Concerts

There are so many ways to meet new people, but nothing is more adventurous and electrifying than calling a phone chat line. It’s exciting to think about all the new people you could meet through a phone dating line, all from the comfort of your own home. It’s a testament to how far dating has come, and how phones have enhanced our ability to make meaningful connections.

We’ve put together a new list of the top chat lines in 2023. The top 10 are in the table with clickable phone numbers and free trial minutes available. Our runner-up chat lines are below the table.

Best Free Phone Chat Lines of 2023

RankBrandPhone NumberFree TrialBest For1.LiveLinks888-901-268860 minutesMeeting local singles2.FreeChatGirls866-995-533130 minutesBest free trial3.Local Hot Chat888-710-26255 minutesGreat singles4.Livetalk800-444-LIVE10 minutesHybrid naughty/singles5.RedHot Dateline855-933-061030 minutesLate night chat6.Vibeline866-488-080930 minutesMeeting black singles7.Fonochat866-605-301630 minutesChatting with latina singles8.Talk121855-677-054530 minutesBest early day number9.Phone and Flirt800-381-54555 minutesBest flirty line10.Desires Chat888-598-83365 minutesBest confessional line

More Chat Lines To Call

Moonlight Line: 855-677-0538Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625Lover’s Lane: 509-876-5930Adult Talk: 833-937-ADULTHowl Line: 888-655-6366Azul Line: 888-589-4999Sexy Live Connections: 800-317-4475Hollar Line: 888-650-2223Taboo Chat: 855-50-TABOOExotic Chat Line: 888-633-9453Lavalife Voice: 877-800-5282Girls Flirt Free: 800-364-4757Social Voice USA: 844-706-5518Hot Latinas Chat: 800-309-9388Latino Phone Chat: 888-702-8887Nightline: 877-834-4044Questchat: 888-889-6565Black Singlez: 800-287-3991Night Exchange: 866-917-8328Español Chat: 888-674-8887College Party Line: 888-598-3927Black Phone Chat: 800-319-7277America’s Hottest Talk Line: 206-876-56711PartyLine: 562-621-1201Grapevine Personals: 250-984-3322Metrovibe: 877-390-6677TangoPersonals: 800-810-8108MegaMates: 866-718-4930Metrochat: 206-876-56751-800-DATE-LINE: 800-DATE-LINE1800Personals: 213-687-7675Party Lines Uncensored: 712-432-4800

1. LiveLinks: 888-901-2688 – Best overall chat line
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveLinks is the most prominent and well-known chat line in North America. Not only has it been around since the 90s, but it’s also famous for its ability to establish all sorts of relationships, from the friendly to the romantic. Not many lines cater to such a large variety.

LiveLinks has great features, like the Hot List where you can add your favorite people and chat instantly. The best feature, by far, is that the callers are real. No fake profiles, no paid callers. Just singles looking to connect with other people in their area.

Women chat for free. First-time male callers can enjoy a hefty one-hour trial, which is an extremely generous amount of free time that can be used to get to know a special someone. Unlike other lines, LiveLinks allows you to browse profiles and chat live one-on-one during the free trial. Once the hour’s up, you need to purchase minutes.

Need more info before calling? Check out our full LiveLinks review.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.99 (best value)10 minutes$4.99

2. FreeChatGirls: 866-995-5331 – Best for new chat line callers

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

FreeChatGirls is a naughty adult line where the ladies always talk for free. It’s a phone sex line without any paid operators, only real people who are just like you. This chat line is for hot like-minded individuals who want to dive into their fantasies with strangers on the phone. You are allowed a half-hour free phone chat trial, which you can use to browse profiles. Once you use up that time, you’re going to want to purchase one of their affordable memberships to talk live one-on-one.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

3. Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625 – Best hybrid naughty/singles number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Local Hot Chat may appear to be on the risqué side of phone dating, but it caters to callers of all types. Whether you’re looking for something serious or spicy, Local Hot Chat delivers. The gender ratio skews female, so if you’re want to chat with a single lady, this is the number to call. The 5 minute free trial allows you to browse profiles and request connect. As soon as you talk live, you’ll have to pay. But it’s worth it. The memberships are affordable. What’s one downside? Their user interface (IVR) system is a little outdated, but it gets the job done.

Local Hot Chat updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99
4. LiveTalk: 800-444-LIVE – Best for real connections
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveTalk provides a safe and secure phone dating environment for adults over the age of 18. People come to LiveTalk when they want to meet someone who is like-minded and genuine. Locals from different cities across the U.S. flock to this newer chat line. While it hasn’t been around since the 90s like LiveLinks, it’s one of the most favored and talked about chat lines right now. This premier phone chat service does a great job of connecting folks who are truly interested in creating a bond. You will never meet anyone flaky when you call LiveTalk.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$19.99*60 minutes$29.99*90 minutes$42.99**prices subject to change per LiveTalk’s parent company, NTS

5. Redhot Dateline: 855-993-0610 – Best late night number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Redhot Dateline is a line most notable for its ability to link sexy individuals to each other for steamy phone chat. It’s a very popular line, making finding a match a seamless experience no matter when you call in. If you are seeking a little wild fun, Redhot Dateline is for you. However, if romance is more your pick, we’d suggest heading to one of the lines dedicated to dating rather than erotic chat. Redhot Dateline doesn’t shy away from its namesake; it really is red hot. The only unfortunate thing about Redhot Dateline is that the 30-minute free trial is limited. To take full advantage, you’ll need a membership.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

6. Vibeline: 866-488-0809 – Best black chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★

Vibeline has long been a chat line that has attracted Black callers. But in more recent years, it has expanded into a more diverse bunch of young and trendy folks. It’s known as a pretty “hip” line, which is why it brings in a younger and more vibrant crowd. Callers on this line are looking for all sorts of relationships. Some want something serious, but many are seeking a flirty fling. Women can talk on Vibeline free of charge and men can take advantage of that sweet 30-minute free trial. These 30 minutes can be spread out over time if you’d like, which is a nice and unique touch that other chat lines usually don’t offer.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

7. Fonochat: 866-605-3016 – Best latina chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Brought to you by the same people who created LiveLinks, Fonochat is the best Latinx chat line available for Hispanic singles in your area. It’s an exciting place where Latinx people and those looking for Latinx partners can come and be themselves. If you prefer to chat in Spanish, that’s an option for you at Fonochat (but you don’t have to if you don’t want to). Like Livelinks, Fonochat allows you to create a Hot List of potential partners. You can also send private messages to people you wish to explore a friendship or relationship with.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

8. Talk121: 855-677-0545 – Best to meet local singles over the phone

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Talk121 is a chat line that’s been around for a long time and has done a good job at keeping up with the tech innovations in the chat line space. It’s a great competitor in the chat line game and keeps the other lines on their toes. Thousands of people call into Talk121 on a regular basis, and they stay because the line is always very reliable. Though aged, it doesn’t feel like an outdated chat line. It’s a leader in the industry and promotes everything from friendship to long-term relationships.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

9. Phone and Flirt: 800-381-5455 – Best for quick, flirty phone chat

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★

This safe and discreet chat line is used by people who want to laugh, flirt, and have a good time. When calling Phone and Flirt, there’s an underlying expectation that you are there to have a frisky good time. That doesn’t mean that all the callers are looking for erotic chat. Some are simply seeing who can give them those chat line butterflies. Phone and Flirt is very popular for this reason, saturated with younger flirters who love how unexpected and surprising this line can be.

Phone and Flirt has the same parent company as Local Hot Chat and, subsequently, also updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99

10. Desires Chat: 888-598-8336 – Best for confessional

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Desires Chat is a leading chat line that operates solely for adults who want to share their secret desires with one another. Discretion is taken very seriously over at Desires Chat, so you should feel completely free to let your wild side out on the line. There’s a level of open-mindedness not seen on every chat line that attracts some of the most interesting callers. Get lost in conversation with one of these dreamers on the Desires Chat line. You will feel as sexy as you will liberated.

Membership LengthPrice90 minutes$25.00200 minutes$50.00215 minutes$95.00

How To Use a Chat Line

These toll-free numbers can be used to flirt or start a full-blown relationship with a hot local single. What’s more is that they all offer free trials, so you might even meet that special someone without paying a dime.

Rather than swiping through images on a vapid app, chat lines promote conversation and help you get to know your match on a deeper level. It’s also great for more sexual relationships too! Most chat lines follow a similar setup:

Call the number
Record a personal greeting in which you introduce yourself
Listen to other greetings to see who sounds most appealing
Send private messages through virtual mailboxes
Request to chat live with someone
Have an awesome phone chat experience

It’s as easy as that.

Chat Line Dating FAQHow did you judge these lines?We look at a lot of things when deciding which chat lines are best. The first are reliability and call volume. We don’t want you calling a chat line that gets little to no calls because that means your dating or chatting options are far too limited. We chose lines that get a lot of callers, even during non-peak hours of the day. They also have to have free trials so that you can enjoy a taste of their features before you even pull out your wallet. And finally, we judge these phone chat lines based on user experiences we’ve read about, like on Mr. Chat Line, heard about, or experienced ourselves.

What should I say in my chat line greeting?Your chat line greeting is what other callers will hear before they decide if they want to meet you. It’s an introduction and should sound like one. But remember, you are going after someone for a flirty or romantic relationship. You aren’t at a job interview. With that in mind, try to keep your greeting short, sweet, and interesting. Show your personality off without taking up too much time. And make sure you sound excited when you are speaking. This will attract others to you!

Are chat lines safe?Chat lines are one of the safest ways to flirt with a stranger. Again, you are virtually meeting a new friend from the comfort of your very own home. As far as physical safety, that’s pretty much taken care of! Chat lines also work very hard to make sure they are both safe and secure so that you’ll feel as comfortable as possible expressing yourself on the line. You can always change your name if you wish to remain anonymous, and no line will ever share identifying or sensitive information. Be wary of people on chat lines who try to coax information out of you that feels too personal.

What happens when the free trial is up?When your free trial is up on a chat line, we’d encourage you to try another trial! But if you love the line you’ve just called or want to spend more time with a certain phone date, you will need to purchase a time package. These are usually pretty affordable. If you want to have erotic chat, chat lines are far less expensive than traditional phone sex numbers with much longer free trials.

How likely am I to hook up because of a chat line?Calling a chat line is like going to a popular local bar. There are so many people who you’ll meet that live very close to you. Most chat line callers are calling so that they can eventually hang out in person. That common goal of connecting with new people in your area is what makes chat lines such a unique and reliable way to meet someone new to flirt with, hang out with, and hook up with.

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Phone sex numbers are the quickest way to connect with adults in sexy conversation. When you’re in the mood to have a sizzling conversation with a stranger, there are so many numbers to choose from. Some numbers are chat lines, which introduce you to like-minded people in your area. Others are classic numbers with professional operators.

Whichever version of phone sex you crave, there are plenty of numbers available. Instead of spending all the time dialing, trying to figure out which number is worth your time, we’ve compiled a list of the best phone sex numbers available. And yes, all of these numbers offer free trials. Technically, you can call each of these lines, use the trial, and enjoy totally free!

The numbers in the table below are the cream of the crop. The remaining phone numbers are below the table. Call them all!

