by installing a few voyeur webcams in her apartment. Claiming to be "only a little bit of an exhibitionist" but never that little girl in Grade 3 who was always pulling down her pants and showing all the boys her underwear, she's been a star on www.peepholecam.com for the last couple of years and, as of this week, can be witnessed 24 hours a day at www.cheappornclub.com. "It's just so exciting. Not only sexually, but being watched and feeling like a star is amazing."

Is it awkward, bringing home sexual partners and going, "Oh, and by the way, did I mention earlier that about 10,000 voyeurs will be watching us, all anxiously waiting to see if your sorry drunken ass can still produce a workable cockstand?" "Funny enough, when I first started doing this I figured, like, okay, I'm a girl, what guy isn't going to want to be on camera? But quite a few guys have been embarrassed about it. One guy actually hid under a blanket in the morning because he didn't want to be recognized. But most of the time sex is better when it's on-camera."

Do her girlfriends always want to come over, get naked and have pillow fights for the benefit of Bertha's fans? Kind of. "My friends totally love it. We get wasted and start playing it up for the camera, kissing, groping. Even girls who would never go with another girl still want to pretend for the camera. And these are 'normal' girls, conservative, with regular jobs, who would never consider doing [Web] chat or anything like that. But they get so excited about it. It's like their chance to let loose. There's just something about a camera that changes a person."

Does she find she spends more time lying around masturbating than she did prior to having the cameras installed? Yes, but not much more. "Hey, I enjoy masturbating. But if you're masturbating all the time, or every single day, the viewers are going to think you're playing it up too much and not like it. "

Does she ever fantasize, or perhaps even worry, that her 13-year-old nephew or step-dad might be enjoying her late-night masturbation sessions as much or more than she is? Never.

Does she ever feel even remotely self-conscious wiping her ass knowing there are tons of people out there watching her technique? No, because in Bertha's case, there's no camera in her crapper. "But I've been caught picking my nose before. And the viewers loved it. Hey, everyone picks their nose. I'm a frequent nose-picker."

Where she drinks: The Main.

Childhood ambition: To become a psychologist.

Current ambition: To study interior design.

Last book read: Sex, Time and Power, by Leonard Shlain.

Favourite author: Virginia Woolf.

Musical preferences: Joan Jett, the Donnas, the Kills.

Words of wisdom: "Be open to what the universe has to offer."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca