Websex: What's the Harm?

This programme contains some strong language.

'I'm Nathalie Emmanuel, I'm 22, and, like everyone else,

'the internet's a big part of my life.' I love technology.

I'm constantly using it, whether it's Facebook or Twitter.

I'm constantly tweeting, probably about nonsense, but I can't help it.

I'm addicted to it. 'I'm interested in how the web

'is changing the most important, but private part of our lives...

'our sex life.'

In this film, I'm going to get

right between the sheets of the secret world of websex.

Unsociable gash, the girls that actually don't talk.

The normal gash that I need...

-They're called "gash"?

-Yeah!

It became quite addictive,

and it was the danger and excitement of meeting up with people.

I'll find out exactly who's doing what, and try out

the newest technology that's making more possible than ever before.

Oh, God! It's a penis!

I'll ask big questions that up till now,

nobody knows the answer to - how many people

are using the web in their sex lives?

What are they getting up to? And the biggest question of all...

'When I was growing up in Southend, we were always talking about dating,

'who fancies who and where the best boys were likely to be found.

'But things have changed, and it's all thanks to technology.

'For example, this is just a little something

'I sent my boyfriend on my phone to remind him of me.

'It's no big secret that social networking has turned

'into sexual networking.

'I'm plunging right into this world

'so that I can meet some real people doing this stuff.'

This is 18-year-old Raf, from Birmingham.

For the last two years, he's used every social networking platform

he can lay his hands on just to target girls...

with impressive results.

On my Blackberry, I've probably got over 95 women

and I've probably got at least seven on the go.

Stick to one girl? That's ridiculous. I'm young.

You can't have a phone

or BlackBerry or Facebook and not try and talk to females.

It's just, who does that? You know what I mean?

When I'm browsing on Facebook, I just look

for any decent girl that looks pretty and of age, really.

If they're not decent, I won't even bother trying.

I talk to them, get them on BlackBerry Messenger.

I'll be cool with them,

see how their day was, all that blah, blah.

I'm just going to say, "Do you want to go cinema?"

Only Wednesday for Orange Wednesdays,

cos I don't spend money on girls, never.

I don't see anything wrong with trying to flirt,

trying to have sex with girls.

We're all young teenage boys with high urges, you know what I mean?

And girls are probably talking to boys as much as we talk to them,

you know what I mean?

'Now I'm one of the girls who wants to talk to Raf,

'and for our first meeting

'he's promised to take me to one of his favourite places.'

-Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Natalie.

-I'm Raf.

-You OK?

-Yeah, wicked.

'..which turns out to be somewhere in the local woods.

'Where are we going?'

Where are we? Why have you brought me here?

The valley. This is like the master bedroom.

Just sit there, have a little personal chat and hopefully

-get something at the end.

-Have you ever got anything?

-Yeah, a blowjob one or two times.

-How many girls

have you brought here and got more than a snog?

I'm not at the cinema, it's always here,

so probably about 30 or 40.

'I have to admire Raf's organisational skills.

'He's turned his love life into a well-oiled machine.'

Unsociable gash, the girls that actually don't talk.

Normal gash that I need, the special people, you know what I mean?

-I need to, like, categorise it.

-They're called "gash"?

-Yea.

'But it's not just text messages

'that Raf has to keep track of. Some girls send a whole lot more.'

One girl who was texting, she kept on sending me dirty photos,

and I was sending her dirty photos back.

What do you think about that?

They're just retarded. They're so stupid to send guys photos,

unless you're in a relationship and you've got that trust.

But if you've got no trust with a boy you don't know,

why would you send a naked or dirty photo to a random guy,

not knowing what the guy is?

That's what I don't get with girls, but that's how dumb they are.

But when I do get the photos, that's when I send it to my friends -

"Look what this girl sent me".

You pass them on?

If I've passed that girl and moved on to the next, that's how I work.

Wow. So you consider girls like levels?

Yeah, most of the time.

I love writing them on my list, my famous list - "Raf, I've done them."

'Raf's highly organised internet dating techniques

'are pretty shocking to me.

'I realise I'm probably the first girl he's come clean to

'about just how many women he's got in his sights.'

Thank you for talking to me. It was really interesting.

I hope you enjoyed the spot.

Well, from what I've heard, I'm one of many, you know.

'It's great that Raf's been so honest with me.

'I've just never heard a guy talk that way about girls before.

'But I'm sure Raf's not the only bloke

'who goes for the maximum score in internet dating.'

I want to hear as much as I can about the effect technology's having

on people's sex lives. So I've invited lots of people together

to talk openly, probably for the first time in their lives,

about exactly what they're getting up to.

So...who else has been sending sexy pictures?

Yeah, I have received explicit images.

I have sent an image in my underwear to a friend.

And it felt OK, because I trusted him.

In the past, when I have been sent images by girls,

I have shown it to my mates.

And what do girls think about the way boys flirt online?

How can you add a girl without knowing who she is,

knowing that she'll give up sex just because you added her?

I don't understand the concept of that at all.

They would say, "Oh, you're beautiful, you're this...

"You're the best looking girl I've ever seen".

I think guys use social networking for sex,

and girls use it to find someone they can connect with.

I see them as predators, to be honest with you.

But what I really want to know now is,

how do girls get what they want out of flirting online?

And at first sight, you might be mistaken

for thinking 18-year-old Caragh is a female version of Raf.

She's always got her head buried in her laptop or BlackBerry.

