Sex Fact #499

'BIBCAM' was the name of a shocking teen trend, where BIB is an abbreviation of Boy In Bedroom and CAM, of course, being short for Webcam. 'BIBCAM' = Boy In Bedroom With Webcam. This became a unique genre of underage pornography. Unique in that it was being uploaded and downloaded mainly by underaged boys trading amongst themselves.


I actually remember, in the 90s, journalists being discouraged from reporting on it as Law Enforcement Agencies didn't want the trend to escalate.


The Oprah Winfrey Show, however, did a special on it.  Oprah's famous 'Webcams are evil' call.

There is limited information on how the trend began. The most accepted version of it's origins is that a boy with a webcam would set it to broadcast from his bedroom. He would then engage in sexual acts with his girlfriend. She would be unaware that it was being broadcast to his friends computers, who would, obviously, record it and share it with other people.

Law Enforcement Agencies were worried that pedophiles and ephebophiles would use it as a defence, pointing out that these underage boys were filming and distributing this illegal porn themselves.

The term 'BIBCAM' is now widely known slang and features on sites like Urban Dictionary, etc. There was also a parody video that went viral on Youtube that got banned.


'BIBCAM' later came to represent boys being tricked into exposing themselves or masturbating. This spawned the female equivalent 'GIBCAM'. It was at this point that the press broke the story, as it had moved away  from being a teen trend to being a pedophile/ephebophile thing.


In 2000, a 13-year-old US boy called Justin Berry began operating a network of pornographic websites featuring himself and other teen males.  In 2005, when Berry turned 18, a reporter from The New York Times was able to enter Berry's world with a $2000 cash gift, initially pretending to be a musician and talked him into cooperating on a feature article.


Before publication, Berry was granted immunity in exchange for his help in prosecuting others involved with his sites. After the story broke, Berry was called to testify before a Congressional committee.

The Oprah Winfrey Show again covered the story and interviewed Berry.

He has made multiple media appearances, and now works as a paid speaker on these issues. His current Web activities involve educating the public about Internet safety.

This teen trend is still ongoing. Very recently Stickam, JustinTV and Cam4 came under fire for the amount of underage pornography that is being recorded and circulated from those sites. Those site automatically place their little logo in the top corner of your camera when they are broadcasting, so police seizing computers that have these films on them will automatically know where they are coming from.


Info Source: Mainstream Press, Urban Dictionary, The Oprah Winfrey Show and Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Berry