My 1st day on the job

Deciding to try the camgirl thing was pretty spur of the moment. I think it took 3 days from idea planted to fully realized thing happening. I spent those days looking into it from every angle. My biggest fear is that I would have to get naked on camera.

My feelings on nudity on cam are complex. It would take me several (most likely boring) paragraphs to touch on them all. I suppose my primary motivator is having control of the situation. I have something that these men want from me and I'm withholding it. It's kind of hot. I've never considered myself to be sexually dominating, but I think that there might just be some potential there.

Once I determined that I would be 100% free to establish my own personal boundaries in chat and that there was no obligation to get naked, I decided to go for it. I read some forums, and am still reading them, full of tips for running a successful chat room and tips for avoiding common pitfalls. I thought I was ready for anything. I knew I was going to be great at it. I love meeting new people and I enjoy being the center of attention.

I felt really confident when I turned on my cam.  I was bulletproof. I was probably going to make a couple of hundred dollars in a couple of hours and go grab a celebratory drink after.

I lasted *maybe* five minutes before I bolted.

I wish I was exaggerating. It was just overwhelming. I did my fair share of watching girls on MFC, both the top earners and girls with the new girl tag. I even did random cam hopping. I just wanted to know what to expect. Most of the new girls had about 10-15 people in their rooms with some fairly good engagement. It didn't seem so bad.

When I logged on, I went from me alone to maybe 20 or 30 viewers in the space of 30 seconds. I had no way to test the software while it was just me and maybe one or two people so I couldn't tell if everything was working ok and I didn't understand the controls to interact with everybody.

The regulars on MFC use their own lingo, as so many websites tend to do after years of use. I felt like I was speaking a different language. I had PMs stacking up and I'm the kind of person who tries my hardest to respond to every single email, blog comment, DM or even @mention on Twitter. Seeing these PMs was killing me, but really what could I say to such eloquent hellos as "how much to shove a dildo in ur ass?"

All the while the people in chat were barking commands at me. Half of them were asking me to get naked or perform various sex acts upon my person. The other half were commanding me to mute guests and basics. Nobody was tipping though, just a bunch of dudes trying to take advantage of a new girl who, as far as they knew, didn't know what she was doing or how things are supposed to work.

Thanks to my reading, I already had a good idea of how I wanted things to run in my room. First of all, I don't believe in banning guests and basics unless they are abusive or excessively obnoxious. You never know when a guest might decide to become a premium member because you were welcoming and gave them a chance to participate in the site and see how interactive it can be.

Secondly, I know better than to give anyone a free show. But also I've determined my lines and no amount of money or offers to go private will make me compromise my limits. So these orders to show my tits or GTFO were really annoying, but I was so harried from trying to figure out how to run my room that I wasn't keeping control of things.

That's the point where I freaked out. I was talking to one person in particular who seemed really helpful and knowledgeable. I turned off my camera and friended him so that I could continue to PM with him once he walked me through turning those off. When he suggested that we talk on Skype, I agreed. It would be easier to talk in real time than to type everything out.

So we get on a call and he's got the camera pointed at his chest. I'm guessing that pretty much any girl who's done any c2c can guess where this is going. Hell, I knew and I'd only been a camgirl for 5 minutes. Dude was planning to jerk off and expected me to talk him through it. So much for my "hero".

At that point I had a choice to make. He hadn't tipped me a single token. He was supposed to be helping me and here he was poised to take advantage of me because I was new and he thought I didn't know any better. However, since he hadn't tipped me, I knew I wouldn't feel bad if I wasn't any good at it. I could use this opportunity to hone my skills. I'm not a very vocal person in bed, but that's a skill I'm going to have to improve if I'm going to be any good at this gig.

I don't want to imply that this guy forced me into anything. He asked me every step of the way if I was cool with what was happening. But I was annoyed nevertheless because if a girl isn't informed then how can she give informed consent? As a regular he KNEW that what he was doing was skeezy, despite how consenting I might have seemed.

I'm no expert, but I can't imagine it was any good for him. I wasn't feeling it at all. I was there under false pretenses. I'm not a greedy person, but come on, man. We're not lovers. Not even friends. There is no equality in this kind of partnership. When a man tips, it's a gesture of appreciation and it makes me feel like we're both investing something in our time together and both getting something out of it. For me it's the money to pay my internet bill or rent and for him it's a block of time where he's calling the shots and a pretty girl is enthusiastically doing all she can to make sure he loves every minute of it.

I wish I could say that this is all in the distant past and I've learned so much, but I'm still really green. I've only got a few sessions under my belt and there is so much I still need to learn and soooo much room for improvement.