Eye on the Porn Models

A man we'll call George, 27, is a model supervisor at an interactive porn website. He works behind an unmarked door in a midtown office building.

"What I do here is basically supervise the models," he says. "I make sure they're touching themselves."

Down the hall from George, behind five doors, five models strip and masturbate for the camera. They also "chat" with online customers. Some customers can hear the sound in their models' rooms?the models, who are both male and female, actually speak to these customers, respond to their questions. Other customers receive only video and chat.

George sits at a sign-in desk at the end of the narrow door-lined hallway and monitors the models with his computer. He has the cheerful, authoritative demeanor of someone who's had experience working front desks. Most recently before getting into the porn business he was a customer service representative for the Home Shopping Network. He's also worked at the front desks of Ramadas in both Puerto Rico, where he was born, and New Rochelle.

The models appear on his screen in five separate boxes. It's reminiscent of the Sesame Street "Doin' Their Own Thing" piece. The camera zooms in on some of the models so that the screen's filled with their genitalia.

"I've got four or five models here in college," George explains. "Some have regular gigs, some are strippers. One ran in the marathon this weekend. One works for the city with handicapped people."

The medium is part strip club, part porn film. The difference is the absence of a cameraperson, or light technician, or key grip, or shoot director, or bouncer, or bartender. The only person between model and customer is George.

"I'm making sure that things in their chat don't get too personal?that personal information's not being disclosed," George explains. "I watch the display and make sure all the channels have pictures and sound. I check the models in. The hardest part is just working with the models. Being that this is a room and a bed, people tend to get really comfortable. You know, they'll just start talking about personal things. They'll start doing other things. I had one guy who was shining his shoes. You know, he was"?George pantomimes buffing a shoe?"and like talking into the camera, like 'uh, hunh, yeah.'

"They'll lower the camera. You know, they're naked and they're all out like that. They just put the camera down to not show their head and be asleep. I'm all over them, though. I type into their chat. I'll write back, like, 'Everything all right in there?'

"They'll get into personal conversations with customers?just start talking about whatever. So I have to steer them back to sex. I don't let 'em talk about geographical locations. That's one of the rules. Customers can't know where we're at. It can be crazy if customers know where we're at. Being that sex is the business, these guys, if they find out where we're at, they could easily come do something?just be waiting for a model when she comes out. So it's mostly like babysitting. I try to take care of them. You know, I watch out for them. They'll get tricked into giving out personal information. I tell them when it's time for their breaks. I tell them how much time is left on their shift."

George's job seems to fit his lifestyle. "It took a lot of years to get to where I'm at right now," he says. "But I feel like I can finally maybe relax a little bit. I can finally dress the way I want to." (George's style can be described as "meticulous conservative hiphop.") "And this is the perfect job to go back to school." He explains: "You know, I work from 5 to 1, I'm sitting down, I can maybe even study a little while I'm here."

He looks down at his screen. The model in room five has ended her chat by typing in the phrase "taking a break."

"Taking a break? I didn't tell her she could go on break," George says.

Another model signs in for the night. George rises and knocks on door five.

"Coco, what's going on in there?"

From inside: "I'm taking a break."

With a smile: "I didn't say you could be taking a break now."

From the room: unintelligible.

George: "Okay. Well, you can take a break now."