Concerts

Rochester rapper RXK Nephew has built a career on songs that ask questions, but I have at least as many questions about his songs. Sometimes he’ll ignore the pulse of an instrumental track, and then the next minute he’ll surprise you by responding to every last one of its details—which has me wondering, “Why does Neph rap like a kid with a crush on his own track?” I’d also like to know where he found the time to record the hundreds of songs he posted to YouTube in a single year. (Pitchfork rap critic Alphonse Pierre noted that Neph dropped more than 400 tracks in 2021 in a post rounding up his 100 favorites.) After I spent some time with his song “Blackberry Touchscreen,” where producer Clean Dirt adds a droopy horn sample that bobs underneath the verses, I had to ask, “Could anyone but Neph insult a producer over that producer’s own beat and not only earn praise from seemingly all of rap Twitter but also from that very same producer?” I’m also impressed and a little baffled at how Neph can flirt with conspiracy theories in his songs and by doing so somehow encourage people to question those deranged and society-corroding beliefs. And of course his January single “Yeezy Boots” brings up a question of its own: “Will anyone make a better Ye diss this year?” 

I suspect that if you spend an hour listening through Neph’s YouTube channel, you’ll have plenty of questions too—and you’ll be completely won over by his music. If you only have ten minutes, you can fill it listening to him free-associate atop the dreamy instrumental of “American Tterroristt.” And if you go see him at Lincoln Hall, get there early—the two opening acts are top-shelf locals from radically different but complementary genres. Hardcore unit Buggin’ have squeezed an EP’s worth of aggression into the 51 seconds of the new single “Attitude,” and gifted footwork producer DJ Taye self-released the album Ghost in September.

RXK Nephew Buggin’ and DJ Taye open. Fri 2/17, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $20, 18+

Read More

Rochester rapper RXK Nephew has built a career on songs that ask questions, but I have at least as many questions about his songs. Sometimes he’ll ignore the pulse of an instrumental track, and then the next minute he’ll surprise you by responding to every last one of its details—which has me wondering, “Why does Neph rap like a kid with a crush on his own track?” I’d also like to know where he found the time to record the hundreds of songs he posted to YouTube in a single year. (Pitchfork rap critic Alphonse Pierre noted that Neph dropped more than 400 tracks in 2021 in a post rounding up his 100 favorites.) After I spent some time with his song “Blackberry Touchscreen,” where producer Clean Dirt adds a droopy horn sample that bobs underneath the verses, I had to ask, “Could anyone but Neph insult a producer over that producer’s own beat and not only earn praise from seemingly all of rap Twitter but also from that very same producer?” I’m also impressed and a little baffled at how Neph can flirt with conspiracy theories in his songs and by doing so somehow encourage people to question those deranged and society-corroding beliefs. And of course his January single “Yeezy Boots” brings up a question of its own: “Will anyone make a better Ye diss this year?” 

I suspect that if you spend an hour listening through Neph’s YouTube channel, you’ll have plenty of questions too—and you’ll be completely won over by his music. If you only have ten minutes, you can fill it listening to him free-associate atop the dreamy instrumental of “American Tterroristt.” And if you go see him at Lincoln Hall, get there early—the two opening acts are top-shelf locals from radically different but complementary genres. Hardcore unit Buggin’ have squeezed an EP’s worth of aggression into the 51 seconds of the new single “Attitude,” and gifted footwork producer DJ Taye self-released the album Ghost in September.

RXK Nephew Buggin’ and DJ Taye open. Fri 2/17, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $20, 18+

Read More

Nestled on the southwest side near 51st and California, the Gage Park Latinx Council’s Community Cultural Center is housed in a red brick storefront with shiny reflective windows that bear the organization’s acronym “GPLXC” in purple. The organization was founded in 2018 by Samantha Alexandra Martinez, Antonio Santos, and Katia Martinez.

