Joseph Matt - Cam Boy

We managed to talk things over on the phone without any voices being raised on either side, but I still felt a lack of understanding on her part, and at times it seemed as if all my justifications for doing what I do were falling on deaf ears.

“Why can’t you just be Joe Bloggs?” I remember her saying to me at one point. “Why do you have to put your family through all this?”

“Because I’m not Joe Bloggs,” I replied defiantly. “And I never will be.”

I knew deep down that the real root cause of the problem Sylvia had with me was a little closer to home than she’d care to admit to. It certainly would make her own life an awful lot easier if I was closer in personality to my brother James – the man who was about to bring life into the world in the form of her first great grandchild, the man with a girlfriend, a 9 to 5 supermarket job, a steady income and plans for the future…

But as much as she so obviously wanted the same, or similar for me, I knew that it just wasn’t in the cards, and felt that I had to remain true to myself. I could never be my brother – but that was OK. If she couldn’t accept that, then I’m sorry to say that it was, and continues to be her problem, not mine.

As for ‘putting my family through all this’ – I’m not entirely sure quite what she meant by that. Yes , I’ve put my family through a lot, particularly with my drug addiction over the years, and no, I don’t feel proud of that in any way, shape or form. But for the most part I’ve come out of it the other side, and though my dad keeps his distance when it comes to the particulars of my endeavours, I have nothing but love and respect for the opportunities that both my parents have given me. In allowing me to utilise the outhouse as my cam room, even if they don’t agree with what I’m doing, it’s keeping me out of imminent danger and giving me the chance to save up – to one day move out and get the independence I crave. I don’t sign on at the dole, I rarely ask either of them for cash, and if I do it’s usually because I’m waiting for one of my cheques to clear, and I always make a point of paying them back as soon as I’m able to. Is that so bad of me?

We ended the phone conversation on a somewhat mutual ‘agree to disagree’ note (if there’s one thing Sylvia and I have in common, I suppose it’s that we’re both as stubborn as each other!), but obviously my nerves towards the reception I might receive in general following the documentary’s airing were magnified ten-fold after my discussion with her. ‘ Webcam Boys’ hadn’t even been broadcast yet, and already I was facing backlash, from my own flesh and blood no less.

When the time came, I watched the documentary at home in the living room, with my mum. To some that might sound awkward, but if you understood the tight-knit relationship my mum and I share, then you’d recognise where I’m coming from when I say that it really wasn’t all that uncomfortable at all viewing it alongside her.

The opening titles burst on to the screen, with Mobeen’s distinctive voice narrating throughout, and as the show began we were introduced firstly to Will and Martyn, two 22 year old lads from Bournemouth who claimed to have been camming since the age of 16.

Both boys insisted that they were heterosexual, and that their particular audience liked the idea of two straight lads being comfortable enough in their own sexuality to be in the same room together naked (although never touching one another-something both men were adamant about, despite clips in the documentary suggesting otherwise) – but the programme alluded rather heavily that there might well have been something more to their working relationship than that.

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.