Best Free Phone Sex Numbers in 2023

RankBrandPhone NumberFree TrialBest For1.1-800-PHONESEX1-800-PHONESEX5 minutesBest overall number2.LiveLinks1-855-948-478860 minutesRunner-up best3.1-800 Sex Chat1-800-375-22235 minutesBest late night callers4.1-844 Phone Sex1-844-746-63735 minutesMost experienced PSOs5.Taboo Chat1-855-50-TABOO5 minutesBest for chatting taboo topics6.Phone Sex Chat Line1-844-955-011530 minutesBest day time number7.Free Chat Girls1-866-995-533130 minutesBest free trial8.Nightline1-877-834-404460 minutesRunner-up best late night number9.Night Exchange1-866-917-832860 minutesBest for first time callers10.Talk To Me1-800-452-606730 minutesBest mainstream number11.Jet Doll1-800-538-365530 minutesBest for diverse PSOs

Here are even more phone sex numbers that offer free minutes categorized by type:

Late NightDesire’s Chat: 1-888-598-83361-800-SEXTALK: 1-800-SEX-TALKAdult Talk: 1-833-937-ADULTNight Exchange: 1-866-917-83281-800-SEX-LINE: 1-800-739-5463Sexy Live Connections: 1-800-317-4475FreeChatGirls: 1-866-995-5331Redhot Dateline: 1-877-626-8194Two Talked: 1-800-963-7792Nightline: 1-877-834-4044Night Exchange: 1-866-917-8328

PartyCollege Party Line: 1-888-598-3927Girls Party Line: 1-800-307-2625Girls Flirt Free: 1-800-364-4757

KinkExotic Chat Line: 1-888-633-9453Adam and Eve Chat: 1-800-278-5181Kink Connections: 1-855-949-KINKTalk Dirty Chat Line: 1-800-410-2742Kinky Convo: 1-855-936-KINK

LatinaHot Latinas Chat: 1-800-309-9388Beeper Love: 1-855-972-7944Axxess Latino: 1-702-966-2200Hot Latinas Chat: 1-800-309-9388

BlackBlack Phone Chat: 1-800-319-7277Yummyvibe: 1-888-907-0202Howl Line: 1-888-655-6366

Here are in-depth reviews of our top 10 picks:

1. 18000 PHONESEX: Oldest and most reliable phone sex experience – 1-800-746-6373

1-800-PHONESEX has been in operation since the 1980’s and it continues to deliver the most quality, authentic phone sex experience. You speak to paid operators, but these girls know what they’re doing. They guide you through your fantasies and get you off in no time. The free 5 minutes goes by quickly, but the per minute price of $.89/min is reasonable compared to other numbers on the market.

2.  Livelinks: Runner-up best phone sex number – 1-855-948-4788

Livelinks is the number one erotic chat line in the U.S. and Canada, making it the ultimate breeding ground for an intense pleasurable experience. You never have to wonder if you’ll be connected with someone on Livelinks because the number is ringing off the hook constantly. You can enjoy some free phone sex by taking advantage of their free trial, but just know that there’s a good chance you’ll get hooked. The packages are affordable, though, and the raunchy sex chat you’ll be having with hot locals is pretty much priceless.

3.  1-800 Sex Chat: Classic number – 1-800-375-2223

1-800 Sex Chat is a classic sex line number that connects you with live actresses. These women are professionals, so they know how to get you off. These experienced gems are interested in talking about anything and everything you can fathom. No fetish is too kinky, no kink too naughty. You will be asked early on for credit card information (whereas other lines on this list let you have a few free minutes before paying up). If you are wary about the lack of free trial, you can check out the numerous positive reviews online of 1-800 Sex Chat from guys who have called in and had great experiences with the people on the line.

4.  1-844 Phone Sex: The name says it all – 1-844-746-6373

This phone sex number does offer a free trial, but it’s very short (only five minutes). That said, 1-844 Phone Sex is a unique one on this list because it’s the one most similar to a classic late night number. There are so many sizzling conversations to be had on this line with the experienced women who run the show. 1-844 Phone Sex will ask you for payment information pretty early on, so that’s one of the only qualms we have with this number. What we can tell you is that an experience over at this phone sex line is always satisfying and often exceeds our expectations!

5.  Taboo Chat: Discuss your kinks – 1-855-50-TABOO

Taboo Chat is an adult fantasy line for people who want to share their erotic fantasies with each other. This phone sex number is unique because it gives you the chance to choose from fetish categories, such as bondage chat, voyeurism chat, and more. It advertises itself as a safe place where people can talk about their “forbidden fantasies” and secret sexual desires. Many callers choose to remain anonymous on this line because it makes them feel more comfortable expressing their most vulnerable secrets to strangers. Discretion and privacy is taken very seriously over at Taboo Chat.

6.  Phone Sex Chat Line: Perfect chat line/phone sex hybrid – 1-844-955-0115

This number doubles as a chat line, making it the perfect place to dish your naughty fantasies to a local stranger. Everyone who calls Phone Sex Chatline is there because they want naughty phone chat, so there’s no guessing when you call this erotic line. Women can call this number for free, but men will have to pay to chat with someone live. However, before paying, men are able to send hot messages to other members and see who finds them appealing. This can be a good way to decide whether or not Phone Sex Chat Line is right for you.

7.  Free Chat Girls: Affordable – 1-866-995-5331

Free Chat Girls is not an entirely free phone sex number. It does offer a free trial if you choose to give it a test run. Free Chat Girls is an older number, but it’s one that is used pretty frequently. You can choose from different fetishes, fantasies, ethnicities, and experiences. They have an option to call a Phone Sex Virgin, but we are a little skeptical as to how new these girls really are to this world. They are good at acting very innocent, though, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into. You can also call a local city number if you want to talk to someone who is not a PSO. These are just horny locals who want to engage in naughty chat with a stranger!

7.  Nightline: Kinkiest callers – 1-877-834-4044

Nightline lets callers connect with each other for erotic or more hardcore sexual conversation. They have a customizable feature that makes it stand out from other lines. When you dial into Nightline, you have the option to select a chat category to make finding like-minded matches easier. Their name might have you believing that you can only call at night, but Nightline is available to users 24/7. Whenever you are in the mood, Nightline will be there for you. We will admit though that both the quantity and quality of callers improve as it gets later into the night. New users can enjoy a free trial.

9.  Night Exchange: Best for extreme kink – 1-866-917-8328

Night Exchange is an adult line that allows you to flirt with hot local singles, 24/7. There are peak hours that usually fall between 8 PM and 1 AM. The line itself connects you to flirty individuals who want to talk about their kinks to you. But if you hop onto their website, you’ll find that Night Exchange allows other forms of communication like direct messages. Plus, you can search by fetish on their homepage to find people who are into the same kinks as you.

10..  Talk To Me: Most unique options – 1-800-452-6067

This effective phone sex number has a unique model that tons of folks love. They offer a large variety in terms of communication methods. From calls, to cams, from texts, to Skype, there are endless ways to use Talk To Me. The women you will speak with are all rated (from one to five stars) by other callers, which gives you a chance to request only the best partner for your phone fun. Each has their own fantasies that they love to talk about. If their kinks match yours, give it a go. Customers usually report that Talk To Me is high quality.

11  1-800 Jet Doll: Seasoned professionals – 1-800-538-3655

Jet Doll has been in operation for more than 20 years now, giving it major chops in the phone sex industry. Though the webpage appears to be out of date, the line has managed to keep up with the times after all these years. When you dial the Jet Doll number, a rep will answer to set you up with your phone sex session. The women of Jet Doll are professionals, so this won’t be your run-of-the-mill phone chat experience with a local hottie. People who prefer Jet Doll to other platforms enjoy that there’s no question that the Jet Doll girls know what they are doing, and know how to do it well. They can satisfy any kink or fetish you can come up with, all directly through the phone.

How To Act on A Call

You might be nervous about your call, but there’s nothing to be worried about. When you call into these lines, you will be connected with people who are also down to have phone sex with you. There’s no need to fear rejection because whether the person is an operator or a local like you, they all know why they’re on the phone in the first place. As far as how to behave, acting respectful is key. Ask questions if you want to know what turns your phone sex partner on and tell them about your fantasies. When you are describing kinky things, try to be imaginative and descriptive. This will enhance the world of imagination that you’re creating on the line.

Phone Sex FAQs

Should I call a classic phone sex number or a chat line?Some folks love their old school lines. These are lines that you dial into. The person on the other line is a professional who is willing to talk about whatever you’re into! Meanwhile, chat lines connect you with regular people in your area. A late night line might not connect you to phone sex experts, but they will lend themselves to a more genuine and meaningful experience. It’s also exhilarating to meet new people over a sexy chat line. Plus, there’s always a chance to meet up in real life with the person you’ve met on a chat line. Other phone sex numbers don’t offer that possiblity. More than that, chat lines usually offer much longer free phone sex trial periods.

Is it possible to have phone sex for free?

Free phone sex is just a phone call away! The reason why it’s possible to have phone sex for free is because sex chat lines almost always offer free trials. There are always going to be so many numbers out there for you to try, so when you’ve used up your free minutes at one line, hop onto another! Each number offers a different amount of free minutes. Some lines only allow you to message other users with those minutes rather than chat with a live person. This is why free phone sex is possible, but can be tedious if you decide you never want to pay for your time.

What should I expect when calling a phone sex number?When you call a number for phone sex, you will be introduced to someone who works for the line or matched with other locals. Initially, you’ll be prompted to follow some basic instructions that will inform you on how to get started. Prepare for the automated voice on the line to be sultry and dramatic. On a sex chat line, you’ll have the chance to record a greeting and listen to other greetings. That’s how you’ll decide who you want to talk to! Let them know you’re interested by sending them a message or connecting live on the line!

Are phone sex numbers safe?There is a lot to consider when calling a phone sex line. You might worry about how it appears on your bill, fear for your privacy, or wonder if your conversations are being recorded. The lines on this list are discreet, private, and allow anonymity if that’s what you choose. They are usually run by large companies who make your safety a priority. They have reputations to uphold and don’t want to compromise that by compromising your security. Sex lines also often utilize secure billing systems and toll-free numbers (which are untraceable).

What kind of people call sex lines?People just like you! Tons and tons of people call phone sex numbers. They are often normal folks who are looking to spice up their sex lives. Phone sex is one of the quickest, easiest, and safest ways to do that with new people.

How Do Free Trial Sex Lines Work?

Most sex lines operate in the same fashion. The steps laid out for you below are applicable to most erotic chat line numbers.

State your chat line name: Most people want to remain anonymous on sex lines, so they’ll make up a nickname or pseudonym for the call.
Start your free trial: You will be instructed on how to begin using your free trial.
Record a greeting: A greeting is a quick recorded blurb about you. You can use your greeting as an opportunity to state what you are into and looking for. If another caller is into the same things you are, they’ll likely connect with you.
Match, message, meet: Once you record your greeting, you can listen to other greetings. Send users messages or meet them live for an erotic phone chat!

Safety Tips:

Phone sex is a thrilling experience. And, for the most part, it’s one of the safest ways to have sexual contact with someone you don’t already know. However, there are always risks involved with trying new things. That’s why you should always keep these safety tips in mind when calling a phone sex line:

Don’t share personal information.

This is the most important safety tip of all. Do not reveal identifying information about yourself to strangers on phone sex lines. That information includes but isn’t limited to: your full name, your banking information, your home address, social security number, or personal facts. You are speaking to someone on the line who you’ve never met before. There is no reason why they’d need any of this information.

Talk about your boundaries.

Phone sex requires consent from both parties. While calling a late night number implies that you are interested in having phone sex, it doesn’t tell your partner what your sexual boundaries are. Perhaps there is language you find offensive or subjects you don’t want to talk about. Be vocal about your boundaries so that your partner knows how to respect them.

Hang up if you feel uncomfortable.

Some bad apples can ruin it for everyone. Don’t let a bad person ruin your phone sex experience. If someone is being abusive to you on the line, you have the right to block that person, hang up, or report them to the phone sex company.

Trust your intuition.

If your gut is telling you that something isn’t right, trust that feeling. No amount of phone sex is ever worth jeopardizing your safety. Plus, there are always so many callers to choose from. It’s easy to hang up on someone who is making you feel strange and have it with someone else.

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There are so many ways to meet new people, but nothing is more adventurous and electrifying than calling a phone chat line. It’s exciting to think about all the new people you could meet through a phone dating line, all from the comfort of your own home. It’s a testament to how far dating has come, and how phones have enhanced our ability to make meaningful connections.

We’ve put together a new list of the top chat lines in 2023. The top 10 are in the table with clickable phone numbers and free trial minutes available. Our runner-up chat lines are below the table.