Inside, accent lamps and LEDs illuminate black, pink, and beige walls. Potted plants, shelves filled with multicolored YA books, games for children, photos of community members, motivational messages, and student artwork make up the bulk of the center’s furnishings. Deeper in the space’s interior, sparkly purple tinsel curtains hang from two walls—the remnants of a Euphoria-themed Pride party organized by teens in the center at the end of “Queer Riot” last September, one of GPLXC’s summer programs for young adults. 

Diego Garcia, 20, sat across from me on one of the many sleek gray couches arranged inside Gage Park’s community-led cultural center, which turned two years old last fall.

“I first entered the Gage Park Latinx Council in February of 2021. One of their organizers had asked me if I wanted to volunteer with them to distribute . . . I think it was 1,200 pounds of food on a weekly basis. And I was like, yeah, like, that’s a lot of food. You guys need help,” he said and laughed. 

The space was empty besides the two of us and one other young staffer, who sat at a table in the back, working on a laptop. It’s here, sitting on the couches, where Garcia detailed how he became program manager of the five-year-old community mutual aid experiment slash nonprofit. 

Garcia gestured to donated items on shelves. 

“We distribute COVID tests, masks, soap, and toothbrushes because we know that these are the necessities people need on a daily basis. And also we acknowledge that the work we do is just a Band-Aid to the issues that are happening in the neighborhood but this work is still needed.”

GPLXC describes itself as a queer, femme, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and Latinx-led grassroots organization rooted in abolition and mutual aid. They provide programs that range from a culturally specific food pantry to children’s art classes, summer organizing internships, and more—all to fill the gaps in community programming and resources that they see their southwest side neighbors experiencing.

Garcia smiles a lot when he talks and speaks about his history of Gage Park organizing, as if it were just another after-school extracurricular that a kid might fall into, like basketball or clarinet. 

“I started organizing when I was 16 years old” out of a church, he said. “That was the only space I had. So we would register people to vote.”

When Garcia realized there wasn’t a safe space for youth like himself to congregate, he volunteered at Immaculate Conception Church, sweeping the floor to pass the time. Soon he started meeting other young folks in the church, and they would organize fundraisers for victims of violence. One time they raised $6,000 in a day for a five-year-old. 

By 2020, Garcia and GPLXC’s small team were already collaborating before he was a bona fide member. They organized a march of over 3,000 people for Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2020 by hanging a few flyers and posting online. Local artists and activists flooded the streets with them, and a Black-owned vegan restaurant from Little Village started distributing free food.

Garcia started helping GPLXC run its weekly food market not too long afterward. “I just showed up, and I volunteered for a couple of weeks. And that’s when they opened their arms to me.”

Gage Park sits in the middle of Brighton Park, Back of the Yards, and West Lawn. Its population is just shy of 40,000 residents and is primarily made up of Mexican American working-class families living in multigenerational homes (mostly bungalows). The neighborhood’s restaurants, auto shops, hair salons, government services, pharmacies, and other businesses are concentrated along 51st from Kedzie to Western and Kedzie between 51st and 59th.

Gage Park has been heavily Catholic for about the last century, when, in the 1920s, the neighborhood attracted Anglo-Slavic immigrants enticed by the southwest side’s several newly established national Roman Catholic churches. The land is also surrounded by three railroads, so bustling businesses like World’s Finest Chocolate, the Royal Bottling Company, and Central Steel and Wire Company settled in the area, attracted by the nearby transportation. But in 1966, Gage Park made national headlines as part of the first open housing experiment for Black residents when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Gage Park High School to Marquette Park for integration.

White residents and visitors attacked the march, throwing rocks and bottles and spitting on marchers. In the months after, the American Nazi Party organized a series of protests and a “white people’s march.” As white flight spread in the 1960s and 70s, the neighborhood’s middle-class—predominantly made of European immigrants from Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Ireland—transitioned to 91 percent Latinx and working-class, and today it is the second largest Latinx neighborhood in Chicago outside of Little Village.