I'm addicted to my phone and Facebook.

They're, like, my two best friends.

I dread, like, the thought of my phone breaking.

But Caragh's not just looking for meets with guys like Raf.

She gets something else out of chatting to boys online.

Bullying at school tore her confidence to shreds,

and it only came back when she discovered

that the computer in her bedroom unlocked a whole new world.

After school every day,

I used to go home feeling really, like, down about myself.

And speaking to people online,

kind of like knowing that I had friends online

made me feel better about myself,

cos I could come out of the whole school environment and go home and...

just escape from it, basically. I used to stick my head in my computer

and not come out until I had to go to bed.

'For Caragh, the internet has helped her find guys who understand her

'who she'd never normally meet.'

I meet two or three new people a week, guys, mainly.

So you enjoy that flirtatious banter with a new person

-when you first start talking to them?

-Yeah, I do.

It's an easy and cheeky way of getting to know someone.

Do you get guys going...?

I get guys going, "You've got a brilliant figure, you could do this,

-"you could do that".

-How does that make you feel?

It makes me feel good, I won't lie. It make me feel, "Oh, really?"

-So it's a massive confidence boost.

-Yeah, it is a confidence boost.

But to try and get your attention, blokes will do really weird things,

like they'll send pictures through of themselves and stuff.

-What, like nude ones?

-Yeah, and I'm just like, "Oh, that's disgusting."

So have you actually met any nice boys,

as in been your boyfriend?

Yeah, I have. There was my boyfriend previous to the one I have now,

my ex, obviously.

I met him on Facebook. It was an internet...meet.

-An internet romance.

-Yeah, it basically was.

Ultimately, are you looking for love online?

Ultimately, everyone's looking for love.

Are these all pictures of you here?

These are my tagged photos.

-Is that you?

-Yeah, that was me as a kid, so embarrassing.

'Chatting to guys on the web

'needs a different approach from the real world.

'So Caragh's learnt new ways of dealing with some of them.'

He's really creepy.

So's he.

"Thought you looked sexy from your pic, but now I see

"you've got a boyfriend, which is a massive shame,

"as I certainly would love you naked in my bed."

I just didn't reply.

Just up front, and put it out there.

I blocked him in the end,

because I think he tried to message me after that.

So you get that a lot, do you?

Yeah, I do get things like that quite a bit.

So do you find this whole thing really liberating

and do you feel excited

that guys you don't know are telling you that you're buff or whatever?

Um, yeah, it's quite flattering.

It makes me feel good, as it would anyone,

that someone is saying that to you.

'Caragh's been using social networking to meet guys

'since school, but I want to know how many girls like her

'and boys like Raf are out there,

'and when do they start?'

So far, I really haven't found much research

being done into the use of Smartphone

and the web for flirting and sex,

which is amazing, seeing how much a part of modern life

it seems to have become.

But Professor Andy Phippen has done a big study

to ask how young it starts, and what under 16s are getting up to.

Well, I did a study around a year ago

looking at sexting, people taking photos of themselves

and sending them to a partner, and sometimes they get sent to others.

That was talking to 14 to 16-year-olds.

We spoke to around a thousand people with that study.

What type of texts are going around?

Well, it was anything, really, from bikini shots and underwear shots

to topless shots to naked images,

videos, people engaging in sexual acts. It was really across the board.

There was a very blase attitude. We had a quote

from one 14-year-old girl saying, "I like to fuck, get over it."

'Andy's sexting research shows

'that around 40% of 14 to 16-year-olds

'know people who do it. But now,

'he's planning a new study of young people my age

'which he hopes will reveal brand-new information

'about what we're getting up to online.'

We want to understand the phenomenon of technology in relationships.

Ten years ago, computers were that big and they were in people's homes,

and the connectivity wasn't great. These days, in my pocket,

I've got an iPhone that's more powerful than any of those computers

ten years ago. You have mobile technology and mobile communications,

and young people are using them and thinking, "What can we do with it?"

which is why we're interested in terms of relationships.

'Andy wants to get as many 16 to 24-year-olds as possible

'to take part in the study.'

Sex Night on BBC Radio 1Xtra...

So I've got some help from Radio 1 to make it happen.

Please welcome, everyone,

the beautiful Nathalie Emmanuel to the show. Hi, Nathalie, how are you?

We met a professor, Mr Andy Phippen, at Plymouth University,

and he's doing an online survey.

And my addiction to tweeting comes in handy yet again. It's worked.

Overnight, hundreds of people have logged on

to the anonymous study, giving Andy heaps of data to work through.

I'm finding out

that websex technology is developing really fast.

A few years ago, you agreed to a date after a few nervous emails.

Now I've discovered it can be totally instant.

The latest Smartphone apps mean

you could have a date with someone you're literally standing next to.

Grindr, developed for the gay community,

uses the latest GPS technology to put you in touch

with other people in the area who are also looking to meet.

It was launched in 2009 in the US,

and quickly took off around the world.

It's claimed there are over two million users worldwide.

And Nick, from London, is one of its biggest fans.

He took me on a tour of Soho, London's gay heartland,

where there are more users of this app

than anywhere else on the planet.

I'd say all of my gay friends that have iPhones

will have a Grindr account.

Basically, you go online and then it updates your iPhone and tells you

-exactly how far away you are from the nearest gay guy.

-Oh, wow.

'But I want to find out

'what kind of choice you really get with an app like this.'

