Today Is a Very Profitable Day for Purveyors of Webcam Porn

Many businesses have seasonal peaks and valleys. The whole toy business hinges on December, but of course the swimsuit business doesn’t crank up until May. Oh, and apparently Valentine’s Day is the busy season for webcam pornography.

Wired reports that, for webcam sites, February 14 brings spikes in traffic and revenue, by as much as 25 percent:

“It is the big money-generating day,” said Natalie Star, a cam model who spent years with Webcam Modeling Agency but now works by appointment only. “If you think about it, there’s hundreds of thousands of lonely guys, they don’t have wives, they don’t have girlfriends. It’s huge, not only for the customers that know you, but for the girls who are trying to build their audiences.”

Sites run promos just like drug stores stock up on candy, and a PR rep for one site called $500 to $1,000 Valentine’s tips “typical,” though of course that’s the kind of figure that bears skepticism. One of the models Wired interviewed says V Day and her birthday were her “all-time record days,” adding that, “It is that time when guys can show extra attention to the model, spoil her.”

But it’s not all explicit shows, either. Sometimes customers are thinking more along the lines of romance:

“There’s a lot of girlfriend experience type customers,” Star says. “They just want to see their webcam girlfriends happy and smile and giggle, something that a normal boyfriend and girlfriend would do. These guys want to believe that if they spend enough time online, they’re going to be able to ride off into the sunset.”