Coming on Camera: Beautiful Agony’s Orgasmic, Ethical Porn

Still from Kamee’s second masturbation video. All images and video courtesy of Beautiful Agony

Hundreds of people around the world have seen Kamee* come. They’ve watched her lie down on her stomach and stare straight into the camera as she rubs her clit, her red lips forming the shape of a rapturous O. They’ve heard her quietly pant and moan as she climaxes, with her big brown eyes clenched tight. Every so often her eyes flicker up to the camera and smirk, and for a brief moment it’s easy to forget who’s actually watching whom.

“It’s not like I just want people to watch me come or anything like that,” Kamee told me. “I did it because I wanted to support a project that is a safe space for people who wouldn’t video-tape themselves doing something like this.”

That project is Beautiful Agony – also called “Facettes de La Petite Mort.” It’s an Australia-based erotic website that posts daily videos of people masturbating until they orgasm. The twist is that the videos are only filmed from the shoulders up, so all you see is a succession of O-faces. The videos are basically webcam versions of Andy Warhol’s experimental “Blow Job” short film. Anyone from a DDD-cup porn star to your 95-year-old granddad can submit a video of themselves getting their rocks off. The videos range from one-man shows to group circle jerks, but you never see what’s going on down below. The name “Beautiful Agony” speaks to the almost painful tension you feel right before you come, followed by a zen-like state. The beauty lies in watching people of all walks of life momentarily lose control in the best way.

Kamee, a film and theater producer and performer from Canada, discovered Beautiful Agony in 2012 through an old schoolmate and submitted right away. She taped her first video while living as a student in Switzerland, with the Alps as the backdrop and the sounds of birds chirping outside.

“It was extremely quiet, and I just remember thinking, If anybody sees this right now…” she said, laughing.