Best Free Phone Chat Lines of 2023

RankBrandPhone NumberFree TrialBest For1.LiveLinks888-901-268860 minutesMeeting local singles2.FreeChatGirls866-995-533130 minutesBest free trial3.Local Hot Chat888-710-26255 minutesGreat singles4.Livetalk800-444-LIVE10 minutesHybrid naughty/singles5.RedHot Dateline855-933-061030 minutesLate night chat6.Vibeline866-488-080930 minutesMeeting black singles7.Fonochat866-605-301630 minutesChatting with latina singles8.Talk121855-677-054530 minutesBest early day number9.Phone and Flirt800-381-54555 minutesBest flirty line10.Desires Chat888-598-83365 minutesBest confessional line

More Chat Lines To Call

Moonlight Line: 855-677-0538Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625Lover’s Lane: 509-876-5930Adult Talk: 833-937-ADULTHowl Line: 888-655-6366Azul Line: 888-589-4999Sexy Live Connections: 800-317-4475Hollar Line: 888-650-2223Taboo Chat: 855-50-TABOOExotic Chat Line: 888-633-9453Lavalife Voice: 877-800-5282Girls Flirt Free: 800-364-4757Social Voice USA: 844-706-5518Hot Latinas Chat: 800-309-9388Latino Phone Chat: 888-702-8887Nightline: 877-834-4044Questchat: 888-889-6565Black Singlez: 800-287-3991Night Exchange: 866-917-8328Español Chat: 888-674-8887College Party Line: 888-598-3927Black Phone Chat: 800-319-7277America’s Hottest Talk Line: 206-876-56711PartyLine: 562-621-1201Grapevine Personals: 250-984-3322Metrovibe: 877-390-6677TangoPersonals: 800-810-8108MegaMates: 866-718-4930Metrochat: 206-876-56751-800-DATE-LINE: 800-DATE-LINE1800Personals: 213-687-7675Party Lines Uncensored: 712-432-4800

1. LiveLinks: 888-901-2688 – Best overall chat line
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveLinks is the most prominent and well-known chat line in North America. Not only has it been around since the 90s, but it’s also famous for its ability to establish all sorts of relationships, from the friendly to the romantic. Not many lines cater to such a large variety.

LiveLinks has great features, like the Hot List where you can add your favorite people and chat instantly. The best feature, by far, is that the callers are real. No fake profiles, no paid callers. Just singles looking to connect with other people in their area.

Women chat for free. First-time male callers can enjoy a hefty one-hour trial, which is an extremely generous amount of free time that can be used to get to know a special someone. Unlike other lines, LiveLinks allows you to browse profiles and chat live one-on-one during the free trial. Once the hour’s up, you need to purchase minutes.

Need more info before calling? Check out our full LiveLinks review.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.99 (best value)10 minutes$4.99

2. FreeChatGirls: 866-995-5331 – Best for new chat line callers

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

FreeChatGirls is a naughty adult line where the ladies always talk for free. It’s a phone sex line without any paid operators, only real people who are just like you. This chat line is for hot like-minded individuals who want to dive into their fantasies with strangers on the phone. You are allowed a half-hour free phone chat trial, which you can use to browse profiles. Once you use up that time, you’re going to want to purchase one of their affordable memberships to talk live one-on-one.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

3. Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625 – Best hybrid naughty/singles number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Local Hot Chat may appear to be on the risqué side of phone dating, but it caters to callers of all types. Whether you’re looking for something serious or spicy, Local Hot Chat delivers. The gender ratio skews female, so if you’re want to chat with a single lady, this is the number to call. The 5 minute free trial allows you to browse profiles and request connect. As soon as you talk live, you’ll have to pay. But it’s worth it. The memberships are affordable. What’s one downside? Their user interface (IVR) system is a little outdated, but it gets the job done.

Local Hot Chat updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99
4. LiveTalk: 800-444-LIVE – Best for real connections
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveTalk provides a safe and secure phone dating environment for adults over the age of 18. People come to LiveTalk when they want to meet someone who is like-minded and genuine. Locals from different cities across the U.S. flock to this newer chat line. While it hasn’t been around since the 90s like LiveLinks, it’s one of the most favored and talked about chat lines right now. This premier phone chat service does a great job of connecting folks who are truly interested in creating a bond. You will never meet anyone flaky when you call LiveTalk.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$19.99*60 minutes$29.99*90 minutes$42.99**prices subject to change per LiveTalk’s parent company, NTS

5. Redhot Dateline: 855-993-0610 – Best late night number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Redhot Dateline is a line most notable for its ability to link sexy individuals to each other for steamy phone chat. It’s a very popular line, making finding a match a seamless experience no matter when you call in. If you are seeking a little wild fun, Redhot Dateline is for you. However, if romance is more your pick, we’d suggest heading to one of the lines dedicated to dating rather than erotic chat. Redhot Dateline doesn’t shy away from its namesake; it really is red hot. The only unfortunate thing about Redhot Dateline is that the 30-minute free trial is limited. To take full advantage, you’ll need a membership.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

6. Vibeline: 866-488-0809 – Best black chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★

Vibeline has long been a chat line that has attracted Black callers. But in more recent years, it has expanded into a more diverse bunch of young and trendy folks. It’s known as a pretty “hip” line, which is why it brings in a younger and more vibrant crowd. Callers on this line are looking for all sorts of relationships. Some want something serious, but many are seeking a flirty fling. Women can talk on Vibeline free of charge and men can take advantage of that sweet 30-minute free trial. These 30 minutes can be spread out over time if you’d like, which is a nice and unique touch that other chat lines usually don’t offer.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

7. Fonochat: 866-605-3016 – Best latina chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Brought to you by the same people who created LiveLinks, Fonochat is the best Latinx chat line available for Hispanic singles in your area. It’s an exciting place where Latinx people and those looking for Latinx partners can come and be themselves. If you prefer to chat in Spanish, that’s an option for you at Fonochat (but you don’t have to if you don’t want to). Like Livelinks, Fonochat allows you to create a Hot List of potential partners. You can also send private messages to people you wish to explore a friendship or relationship with.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

8. Talk121: 855-677-0545 – Best to meet local singles over the phone

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Talk121 is a chat line that’s been around for a long time and has done a good job at keeping up with the tech innovations in the chat line space. It’s a great competitor in the chat line game and keeps the other lines on their toes. Thousands of people call into Talk121 on a regular basis, and they stay because the line is always very reliable. Though aged, it doesn’t feel like an outdated chat line. It’s a leader in the industry and promotes everything from friendship to long-term relationships.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

9. Phone and Flirt: 800-381-5455 – Best for quick, flirty phone chat

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★

This safe and discreet chat line is used by people who want to laugh, flirt, and have a good time. When calling Phone and Flirt, there’s an underlying expectation that you are there to have a frisky good time. That doesn’t mean that all the callers are looking for erotic chat. Some are simply seeing who can give them those chat line butterflies. Phone and Flirt is very popular for this reason, saturated with younger flirters who love how unexpected and surprising this line can be.

Phone and Flirt has the same parent company as Local Hot Chat and, subsequently, also updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99

10. Desires Chat: 888-598-8336 – Best for confessional

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Desires Chat is a leading chat line that operates solely for adults who want to share their secret desires with one another. Discretion is taken very seriously over at Desires Chat, so you should feel completely free to let your wild side out on the line. There’s a level of open-mindedness not seen on every chat line that attracts some of the most interesting callers. Get lost in conversation with one of these dreamers on the Desires Chat line. You will feel as sexy as you will liberated.

Membership LengthPrice90 minutes$25.00200 minutes$50.00215 minutes$95.00

How To Use a Chat Line

These toll-free numbers can be used to flirt or start a full-blown relationship with a hot local single. What’s more is that they all offer free trials, so you might even meet that special someone without paying a dime.

Rather than swiping through images on a vapid app, chat lines promote conversation and help you get to know your match on a deeper level. It’s also great for more sexual relationships too! Most chat lines follow a similar setup:

Call the number
Record a personal greeting in which you introduce yourself
Listen to other greetings to see who sounds most appealing
Send private messages through virtual mailboxes
Request to chat live with someone
Have an awesome phone chat experience

It’s as easy as that.

Chat Line Dating FAQHow did you judge these lines?We look at a lot of things when deciding which chat lines are best. The first are reliability and call volume. We don’t want you calling a chat line that gets little to no calls because that means your dating or chatting options are far too limited. We chose lines that get a lot of callers, even during non-peak hours of the day. They also have to have free trials so that you can enjoy a taste of their features before you even pull out your wallet. And finally, we judge these phone chat lines based on user experiences we’ve read about, like on Mr. Chat Line, heard about, or experienced ourselves.

What should I say in my chat line greeting?Your chat line greeting is what other callers will hear before they decide if they want to meet you. It’s an introduction and should sound like one. But remember, you are going after someone for a flirty or romantic relationship. You aren’t at a job interview. With that in mind, try to keep your greeting short, sweet, and interesting. Show your personality off without taking up too much time. And make sure you sound excited when you are speaking. This will attract others to you!

Are chat lines safe?Chat lines are one of the safest ways to flirt with a stranger. Again, you are virtually meeting a new friend from the comfort of your very own home. As far as physical safety, that’s pretty much taken care of! Chat lines also work very hard to make sure they are both safe and secure so that you’ll feel as comfortable as possible expressing yourself on the line. You can always change your name if you wish to remain anonymous, and no line will ever share identifying or sensitive information. Be wary of people on chat lines who try to coax information out of you that feels too personal.

What happens when the free trial is up?When your free trial is up on a chat line, we’d encourage you to try another trial! But if you love the line you’ve just called or want to spend more time with a certain phone date, you will need to purchase a time package. These are usually pretty affordable. If you want to have erotic chat, chat lines are far less expensive than traditional phone sex numbers with much longer free trials.

How likely am I to hook up because of a chat line?Calling a chat line is like going to a popular local bar. There are so many people who you’ll meet that live very close to you. Most chat line callers are calling so that they can eventually hang out in person. That common goal of connecting with new people in your area is what makes chat lines such a unique and reliable way to meet someone new to flirt with, hang out with, and hook up with.

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Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

It’s important to pay tribute to our living legends, and I like to think that the Secret History of Chicago Music does so at least as often as it honors the departed. Guitarist and singer Linsey Alexander has been laying down blistering electric blues in the Windy City for five decades, but he didn’t become a full-time musician and recording artist till after he retired from his job with the Chicago Police Department—and at that point he was nearly 60 years old.

Linsey Alexander, like many bluesmen before and since known as “the Hoochie Man,” was born July 23, 1942, in rural Holly Springs, Mississippi. His family worked as sharecroppers—an arrangement so exploitive it was a hair’s breadth from indentured servitude—but their fortunes changed for the better after his mother moved to Memphis to get a job. When Alexander was 12, she came back to take him and a sister to the city with her.

“When I got to Memphis, it was the first time I had ever seen a bus, or a street car. That was where I had my first hot dog. I didn’t know what it was!” Alexander told Blues Blast Magazine in 2020. “I used to go down on Beale Street to hear people playing music outside, but I wasn’t old enough to get in the clubs.” 

After Alexander’s mother died in 1958, he stayed with an older brother. A friend of the family—Alexander knew him only as Otis—used to come by and play guitar. “I would listen to him. After some time, he started showing me some things,” Alexander said. “He would go off but leave the guitar. So I could practice what he had shown me until he got back.” Alexander started working to help support the family, taking jobs as a porter in a hotel laundry room and as a bicycle mechanic. But eventually Otis’s guitar fell into his hands for good. “One day he came out, played some guitar, and then said I’ll see you later. I haven’t seen that guy since then! Later on, I pawned that guitar to get the money for a bus ticket to Chicago.”

A club called the Place at 63rd and Champlain held a talent show every Sunday, and Alexander’s new band made a habit of playing a song at it each week. One of the numbers they had the most fun with was titled “Let It All Hang Out,” though unfortunately it wasn’t the 1967 garage-rock hit by the Hombres. 

The Hot Tomatoes worked up a new tune every couple weeks, and Alexander soon started outpacing his sidemen. The band’s drummer was married with two kids, so Alexander replaced him with someone who could be more available. He also went through a few bass players, but soon he found the right one. 

“In all of the years I have been playing, I have only had three bass players,” he said. “The third one, Ron Simmons, has been with me for over forty years. His brother, Walter ‘Simtec’ Simmons, had a hit record with his partner, Wylie Dixon called ‘Gotta Get Over the Hump’. That shit was hot, man!” (Secret History covered that band, Simtec & Wylie, more than a decade ago—and they were indeed hot shit.) 

Alexander started to build a name for himself with his high-energy performances, bitingly distorted guitar tone, and deep, gravelly vocal style. He’s a big personality, with a lively sense of humor and an amiable, extroverted demeanor that makes him a natural at working the crowd.  

