Source: Reuters
By: Robert Green
The women of Florida’s Voyeur Dorm say they are just like any other group of college-age women sharing a house — except that they eat, sleep, shower and change clothes in front of 40 television cameras. Their house in a quiet Tampa neighborhood is the base for an Internet site (www.voyeurdorm.com) that promises to show live pictures of the women 24 hours a day to anyone willing to pay a $34 a month fee. Voyeurdorm is at the center of a growing controversy over government Internet regulation as its operators fight efforts by the city to shut them down.
The Tampa city council last month upheld a zoning board ruling that Voyeur Dorm violated regulations against operating a sexually oriented business in a residential neighborhood. The operators said they will appeal the ruling in court. In interviews this week at the house, the women said what they do should not be compared to the many nude strip clubs in Tampa’s commercial areas. “It’s not any worse than a regular dorm,” Tamara, 20, said. Like the other residents, she gave only her first name.
‘NO COMPARISON WITH STRIP CLUBS’ “There’s not a comparison (with strip clubs),” said Robyn, 21. “We strip when we want to strip. We don’t even have to take our clothes off. We don’t come in contact with anyone. We don’t give lap dances.” The Web site promises subscribers will see the women take showers, sunbathe nude beside the fenced-in backyard pool and have lingerie parties. The women said that was mostly advertising to entice subscribers. Tamara and Robyn said they enjoyed exchanging e-mail messages and having fun with subscribers.
“I’ve been in the shower making faces. We like to be goofy,” Robyn said. “It’s neat. They (subscribers) act like they care. A lot of them have become good friends.” In the next room, Alexis, 21, was taking a turn answering e-mail in the chat room. “They’re pretty nice today,” she said. “A lot of the time they say, ‘Show us your ….”’
From the outside, the house looks like any other on the street. Inside, there are multiple cameras in all the rooms, including the five bedrooms and three bathrooms and by the pool. Some of the bedroom cameras have night-vision lenses. There are currently seven women in the house but the number varies. About 15 women have lived there for a few months at a time since the Web site began last year. ‘SEXY YOUNG COLLEGE GIRLS’ The site describes the women as “sexy young college girls,” but none of those interviewed said they were currently attending college. Tamara said she was taking pilot training, which was being paid for by the dorm’s owners.
Robyn said she hoped to go to a technical school to learn computer skills but added she had a more immediate goal: “I want to be in Playboy.” The women have appeared on ABC and Fox Network news programs, the MSNBC cable network and in a national men’s magazine (Gear). There has been talk of a movie about their life in the dorm. The Web site is operated by Entertainment Network, a Florida company, and Internet Entertainment Group of Seattle, which has several sexually explicit Web sites. The women earn $200 to $400 a week.
They work about eight hours a day including two to three hours in the chat room and are allowed two nights out a week. Friends can visit but men are not allowed to stay overnight. Robyn said her parents were supportive of her work, but Tamara said her mother was having a hard time. “She knows I wouldn’t do anything hard core,” Tamara said. Voyeur Dorm has more than 7,000 subscribers, the women said. Its success is expected to inspire similar sites including ones featuring men and couples, they said.