Despite feeling gratitude that integration allowed Mexican immigrants to make a home in the area, the organizers running GPLXC said that they still lived in the shadows of the white Europeans who built Gage Park and then fled.

“[We saw] that when white people left, resources also left,” Martinez said

Gage Park is rich in public and charter schools, but their scarce public amenities otherwise reflect the level of divestment locally.

“The Gage Park Field House is a big building that could potentially be a community center. But it’s not; it looks quite abandoned,” Martinez said. The fieldhouse used to house the Chicago Public Library, but the library was downsized to a small storefront in the 90s when the neighborhood transitioned to mostly Black and Brown. “We’ve gone inside that building, it’s pretty deteriorated,” Martinez said “Our park is also very deteriorated.” 

On Western, she continued, there’s a government agency where WIC and SNAP recipients go for food support. “But every time I pass outside during the summers, there’s a long line of people just waiting there.”

The past two decades of Chicago news headlines about the neighborhood detail shootings and intermittent gang violence. Today, many residents of the southwest side face food insecurity, gun violence, and negative health effects from nearby factory pollution. 

GPLXC originated in 2018 when a group of youth who grew up in the neighborhood organized art and literacy programs in the Gage Park Library after it went without a children’s librarian for five years.

“I grew up in this neighborhood, and one of the few things we could do for free, coming from like a single mom household, was going to the library and storytime, games and all that,” Santos said. “That disappeared for many years.” 

The group started occupying space at Gage Park Library and led art projects for youth aged six through 12 rooted in social justice or Latinx identity and culture, and spaces quickly filled. “We had 70 youth consistently showing up to a small storefront.”

And that’s where it all started, Santos said. From there, they grew and started to see more in their community, particularly about how city resources are unfairly distributed. 

Take their mercadito, for example. In 2020, some people from outside the community did weekly food pantry pop-ups for a couple months and then stopped when government funding ran out. But the pop-ups had already become a food source community members relied upon, 51 percent of who live below the poverty level. “People are still hungry. People have always been struggling to access food,” Santos said. 

The organizers connected with Grocery Run Club, a community-driven fresh produce initiative, soon after the funding ran out. They started receiving 50 boxes of food weekly in a local parking lot. As of fall 2022, Grocery Run Club has provided 200 boxes of food weekly for GPLXC to distribute. GPLXC expanded their partnership to include the Pilsen Food Pantry and even secured a $25,000 grant for the market. They used the money to purchase groceries directly from a neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery store, making sure fresh items like tortillas and vegetables are available every week. GPLXC has distributed food to over 20,000 families in the past three years. 

Now, their goal with the program is to help the community create local systems of food. 

“So it started off as like, ‘Oh, cool, we don’t have a children’s librarian,’” Santos said. “And then it was like, ‘Oh, we also don’t have a food pantry. We also don’t have a queer space. We also don’t have art programming. We also don’t have X, Y, and Z.’ And that’s how our programming developed pretty organically into what it is today.”

The sheer scope of programs GPLXC offers is a reflection of how dynamic the space is. Martinez said that when it comes to stories of violence and other difficulties faced by those on the southwest side, they generally aren’t told by the residents who live there. So Martinez wanted the center to be a space where community members could articulate new narratives, educate their community, and facilitate self-expression.

When formal government entities provide community services, it’s usually more of a transactional experience than a relationship. The patron arrives seeking a specific type of support, and if they meet certain criteria set by the agency then they’re granted it. GPLXC did not want to replicate that sterile experience of receiving aid and has made a point to invest in neighborhood relationships and demonstrate community consistency.

The center’s annual summer art club serves middle schoolers and brings in local artists from similar cultural backgrounds and distinct artistic mediums (like screen printing or sculpting) to introduce students to another way of thinking about themselves and the world. “[We] not only do art as a way to learn about art and be artists, but also as a way to process emotion, to process some of the grief and some of the pain that might have come up from the pandemic,” Martinez said. 

