‘Yeah, Thanks for reminding me,’ I thought…
“Yeah, I cam from an outhouse on their land.”
“Right. Would your mum or dad d’you think be open to appearing on camera?”
I laughed. I’d mentioned the documentary to my mum briefly in passing but now it was coming down to it, I wasn’t sure she would be willing to discuss what she knew of her son’s sex performances in a televised documentary. As for my dad? That was out of the question. I knew he’d want nothing to do with it.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to ask,” I replied, diplomatically.
“If you could do that that’d be brilliant,” he said. “I’ll drop you an email after I’ve spoken to Steve and we’ll go from there. Have you got any questions?”
In reality there were probably a million questions I wanted to know the answer to, but nothing sprung to mind.
“Umm… no, I don’t think so.”
“Great! I’ll talk to you soon then,” he said. “Bye Joseph!”
I placed the phone back on the receiver. I was quite sure by this point already that I in fact did want to take part. I knew it would mean lifting the veil on the character I’d spent months crafting (J Matt, the Hyde to my Jekyll) and facing up to the reality of my living situation. But I felt compelled to tell my story. And to tell it as truthfully as I was going to be able to get the opportunity to do.
I was sick of feeling misunderstood – judged by people who only caught snapshots of my life online and thought that they knew me. It would mean letting my guard down, being honest, and making the most of an opportunity that had quite literally fallen in to my lap. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want the fame and the fans it might bring me. But more than that, I wanted to speak out about my struggles in London with drugs and escorting, my troubled history with men, and how through turning to camming I was just a regular guy trying to earn a decent living and finally gain some independence.
Yes, of course I knew I’d taking a gamble by putting my story in the hands of strangers, and be opening myself up to criticism. But I was prepared to put myself out on the line (as both J Matt and Joseph) and deal with that, if it meant even just 1 person out there could relate to my story, watch the show and be like “I get you” or “I understand why it is that you’re doing this”.
Still, it wasn’t all about what I wanted. While I’d come around to actually wanting to take part, albeit with a little persuasion, Steve had been turning things over in his head, and had started to have his own reservations about appearing on the show. Picking me up one weekend to drive me back to his place, I remember having quite a heated discussion in his car.
The two of us had both had several phone conversations with Mobeen by this point, so had somewhat of an idea of the direction he wanted to take regarding including our relationship as part of the documentary.
“I just have a bad feeling about it all,” he said. “If you want to do this it’s fine and I’ll support you, but… I work in a very corporate environment, with my job and everything. They could quite easily edit me to look like some sleazy older guy who’s taking advantage of you, and I’m not at all comfortable with that!”
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” I responded. “I think it’s certainly of interest to them, the fact that we met online, the fact that…”
“But what does that say about me?” he interrupted.
“Lots of guys browse cam sites,” I said.
“I want to do it for you, but my heart’s telling me no. If this were three or four months down the line in to seeing each other then the answer might be different but… I mean Mobeen said he’d like to film us just doing whatever we usually do. What do we ever even do together?”
“Other than just hang out at your place?”
“Exactly,” he said. “I mean, I thought about going bowling or for a meal or something but, we’ve yet to even do that without the cameras being there. And what are we supposed to talk about?”
“How we met. How you feel about my camming and what you like and don’t like about it. If we ever cam together or not. Our plans for the future… In a nutshell I think that’ll be about it,” I said.
We both took a pause for breath for a minute at the traffic lights and sat tensely in our seats, puffing hard on our cigarettes. This whole situation was proving to be a lot more stressful than I could have ever imagined it would be.
Why is nothing in life ever straightforward?
EIGHT – Lights, Camera, Action!
After something of a tug-of-war scenario, which involved several discussions between Steve and the production team, he finally agreed to take part – on the basis that he was filmed always from behind and that his face was not shown on camera. I think ultimately it came down to the reservations he had about work and how he might be judged negatively if he was seen to be dating a cam boy he’d picked up off the internet, particularly seeing as there was quite a considerable age difference between the two of us.
Things were taking shape though, and moving along much faster with his, and now my mum’s agreement to take part.
While Mobeen Azhar was still the head of the team, I’d been introduced and passed over to, for the time being, Jessica Reid – the DV Director on board the show, and it was with her that most of the plans for filming were made. We communicated via email and telephone almost daily for about a week.
Initially she’d bombarded me with questions I’d already answered before, which was tiresome to say the least, but it did make perfect sense. She wanted to know as much about my life and the people in it as possible, in order to come up with a filming schedule that was practical and would work within the context of the documentary.
Whenever I spoke to Jess on the phone she always sounded so bubbly and full of enthusiasm, as if I was an old friend she hadn’t heard from for years, but I admit I had my initial reservations about her.
‘How can anyone be this happy all the time?’ I thought to myself.
Knowing how ruthless the media can be, I suspected her sunny demeanour was to lull me into a false sense of security, and that she was actually probably a heartless bitch deep down inside, who simply couldn’t wait for me to trip up and make a fool of myself. I know these kind of people exist within this field of work, but I will hold my hands up and admit that when it came to Jessica, I could not have been more wrong.
Jess is one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever come across in the business, and one of the hardest working too! Even throughout filming, when things weren’t going 100% as they should’ve been, she would always have a smile on her face and try her best to keep everyone around her as comfortable, calm and collected as possible. Jess, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I was sceptical and had such pre-conceived ideas about you. I don’t think I could’ve coped with the amount of stress I was put under at times without you by my side. I really don’t know how you do it, but thank you!
We managed to put our heads together and came up with a filming schedule that would work, at least on paper.
On Thursday 3rd December, I met Jessica and Mobeen in person for the very first time when they pulled up outside our family house in a white Kia Pro-cee’d. It was 11am – still quite early in the day for me, but as I knew they were going to start filming I’d gotten up an hour earlier than usual to shower, and prep and preen myself to make sure I looked camera ready.