I hesitantly step into the foyer of the marble mansion: it's a chaotic blur of beautiful women. Some don suspenders and flaunt their cleavage, while male photographers usher others in six-inch heels up and down the sweeping staircase. A brunette bombshell, Nikki Foxx, welcomes me in with a wave. She's one of 15 Babestation cam girls on site today, and she's wearing a latex bra that makes me feel woefully inadequate.
You might remember Babestation as the porn TV channel that started up in December 2002, which still airs on Sky, Virgin and Freeview. It predates Pornhub and OnlyFans, and despite needing to supplement its retro cable channel with a camming site in 2015, it's still thriving. It's the last surviving frontier of the Page Three age, still employing 500 models who masturbate on camera and dirty talk to callers for a £1.50 per minute charge.
The Women Behind the Screens
Nikki, from Merseyside, is a single mum and works three to four days a week while raking in much more cash than someone in more conventional employment. She turned to Babestation after splitting up with the father of her young son, to pay her bills. 'I worked in a sunbed studio for a little bit, then I turned to OnlyFans and streaming,' she tells Metro. 'I offer a girlfriend experience; it's all solo content.'
As we chat, various women are in the bedrooms upstairs masturbating on camera for paying customers, although I dare not venture up there. With two years at Babestation, Nikki explains why it's survived the likes of Pornhub. 'You're speaking with someone and building relationships which is so much more personal than porn,' she adds.
Behind me, a stunning bleach blonde model is being filmed walking seductively up the stairs in lace stockings and glasses, looking like a naughty head teacher. I gawk at her seven-inch platform Louboutins. It's clear some of the girls are hesitant to chat. It's not hard to see why they're wary when they're so often crucified in the media. But these women aren't attempting extreme challenges or having sex with multiple men a day. They're showing a little skin and indulging men on TV, or putting on sexy lingerie to support their families. The most X-rated thing here is some butt-cheek on display. The purpose of the shoot is to get seductive content that won't be banned from social media to promote Babestation.
Flexibility and Financial Freedom
For 31-year-old firecracker Brooksie Brooks, it was her multiple sclerosis diagnosis at 21 that led her to sex work. 'I was a trained medical secretary but after my diagnosis the fatigue was too much,' Brooksie tells Metro. 'I'd ring up sick and get reprimanded but working part time couldn't even cover my rent.' She'd moved out at 15, so living at home wasn't an option. Instead, she began stripping. It allowed her to work for two to three days a week and rest for four, while earning comfortably.
'I've been dancing for eight years,' Brooksie says. 'I still do it for the social side – I'm there with my friends, we have a few drinks and let our hair down a bit.' She started doing TV in 2019 for Studio 66 before moving to Babestation in 2021, where she does both daytime and nighttime shifts, which offer very different services. 'The daytime phone line is clean so no explicit talk,' she explains. 'Quite a lot of viewers ring and talk about their day and we catch up. You can't wear lingerie, you can't twerk, you've got three positions you're allowed to sit in for five hours – it's like Pilates.' At night you can be explicit as long as you can't be lipread on TV. It's the perfect set up for Brooksie who 'gets to w**k all day', as well as getting some interesting calls. 'I have a cannibal that rings me up,' she says casually. 'He gets drunk and tells me how he'd like to eat me – it usually involves olive oil and garlic butter. He's been ringing for years and has my face and t*ts tattooed on his arm.' She believes this flexible camming and TV schedule has delayed the progression of her MS – her consultants can't fathom how well she's doing.
For 26-year-old Ruby Mae, a Babestation veteran of four years, it was money that was the motivation. She's my age with piercing blue eyes, dressed in polka dots, and vastly out-earns me. 'I started stripping while at university where I studied psychology, but it was meant to be on the side, not a long-term thing,' she tells Metro. After two years, Covid hit and Ruby turned to OnlyFans to make money, again offering a girlfriend experience. 'It came to the end of my degree and I was making really good money, so getting a job would've felt like a step down to earn less,' she adds. It was then that she opted to work for Babestation, earning £1,200 in a single shift.
Relationships and Companionship
Then there are the women who swing with their partners and felt Babestation and OnlyFans wasn't much of a leap for some extra cash. Zoe Grey, 34, and Darcy May, 28, both swing with the fathers of their children and do studio porn, too. 'It allows for the work-life balance you need, my little boy is nine so it's a way to make money and be at home,' Darcy, a former clinical support worker from Northamptonshire, says. 'Even if I'm working at night, I can come home and be a mum in the day.'
The same goes for former beautician Zoe, who couldn't work during covid. 'That all went to crap, so I started OnlyFans because my partner and I are swingers,' the 34-year-old says. 'We were doing it for enjoyment, so we thought we might as well make money from it.' She joined Babestation after meeting a girl who worked with the company on another porn shoot. Now, Zoe works once-a-week at the camming site and has done for four-and-a-half years, earning about £2,500 a month, a small portion of her £20,000 a month income from other sites.
'I've got some real regulars, and we'll have a blinding conversation. I was in Monday night and most of the night was spent just talking with one of my guys about microwaves and glove compartments in the car,' Zoe says. 'You'll get the ones looking for companionship and then you get the ones that barely say a word to you apart from let me see your p**sy.'
Of course, all these women have encountered judgement for their chosen career, yet none of them are phased. Maybe Brooksie put it best: 'Let's be honest, the world is hard to live in now. So just do what makes you happy, drink tequila, get your t*ts out and have a good time.'