For a while, GPLXC also ran a mural project with local teens and young adults. Gage Park is very industrial and, because of it, giant gray buildings dominate the skyline and take up space that might otherwise be used for public expression. GPLXC leveraged their power as an organization to convince business owners to trust them and their students with public walls and space. Because of that, the group has painted ten murals over the past two years in their community.

The mural project beautified the neighborhood and let young residents assert their cultural and queer pride locally with vibrant colors and political messages. 

Another program of theirs called Documentografia runs in partnership with the Chicago History Museum, where ten young people come in every summer to learn photography skills and capture their community through their eyes, all to be archived at the museum. 

This program started when the museum was “called out” by Gage Park youth for not having any Latinx representation in the museum’s neighborhood archives, only records of theEuropean immigrants who were there before, or records about the violence against Black people. There weren’t stories about Black and Latinx families currently living there. 

“[So we said,] We’re gonna capture our own images,” Santos said. “We’re gonna do our own oral histories, we’re gonna ask our own grandparents to sit down and have the oral history recorded so that we can get these stories collected. Because obviously, the museum hasn’t been doing that for the last 50 years.”

The young adults have documented things like young queer friends in love. Santos points out that while we all have access to a lot of cultural images of white, heterosexual, cisgender teen romance, the moment that gaze is focused on a Black or Brown queer youth, the topic is shrouded in more mystery, and images of it aren’t as readily available in their young people’s communities. 

In GPLXC’s Queer Riot summer internship program, teens spend a few weeks learning about Black and Brown queer history in Chicago. During the latter half of the program, they’re given a budget to throw whatever event or organize any action that moves them. 

Last year, the group held a sex education program for high schoolers in partnership with University of Chicago medical students from the Latinx association. 

The organizers also coordinate regular all-ages family occasions like board game nights, slime parties, art markets, and other well-attended family-friendly events. 

Although space is limited for each of these events, the siblings of any student who participates in a program will automatically be invited to enroll. 

Santos feels that their model of sharing public history and education on queerness and more is slowly radicalizing their community. 

“The 55-year-old grandmother coming into the food pantry sees our Pride flag on top of the building and sees the ‘defund the police’ sign in the window and is forced to kind of come face to face with these things that are oftentimes propaganda,” he said. “And the way that these things are taught to our communities . . . there’s a lot of communal unlearning that we’re trying to do.”

The organizers say Gage Park’s families have been more than receptive. The center has a good reputation among young people because of how they prioritize giving young people autonomy and power; so youth essentially recruit themselves by word of mouth. Youth often reach out to the center on their own to inquire about what programs are available. Once they release an application for any program, they have no trouble filling up those spots. 

Not everyone in the programs is from Gage Park; they draw participants from all across the southwest side: from Englewood, West Lawn, Back of the Yards, and Brighton Park. 

The group was introduced to grant writing in their second year, and the center is run by four full-time staff members, a local contracted photographer, contracted artists, college interns, and community partners. They pride themselves on catering to such a wide age range of folks. 

The youngest person they served was a three-year-old who attended their art program. During different workshops or the weekly market, grandparents come out to receive food. 

“I think that’s something super beautiful that I haven’t seen any other organization do in the southwest side,” Garcia said. 

Read More

Nestled on the southwest side near 51st and California, the Gage Park Latinx Council’s Community Cultural Center is housed in a red brick storefront with shiny reflective windows that bear the organization’s acronym “GPLXC” in purple. The organization was founded in 2018 by Samantha Alexandra Martinez, Antonio Santos, and Katia Martinez.