As you can see, we've got quite a few guys

in the general area, because we're in Soho.

So they're all round here now?

Yeah. So if you say, like,

"Hey, I like this picture", click on it.

And it's a torso pic, which is slightly worrying.

-Where is he?

-It says he's 450 metres away, Latino.

-Ooh, like that.

And he's currently single, and looking for dates.

There are now a few apps like this,

giving users the chance

to scan their neighbourhood for people they like, and meet them.

But how instant is it? Let's find out.

Oh, look, I've got a message already.

-Already? Ooh!

-Here we go. 24, he's easy going.

276ft away, so not far.

-Ooh!

-Hmm!

Oh, my god.

-we need to keep an update on who's getting closer.

-I know, yeah.

Oh, a response!

This random guy who I've, like, never met before

has just said he's at this place

and we're going to go and meet him.

That is quite weird.

'Even working out who the actual guys might be is fun,

'like a treasure hunt where the prize is a man.'

-Ooh, where are you?

-Yeah, where are you, man?

Where the hell are you?

So, he just said, "Are you in G-A-Y?"

Which is that way, yeah?

OK, so this guy is apparently 9ft away.

Did he totally just walk past?

That's not him standing on the corner, is it?

Wait! Oh, my god!

-Is that him?

-Shall we go and ask?

-Hi, is this you?

-Yeah, that's me. How you doing?

-Hey, nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you too.

We're just experimenting with Grindr.

Yeah, to see how easy it is to meet guys.

-It's very easy.

-It is, yeah.

So, what do you use it for mostly?

-I dated someone from Grindr.

-Really? Ooh!

-Yeah.

Do you like the look of Nick here? Would you...you know?

-Well... So embarrassing! I'm with my friends.

-Be honest.

Go on! We're all friends here.

Well, if I didn't like him, I wouldn't have replied back.

Oh, this is true, this is true!

There we have it.

Result, result!

'I'm amazed at how many guys

'are coming up on the app on just one night...'

Let me see his picture?

'..and they're not bad looking either!'

-Shall we go and ask?

-Yeah.

-OK, so they're like 5ft away.

-Hey!

-Hi.

-You all right?

-Hey. I'm very well.

When you use Grindr, what are you looking for?

Well, I can't... I'm not really looking for anything.

Usually, when you go out, you don't know who really likes you.

If you're quite a shy person, it's really good to know who likes you.

Yeah, I agree. It's good, cos you know everyone who's on there

is out there to meet other gay guys.

-They're looking for what you're looking for.

-Yeah.

The amazing thing about these new apps to me

is it's like the world of dating has become a big shopping mall.

Loads of choice, easy to use,

whether you're in a big city like London,

or right out in the countryside.

24-year-old Becky lives here in Somerset.

But now, that doesn't necessarily mean there's less choice

about who she meets and how she has fun.

My first, I would say, internet hook-up, I was about 15.

What was the appeal of it for you?

To begin with, it was to see if people actually liked me.

If they liked how I looked, how I was and everything.

And then, after a while, it became quite addictive

and it was the danger and excitement of meeting up with random people

and just doing whatever.

It was over a span of six years, I actually met up

-with about 40 or 45 people.

-Oh, wow.

I didn't realise until not that long ago how many people it was.

It actually shocked myself.

And did you sleep with all of these people?

Yes, I did. Yeah.

So this was going on while you had a boyfriend, or...?

-Yes, it was going on.

-You mean you were cheating on them?

Did you not get a little bit guilty at moments?

Only a few of the relationships lasted about two or three months.

Those ones I didn't feel guilty about.

But looking back at it now, I know I was the one in the wrong

and I do feel really guilty.

I feel just like a horrible, horrible person for doing it.

What was the moment for you that made you come to this conclusion?

I'd just come out of a relationship where it was the first time

I was 100% faithful to him

and I found out that he'd been doing

what I'd been doing in my past.

He'd been using the internet to talk to girls, swapping pictures,

all sorts. It just changed my perspective on the whole thing

and because I was on the other side of it,

I now know how my ex-boyfriends have felt

and how I've made them feel, and what they think of me.

Would you have gone behind your boyfriends' backs

if the internet wasn't there? Did it make it easier for you to do?

It made it a lot easier.

-It makes it so easy to cheat?

-Yeah, definitely.

Everyone's got sort of an aspect in them that may wander at one point,

but the internet does make it too easy, yeah.

So far, I've seen several ways the web is changing our sex lives.

How we meet people and how many we meet.

But I still need to know the big numbers.

Who's using the internet like this

and what are they really getting up to?

Professor Andy's websex study is the first of its kind.

He's asked nearly 900 16 to 24-year-olds from across the UK

how they're using the internet in their sex lives and relationships.

And the headline figure is this.

An amazing 80% of those asked

have used either a Smartphone or the web

for some kind of sexual contact.

This is the first time anyone's ever had

any kind of figures about how widespread websex is.

When I saw you before, I was saying we want to understand

if this is mainstream or deviant behaviour,

and I think definitely we can say it is mainstream.

What have you found?

The vast majority said technology

had a positive impact on their relationship.

Interestingly, the vast majority also say

people behave more promiscuity online than offline

and they behave differently online than offline.

I have to agree with that. I mean, a lot of my friends say that

social networking destroys relationships. I have to agree.

I certainly think some of our results will support that.

We are having quite a lot of people saying that

online activities cause problems in their offline relationships.