At this point, though, Alexander’s music career had always been an evenings-and-weekends affair, squeezed in around the edges of his day jobs. In Chicago, he worked for a car dealer, at a gas station, and as a cook and busboy. In the early 80s he landed a position in the Chicago Police Department, which carried him through the rest of his workaday life. He retired from the force at 58, after he was wounded in the line of duty and decided he didn’t like the jobs that the department still had for him. Fortunately he started receiving his pension early, in 2000, and this ushered in a second act for Alexander as full-time bluesman. 

Alexander had never had trouble landing regular gigs, but by the time he turned his full attention to music he’d spent around two decades slugging it out in south- and west-side nightclubs. In the late 90s, while he was playing at Red’s at 35th and Archer, an agent approached him with an offer of representation—and a promise of more money. At that point Alexander was averaging $150 per night, which didn’t go far toward paying a four-piece band. 

At 80 years old, Alexander isn’t as vigorous as he used to be, even though he doesn’t drink or smoke. But he continues to gig, sometimes sitting in with Nick’s band, and he appeared last Labor Day weekend at the Rockwell Street Stroll presented by Delmark and Earwig Records. If you’re wise, you won’t pass up your next chance to see him—I recommend you keep an eye out for a big gig in June. 

“When you come to my show, you won’t have to worry about it being boring. I will always do my best to make you happy, keep you smiling, and get you excited,” Alexander told Blues Blast. “I play some real serious blues, too, the kind that make you want to drink your whiskey down. I am who I am. I’m not trying to be B.B. King, or Freddie either. I do the best of me of anybody in this world!”

Read More

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

It’s important to pay tribute to our living legends, and I like to think that the Secret History of Chicago Music does so at least as often as it honors the departed. Guitarist and singer Linsey Alexander has been laying down blistering electric blues in the Windy City for five decades, but he didn’t become a full-time musician and recording artist till after he retired from his job with the Chicago Police Department—and at that point he was nearly 60 years old.

Linsey Alexander, like many bluesmen before and since known as “the Hoochie Man,” was born July 23, 1942, in rural Holly Springs, Mississippi. His family worked as sharecroppers—an arrangement so exploitive it was a hair’s breadth from indentured servitude—but their fortunes changed for the better after his mother moved to Memphis to get a job. When Alexander was 12, she came back to take him and a sister to the city with her.

“When I got to Memphis, it was the first time I had ever seen a bus, or a street car. That was where I had my first hot dog. I didn’t know what it was!” Alexander told Blues Blast Magazine in 2020. “I used to go down on Beale Street to hear people playing music outside, but I wasn’t old enough to get in the clubs.” 

After Alexander’s mother died in 1958, he stayed with an older brother. A friend of the family—Alexander knew him only as Otis—used to come by and play guitar. “I would listen to him. After some time, he started showing me some things,” Alexander said. “He would go off but leave the guitar. So I could practice what he had shown me until he got back.” Alexander started working to help support the family, taking jobs as a porter in a hotel laundry room and as a bicycle mechanic. But eventually Otis’s guitar fell into his hands for good. “One day he came out, played some guitar, and then said I’ll see you later. I haven’t seen that guy since then! Later on, I pawned that guitar to get the money for a bus ticket to Chicago.”

A club called the Place at 63rd and Champlain held a talent show every Sunday, and Alexander’s new band made a habit of playing a song at it each week. One of the numbers they had the most fun with was titled “Let It All Hang Out,” though unfortunately it wasn’t the 1967 garage-rock hit by the Hombres. 

The Hot Tomatoes worked up a new tune every couple weeks, and Alexander soon started outpacing his sidemen. The band’s drummer was married with two kids, so Alexander replaced him with someone who could be more available. He also went through a few bass players, but soon he found the right one. 

“In all of the years I have been playing, I have only had three bass players,” he said. “The third one, Ron Simmons, has been with me for over forty years. His brother, Walter ‘Simtec’ Simmons, had a hit record with his partner, Wylie Dixon called ‘Gotta Get Over the Hump’. That shit was hot, man!” (Secret History covered that band, Simtec & Wylie, more than a decade ago—and they were indeed hot shit.) 

Alexander started to build a name for himself with his high-energy performances, bitingly distorted guitar tone, and deep, gravelly vocal style. He’s a big personality, with a lively sense of humor and an amiable, extroverted demeanor that makes him a natural at working the crowd.  

At this point, though, Alexander’s music career had always been an evenings-and-weekends affair, squeezed in around the edges of his day jobs. In Chicago, he worked for a car dealer, at a gas station, and as a cook and busboy. In the early 80s he landed a position in the Chicago Police Department, which carried him through the rest of his workaday life. He retired from the force at 58, after he was wounded in the line of duty and decided he didn’t like the jobs that the department still had for him. Fortunately he started receiving his pension early, in 2000, and this ushered in a second act for Alexander as full-time bluesman. 

Alexander had never had trouble landing regular gigs, but by the time he turned his full attention to music he’d spent around two decades slugging it out in south- and west-side nightclubs. In the late 90s, while he was playing at Red’s at 35th and Archer, an agent approached him with an offer of representation—and a promise of more money. At that point Alexander was averaging $150 per night, which didn’t go far toward paying a four-piece band. 

At 80 years old, Alexander isn’t as vigorous as he used to be, even though he doesn’t drink or smoke. But he continues to gig, sometimes sitting in with Nick’s band, and he appeared last Labor Day weekend at the Rockwell Street Stroll presented by Delmark and Earwig Records. If you’re wise, you won’t pass up your next chance to see him—I recommend you keep an eye out for a big gig in June. 

“When you come to my show, you won’t have to worry about it being boring. I will always do my best to make you happy, keep you smiling, and get you excited,” Alexander told Blues Blast. “I play some real serious blues, too, the kind that make you want to drink your whiskey down. I am who I am. I’m not trying to be B.B. King, or Freddie either. I do the best of me of anybody in this world!”

Read More

This year’s Sundance Film Festival was a quieter affair, rebounding after a tough 2022 when the festival was canceled a week out due to a COVID spike, filmmakers were canceled due to ethics questions, and several staff departed, including festival director Tabitha Jackson, who left in June 2022 after two years of remote festivals. 2023 felt like a pared-down palate cleanser, the lineup steering clear of controversy with a slate chock-full of self-aware celebrity documentaries (Michael J. Fox, Stephen Curry, Indigo Girls, Judy Blume, Brooke Shields, Little Richard) and several “indies” with big corporate backing. However, there was no shortage of artistry to be found, with recurring themes of unconventional parent-child relationships, addiction, feminism, and self-actualization. A low number of films were reportedly picked up overall; however, local distributor Music Box Films acquired both Other People’s Children and L’immensita before the festival. Here are a sampling of some of the films that will be available to see in the coming year. 

It’s Only Life After All

Credit: Jeremy Cowart. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Alexandria Bombach has created a loving and thoughtful film about Atlanta-based singer-songwriters Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, also known as the Indigo Girls. The film traces their evolution not only as an immensely beloved folk duo, but also as activists for social and environmental justice, including their partnership with Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke. Extensive archival footage—much shot by Amy Ray, who seems to always be documenting their lives—adds to the humor and intimacy, while heartfelt introspective reflections provide a deeper level of appreciation as Amy explores her gender dysmorphia, Emily shares her journey to sobriety, and the duo share many facets of their lives that will delight longtime fans as well as those just discovering their legacy. —Josh Flanders

L’immensità

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Set in Rome in the 1970s, director Emanuele Crialese creates a unique heart-wrenching mother-and-child story. A preteen Adri (a delightful Luana Giuliani) expresses their gender identity in an abusive household under the protection of Clara (Penélope Cruz), a flawlessly dressed unconventional mother of three. Clara’s husband Felice (Vincenzo Amato), a malcontent monster of a man, sucks the air out of the home with his fits of rage and retrograde opinions. Cruz’s performance is layered and exuberant, as she launches into fits of frivolity, much to Adri’s chagrin. As mother and child meet at the crossroads of progressing and regressing emotionally, Crialese punctuates their unbreakable bond through musical numbers that would seem corny in the hands of a lesser director. This film is simultaneously gorgeous and brutal to watch, exquisitely illustrating how the human spirit continues to cultivate joy even in the face of insurmountable suffering. —Sheri Flanders

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Davis Guggenheim (2006’s An Inconvenient Truth) has made a touching film about the life of Michael J. Fox, from his early days as a struggling young actor on the brink of failure, to his larger-than-life persona on TV and film, to his diagnosis with Parkinson’s at an early age. Fox is candid and thoughtful, pointing out the irony that he was always bounding with energy his whole life and that it took his diagnosis with a condition that causes uncontrollable movements to at last find stillness. Guggenheim pulls from a wealth of archival audio and video from Fox’s audiobook, TV appearances, interviews, and films, which at times becomes irritating when he uses the footage out of context, making it seem like Fox’s character, in a clip from a show or film, is responding to an actual event in the actor’s life. The reenactments are similarly annoying. However, the film is eminently engaging and impactful in its exploration of Fox’s journey and his overall message of hopefulness. As he said at the Q&A after the film, “with gratitude, optimism is attainable.” —Josh Flanders

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields

Credit: Getty. Courtesy Sundance Institute

An exorcism for Boomers and Gen-X, the biopic Pretty Baby (titled after the controversial 1978 film of the same name) is just as much about the sins of the patriarchy as it is about Shields’s career and could alternatively be titled: Men: WTF? This two-part series is directed by Lana Wilson, who also directed the Taylor Swift film Miss Americana (2020). Chronicling Shields’s beginnings as a child model and her meteoric launch to fame, the film highlights clip after cringe-inducing clip of male photographers and filmmakers sexualizing the underage star in the most ghastly ways. Some of the most compelling parts of the film are Shields’s reflections as an adult on her codependent relationship with her alcoholic mother/stage manager, coming to terms with her mother’s responsibility in her exploitation, and her continuing struggles to reckon with trauma, much of which occurred before she was old enough to contextualize what she was participating in. While the weight of the content packs a hefty punch, and Shields finally taking ownership of her own narrative is extremely triumphant, the film itself isn’t structurally sophisticated. It’s overly long, relies too heavily on archival footage, and the ending feels tacked on. Ultimately, the only thing more disturbing than Shields’s story is the realization of how little has changed for women since then. —Sheri Flanders

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Winner of theSundance U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize,Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project breaks the traditional documentary format and presents a raw, sensitive, and lyrical portrait of its subject. Directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson construct a story that continuously flows, changes direction, and lands with impact much like Giovanni’s poetry, life, and recollections thereof. Giovanni’s work rather logically posited that the African American history of kidnapping and the Middle Passage was not unlike “alien abductees,” rendering our psyche most available for space travel, lending a mind-bending plank to the genre of Afrofuturism. Exquisite archival footage highlights Giovanni’s bitingly brilliant rhetoric as a  young woman, and compares and contrasts it with her outrageously hilarious book tour appearances and personal life as an elder, intercut with visually poetic elements to create a stunning documentary that is truly out of this world. —Sheri Flanders

The Tuba Thieves

Credit: Derek Howard. Courtesy Sundance Institute.

