60 Minutes, 32 naked men, 2 men in a suit shop brandishing machine guns. Click. Naked man. Click. Naked man. Click. Three stoned frat boys. Click. Naked man. Click. Welcome to the world of chatroulette.com.

The Chatroulette concept, dreamt up and executed by a Russian teenager, is simple. At the click of a button your webcam hooks up with another user’s webcam, you take a look and either chat or move on to the next web hopeful.

The chat in the title, however, is misleading. For every one person wanting to have a natter, there’s 20 guys sat in a darkened bedroom showing their penis to anyone who’ll watch. What’s the drive behind that? Setting the limit to 60 minutes, it was time to delve into the seedy cam-to-cam world.

So as my ‘partners’, as they’re called, weren’t faced with just another guy staring back at them, something which would make guys looking for girls click off and girls looking for the average buff American move on after a glimpse of this writer’s brick-beaten testicle of a face and Brit twig-arms, an air of mystery was needed. A cover and a persona. A trip to the nearest shop found a $5 panda mask and that became the tool of the trade. I was to be Panda, a non-sexual being with three taglines: “I like smiles”, “You look nice,” and “My, what a pretty [insert word]”. These were to be the basis of the chats and the rest could be winged. The only other rule is that whatever I’m greeted with I stick with. Only my partner can click ‘next’ and put me in touch with the next chatter.

The test begins, now.

Or so I thought. I’d clicked start and was greeted by a man’s crotch, tracksuit bottoms hoisted down, hand on member. The first tally was marked [man, masturbating] and my girlfriend came home. Now, there are some being caught stories out there, you may even have some yourself but as innocent as it was, it’s hard to explain why I’m sat watching a man masturbate while I wear a panda mask. Luckily the pen in my hand helped add legitimacy to my claim.

The journey took me to bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens around the world. In them sat mostly lone figures; some friendly, some scary, most male and in a state of undress whilst ‘amusing themselves’. It’s a man’s world out there.

Of the 136 people I came across, nearly a third of all males were grasping their manhood and flapping away. The fact that they make up a huge group of users on this site, they must have a real community spirit that makes their lonesome pursuit a little less lonely. Maybe they thumbs up each other or throw a virtual highfive before clicking on to find a lady.

A lot of the other guys were obviously into the idea but hadn’t quite got to that stage as the stock pose seems to be laying in bed or suggestively reclining. My favourite pose encountered was actually two men who seemed to work in a suit shop and were casually sitting around with machine guns. “I like your suits and guns,” I said. They asked whether I “had my beer on,” and when I said I liked their smiles they departed. It was a short but sweet relationship.

Whether they’d have a better chance of impressing the ladies is uncertain. The women on Chatroulette range from exhibitionists to coy looking pretties. They all undoubtedly encounter the naked men and the ‘show tits!’ signs, another regular occurrence on the site.

Tom Cassidy breaks down the population of his romp through the perverted, dark and shadowy forest that is Chatroulette.

The premise of the show boobs sign is simple. A guy writes a message requesting nudity, pops it in front of his cam and waits for the exhibitionists to click onto him. How long he waits for is a different story but, given some of the unprintable things I encountered in my hour, there’s a good chance it won’t be long. Chatroulette is geared toward hard-shelled exhibitionists. Even with a panda mask, I felt a pang of rejection each time someone clicked off. Most of the time you’re judged in a split second and rejected. This is not for the weak-of-esteem.

Most reactions, however, were nice. The odd confused smile or thumbs up passed the time nicely, as did the many confused looks I received. A guy in a mask’s not too odd an occurrence; there’s all the nudity to contend with, as well as prowling Chatroulette urban myths which have already appeared, including sightings of ‘the dead guy’, ‘the Chatroulette ghost’ and similar online tales.

Other things to spot can on occasion include the odd celebrity. US rocker Ben Folds has been spotted and, according to British tabloids, Kate Moss has worked up an addiction to the site.

While Kate wades through the willies she’ll also encounter another common phenomenon – the hiders and the others. Hiders are simple, they put something in front of the camera and scope you out, avoiding the game. The others present something other than themselves. I got a nice map of Mexico, a little robot, the Left for Dead 2 Xbox 360 game box and a Sony Vaio motherboard. (Which due to my no click on rule, I had to have a long conversation about. Sigh.) One thing she might enjoy is the musicians that pop up now and then. Due to the cam lag, however, they are invariably unlistenable. The only other artistic pursuit I encountered was a pair of hands painting a picture of Iron Man. It looked delightful but when I told them they clicked on and I was thrown to the next man.

Things changed as the sun went down over Europe – the women increased in their numbers and things started to get sleazier. Whatever your morals regarding this show and tell site, it’s another quiet revolution in terms of web contact and what we get up to in our spare time, and it can be a lot of fun. It also lives up to its name: you never know what you’re going to get. Although, you can use the graph to work out the odds. I smell a Chatroulette drinking game coming on…

Words: Tom Cassidy

Tags: Chatroulette, cyber sex, naked, porn, sex, webcam, XXX
Posted in Features