Interestingly, around 20% of people

are saying they've met their current or previous

-sexual partner online.

-Oh, wow.

One of the things that really surprised us

is, because it's new technology, of those who use webcams

in explicit interactions, 40% of them were happy do that

-with a stranger.

-Are you talking about websex?

Yes. In a lot of cases, it will be with a stranger.

Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot more than I thought it would be.

That's actually really surprising.

We asked the question

if you have met up with a stranger online and then offline,

what is it you're meeting up with them for?

Not the majority, but certainly a large proportion of them,

said they met up for casual sex. So we found that quite alarming.

If we're talking about a large percentage of the population

of this age meeting, then it does demonstrate

a very relaxed attitude to sexual relationships

and is technology facilitating it?

What we're saying is, in a few years, it's gone from

no-one using this technology, because it wasn't possible,

to a large number of people using this to engage in such practices.

But also there's a pushing of the boundaries with it.

All right, we're doing this. It's becoming mainstream.

What else might we do with it?

That's interesting. This is what's happened in this time frame.

What's going to happen in another ten years?

What's going to be possible? What sort of things will people be doing?

According to the study, more than one in ten

reveal they've met a stranger off the internet for casual sex.

It's easy to see why this is a thrill that's gone online.

People say there's something more exciting

about meeting a stranger.

But it's also the thing that lands some people in a place like this,

seeing Dr Chris Scott at one of Britain's busiest sex clinics.

So is websex making any difference to the number of people he sees?

Currently, we're seeing a massive increase

in sexual infections in the UK. Year on year in the past few years

we've seen a rise in gonorrhoea, chlamydia, syphilis and HIV.

We haven't necessarily seen a rise in sexual infections

because of social networking. There has been an association with this,

but no research has been done specifically looking at

whether using web sex or web sex apps

has increased sexual infection transmission in the UK.

Why hasn't there been research before?

Probably because social networking sites are being used

for different purposes. Previously, they were a way of keeping in touch

with friends and family and not used for the purpose of meeting up

and starting relationships or having sex.

There's been some studies coming from The States,

showing possibly an association

between people using social networking sites

and increased rates of infections, particularly syphilis.

'I want to know, are there any good things

'about the way technology is changing our sex lives?

'Using webcams on phones for video or cyber sex -

'surely that's totally STI-free?'

Obviously, it's a safe form of sex. There's no sexual contact,

so there's no risk of sexually transmitted infection

and people can explore their sexuality as well.

There's good information out there on the internet about sex.

So what do you think the future is

with this relationship between the internet

and sexually transmitted infections?

The internet's not going to go away.

I think more and more people are going to use these sites

to meet other people. Are they fuelling a rise

in sexual infections? The answer is possibly yes.

I don't think they're making you have unprotected sex,

but I certainly think the opportunity is there to take risks.

They're meeting people impromptu and spontaneously, perhaps not

thinking about their sexual health when they're having sex.

It sounds like the world's safest form of sex

is right here on the internet,

using webcams. And looking about, it seems like there's been

quite an explosion in the amount of sites

hooking up strangers using cams.

The websex study reveals that over 50% of those asked

have used webcams for cybersex.

And over a third of them do it with strangers.

But it's something few people want to talk about in public.

I'd never, ever do that in my life. I'd never do that.

I just think that's really weird.

I defiantly reckon more people do it than admit to doing it.

My friends have long distance relationships

and they use camming to masturbate.

I don't agree with camming sites.

Why do you need to do that on websites?

Why can't you just keep it to yourself?

'But 23-year-old Cain is happy to talk in detail

'about using these camming sites for explicit fun.

'He used to do it regularly and can't see anything wrong with it.'

I'd start off with innocent flirting and talking about life,

and, towards the end of the night, it's really sexual.

You know, I'd start asking to see tits,

"Oh, get naked on camera. I'd get naked too, let's go for it."

Once you're naked, it's like, "Might as well take this further."

So I'd literally just go, "Let's wank.

"You can do whatever. We'll watch each other, it'll be fun."

-Right, cool.

-I've got a naked girl in front of me.

What's in my mind, the worries and doubts - gone, with the nakedness.

'Now I'm going to give this webcamming a go...

'..but I think I might keep my clothes on!'

How are you?

I've got a feeling... Oh, he's a guy.

-And he's 20.

-He's 20.

OK.

Do you think he's going to be...?

You see?

Straight away, he's put, "Horny?"

-Question mark!

-Question mark, question mark!

-Pretty much, that's how it goes.

-Just jump...

"Hello, how are you? I'm female, my age."

"I'm horny, are you?"

Not really, no.

He'll disconnect from you, but he'll connect to someone else

and, if they say no, he'll connect to someone else.

It will go on like that. Plenty more fish in the sea.

If someone says no, you just move on.

'Cain first began using the internet for sex in his early teens.

'He started with chat and moved onto cameras later.'

How did you get into using the internet for web sex

with people online?

I think, because I was really shy, I used the internet

to teach me about sex and how to use it.

It just gave me that training ground to test anything

I wanted to try with a woman without being in person and get hit.

I would be quite wary of going on camera with somebody

-I didn't know. I think I'd find that quite...

-Unnerving?

Yeah, I'd find that a bit scary, actually.

'Cain shows me a recently introduced website

'where you get connected randomly to people

'who are also on their cams.'

Oh, my god!

-It's a penis!