The Tuba Thieves, by Alison O’Daniel, is a groundbreaking work of art, a wonderfully different, beautiful film that showcases creative captioning and visual and audio poetry. The story is based on a series of actual thefts from local high schools in southern California, but the picture actually creates its own narrative, at once striking and new, a visual and aural experience that can only be lived firsthand. Many of the cast and crew (director and actors) identify as d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing, and the filmmakers at the screening at Sundance provided branded balloons for everyone to feel the film’s sound as d/Deaf/HoH audiences have done for decades at theaters and concerts. I’ve been waiting to see a major film festival embrace this kind of picture for more than 20 years since I ran the Festival for Cinema of the Deaf in Chicago from 2002-2005—namely a film with a distinct visual style that’s powerful, inclusive, and glorious, made by immensely talented d/Deaf artists. —Josh Flanders

Little Richard: I Am Everything

Courtesy Sundance Institute

“Tutti Frutti, Good Booty!” After watching Little Richard: I Am Everything, you will never listen to that song the same way ever again, and your understanding of this American legend will be inexorably changed. Director Lisa Cortes (producer of 2009’s Precious) recontextualizes our understanding of the real king of rock ’n’ roll—Richard Wayne Penniman—as a gay, Black, southern, religious man walking in his truth decades before being out and gay would become commonplace. Cortes handles the subject of Penniman’s struggle with internalized homophobia and his repeated disavowal of his own identity and music in favor of religion with a compassionate and nuanced touch. Archival footage of scads of famous rockers from the Beatles to Bowie shows them professing how Penniman’s sound was a direct influence on their own music, underlying how Penniman’s flamboyant assertions of his own greatness and genre-changing impact on the world during interviews were not jokes or narcissism—they were facts. Cortes’s documentary is exhilaratingly entertaining and successfully holds all of Penniman’s contradictions and shimmer together with the respect he demanded and deserved. I enjoyed it immensely. And if you didn’t enjoy it, I’m pretty sure Little Richard would tell you to “Shut up.” —Sheri Flanders

Theater Camp

Courtesy Sundance Institute

The audience who will love Theater Camp live where the Venn diagram of summer camp devotees and musical theater aficionados connect, that insular and affected space where obsession for Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein meets the outcast child who has found their home at the family-run summer smorgasbord known as camp. The kids and counselors at AdirondACTS, a theater camp in upstate New York, struggle to keep the camp going when their founder, Joan, falls into a coma and the camp is taken over by Troy, her crypto-bro son. There’s plenty of inside-musical jokes that may not land if one has not spent countless hours in black-box theaters with self-obsessed gurus, as well as summers wondering if their camp will get shut down for various infractions. If so, then this is the cult classic you may watch again and again. Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman direct this hilarious indie film whose delightful and eclectic cast won theU.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble. It stars Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, and Ayo Edebiri, with a guest appearance by Amy Sedaris. —Josh Flanders

Scrapper

Credit: Chris Harris. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, Scrapper, directed by Charlotte Regan, is a delightfully hilarious film from the UK. After her mom dies, Georgie, 12, lives alone in her flat, supporting herself by stealing bikes with her friend Ali. Everything seems to be going well until a young man shows up who claims to be her estranged father, Jason. Georgie is too grown up, Jason too immature, and she’s suspicious about why he has appeared after being a deadbeat dad all these years. Scrapper is just one of those sweet, funny films that takes pleasure in the wonder of youth, with really tight, honest writing that is unexpected and fun. —Josh Flanders

The Disappearance of Shere Hite

Credit: Iris Brosch. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Before Dan Savage, before Dr. Laura Berman, and before Dr. Ruth, there was Shere Hite. In the wake of Alfred Kinsey’s and Masters and Johnson’s groundbreaking works, Hite recognized the need for further research in the field of women’s sexual pleasure. The original manic pixie dream girl, Hite moonlighted as a model and gained a reputation for her stylish clothing and bright-red hair. She was also a consummate academic and conducted a series of surveys which she compiled into a book called The Hite Report (1976) which immediately became a best-seller and fundamentally changed the field and society by giving voice to women’s desires. For a time Hite was on the top of the world, writing more books and appearing as a coveted guest on television shows—then one day she completely disappeared. Why? I’ll give you one guess and it starts with “S” and ends with “exism,” and if you’re having a hankering for misogyny before the film drops, you can google the 1987 episode of the Oprah show to tide you over. Director Nicole Newnham (2020’s Crip Camp) gets to the bottom of the mystery while also exhuming Hite’s reputation from the dustbin of one of the earliest media cancellations, and restoring her to her rightful place among famous Sex Researchers. Though the documentary is overly long and drags in spots, it is overall an incredibly fascinating and touching portrait of a lost moment in time that was not so long ago. —Sheri Flanders

Victim/Suspect

Courtesy Sundance Institute

False reports of sexual assault are incredibly rare, yet they do happen on occasion. After all, there are documented cases of it happening. But what if some of these cases aren’t what they seem to be on the surface? When investigative journalist Rachel de Leon started digging into some of these stories, she discovered a horrific pattern: when victims of assault initially reported the incident to police departments, they were routinely treated like suspects, with no reason to do so, and immediately plastered in the press as guilty before the investigation had even begun. Director Nancy Schwartzman turns her lens on a tough subject, providing the benefit of the doubt to these women, with eye-opening results. As de Leon investigates the cases of three women who were convicted of a false report, it becomes apparent that the destructive impact of the common methodology of police investigations on these women’s lives is horrific and warrants more investigation than a single journalist with limited resources can provide. 

This documentary doesn’t offer much in terms of craft, but one could perhaps make the argument that the subject matter necessitates no-frills storytelling that soberly focuses on facts and video evidence. What the film lacks in artistry, it more than makes up for in impact, underlying an important lesson for journalists: Never take the police report at face value. —Sheri Flanders

A Thousand And One

Credit: Focus Features. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Winner of the U.S. Dramatic Sundance Grand Jury prize, the sumptuously shot A Thousand And One highlights an unconventional mother-son tale, whose Scheherazade-like twist ending earns its title spectacularly. Teyana Taylor is a force of nature in this 1990s period piece as Inez, a previously incarcerated mother who kidnaps her son from foster care and seeks redemption by struggling to provide him with a better life. Her son Terry is played by three different actors, and Josiah Cross, who plays the 17-year-old version, is excellent as an achingly awkward teenager searching for his identity while carrying the weight of his mother’s expectations on his shoulders. Can children truly ever appreciate the depth of their parent’s sacrifice? Is there ever enough time to truly prepare a Black child for adulthood in a hostile world?

Director and screenwriter A.V. Rockwell’s lens captures the beauty and vibrancy of the city of New York, Black life, and motherhood in poverty, making space for expressions of parental love that show up in imperfect ways. Patiently paced and thoughtful, there are more than A Thousand And One reasons for you to see this exceptional film. —Sheri Flanders

The Persian Version

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Sometimes we are much more like our parents than we suspect. Writer/director Maryam Keshavarz has crafted a funny and poignant story which centers on Leila (Layla Mohammadi), an Iranian American trying to balance the expectations of her family with her own individuality. But when her large family reunites in New York for her father’s heart transplant, the onion is peeled and many family secrets are uncovered. It turns out that Leila and her mother Shireen (Niousha Noor), who have been at odds for most of their life, have more in common than they realize. Keshavarz masterfully weaves a good old-fashioned dose of empathy into the story when, about two-thirds of the way through, we go back to visit Shireen as a young woman. Normally an extended time jump late in the movie would feel out of place, yet Keshavarz has built up enough interest in this family that it somehow works. The Persian Version is a film that is a visually colorful and vibrant celebration of how immigrant families traverse two cultures only to find that the real divides are often within our own families. The film won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Keshavarz won the U.S. Dramatic Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. —Josh Flanders

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This year’s Sundance Film Festival was a quieter affair, rebounding after a tough 2022 when the festival was canceled a week out due to a COVID spike, filmmakers were canceled due to ethics questions, and several staff departed, including festival director Tabitha Jackson, who left in June 2022 after two years of remote festivals. 2023 felt like a pared-down palate cleanser, the lineup steering clear of controversy with a slate chock-full of self-aware celebrity documentaries (Michael J. Fox, Stephen Curry, Indigo Girls, Judy Blume, Brooke Shields, Little Richard) and several “indies” with big corporate backing. However, there was no shortage of artistry to be found, with recurring themes of unconventional parent-child relationships, addiction, feminism, and self-actualization. A low number of films were reportedly picked up overall; however, local distributor Music Box Films acquired both Other People’s Children and L’immensita before the festival. Here are a sampling of some of the films that will be available to see in the coming year. 

It’s Only Life After All

Credit: Jeremy Cowart. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Alexandria Bombach has created a loving and thoughtful film about Atlanta-based singer-songwriters Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, also known as the Indigo Girls. The film traces their evolution not only as an immensely beloved folk duo, but also as activists for social and environmental justice, including their partnership with Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke. Extensive archival footage—much shot by Amy Ray, who seems to always be documenting their lives—adds to the humor and intimacy, while heartfelt introspective reflections provide a deeper level of appreciation as Amy explores her gender dysmorphia, Emily shares her journey to sobriety, and the duo share many facets of their lives that will delight longtime fans as well as those just discovering their legacy. —Josh Flanders

L’immensità

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Set in Rome in the 1970s, director Emanuele Crialese creates a unique heart-wrenching mother-and-child story. A preteen Adri (a delightful Luana Giuliani) expresses their gender identity in an abusive household under the protection of Clara (Penélope Cruz), a flawlessly dressed unconventional mother of three. Clara’s husband Felice (Vincenzo Amato), a malcontent monster of a man, sucks the air out of the home with his fits of rage and retrograde opinions. Cruz’s performance is layered and exuberant, as she launches into fits of frivolity, much to Adri’s chagrin. As mother and child meet at the crossroads of progressing and regressing emotionally, Crialese punctuates their unbreakable bond through musical numbers that would seem corny in the hands of a lesser director. This film is simultaneously gorgeous and brutal to watch, exquisitely illustrating how the human spirit continues to cultivate joy even in the face of insurmountable suffering. —Sheri Flanders

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Davis Guggenheim (2006’s An Inconvenient Truth) has made a touching film about the life of Michael J. Fox, from his early days as a struggling young actor on the brink of failure, to his larger-than-life persona on TV and film, to his diagnosis with Parkinson’s at an early age. Fox is candid and thoughtful, pointing out the irony that he was always bounding with energy his whole life and that it took his diagnosis with a condition that causes uncontrollable movements to at last find stillness. Guggenheim pulls from a wealth of archival audio and video from Fox’s audiobook, TV appearances, interviews, and films, which at times becomes irritating when he uses the footage out of context, making it seem like Fox’s character, in a clip from a show or film, is responding to an actual event in the actor’s life. The reenactments are similarly annoying. However, the film is eminently engaging and impactful in its exploration of Fox’s journey and his overall message of hopefulness. As he said at the Q&A after the film, “with gratitude, optimism is attainable.” —Josh Flanders

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields

Credit: Getty. Courtesy Sundance Institute

An exorcism for Boomers and Gen-X, the biopic Pretty Baby (titled after the controversial 1978 film of the same name) is just as much about the sins of the patriarchy as it is about Shields’s career and could alternatively be titled: Men: WTF? This two-part series is directed by Lana Wilson, who also directed the Taylor Swift film Miss Americana (2020). Chronicling Shields’s beginnings as a child model and her meteoric launch to fame, the film highlights clip after cringe-inducing clip of male photographers and filmmakers sexualizing the underage star in the most ghastly ways. Some of the most compelling parts of the film are Shields’s reflections as an adult on her codependent relationship with her alcoholic mother/stage manager, coming to terms with her mother’s responsibility in her exploitation, and her continuing struggles to reckon with trauma, much of which occurred before she was old enough to contextualize what she was participating in. While the weight of the content packs a hefty punch, and Shields finally taking ownership of her own narrative is extremely triumphant, the film itself isn’t structurally sophisticated. It’s overly long, relies too heavily on archival footage, and the ending feels tacked on. Ultimately, the only thing more disturbing than Shields’s story is the realization of how little has changed for women since then. —Sheri Flanders

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Winner of theSundance U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize,Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project breaks the traditional documentary format and presents a raw, sensitive, and lyrical portrait of its subject. Directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson construct a story that continuously flows, changes direction, and lands with impact much like Giovanni’s poetry, life, and recollections thereof. Giovanni’s work rather logically posited that the African American history of kidnapping and the Middle Passage was not unlike “alien abductees,” rendering our psyche most available for space travel, lending a mind-bending plank to the genre of Afrofuturism. Exquisite archival footage highlights Giovanni’s bitingly brilliant rhetoric as a  young woman, and compares and contrasts it with her outrageously hilarious book tour appearances and personal life as an elder, intercut with visually poetic elements to create a stunning documentary that is truly out of this world. —Sheri Flanders

The Tuba Thieves

Credit: Derek Howard. Courtesy Sundance Institute.

