Personally I’m not here to judge anybody on their sexuality, but let’s just say they both lit up my gaydar…
Also featured on the programme was 23 year old Pete, a (believably) straight guy with a girlfriend and a child to support. He’d recently been laid off work and was trying out his luck for the first time within the ‘muscle domination’ scene; a burly lad looking older than his years, I imagined from the onset he had the potential to be successful (it is a popular fetish!). But he himself seemed surprised and a little off-put to say the least by quite how much of a gay following he attracted with his camming profile (what did he expect?). Lets just say, with all due respect (because there was plenty endearing and likeable about the guy), he certainly didn’t come across as the sharpest tool in the box, and seemed way out of his depth…
Finally there was me.
My introduction piece – voiceover courtesy of Mobeen, opened with…
“Hidden away in the Welsh valleys, is a rising star of the British webcam world. 5 nights a week Joseph transforms into J Matt, an A-list cammer who’s starting to gain celebrity status in the camming world.”
Cut to the footage of me on my sun bed, chain smoking, and then a quick montage of me showing off a few of my fetish outfits in the cam room.
I actually quite liked my introduction. Although I can totally see how it might’ve raised a few eyebrows, it summed me up rather well I thought.
Next was me in my element, performing in front of the webcam. I think this was the part I was dreading the most (particularly watching with my mum!), what they would show and what they wouldn’t, but a lot of it made use of clever angles and suggested what was going on as opposed to actually showing it in full graphic detail – this, at least, I was grateful for…
Mobeen later told me via a phone call that there was a clip of me deep-throating my dildo he’d included in a montage that he thought to be really skilful, but that had to be cut at the last minute as a result of the health and safety team (or whatever group governs that part of the edit) implying that it might promote asphyxiation. Probably not something I should be proud of, but upon hearing that I genuinely thought it was beyond hilarious!
After the scenes of me performing in my cam room were over, there was a cut to ‘the morning after the night before’, where I was casually discussing with my mum in the kitchen how my show had gone and showing her for the first time my magazine spread.
I’ve written about this already, and there’s not much else to add really – my edit up until now had been fairly accurate, and I wasn’t displeased with how I was coming across. Although I won’t lie – Mobeen’s constant referral to my ‘cam room’ as ‘a shed’ pissed me off a little bit, and made me seem like a bit of a gypsy. It’s an outhouse Mobeen – just to clarify.
The scenes with Paige were cut (as again, I’ve mentioned already), but I was really disappointed to find that Steve too had ended up on the cutting room floor. The scene at the Mud Dock café was nowhere to be found in the final edit, and as I recall, the only mention of him whatsoever was in a brief text summary at the end that read, ‘Joseph continues to cam with the support of his parents. He has been dating one of his cam fans for 4 months.’
I understand the nature of television, and with several other participants’ stories to be told, I’d be stupid to think that everything I shot with Jessica and Mobeen would be featured, but I was more upset for Steve than anything. I knew how nervous he was that day. To just cut him out of my life like he didn’t even exist was pretty cruel, I thought, when he was, and is still, such a crucial part of it.
But I could see that I was, to an extent (at least more so than the other guys featured) being given the ‘loner’ edit. I’m not criticising Mobeen or any of the editing team for making the choice to do this, because I’d been the only one (to my knowledge) to open up about having had issues with drugs and dealt with abuse, so it would make sense that by finding solace in the world of camming, I might be quite an isolated, cynical individual as a result. It’s not entirely untrue, but it’s kind of sad when the only scenes of me interacting with people that made it into the documentary are with my mother, and Matt Spike, the photographer.
Nevertheless, if there’s one thing I’m grateful for, it’s the final five minutes of the documentary. I would urge anyone who wants to get a better understanding of me (but is put off by the raunchiness of my cam shows) to solely watch just that one segment alone. It’s truly me at my rawest, most vulnerable and real.
During filming, Jessica and Mobeen had asked me to choose an area of London that was particularly significant to me – somewhere I’d spent a lot of time and that held a lot of memories, most of which were admittedly quite painful to discuss…
Did they do this to get an emotional reaction out of me and provide some extra drama for the show? Probably. But I wanted to tell as much of my story as I could; even if that meant owning up to some things that I wasn’t entirely proud of. And so that monologue at the end, where I was given an opportunity to truly express myself and retell some of the stories from my past, without any cheesy cutaways or narration, just me standing by a street sign – I will forever be grateful for.
Despite a few minor gripes here and there, I was, overall, happy with my portrayal in ‘Webcam Boys’, and since the show aired I have received a great deal of support from both friends, and even complete strangers for letting the cameras into my life, and sharing my story. It really has been overwhelming and has touched me in so many ways; I can’t even begin to put into words how much it means to me to have so much support behind me.
But as open as I was to share that side of me, and inspire others who had experienced similar, particularly in terms of the abuse I suffered during my time in London, there was – as I was expecting, a fair share of negativity and backlash too, following the shows broadcast…
The first I knew of it was when I realised that my brother had blocked me on Facebook. It transpired that he’d posted a long rant in regards to the programme (without having seen it himself, at least at this point, might I add) that, from what I gather, was basically in line with what my Nana Sylvia – who he’d recently been to visit, had commented on prior to it’s airing.
James and I have never been particularly close I should clarify, but I felt we had both reached a point in our lives where we were adults now and more accepting of one another. So to have him bash me so publicly in such a way as he did, and to then even go as far as to block me, his own brother, on social media – that was a real kick in the teeth.
I can’t quote from his rant as I only read it myself once briefly via a mutual friend, but there were ‘likes’ aplenty, and no shortage of hateful comments directed towards me. I don’t know how many of those who chimed in had actually seen the show through to the end, but it was a brutal onslaught to say the least, and the worst part was knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.
Some even went as far as to message me personally on Facebook. People I didn’t even know, but who were friends with my brother had it in for me. I won’t name names, but here’s one such message I received (I cleaned up some of the spelling and grammar errors to make it easier to read).
‘Mate, to be fair you’re fucking disgusting! How can you do that in a small village? You have let local people and your family down. Go back to Soho if you’re going to do that, people like you disgust me.’