-HE LAUGHS

I've disconnected from that.

I'm actually going to go red, it's so funny.

-HE LAUGHS

-No, no!

No, that was wrong, sorry.

It was like he was ready to go. He was aroused and ready to go.

A room full of girls, hello.

Where you from?

-Oh, she didn't want to talk to you.

-Yeah, it's as simple as that.

Try another one...

..and a cock again!

HE LAUGHS

-Another one there.

-It's Wednesday afternoon.

Are people just at home, just...?

-It's all over the world as well.

-Yeah, but still...

See? Another one. They're everywhere!

-I'm OK.

-Yeah, that's just a bit weird.

I knew that it goes on.

I've just never seen it so in my face before.

But it was very amusing.

I do understand why people find it quite funny and exciting so...

I can kind of see why people do it

but I'd be very conscious of doing anything explicit over the internet,

because I'd be quite wary of that.

I don't know if it's because I'm a girl or cos...

I don't know, I just find it a bit like, creepy almost.

From my experience today,

I'd say there are loads more men than women doing this,

and very few people are willing to show their face...

just other bits of their body.

In fact, being open about your identity in the websex world

is obviously an issue for quite a lot of people.

Fake profiles and pictures are common

and, with around 30 billion pics

uploaded to Facebook alone last year, this is hard to stop.

A victim of this is glamour model Brandy.

She's constantly battling people who are stealing her online images.

They pretend to be her on social networking sites

and write graphic messages in her name.

Well, basically, I've had to report quite a few Facebook fakes

and I'm pretty sure that they're having

online sexual relationships with guys.

-So what type of things have "you..."

-Yeah! The fake me!

..the fake "you" been saying to these men?

Well, there's one of like my model pictures of me on a bed writing

and it says, "Oh, just got in from school,

"writing a list

"of all the boys I satisfied behind the bike shed."

And then...

"Call me for sex."

And like, "I'm going to give you a blow job," stuff like that.

It's crazy! D'you know what I mean?

It is laughable, but when I'm reading it I'm like,

"Who the fuck is saying this shit about me?

Obviously, I wouldn't write that on the internet about myself,

d'you know what I mean? I've got respect for myself.

Then my boyfriend showing me it in black and white, saying,

"Well, it's there, you can't deny it!"

and I'm like, "It is there, but I haven't put it there."

So how many times has this actually happened to you now?

Well, up till now, it's six Facebook fakes that I've had to report.

Have you ever met anybody that thinks that they know you

because they've been talking to the fake profile?

Sometimes I get a little bit freaked out when I'm on the Tube.

Like, I was on my way back home from a shoot.

I was sat there and this guy was literally in my face, like this,

like closer than we are now and I'm thinking,

"Oh, my God, is this one of those freaks

"that thinks they're having an online sexual relationship with me?"

I was just like, "Oh, my God!"

I could've been "speaking" to him last night and he could be thinking,

"Are you going to give me my blow job you promised me last night or what?"

It must be quite upsetting.

It is. It makes me feel physically sick at times.

It's horrible that somebody out there is impersonating you.

'Brandy's been lucky so far -

'she's been able to remove her pictures when they've been misused.'

But once any image is uploaded onto the web,

it can be very hard to take down, and could stay there for ever.

Which means it could appear anywhere,

or be seen by anyone, like friends or future employers.

And I've now heard that webcam images may not be safe either.

This is computer expert Tristan Webb.

It's really easy to think that when you are talking to somebody

you're just talking to them

but you may not be just talking to them, cos they could be recording

everything that you are doing on your webcam.

They can do what's called a screen cap.

They hit record on their computer

and they capture everything that's coming across their desktop.

So I could be speaking to somebody online via a webcam

and they could be recording and I would have no idea,

and then that could end up anywhere, I guess?

It could go anywhere.

In fact, there's lots of sites

where people just post videos of screen caps.

A quick Google search

and Tristan brings some of the sites up on screen.

-This is so easy to do.

-Oh!

So these people don't know that they're on there?

No.

That is...

That is awful.

If that was me I think I'd feel...

I'd be devastated, I'd be embarrassed,

I'd but upset, I'd be angry.

You'd just have to live with that humiliation.

You may never even find out that someone's done that

and, in fact, you wouldn't even know if I put this

on one of those video sites I showed you earlier, would you?

Unless someone told you and you found out the hard way.

It's pretty scary that some people would go to all this effort.

I'm wondering how common it really is.

A victim of it has got in touch with me,

frightened to be identified because of what had happened to her.

Basically, it started when I joined an online site,

after I'd broke up with my ex-boyfriend.

Sending pictures led to just doing things on webcam, obviously.

-Like webcam sex?

-Pretty much, yeah.

They were sending pictures back

but whether it was them or not is dubious.

-OK, so you didn't get any alarm bells then to say...?

-No.

It'd just be, "Oh, my cam's broken," or, "I don't have one."

I thought nothing of it, really,

until one of them who I'd been texting to for a while

-told me that he wasn't who I thought he was.

-Right.

He said, "I've been using this fake profile" and that kind of thing.

What had been going on was,

they'd been posting the pictures I sent onto a website

and they'd also videoed me while on cam,

which I didn't think was possible to do

and then sharing the videos around

with thousands of other people on the same forum

and they could then download them to their phones.

It's what they call a faux porn site,

where they post pictures of girls who they know from everywhere -

ex-girlfriends, Facebook, absolutely anywhere -

they're getting as many as they can from every source they can think of.