Inside, accent lamps and LEDs illuminate black, pink, and beige walls. Potted plants, shelves filled with multicolored YA books, games for children, photos of community members, motivational messages, and student artwork make up the bulk of the center’s furnishings. Deeper in the space’s interior, sparkly purple tinsel curtains hang from two walls—the remnants of a Euphoria-themed Pride party organized by teens in the center at the end of “Queer Riot” last September, one of GPLXC’s summer programs for young adults. 

Diego Garcia, 20, sat across from me on one of the many sleek gray couches arranged inside Gage Park’s community-led cultural center, which turned two years old last fall.

“I first entered the Gage Park Latinx Council in February of 2021. One of their organizers had asked me if I wanted to volunteer with them to distribute . . . I think it was 1,200 pounds of food on a weekly basis. And I was like, yeah, like, that’s a lot of food. You guys need help,” he said and laughed. 

The space was empty besides the two of us and one other young staffer, who sat at a table in the back, working on a laptop. It’s here, sitting on the couches, where Garcia detailed how he became program manager of the five-year-old community mutual aid experiment slash nonprofit. 

Garcia gestured to donated items on shelves. 

“We distribute COVID tests, masks, soap, and toothbrushes because we know that these are the necessities people need on a daily basis. And also we acknowledge that the work we do is just a Band-Aid to the issues that are happening in the neighborhood but this work is still needed.”

GPLXC describes itself as a queer, femme, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and Latinx-led grassroots organization rooted in abolition and mutual aid. They provide programs that range from a culturally specific food pantry to children’s art classes, summer organizing internships, and more—all to fill the gaps in community programming and resources that they see their southwest side neighbors experiencing.

Garcia smiles a lot when he talks and speaks about his history of Gage Park organizing, as if it were just another after-school extracurricular that a kid might fall into, like basketball or clarinet. 

“I started organizing when I was 16 years old” out of a church, he said. “That was the only space I had. So we would register people to vote.”

When Garcia realized there wasn’t a safe space for youth like himself to congregate, he volunteered at Immaculate Conception Church, sweeping the floor to pass the time. Soon he started meeting other young folks in the church, and they would organize fundraisers for victims of violence. One time they raised $6,000 in a day for a five-year-old. 

By 2020, Garcia and GPLXC’s small team were already collaborating before he was a bona fide member. They organized a march of over 3,000 people for Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2020 by hanging a few flyers and posting online. Local artists and activists flooded the streets with them, and a Black-owned vegan restaurant from Little Village started distributing free food.

Garcia started helping GPLXC run its weekly food market not too long afterward. “I just showed up, and I volunteered for a couple of weeks. And that’s when they opened their arms to me.”

Gage Park sits in the middle of Brighton Park, Back of the Yards, and West Lawn. Its population is just shy of 40,000 residents and is primarily made up of Mexican American working-class families living in multigenerational homes (mostly bungalows). The neighborhood’s restaurants, auto shops, hair salons, government services, pharmacies, and other businesses are concentrated along 51st from Kedzie to Western and Kedzie between 51st and 59th.

Gage Park has been heavily Catholic for about the last century, when, in the 1920s, the neighborhood attracted Anglo-Slavic immigrants enticed by the southwest side’s several newly established national Roman Catholic churches. The land is also surrounded by three railroads, so bustling businesses like World’s Finest Chocolate, the Royal Bottling Company, and Central Steel and Wire Company settled in the area, attracted by the nearby transportation. But in 1966, Gage Park made national headlines as part of the first open housing experiment for Black residents when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Gage Park High School to Marquette Park for integration.

White residents and visitors attacked the march, throwing rocks and bottles and spitting on marchers. In the months after, the American Nazi Party organized a series of protests and a “white people’s march.” As white flight spread in the 1960s and 70s, the neighborhood’s middle-class—predominantly made of European immigrants from Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Ireland—transitioned to 91 percent Latinx and working-class, and today it is the second largest Latinx neighborhood in Chicago outside of Little Village.

Despite feeling gratitude that integration allowed Mexican immigrants to make a home in the area, the organizers running GPLXC said that they still lived in the shadows of the white Europeans who built Gage Park and then fled.