The Tuba Thieves, by Alison O’Daniel, is a groundbreaking work of art, a wonderfully different, beautiful film that showcases creative captioning and visual and audio poetry. The story is based on a series of actual thefts from local high schools in southern California, but the picture actually creates its own narrative, at once striking and new, a visual and aural experience that can only be lived firsthand. Many of the cast and crew (director and actors) identify as d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing, and the filmmakers at the screening at Sundance provided branded balloons for everyone to feel the film’s sound as d/Deaf/HoH audiences have done for decades at theaters and concerts. I’ve been waiting to see a major film festival embrace this kind of picture for more than 20 years since I ran the Festival for Cinema of the Deaf in Chicago from 2002-2005—namely a film with a distinct visual style that’s powerful, inclusive, and glorious, made by immensely talented d/Deaf artists. —Josh Flanders

Little Richard: I Am Everything

Courtesy Sundance Institute

“Tutti Frutti, Good Booty!” After watching Little Richard: I Am Everything, you will never listen to that song the same way ever again, and your understanding of this American legend will be inexorably changed. Director Lisa Cortes (producer of 2009’s Precious) recontextualizes our understanding of the real king of rock ’n’ roll—Richard Wayne Penniman—as a gay, Black, southern, religious man walking in his truth decades before being out and gay would become commonplace. Cortes handles the subject of Penniman’s struggle with internalized homophobia and his repeated disavowal of his own identity and music in favor of religion with a compassionate and nuanced touch. Archival footage of scads of famous rockers from the Beatles to Bowie shows them professing how Penniman’s sound was a direct influence on their own music, underlying how Penniman’s flamboyant assertions of his own greatness and genre-changing impact on the world during interviews were not jokes or narcissism—they were facts. Cortes’s documentary is exhilaratingly entertaining and successfully holds all of Penniman’s contradictions and shimmer together with the respect he demanded and deserved. I enjoyed it immensely. And if you didn’t enjoy it, I’m pretty sure Little Richard would tell you to “Shut up.” —Sheri Flanders

Theater Camp

Courtesy Sundance Institute

The audience who will love Theater Camp live where the Venn diagram of summer camp devotees and musical theater aficionados connect, that insular and affected space where obsession for Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein meets the outcast child who has found their home at the family-run summer smorgasbord known as camp. The kids and counselors at AdirondACTS, a theater camp in upstate New York, struggle to keep the camp going when their founder, Joan, falls into a coma and the camp is taken over by Troy, her crypto-bro son. There’s plenty of inside-musical jokes that may not land if one has not spent countless hours in black-box theaters with self-obsessed gurus, as well as summers wondering if their camp will get shut down for various infractions. If so, then this is the cult classic you may watch again and again. Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman direct this hilarious indie film whose delightful and eclectic cast won theU.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble. It stars Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, and Ayo Edebiri, with a guest appearance by Amy Sedaris. —Josh Flanders

Scrapper

Credit: Chris Harris. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, Scrapper, directed by Charlotte Regan, is a delightfully hilarious film from the UK. After her mom dies, Georgie, 12, lives alone in her flat, supporting herself by stealing bikes with her friend Ali. Everything seems to be going well until a young man shows up who claims to be her estranged father, Jason. Georgie is too grown up, Jason too immature, and she’s suspicious about why he has appeared after being a deadbeat dad all these years. Scrapper is just one of those sweet, funny films that takes pleasure in the wonder of youth, with really tight, honest writing that is unexpected and fun. —Josh Flanders

The Disappearance of Shere Hite

Credit: Iris Brosch. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Before Dan Savage, before Dr. Laura Berman, and before Dr. Ruth, there was Shere Hite. In the wake of Alfred Kinsey’s and Masters and Johnson’s groundbreaking works, Hite recognized the need for further research in the field of women’s sexual pleasure. The original manic pixie dream girl, Hite moonlighted as a model and gained a reputation for her stylish clothing and bright-red hair. She was also a consummate academic and conducted a series of surveys which she compiled into a book called The Hite Report (1976) which immediately became a best-seller and fundamentally changed the field and society by giving voice to women’s desires. For a time Hite was on the top of the world, writing more books and appearing as a coveted guest on television shows—then one day she completely disappeared. Why? I’ll give you one guess and it starts with “S” and ends with “exism,” and if you’re having a hankering for misogyny before the film drops, you can google the 1987 episode of the Oprah show to tide you over. Director Nicole Newnham (2020’s Crip Camp) gets to the bottom of the mystery while also exhuming Hite’s reputation from the dustbin of one of the earliest media cancellations, and restoring her to her rightful place among famous Sex Researchers. Though the documentary is overly long and drags in spots, it is overall an incredibly fascinating and touching portrait of a lost moment in time that was not so long ago. —Sheri Flanders

Victim/Suspect

Courtesy Sundance Institute

False reports of sexual assault are incredibly rare, yet they do happen on occasion. After all, there are documented cases of it happening. But what if some of these cases aren’t what they seem to be on the surface? When investigative journalist Rachel de Leon started digging into some of these stories, she discovered a horrific pattern: when victims of assault initially reported the incident to police departments, they were routinely treated like suspects, with no reason to do so, and immediately plastered in the press as guilty before the investigation had even begun. Director Nancy Schwartzman turns her lens on a tough subject, providing the benefit of the doubt to these women, with eye-opening results. As de Leon investigates the cases of three women who were convicted of a false report, it becomes apparent that the destructive impact of the common methodology of police investigations on these women’s lives is horrific and warrants more investigation than a single journalist with limited resources can provide. 

This documentary doesn’t offer much in terms of craft, but one could perhaps make the argument that the subject matter necessitates no-frills storytelling that soberly focuses on facts and video evidence. What the film lacks in artistry, it more than makes up for in impact, underlying an important lesson for journalists: Never take the police report at face value. —Sheri Flanders

A Thousand And One

Credit: Focus Features. Courtesy Sundance Institute

Winner of the U.S. Dramatic Sundance Grand Jury prize, the sumptuously shot A Thousand And One highlights an unconventional mother-son tale, whose Scheherazade-like twist ending earns its title spectacularly. Teyana Taylor is a force of nature in this 1990s period piece as Inez, a previously incarcerated mother who kidnaps her son from foster care and seeks redemption by struggling to provide him with a better life. Her son Terry is played by three different actors, and Josiah Cross, who plays the 17-year-old version, is excellent as an achingly awkward teenager searching for his identity while carrying the weight of his mother’s expectations on his shoulders. Can children truly ever appreciate the depth of their parent’s sacrifice? Is there ever enough time to truly prepare a Black child for adulthood in a hostile world?

Director and screenwriter A.V. Rockwell’s lens captures the beauty and vibrancy of the city of New York, Black life, and motherhood in poverty, making space for expressions of parental love that show up in imperfect ways. Patiently paced and thoughtful, there are more than A Thousand And One reasons for you to see this exceptional film. —Sheri Flanders

The Persian Version

Courtesy Sundance Institute

Sometimes we are much more like our parents than we suspect. Writer/director Maryam Keshavarz has crafted a funny and poignant story which centers on Leila (Layla Mohammadi), an Iranian American trying to balance the expectations of her family with her own individuality. But when her large family reunites in New York for her father’s heart transplant, the onion is peeled and many family secrets are uncovered. It turns out that Leila and her mother Shireen (Niousha Noor), who have been at odds for most of their life, have more in common than they realize. Keshavarz masterfully weaves a good old-fashioned dose of empathy into the story when, about two-thirds of the way through, we go back to visit Shireen as a young woman. Normally an extended time jump late in the movie would feel out of place, yet Keshavarz has built up enough interest in this family that it somehow works. The Persian Version is a film that is a visually colorful and vibrant celebration of how immigrant families traverse two cultures only to find that the real divides are often within our own families. The film won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Keshavarz won the U.S. Dramatic Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. —Josh Flanders

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Vampiros infiltrated the transient community during the pandemic. No, not bloodthirsty ghouls, but Khaled Simon’s riff on the alluring griddled Sinaloense taco with melted cheese—not atop—but between the filling and tortilla (also, known as volcanes). Simon flips his tortillas onto the plancha cheese-side-down, achieving a caramelized lattice of queso Chihuahua that drains hunger the way Lestat exsanguinates a lover.

Beginning in 2020, Simon and his partner Haley Pham, aka Taco Sublime, roamed the city in a converted ice cream truck named “La Baby,” feeding folks at transient encampments and teaming up with not-for-profit organizations to help distribute resources like clothing, tents, and vaccinations.

“Going where people needed us was fundamental to our understanding of what we needed to be able to do this daily and bring this dream into a reality,” says Simon. The dream is to build a Taco Sublime franchise empire that can offer a pathway for “rehabilitation and social reintegration through food service and culinary arts.”

But there’s a different dream coming true first, when Simon and Pham take over the kitchen at Ludlow Liquors for the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop up.

Khaled Simon, Credit: Felton Edward Kizer

La Baby still transports its delicious community outreach, but these days you can regularly find Taco Sublime slinging vampiros, quesadillas, and smashburgers Tuesday through Sunday at Marz Community Brewing.

Simon, who cooked in Chicago hotels before COVID, has always admired the franchise model. For ease of reproduction he developed a single marinade for his steak, chicken, shrimp, and veggie taco fillings. Hailing from Tegucigalpa, he based it on the versatile Honduran chimichurri he grew up eating on everything. “It’s a very beautiful thing because you can use it on anything.”

Simon and Pham will be bringing those vampiros to Ludlow on February 20. But they’ll also be throwing down a dish not usually available at Marz. It’s a synthesis of his and Pham’s respective cultures: a beef birria banh mi with cukes, jalapenos, cilantro, housemade mayo, and pickled daikon and carrots. 

Walk-in orders only, friends. Get yourself a Taco Sublime passionfruit Paloma from Grace and Joel behind the bar and loosen your belt. Tacos start slinging at 5 PM, Monday, at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale.

Meanwhile, scroll down and feast your orbs on the full Foodball schedule:

Read More

Vampiros infiltrated the transient community during the pandemic. No, not bloodthirsty ghouls, but Khaled Simon’s riff on the alluring griddled Sinaloense taco with melted cheese—not atop—but between the filling and tortilla (also, known as volcanes). Simon flips his tortillas onto the plancha cheese-side-down, achieving a caramelized lattice of queso Chihuahua that drains hunger the way Lestat exsanguinates a lover.

Beginning in 2020, Simon and his partner Haley Pham, aka Taco Sublime, roamed the city in a converted ice cream truck named “La Baby,” feeding folks at transient encampments and teaming up with not-for-profit organizations to help distribute resources like clothing, tents, and vaccinations.

“Going where people needed us was fundamental to our understanding of what we needed to be able to do this daily and bring this dream into a reality,” says Simon. The dream is to build a Taco Sublime franchise empire that can offer a pathway for “rehabilitation and social reintegration through food service and culinary arts.”

But there’s a different dream coming true first, when Simon and Pham take over the kitchen at Ludlow Liquors for the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop up.

Khaled Simon, Credit: Felton Edward Kizer

La Baby still transports its delicious community outreach, but these days you can regularly find Taco Sublime slinging vampiros, quesadillas, and smashburgers Tuesday through Sunday at Marz Community Brewing.

Simon, who cooked in Chicago hotels before COVID, has always admired the franchise model. For ease of reproduction he developed a single marinade for his steak, chicken, shrimp, and veggie taco fillings. Hailing from Tegucigalpa, he based it on the versatile Honduran chimichurri he grew up eating on everything. “It’s a very beautiful thing because you can use it on anything.”

Simon and Pham will be bringing those vampiros to Ludlow on February 20. But they’ll also be throwing down a dish not usually available at Marz. It’s a synthesis of his and Pham’s respective cultures: a beef birria banh mi with cukes, jalapenos, cilantro, housemade mayo, and pickled daikon and carrots. 

Walk-in orders only, friends. Get yourself a Taco Sublime passionfruit Paloma from Grace and Joel behind the bar and loosen your belt. Tacos start slinging at 5 PM, Monday, at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale.

Meanwhile, scroll down and feast your orbs on the full Foodball schedule:

Read More

Adult cam sites are all the rage. There has never been a better time to interact with a live cam girl. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we all feel so isolated, and connecting with a live model is more satisfying than watching prerecorded videos.