So, are they physically seeking out people

to then exploit in the way that they did you?

Yes, they goad each other into it and tip each other off about people

that will actually do the things that they want them to do

and then different people will target them with fake profiles

or fake MSM addresses to try and get them

to do the things that the other guys have got them to do.

-Did you find out who did it?

-Yes, I identified two people who'd...

Well, one who'd attempted and one who actually had,

cos obviously, we'd met each other as friends and things like that.

I was upset and angry at the same time,

so a lot of yelling and a lot of crying, basically.

But he didn't seem too bothered by my reaction.

He said he didn't owe me an explanation

and that he'd done nothing wrong.

Can you tell me a bit about how you felt

when you first discovered that your videos and images had been posted.

Complete mortification. I felt sick - "Who's seen them?"

If where I worked got hold of them, what would then happen?

Maybe I'd end up losing my job, what other people would think.

What if my friends and family had found out?

Did you have to contact the site yourself to get them taken down?

I did, yes. I contacted the admin. They kept saying things like,

"Oh, we don't really like taking pictures of girls like you down,"

and things like this but they did remove it.

However, getting the videos deleted

from the external servers they'd been uploaded to

was a lot more difficult.

It took the person who'd done it to get that removed

despite several e-mails to the server's website.

How could they not understand what it's done to you?

Why'd you think they were being so blase and...uncaring about it?

Well, they seem to think that whatever the girl sends

is theirs to distribute as and how they want.

They seem to think, "These gorgeous slags, they'll do."

This, that and the other.

-They thought you'd asked for it, basically?

-Pretty much.

This case isn't the only example of a darker world on the internet,

where text messages, pictures and videos

can fall into the wrong hands.

The academic study shows that nearly 10% of those asked

have had pictures or videos of them passed onto others,

and half of those were to complete strangers.

This can cause embarrassment and humiliation.

People have lost relationships,

moved jobs and even towns because of it.

But what kind of person would do this?

Well, it seems it could be anyone.

Meet Peter, who decides to get revenge on a girlfriend

using some of her pictures.

So tell me a little bit about what happened.

Basically, it was a while back now...

..my girlfriend, basically, she cheated on me with someone -

a sort of friend of mine who I'd actually introduced her to.

She was very into her Facebook,

so I decided a good way to get her back would be...

I knew her password and I had some intimate photos

that had been taken during sex, that sort of thing.

I thought a good way to do it would be to change her profile picture

to a picture of her playing with herself,

fully naked, it was quite graphic.

I also changed her status, sort of, occupation, those sort of things.

To what?

I can't remember 100% but it was sort of along the lines of like,

"I love sucking cock, I sucked like, 50 cocks last night,"

just that sort of thing.

You can kind of imagine just the general tone of it.

In my opinion, I do think what you did

was bang out of order in a lot of ways.

I mean, she allowed you to take an image of her in an intimate setting

and then, you know, you kind of... breached that intimacy,

and I know that she did first,

but I just feel like that is taking it to some next level...thing.

I am aware that it's a bit... a bit of a bad thing to do.

I felt a certain level of justification...

Because she had cheated on you?

Yeah. In the heat of the moment, that sort of thing.

People can save those images and post them on other sites,

like porn sites.

How would you feel if that had happened to your ex-girlfriend

as a result of what you did?

At the time, it probably would have been a good thing.

Now, I'd obviously feel very bad about it because we're friends now.

People as a result of this type of thing

have had to, like, leave their area,

have had to move schools from bullying.

In some cases in America, people have actually attempted

or have successfully taken their own lives.

I mean, how would you feel if it had gone to that extent?

Em... I'm not too sure, I didn't really think about that at the time.

This is breaking it down for me, actually, it's bringing remorse home.

I'll have to go and ring her afterwards.

It wasn't the nicest thing, wasn't the nicest thing to do.

I kind of get the impression that we...

highlighted a lot of things to Peter

that he probably would never have thought of...

and I think we got him thinking a little bit about the repercussions -

short term and long term - of placing that picture.

Peter just seems like a normal bloke, but it's amazing

what people can do in the heat of the moment on the web...

And it could affect so many of us. Half of the people in the study

send pics regularly to friends or partners...including me.

But if things do go seriously wrong, what laws are there to protect you?

Felicity Gerry's a leading barrister specialising in sexual offences.

From a legal point of view, websex - what is the harm?

There's nothing wrong with sex, everybody does it,

and sometimes the modern way of doing it is online, um...

That of itself is not a crime.

The issue arises often when one of the parties involved is underage,

or if there's some sort of harassment or bullying,

that sort of thing.

Sexting, for example, is or can be

the distribution of indecent images of children,

because the law prohibits sending messages, indecent messages,

sexual messages, if a person is under 18.

Would someone be prosecuted if they had done that type of thing

with someone they didn't know was under 18?

It would depend on the circumstances

as to whether it would be in the public interest to prosecute

but the mere fact of sending an indecent image

of someone under the age of 18 could be a crime.

If someone who's under 18 says,

"Oh, I want to send a picture of myself to my boyfriend,"

does that apply to them also?

Well, I suspect in theory, yes, but I think it's very unlikely

that something like that would be prosecuted.

Where it tends to arise, and I'll use a boy as an example,

is investigated for having underage sex.