“[We saw] that when white people left, resources also left,” Martinez said

Gage Park is rich in public and charter schools, but their scarce public amenities otherwise reflect the level of divestment locally.

“The Gage Park Field House is a big building that could potentially be a community center. But it’s not; it looks quite abandoned,” Martinez said. The fieldhouse used to house the Chicago Public Library, but the library was downsized to a small storefront in the 90s when the neighborhood transitioned to mostly Black and Brown. “We’ve gone inside that building, it’s pretty deteriorated,” Martinez said “Our park is also very deteriorated.” 

On Western, she continued, there’s a government agency where WIC and SNAP recipients go for food support. “But every time I pass outside during the summers, there’s a long line of people just waiting there.”

The past two decades of Chicago news headlines about the neighborhood detail shootings and intermittent gang violence. Today, many residents of the southwest side face food insecurity, gun violence, and negative health effects from nearby factory pollution. 

GPLXC originated in 2018 when a group of youth who grew up in the neighborhood organized art and literacy programs in the Gage Park Library after it went without a children’s librarian for five years.

“I grew up in this neighborhood, and one of the few things we could do for free, coming from like a single mom household, was going to the library and storytime, games and all that,” Santos said. “That disappeared for many years.” 

The group started occupying space at Gage Park Library and led art projects for youth aged six through 12 rooted in social justice or Latinx identity and culture, and spaces quickly filled. “We had 70 youth consistently showing up to a small storefront.”

And that’s where it all started, Santos said. From there, they grew and started to see more in their community, particularly about how city resources are unfairly distributed. 

Take their mercadito, for example. In 2020, some people from outside the community did weekly food pantry pop-ups for a couple months and then stopped when government funding ran out. But the pop-ups had already become a food source community members relied upon, 51 percent of who live below the poverty level. “People are still hungry. People have always been struggling to access food,” Santos said. 

The organizers connected with Grocery Run Club, a community-driven fresh produce initiative, soon after the funding ran out. They started receiving 50 boxes of food weekly in a local parking lot. As of fall 2022, Grocery Run Club has provided 200 boxes of food weekly for GPLXC to distribute. GPLXC expanded their partnership to include the Pilsen Food Pantry and even secured a $25,000 grant for the market. They used the money to purchase groceries directly from a neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery store, making sure fresh items like tortillas and vegetables are available every week. GPLXC has distributed food to over 20,000 families in the past three years. 

Now, their goal with the program is to help the community create local systems of food. 

“So it started off as like, ‘Oh, cool, we don’t have a children’s librarian,’” Santos said. “And then it was like, ‘Oh, we also don’t have a food pantry. We also don’t have a queer space. We also don’t have art programming. We also don’t have X, Y, and Z.’ And that’s how our programming developed pretty organically into what it is today.”

The sheer scope of programs GPLXC offers is a reflection of how dynamic the space is. Martinez said that when it comes to stories of violence and other difficulties faced by those on the southwest side, they generally aren’t told by the residents who live there. So Martinez wanted the center to be a space where community members could articulate new narratives, educate their community, and facilitate self-expression.

When formal government entities provide community services, it’s usually more of a transactional experience than a relationship. The patron arrives seeking a specific type of support, and if they meet certain criteria set by the agency then they’re granted it. GPLXC did not want to replicate that sterile experience of receiving aid and has made a point to invest in neighborhood relationships and demonstrate community consistency.

The center’s annual summer art club serves middle schoolers and brings in local artists from similar cultural backgrounds and distinct artistic mediums (like screen printing or sculpting) to introduce students to another way of thinking about themselves and the world. “[We] not only do art as a way to learn about art and be artists, but also as a way to process emotion, to process some of the grief and some of the pain that might have come up from the pandemic,” Martinez said. 