These days, most cam models offer their services via virtual camming platforms. There are quite literally hundreds of thousands of cam girls you can video chat with, so how in the world do you choose? These cam sites deliver the goods in terms of adventurous women, seamless camming experiences, and sexual gratification. But each site is unique in its own special way. From private shows to free options and special performers, there is a lot to digest.

We’ve taken the time to break down which cam sites are best, why, and how much each costs when it’s no longer free. Stick to this guide and you’ll certainly have the best cam experience possible.

The Best Adult Cam Sites of 2023

RankSiteBest For1.JerkmateBest modern cam website2.Sl*trouletteBest cam/chat hybrid3.Flirt4FreeProfessional cam models4.ChaturbateBest traditional cam site5.ImLiveInnovative features6.Live Free FunBest sign up process7.MyFreeCamsBest free shows8.Cherry.tvBest newcomer9.LiveJasminMost gorgeous models10.CamSodaBest for specific fetishes11.Cams.comTeledildonic features12.XcamsMost diverse cam models13.StreamateThousands of streams at any given time14.Lucky CrushRandom one-on-one cam shows15.StripchatBeautiful live stripteases16.BongacamsEasiest cam site to navigate17.BabestationBiggest UK cam site

1.  Jerkmate: Best modern new cam site

Jerkmate is a really unique cam site because it allows its users to filter the models they search for by personal preference. You can specify your preference in gender, kink, and even body type. It’s a matching system between viewers and cam girls, which makes it feel pretty special. Once you match with someone, you have the option of also becoming a cam model. You can stream a video of yourself watching the cam girl, which is pretty nice. Think of it as if Chatroulette, Tinder, and Chaturbate had a love child. Most people enjoy watching private cam shows because they are longing for a connection, sexual or otherwise. Jerkmate delivers that in spades.

Jerkmate also hires actual pornstars and professional cam girls to stream live. Going one-on-one with one of the pros is unlikely and really expensive. However, if you prefer your cam girl to be an actual pornstar, you can view their live shows with other users on the site. These women will expect you to give them tons of tokens if you want them to do anything specific, but this is pretty normal for camming websites.

Beyond the two unique and exciting options that Jerkmate provides, it’s also very easy to use. It’s got a modern feel to it and selecting a show to watch could not be easier. If you don’t love who you’ve been matched with, you can also browse the expansive list of categories that Jerkmate has to offer. Those categories range from BDSM to Sex Toys and everything in between. As far as pricing goes, it’s up to the model. Expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour watching one of the Jerkmate shows.

Pros:

Models can see you if you want
Intuitive search function
Advanced personalized features

Cons:

This is a pricey option

Pricing:

50 1 Gold = $1 (about 2-3 minutes of solid action)

2. Sl*troulette:Best chat/cam combo

Sl*troulette may not have quite the reputation as Chaturbate, but it’s been around quite some time—since 2010, in fact. That means they’ve got more than ten years’ experience in the cam game. And they deliver.

Sl*troulette is the X-rated version of Chat Roulette. Like Chat Roulette, Slut Roulette randomly pairs you up with another videocam. There’s no pressure—if you’re not feeling it, you can just keep clicking.

Overall, Sl*troulette is a fun spin on traditional cam sites given the randomness innate to its design. This may or may not appeal to you personally, however.

There are two main downsides to Sl*troulette. One, the sign-up process feels spammy and can be annoying. Two, there are a lot of pop-up ads on Sl*troulette, often even covering the video of the cam performer you’re trying to watch. That can get frustrating, as you might imagine.

Pros:

Worldwide camgirls 
Hottest categories 
Great private shows 
Previews pictures/photos of camgirls

Cons:

Basic tipping features 
Need to tip to access full nudity show

Pricing:

Gold = $1
Basic model per minute = $2
High-demand model per minute = $6
Exclusive chat per minute = $7

3. Flirt4Free: Intuitive search function available

Boasting nearly 3 decades of sex cam savvy, Flirt4Free has really carved a niche for itself as the cam site for gentlemen of refined tastes. While some freemium sites might offer a grab bag of amateur models, F4F shines for fans who yearn for a premium, top-shelf experience.

Their homepage is populated by elite-level camgirls from all over the world who know how to cater to your every desire. They’re virtually all “hair and make-up ready” and dressed to kill in gorgeous lingerie. But while Flirt4Free boasts a premium experience, premium does not necessarily imply “vanilla.” Finding the fetish models to feed your kink is easy using an intuitive category filtering system.

The “Free” in Flirt4Free might seem like something of a misnomer at first glance. While there’s always something hot going down in any number of public chatrooms, the real spank-bank-worthy action is saved for pay-per-minute private shows. Judging from many of the model reviews, Flirt camgirls tend to appeal to fans who want to go deeper on their fantasies. The top models tend to be surrounded by devout followers who crave repeat performances.

But while pay-per-minute shows may seem be daunting cost-wise, many models offer cost conscious options like semi-private “multi-user” and “group shows.” Some even allow members to negotiate their private show rates before a performance.

Pros:

Premium quality cam girls
Great variety of fetish models
Easy to filter categories

Cons:

Can be pricey
Fewer models compared to freemium sites

Pricing:

Standard = 30-60 credits per minute
Premiere chat = 70-500 credits per min
Voyeur mode = 10-40 credits per min
Multi-user = 10-120 credits per min
Feature shows = 30 credits per min (free for VIPs)

4. Chaturbate:Considered number one cam site in the world

There’s a good chance you’ve heard of Chaturbate. Not only is the name genius for a camgirl site, but Chaturbate has managed to stand the test of time. We can’t believe it’s been ten years since it was created back in 2011! It’s hailed as the best cam site available by millions of users because it has the most diverse and explicit portfolio of models who use the platform to stream.

When you get to the Chaturbate home page, you’ll be greeted with various thumbnails of women or scenes. That’s your sneak peek for what is to come when you actually click on one of these images. Immediately you’ll be launched into a wonderfully raunchy cam show completely free of charge. At first blush, it looks like most of these cam girls are doing solo shows, but once you take a deeper dive, you’ll find couples, threesomes, and other unique and interesting live shows to choose from. You can also search for shows by filtering by the huge list of categories or tags. Though busy looking, Chaturbate is very easy to navigate and explore with so many live feeds to watch for free.

You’re probably wondering if Chaturbate is completely free. The answer to that is both yes and no. While you can enter any live show for free, you are really walking into a teaser of sorts. The women on Chaturbate are trying to get you to eventually pay for a private show, which is what most people want anyway. We will admit though that the teasers are often very explicit and can usually get the job done before you even grab your wallet.

You likely will reach for your credit card though, because Chaturbate is famous for delivering satisfying one-on-one shows. They operate on a token system. As you spend more time watching the show, your tokens will begin to dwindle.

Pros:

Affordable
Best cam site available
Great one-on-one performances
You get a lot out of a free account

Cons:

Most models need to reach a certain token amount before they fully perform

Pricing:

100 tokens = $10.99
200 tokens = $20.99
500 tokens = $44.99 (22% bonus)
1,000 tokens = $79.99 (37% bonus)
2,025 tokens = $159.99 (39% bonus)

Check out our complete Chaturbate review if you’re looking for more info.

5. ImLive: Old-school cam site with innovative features

ImLive is the granddaddy of cam sites. It’s been around for almost 20 years and has managed to continue to captivate viewers with the changing times. ImLive is a streaming site where models and couples perform sex shows for their audiences. There’s not much more to it. However, not all sex cam sites offer couples shows, so if you like watching two people get it on then ImLive is your best bet.

The pay structure at ImLive gives you options, which is a definite plus. You can either pay by the minute or send models tips. There are also plenty of models and shows to choose from, so you’ll never have a dull moment on this popular cam site.

From amateurs to professionals, members will find the girls online and ready for a great time 24/7, and purchasing credits (the site’s currency) is fast and easy.

ImLive has several innovative features, including share screen where members and the model can watch video or play an online game together.

Yes, ImLive dubs itself a free cam site, but we know what that really means. You can watch archived shows for free, but the live goods are going to cost you. The shows are usually worth it, but don’t expect a ton of interaction from the models. They tend to fall short in their personal relationships with viewers and fans; however, the shows themselves are a treat to watch.

Pros:

Great for watching couples
Different payment options
Free archived shows
Free amateur videos

Cons:

The models can be a little cagey at times
Bronze members = 0.60 credits per minute
Silver = 0.70 credits per min
Gold = 0.80 credits per min
VIP = 0.90 credits per min

6.  Live Free Fun: Easy sign up

Live Free Fun calls itself “the secret guide to free live sex.” Let’s break that down a bit.If you’re willing to submit your email, then you can get a free account and start watching erotic webcams in no time. Since a lot of cam sites require memberships and/or paying the cammers through tips to get true X-rated content, Live Free Fun is a way to get good content for free.

The registration is straightforward, and you don’t have to worry about giving up sensitive information like a credit card. So, the benefits definitely seem to outweigh the risks.

This is a solid cam site with quality models.

Pros:

Free with email sign-up
Simple registration
Erotic webcams without having to tip

Cons:

Interface is a bit clunky

Pricing:

Gold = $1

7.  MyFreeCams: Actual free shows

For those of you shopping for cam sites on a budget, there’s no better site for you than MyFreeCams, also known as Jerk N’ Cum. Yes, the shows on this site are actually free. This is obviously the biggest perk that MyFreeCams has to offer.

Because it’s free and the models don’t charge you to watch their shows, you might be skeptical of the quality but you truly have nothing to worry about. The women on MyFreeCams are as skilled as they are gorgeous. They are also down to get into some very kinky activity, which is why you’re watching cam girls in the first place!

The one thing that you can’t really access on this site is private chat or one-on-one video sessions. But what can you really expect from a cam site that doesn’t cost you a dime? You can of course purchase tokens on MyFreeCams and try your luck asking one of the models for a private show, but it’s not very likely to happen. These models are used to the dynamic of the site and aren’t normally willing to make an exception for anyone. These models also aren’t the most responsive to requests in their chat box. That’s potentially because it’s oversaturated with guys like you asking them to do a million different things. If you’re OK with just being a voyeur for free, MyFreeCams is a fantastic budget-friendly option for you.

If you decide that you’d like to pay for MyFreeCams because you can afford to or you’ve got extra cash lying around, you will be given the keys to their entire library of cam girl archives. You can check out their old videos. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but there are folks out there wholove it.

Pros:

Genuinely free
Fantastic performances

Cons:

Can’t view private shows

Pricing:

200 tokens = $19.99
500 tokens = $49.99
900 tokens = $74.99
1,875 tokens = $149.99

8.  Cherry.tv:Best new cam site

Cam sites such as Jerkmate and Chaturbate may have the lion’s share of attention, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of other sites popping up all the time. While many of these aren’t worth your trouble, some of them may turn out to be major competitors.

One such site is cherry.tv, from the people over at Cherry Models. The site has only recently gone live and is still in Beta mode, which means for now they only have cis-women and trans women cam girls. That said, the platform will be opened up to everyone in the next version. 

One cool thing about Cherry.tv is that it isn’t just another cam site like any other. They’re attempting to introduce more “gamification” to the concept, so cherry.tv allows models to “level up” by gaining experience points (xp). Streaming gets cammers XP as well as receiving certain gifts from fans. 

Cherry.tv won numerous awards in 2021, such as “Best Emerging Company” and “Emerging Web Brand of the Year.” They are also one of the best sites out there in terms of compensating streamers. So, if you want the vast majority of your hard-earned money to go to the actual cam model, then cherry.tv is a great option for you. 

Pros:

Relatively affordable
Fun, game-like interface
Streamers receive almost all of the tips

Cons:

In beta mode (no male models or couples)
Just started so not a ton of active models yet
100 tokens = $9.99
1,150 tokens = $99.99
VIP = $17.99/month

9.  LiveJasmin: Known for having stunning models

The most noteworthy thing to say about LiveJasmin is that the women on this site are drop dead gorgeous. They are diverse, in shape, stunning, manicured, and all around perfect cam girls. You will notice this the minute you hop onto the home page. It looks extremely put together, modern, and professional.

These women don’t seem to be filming themselves from dimly lit bedrooms. Instead, it feels like a whole studio operation with professional porn stars. This is a pro for most, but some viewers enjoy that amateurish feel. If you are into the amateur stuff, then steer clear of LiveJasmin because it’s all top notch here. LiveJasmin is full of very recognizable and famous cam girl faces. That’s what makes it one of the best cam sites around.