The girl doesn't want to complain, it was a consensual affair,

but as part of the investigation his phone is seized,

or his computer's seized because they've been chatting online

and the police discover that he's got lots of images

of lots of underage girls that he's been exchanging with his mates.

It could then be that the police take the view

that it's in the public interest to prosecute

-because of the amount of distribution that there is.

-Wow.

'But the law can only go so far where websex is concerned.'

You can't say, "Cross your legs till you're 16,

"switch your webcam off till you're 16,"

but you can try and say,

"Don't masturbate on camera and don't do anything underage"

and educate them as to what the risks are

cos they don't always know who's at the other end.

'I've seen the world of websex constantly changing,

'and, whatever you want on the web, you can almost certainly get.

'And now I've found one site where webcam sex has gone to a new level.

'Girls AND boys invite not just one but hundreds or thousands of viewers

'to watch them perform online.

'These performances can sometimes get very explicit

'and, on certain websites,

'you can get paid by each viewer to reveal more.'

'After months of searching, I've been contacted by a girl

'who agreed to talk anonymously

'about exactly what she does on these websites and why.

'She told me when her next performance would be,

'so I log on somewhere else to see what she does.'

I think she is extremely brave. I mean, it must take

a lot of confidence to do this for complete strangers.

But she has got quite a following

and they seem to be really enjoying it, so...

Oh, someone just put, "Show us some clunge". Please!

'After the performance ends,

'I'm invited round to her bedroom to see where it all happens.

'Though she's happy to perform openly online

'to thousands of people, she wants to talk anonymously to me.'

How long have you been doing the camming?

I initially started when I was still 17, so for the past two years.

What type of things do you do on these cam sites?

Well, whatever I feel comfortable with, usually,

which tends to be gradually getting naked and then some various

sort of masturbation, whatever they fancy watching.

Why do you do camming?

Just because it's quite exciting, I suppose,

it's such a huge confidence boost

to have all these people saying all these nice things.

It's nice to be found attractive by all these people.

-Do you have a boyfriend?

-Yes, I've been with him for three years.

How does he feel about the camming?

He was a bit upset when he first found out,

but he has come to terms with it, mostly, since then

-and he's OK with it, mostly.

-So would you consider it to be cheating?

Er, no, I wouldn't.

'I want to see what happens on screen when you're the performer,

'so she switches her cam on one more time.'

This is the first website I started using.

You make yourself a little profile essentially

and when you're ready you can hit the broadcast button there...

..and the webcam connects.

So how many people are watching you now?

Apparently there's about 160 users on, watching me right now.

Oh, look, "Hey, baby" - bit flirtatious there.

Yes, a lot of "babe", it's always "babe"... "I'm very horny man."

OK. So he's just jumped right in.

"Too warm for that cardigan, best take it off."

-Slightly cheeky one.

-> There are a few good lines. Yeah.

To be honest, there will always be a request for that one step further.

No matter how naked and masturbating I was,

there is always somebody who'd want something else.

-Something even more?

-> Something more, yeah.

I met a guy and he was showing me

something called capping, or screen-capping.

-Have you heard of that before?

-Yes.

I have actually been capped myself, apparently.

-I'm sure people do it all the time.

-And that doesn't worry you?

No, not really.

I'm sure if I was going to go into some high-up career,

like politician or something, it would worry me.

So long as people keep it to themselves,

I can't see anything they're going to do with it.

You can't guarantee they're going to keep it to themselves.

Well...equally I can't see any harm that's going to come of it, really.

Some people might look at that and go, "That's wrong"

or, "You've gone too far there" - how would you argue that?

I wouldn't. They're right in saying no if that's what they like,

but I'm quite happy doing it.

I'm quite happy talking to people and getting a confidence boost.

You're not hurting anyone, so...

Yeah, exactly. This is what I quite enjoy doing in my spare time,

yeah, like you say, not hurting anyone else.

It's still shocking to me that people do do it.

But you know, from what I've seen and from that site,

a lot of people ARE doing it. I mean, she's getting 6,000 views -

that's a lot of people just to see this one girl,

so it's obviously a very popular thing to do.

So I can't really dismiss it as bad,

I'm just saying it's down to personal preference.

'I'm still thinking how normal she seems as a person,

'and also how normal what she does seems to her.

'For me, it looks like some camming is bordering on the world of porn.

'But could it be there's something about the internet

'that makes you feel safer and gives you loads more confidence?

'In the study, 80% of people said you can be more promiscuous online.'

Performing to strangers, lewd and sexual acts,

I just find it really, really...

I dunno, I just find it strange.

I think people can be more promiscuous online than offline

because it's like, it's something new, it's something exciting.

The worst thing that can happen

if you say something that they think is a bit too kinky

is that they will disconnect and go onto the next person.

It's like, "Oh, you've never going to see this person,

"so you might as well say anything that you want to say to them."

'As this world of websex provides us with even more ways to experiment,

'I'm left thinking, what if anything is this doing to our heads?

'Emma Kenny is a relationship psychologist

'who's kept a close eye on all these new developments.'

I've met loads of people who have used websex in different ways,

and I've heard some quite amazing stories.

Some a little bit weird, some a little bit shocking,

some worrying, but mostly, people are quite positive.

They're like, "It gives me confidence",

"I've learned something."

One of the great things about social networking and cyberactivity

is that it brings people together.

So if you are somebody who would have been isolated,

for example if you're a gay young man living in a rural environment,

you may not have felt comfortable expressing yourself

or feeling part of a community.

