By Rich Moreland, March 2019
At this year’s Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, I had the pleasure of interviewing performers who prefer camming to shooting scenes.
Taylor Stevens is one and makes some important points porn fans ought to keep in mind.
Photos are credited to Kevin Sayers.
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Comfortable Right Where She Is
Before interviewing Taylor Stevens, I did a little research. I found out she’s a cammer who has lost weight for health reasons.
Naturally, I want to know if the change in her body has affected her fan base.
“I started my career in about 2004, 2005,” Taylor explains. “I was about three hundred pounds back then and I got into camming by chance. I was told in the beginning, you’re a big girl, you’re never going to make it on cam.”
Taylor never let that deter her.
“If you tell me I can’t do something, I will absolutely do it.”
She stayed persistent and found her audience receptive.
“Score magazine and XL Girls asked me to pose for their magazine at the time and do a scene for them.” It was a solo presentation, she says.
But we all know that excessive weight can have health consequences and Taylor learned of her own.
“I was pre-diabetic and I was told I have to lose the weight,” she says. How was this going to affect her on-screen appeal?
“I was very worried about that. However, I have the best fans in the world. When I transitioned, a few left but most of them stayed. I gained a whole new fan base.”
As of now, she’s sticking with camming. No boy/girl shoots on her agenda. In short, she is comfortable right where she is.
Show Me This
Characterizing herself as a “tomboy in a girl’s body,” Taylor talks football and other sports with her fans. And those fans are loyal.
“My fans love to talk, they love to interact,” the blonde cammer says, “They want pictures of me, videos of me. They want to spend their money on supporting me whether it’s photos, videos or on-cam interaction.”
I bring up my question about the cam girl becoming the new porn girl. Taylor’s answer was different from what I anticipated.
“I think what’s happened is the opposite. You see a lot of the porn industry transitioning to camming. As opposed to the cam girl being defined as a porn girl.”
She explains the problem hardcore porn models face.
“It’s difficult for porn girls to be successful on cam nowadays because men have already seen them do every single possible thing through their videos. To transition and have a conversation on camera, [is] generally not that simple when it comes to ‘show me this or show me that.’”
In other words, the cammers have constructed parameters that are exploratory from a sexual standpoint. They can seduce a fan with a little bit here and there. Porn girls don’t have that option, they’ve already shown it all.
Incidentally, Taylor is not bothered by the lack of professional studio quality in her shoots.
“As a cam girl, you have actually more advantage because a lot of guys don’t like to know that everything is in a studio. Guys want to connect with a girl with a webcam. It’s just a girl being a girl. Not, you’re on set with fifty people and this is what’s happening.
“Guys want to connect to you without all the noise. They just want to feel that you are just a girl in the world doing her thing.”
The Marketing Burden
I ask Taylor if the cam girl is a new version of amateur porn.
“Absolutely, one billion percent,” she proclaims.
The cam girl is creating a new kind of porn, then, at least in the amateur sense.
“Yeah. Cam is the new porn.”
Could it be that today’s porn fan desires a personal one-on-one touch that he doesn’t get with an online shoot or a DVD?
Taylor has an interesting observation on that.
“When watching porn, guys have about a five-minute attention span. But when you’re talking to a girl on camera, you have more time, you get to know somebody. There’s more interaction than a five-minute clip out of a movie.”
Next, I bring up marketing. Is that a hassle for cammers?
“It is a burden. You can’t just do one thing, I can’t just post one picture without posting it to Twitter, to OnlyFans, to Snapchat. That is integral to making money and keeping your name out there and hashtagging and so forth. I’ve got it down pat, but it’s very much a nuisance.”
I ask Taylor about her toys, bearing in mind that working out of the house can be problematic when children might find things. She laughs. No children running around, but she does have an issue in her household.
“I hide them from my dogs. One time I found my dog chewing something he wasn’t supposed to be chewing!”
We discuss the three-legged stool and Taylor agrees that camming is the fourth leg. She also has another observation worth mentioning.
When the possibility arises of a cammer turning to shooting scenes for studios, not all cam fans are on board with that.
“My fans don’t want to see me do hardcore porn. They don’t want to lose the thought that they might be able to have me one day.”
Interesting.
Preparation
Finally, I ask Taylor what advice she’d give to a girl who wants to go into camming.
Preparation is the best policy, she indicates, but remember, a girl is not going to be “instantly busy.”
For the most part, that’s a small issue compared with attacks on a girl’s self-esteem.
“Be prepared to be judged, to hear a lot of negative things about you,” Taylor says. It’s a “cattiness” that comes from other cam girls.
She brings up one more concern. “Be prepared for your life to change [especially] if you have a husband or if you have other people in your life. Once you’re out on the internet, you cannot take it back.”
Simply put, “if you don’t love it, don’t do it. I won’t do anything that I don’t love.”
Finally, Taylor emphasizes the importance of a consistent schedule for being online “so your fans know where to find you.” And, one more thing, always give your best.
Taylor Stevens concludes with a warning, “It’s a competition to get the members. It’s a very harsh cam world out there. More so than people would think.”
That’s especially true, I think, when it comes to every girl’s motivation–the money fans will pay to see the show.
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On behalf of our team, my thanks to Taylor Stevens for a terrific interview.