Other than the beautiful stars and modern interface, there’s not much about LiveJasmin that makes it stand out (except for the fact that they have a nice mobile option, but who wants to watch a cam girl on their cell phone?). It’s set up like many other cam sites and takes you through the same process and the features are the same. A nice perk though is the fact that LiveJasmin caters to every type of gender and sexuality, giving it a distinctly diverse library of models and streams to choose from.

Pros:

Beautiful recognizable models
Mobile option
Range of genders, sexualities, and kinks

Cons:

No amateur option

Pricing:

$34 for 25 credits
$75 for 65 credits
$106 for 95 credits
$170 for 160 credits

10.  CamSoda: Cam girls with the best personalities

CamSoda operates like most cam sites do. There are free rooms that you can enter to view live adult cam shows, but if you want the women to do anything specific during the show, you will need to spend. However, CamSoda is really affordable. This is because the models don’t charge you per minute. It’s based solely on your donations.

The one drawback to CamSoda is their pricing structure. Most cam sites will allow you to enter free cam shows, but not before informing you of what you should tip the model or what each naughty activity costs. Getting a girl to perform a desired sexual act is going to require linking up with the other guys in the chat and pooling that money until the model’s “goal” is reached. Each model comes up with a different money goal per show and tries to seduce the viewers into paying up. You can’t blame them; camming is their job.

Private shows aren’t really a thing on CamSoda. However, the models on this cam site are very interactive. They actually pay a lot of attention to the chat as their show is live and they make you feel like you are actually in the room with them while they are performing. People have complained before that some models on CamSoda talk too much or spend too much time replying to their fans.

Pros:

Interactive models with personality
Caters to a variety of fetishes

Cons:

The models don’t list their prices per naughty activity

Pricing:

50 tokens = $5.99
100 tokens = $10.99
550 tokens = $49.99

11.  Cams.com: Cam site with a teledildonics option

Cams.com is one of the more unique and advanced cam sites on this list. You might not know it by just visiting their website because initially, it looks like your average cam site. There are free shows that you can enter and you have the ability to filter by model, body type, and gender. This is one of the few sex cam sites that contains female shows in addition to male shows, trans shows, and nonbinary shows. We find that to be a huge plus as it caters to a much wider audience of viewers.

Cams.com is not only ahead of the game in terms of their diversity, but they are also very technologically advanced. If you are someone who watches a lot of VR porn, you are familiar with the term teledildonics. In VR, teledildonics are bluetooth sex toys that synch up to what you are watching. For the purposes of cams, it allows you to control the sex toy that the performer is using, which is insanely cool and futuristic! It brings an entirely new level to cam shows and makes you feel like you are intimately interacting with a model right there in the room with them.

This cam site is one where you have to pay by the minute, which can get really pricey if you plan on spending a lot of time on the site. Yes, there are free shows, but they aren’t all that good. It’s worth checking out the paid ones though because of all the unique features.

Pros:

Teledildonics!
Advanced search function
Diverse models

Cons:

If you aren’t in it for the teledildonics, there are better options

Pricing:

100 tokens = $12
175 tokens = $20
500 tokens = $50
1,100 tokens = $100
1-month package = $20/month
3-month package = $39/month

12.  XCams: Diverse Euro models

XCams is a special cam site for folks who have eyes for European cam models. They flourish on XCams, though it’s a lesser-known site than the rest. It’s surprising that it flies under the radar because there are always so many models available at any given time for anyone to watch.

Diversity is the name of the game over at XCams. While they feature tons of Europeans, these models are really diverse in their backgrounds, performance styles, and kinks that they love to get into. It’s fun to browse through the thumbnails of videos on the XCams homepage because you get a peek at all the unique shows they have to offer.

Each model decides what you’ll pay for a show. Before you commit, you’ll be shown a preview, told where the model is from, and told how many credits you’ll need to pay for your time. You will get 25 free credits just for signing up, which will give you about five minutes on average.

Pros:

Beautiful diverse cam girls
Very kinky
Great previews for private shows

Cons:

Models operate on an expensive price-per-minute structure
Small amount of free credits when you sign up

Pricing:

25 free credit trial
40 credits = $9.99 ($0.76/min)
82 credits = $19.99 ($0.75/min)
225 credits = $49.99 ($0.74/min)

13.  Streamate: Most options

If you’re after quantity, Streammate is a good option. There are literally thousands of models online at any given time when you head over to the site. It doesn’t matter if it’s during your 12 PM lunch break or after midnight, this site is always busy. It’s the cam site that never sleeps.

The Streamate performers also love to please. Truthfully, it’s because they want to be tipped well, but you can rest assured that any model you watch on Streamate will work very hard to earn your affection. They are very engaging, personable, and (of course) sexy.

Streamate is a no-frills site that takes you straight to the action. It doesn’t need all the bells and whistles because it provides a large amount of really great shows. You can use their simple and intuitive search function to filter your options, making Streamate one of the easiest sex cam sites to navigate. And their filtering options get really specific, so you can find exactly what turns you on. There is also a “Newcomer” section for the viewers who love to watch fresh talent or want to discover new models.

Pros:

Thousands of models to choose from
Amateurs and professionals available

Cons:

This site has a lot of annoying ads
Outdated web design

Pricing:

$1-$4 per minute (no tokens/credits)

14.  LuckyCrush: A combo of a cam site and Chatroulette

LuckyCrush is a cam girl site that randomly matches you with flirty ladies. It’s newer, but it has managed to attract millions of users on a monthly basis. People like to say that LuckyCrush is a healthy mix of a cam site and a random chat site like Chatroulette. It’s probably what you wished Chatroulette could be when you were too young to know about cam sites. Men and women are randomly paired for an erotic video chat.

LuckyCrush is confident in its unique model, which is why it offers first-time male visitors a brief free trial. After that, you will need to purchase credits to enjoy the site. Women come to LuckyCrush hoping to make money, so stocking up a little bit will do you some good.

Because LuckyCrush is totally random, you might be paired up with a hottie who is on the other side of the world. Don’t worry if you don’t speak her language. LuckyCrush has a built-in translation feature that makes it easy to communicate with models from all over the world. It’s an exciting approach to cam shows.

Pros:

Personally meet models from all over the world
Exclusively private shows

Cons:

You can’t filter or search
Not for everyone

Pricing:

15 minutes = $16.99
45 minutes = $49.99
90 minutes = $99.99

15.  StripChat: Interactive stripteases

StripChat is a cam site with some special perks. On the surface, it’s a way to view beautiful live stripteases performed by stunning models. Some of them just like to strip and others take it up a notch by displaying naughty activities. In that regard, it’s a little different from your average sex cam site. You can check out the videos for free and tip the models, like you normally would. These tips are given in the form of tokens, which you will need to purchase beforehand.

The women on StripChat are not amateurs. They are women who seem to fit right into the porn industry. They really know what they are doing and they are fantastic at putting on a show for an audience. This is also a site that sadly caters exclusively to the male gaze. In other words, there isn’t any real gender diversity unless you head over to their couples section. However, everything, including the lesbian scenes, seems to be shot exclusively for purely heterosexual males.

What separates StripChat from the crowd is their VR feature. Now, if you don’t have a pair of VR goggles, you are going to want to stop reading because this next part is going to make you really jealous. StripChat’s VR function allows you to throw on a headset and opt in for a private show from one of their pretty performers. It takes live interaction to new heights and is a deeply satisfying cam experience. The videos are in HD, so you won’t miss a thing!

Pros:

HD stripteases
VR features
Professional cam girls

Cons:

Sometimes, you only get a striptease

Pricing:

90 tokens = $9
200 tokens = $19
500 tokens = $50
1,000 tokens = $99
2,200 tokens = $199

16.  BongaCams: Affordable, transparent

On the surface, BongaCams likes to pretend that it’s a free cam site full of women, couples, and trans people. If you’ve made it this far in reading cam reviews, you won’t be surprised to learn that every site is going to squeeze some coin out of you at some point. That’s just how these things work. But BongaCams isn’t going to suck you dry by charging per minute. Their models make a living based on their tips, and you are going to eventually want to tip them through the token payment structure.

The good thing about the BongaCams pricing setup is that there are really no surprises. When you enter a free live show, you are shown a list of the models prices per a given activity. For instance, erotic play between two beautiful lesbian models might cost you 100 tokens. You’ll be informed of everything up front, which helps you figure out which shows are worth watching based on your personal preference and what you can afford. You can also try your luck at jumping into a show and mooching off the other viewers who will send tips, but it might test your patience.

BongaCams delivers incredible shows but doesn’t provide many private show options. In the end, BongaCams is a pretty predictable cam site with a token system and great performers. You’ll find a lot of new girls on this site too, because it’s very welcoming to girls who want to get into camming for the first time.

Pros:

Very transparent about price
Great site design

Cons:

Not great for private shows

Pricing:

50 tokens = $8
135 tokens = $20
432 tokens = $49
650 tokens = $75
4,500 tokens = $499

17.  BabeStation: Huge UK cam site

BabeStation has been around for nearly two decades and is the biggest cam site for UK models. Of all the cam sites, BabeStation is not one that you want to breeze past because it has a lot to offer.

Most sites that have been around for as long as BabeStation have pretty much nailed the cam girl experience. This will become clear to you immediately upon visiting the site. Rather than staring at a bunch of thumbnails, you’ll be plopped into a live show right away. You can of course exit and search for a show that’s a bit more your flavor, but it’s nice to know that you can freely view HD cam shows from the jump.

One thing that BabeStation is missing is an easy way for new visitors to browse and filter. Most of the models are great, but this site isn’t designed to cater to unique fetishes because it’s hard to navigate. Some of the performers are also a little dry. They will sometimes just keep their camera on while they go about mundane tasks, which is more of a voyeuristic experience than an interactive cam show.

BabeStation does offer a ton of promotions at any given time, making it feel very affordable when you decide that you do want to tip a model.

Pros:

Biggest UK cam site
Can actually watch shows for free

Cons:

Not an easy site to navigate
Some performers lack engagement or personality

Pricing:

9.99 GBP per month (Silver – Babestation)
29.99 GBP per month (Diamond – Babestation)
2 GBP per minute (sending your stream-  Cam2Studio)
Price varies per model (WorldCams HD)

How to Have the Best Adult Cam Site Experience

If you’re brand new to cam sites, you might feel a bit lost. There are a lot of them, and they’re not all worth your time. Check out the following four tips to ensure that you end up on the best sites and have a great experience. 

Browse before you buy

Do you buy a car without test driving it? Do you buy a house without seeing it first? When it comes to spending your hard-earned money, it’s always good to avoid wasting it. And a good way to throw away your money is to start spending a ton of it on cam sites.

Your best bet is to browse around some of the top cam sites before you sign up for any subscriptions, premium memberships, etc. Many cam sites can even be browsed for free—even the biggest one, Chaturbate. So, it’s recommended to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the various sites out there before spending any cash. 

Privilege quality over quantity

There are some sites with thousands of cam models who are active at any given time. Yet, all those choices may be overwhelming, and it might feel like finding a needle in a haystack to find something of high quality. So, you might be better off finding a site with fewer models but with a higher percentage of fun and engaged and attractive ones.

That said, the biggest cam sites like Chaturbate give you different filtering options and the default is to show you the cammers with the largest number of viewers. This generally means that you can find high quality content without having to look too far. 

Stick to the big names

Camming has exploded in recent years. As you might expect, there’s been a lot of people trying to get a slice of the pie. Tons of cam sites have popped up, and not all of them are created equal—in fact, it’s not even close.

To avoid getting scammed and wasting your money and/or time, stick to the biggest names in the camming world—sites like Chaturbate and MyFreeCams, for example. 

Participate to maximize the experience

Cam sites are all about participation. This is what inherently separates them from regular porn sites. If no one participated—neither chatting nor giving any tips—the cam site wouldn’t exist. The models depend on tips for it to be worth their while, and the chatting helps keep things fun and engaging. 

So, don’t be shy to participate. You might find that it really enhances your overall experience, especially if you tip to get into private shows. Otherwise, you might as well just stick to regular porn. 

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