The web's amazing because it gives you the opportunity to see

that, firstly, you're totally normal,

and, secondly, there are loads of people who mirror those feelings.

And that can be a real confidence booster. So it has an absolute place.

It also enables people to express themselves physically and sexually,

hopefully in a safe environment with a trusting partner.

In those circumstances, it can be an additional bonus

to an existing great sex life.

As amazing as websex is,

it kind of promotes people to behave in a more unusual, weird way

than they probably would in their everyday lives. Why is that?

If I'm a person who sits at home

and imagines what sex would be like with a bag on my head,

then once upon a time, I may have thought,

"Well, nobody else is talking about having sex with a bag on their head."

Nowadays, I type into the internet,

"I want to have sex with a bag on my head", and you bet your bottom dollar

there'll be 100,000 people affiliated to a site.

And what that says to me is that, actually,

maybe what I want isn't that strange.

It makes perfect sense that people who may have once thought,

"Mmm, that's a boundary I probably shouldn't push"

are more likely to think,

"Well, have other people pushed it? OK, then I'll have a go."

If that's with a trusted individual, OK.

But when you're doing things that, ordinarily, on a face-to-face level,

you wouldn't feel comfortable with,

you have to ask yourself the question,

"Why am I carrying out a behaviour

"with potentially a group of individuals I've never met,

"that I would feel completely uncomfortable doing

"with people who I know?"

Why do you think that they are engaging in this activity,

if they're not comfortable doing it with people they know?

The reality of websex is that it does disassociate you.

You don't feel that you're actually having a lived experience.

It's almost a bit like being with a television,

and not with adult human beings or other people.

It's very much a personal experience as opposed to a shared experience.

And that's the irony, because it's probably the most exposed

shared experience you're ever likely to encounter,

cos one click and another five million people can see you

doing something that you may have felt was only being shared with one.

Do you think a lot more guys are

almost reluctant to do the work of getting into a relationship,

because they can quite easily find a girl on Facebook

or some other social networking site?

Yeah. People are hooking up more and more and more.

Social networking is a perfect avenue.

Young people are very clever

and will find the best route to achieve what they want.

But, long-term, I doubt it will answer their needs.

When it comes to websex, do we know what the future holds?

I mean, are we all going to be doing this soon?

From a psychological point of view,

what we do know is that more and more young people are spending, like,

30-37 hours a week sat in front of a screen.

Now that means that they're not having contact

with other human beings during that period.

And that does have long-term psychological implications.

Relationships should be on a physical one-to-one level,

where you're being with people, relating to people,

actually in reality.

So the long-term implications of becoming isolated

have got psychological implications, and, realistically, anybody out there

should go out of their way to engage in

productive one-to-one relationships and friendships

that really do reinforce our self-worth.

'From everything I've seen, I think websex

'will probably have changed a lot even in just a few years' time.

'I hear that the app I tested out for the gay community earlier

'has now got a version that straight people can use.

'I want to see it and get a sense of things to come,

-'so I'm meeting Emma Barnett, a technology writer.'

-There I am.

-"FunEmma."

-"FunEmma."

-Love it.

-Let's not advertise that!

-So as you can see there are a lot of men on here.

-Yeah, loads -

-there are hardly any girls.

-There is basically one girl there

called Olga, stuck in the middle of what looks like lots of topless men.

Obviously trying to show people the hardware.

Exactly. Well, it is a dating service -

you want to show what you've got.

'Looking at the screen full of half-naked men,

'I can't see much difference from the gay version!

'But I'm not actually that surprised

'that so few women seem interested. It involves

'revealing precise details of where you are to strangers,

'and maybe women just don't feel as happy about that.'

Now you are putting in your picture,

quite a lot of information about yourself,

and they know where you are - that's the really big difference now.

If you do have a really naughty conversation with someone,

they can come and find you at the end of it.

And you know, nine times out of ten this won't happen,

but they could take what you said really seriously

and think you are up for it there and then,

and you could be in a situation where you really regret what you have said.

Plus the people behind the business are doing it to make money

and the way they make money people don't often think about.

You're not paying to use Grindr, you're not paying to use Blendr -

you pay by giving them all your data,

so anything you put in - photos, information, likes, dislikes -

the people who own that app are making the money

and they are making the money out of you.

So these technologies that we are using for relationships and sex,

you know, where is it heading, what is the future for this?

I can conceivably see a day where,

you know how we search for stuff online,

we look up the latest band we want to buy the CD for,

or any type of product or service,

we are very used to searching for information.

And now we have a social phase like Facebook

where we are used to searching for people.

So do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?

I think it's making people a bit more like products,

and people are learning how to market themselves.

And we've always done that in real life,

the way we put make-up on and hair or whatever we are doing,

but it's making it a little more like we're something for sale.

'Looking back on what I've seen and experienced with websex,

'it's become clear to me that the question "What's the harm?"

'is more complicated than for sex in the real world.

'I've met people whose lives have been made better by using

'the internet for meeting people and for sex.

'And with web camming I've found

'what's possibly the safest form of sex - no contact, no STIs.

'But there is a dark side -

'the obvious risks when you meet strangers online

'as well as when you post personal details

'or upload pictures or video onto the web.

'There are billions of online interactions every day,

'and the results of Professor Phippen's study suggest

'the huge majority of us are into using technology for sex,

'and that we love it.

'There's no doubt - websex is here to stay.'

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