
Come September, I got a message from the cousins asking if I could help out writing up some sales copy for their business. "Sure, tell me more about it," I wrote. "Well, it's a secret," replied Alessandro. It's tricky to write about secrets, I told him, and after some coaxing he revealed, unsurprisingly, that it wasn't really a catering business they had opened at all, but a studio full of stripping, pouting, masturbating camgirls and camboys. I told the pair that I didn't feel comfortable writing sales copy for that kind of thing. Not to worry, they said, before inviting me out to stay with them. Which is exactly what I did at the beginning of last month.Webcam studios are to bedroom masturbators what brothels are to Johns. And if the internet had a designated red light district, it would be Romania, where there are currently an estimated 2,000 studios in operation. The cousins’ studio—Kazampo—is the latest addition to that digital den of sin. It’s housed on a Bucharest backstreet in a building that can accommodate up to 11 "models" at a time, all masturbating in the direction of a webcam for lonesome, horny Americans thousands of miles away.I was feeling pretty anxious about the 21-hour train journey from Belgrade to Bucharest. I was expecting to turn up at the house and find a disgusting nest of cyberpunk depravity—beautiful tragedy-eyed boys and girls in varying degrees of undress hoovering internet drugs off each other as they jigged about to whatever Western club music is currently setting the cultural pace in Romania (Steve Aoki?). But what greeted me upon arrival was disappointingly pedestrian.
Advertisement

Advertisement
Advertisement

Advertisement
Advertisement

Advertisement
Advertisement

Advertisement
Advertisement

Advertisement