For a while, GPLXC also ran a mural project with local teens and young adults. Gage Park is very industrial and, because of it, giant gray buildings dominate the skyline and take up space that might otherwise be used for public expression. GPLXC leveraged their power as an organization to convince business owners to trust them and their students with public walls and space. Because of that, the group has painted ten murals over the past two years in their community.

The mural project beautified the neighborhood and let young residents assert their cultural and queer pride locally with vibrant colors and political messages. 

Another program of theirs called Documentografia runs in partnership with the Chicago History Museum, where ten young people come in every summer to learn photography skills and capture their community through their eyes, all to be archived at the museum. 

This program started when the museum was “called out” by Gage Park youth for not having any Latinx representation in the museum’s neighborhood archives, only records of theEuropean immigrants who were there before, or records about the violence against Black people. There weren’t stories about Black and Latinx families currently living there. 

“[So we said,] We’re gonna capture our own images,” Santos said. “We’re gonna do our own oral histories, we’re gonna ask our own grandparents to sit down and have the oral history recorded so that we can get these stories collected. Because obviously, the museum hasn’t been doing that for the last 50 years.”

The young adults have documented things like young queer friends in love. Santos points out that while we all have access to a lot of cultural images of white, heterosexual, cisgender teen romance, the moment that gaze is focused on a Black or Brown queer youth, the topic is shrouded in more mystery, and images of it aren’t as readily available in their young people’s communities. 

In GPLXC’s Queer Riot summer internship program, teens spend a few weeks learning about Black and Brown queer history in Chicago. During the latter half of the program, they’re given a budget to throw whatever event or organize any action that moves them. 

Last year, the group held a sex education program for high schoolers in partnership with University of Chicago medical students from the Latinx association. 

The organizers also coordinate regular all-ages family occasions like board game nights, slime parties, art markets, and other well-attended family-friendly events. 

Although space is limited for each of these events, the siblings of any student who participates in a program will automatically be invited to enroll. 

Santos feels that their model of sharing public history and education on queerness and more is slowly radicalizing their community. 

“The 55-year-old grandmother coming into the food pantry sees our Pride flag on top of the building and sees the ‘defund the police’ sign in the window and is forced to kind of come face to face with these things that are oftentimes propaganda,” he said. “And the way that these things are taught to our communities . . . there’s a lot of communal unlearning that we’re trying to do.”

The organizers say Gage Park’s families have been more than receptive. The center has a good reputation among young people because of how they prioritize giving young people autonomy and power; so youth essentially recruit themselves by word of mouth. Youth often reach out to the center on their own to inquire about what programs are available. Once they release an application for any program, they have no trouble filling up those spots. 

Not everyone in the programs is from Gage Park; they draw participants from all across the southwest side: from Englewood, West Lawn, Back of the Yards, and Brighton Park. 

The group was introduced to grant writing in their second year, and the center is run by four full-time staff members, a local contracted photographer, contracted artists, college interns, and community partners. They pride themselves on catering to such a wide age range of folks. 

The youngest person they served was a three-year-old who attended their art program. During different workshops or the weekly market, grandparents come out to receive food. 

“I think that’s something super beautiful that I haven’t seen any other organization do in the southwest side,” Garcia said. 

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. 

Read More

In Amir Naderi’s The Runner, there’s a recurring motif where the young protagonist sprints toward the cargo ships he sees in the water and the planes that fly overhead the Iranian port city of Abadan, where he lives. The 11-year-old Amiro, who’s made a home of an abandoned tanker, is enthralled by the roving leviathans, yelling hey, hey, hey relentlessly at them. His gleeful entreaty is open for interpretation: is he merely seeking attention from the enviable explorers within, or do they represent a yearning for a sort of liberation? 

Despite suggestions that he might wish to leave his impoverished life, Amiro—played to innocent, joyful perfection by Madjid Niroumand, whose performance is reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Léaud’s revelatory turn in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959)—doesn’t seem to lament his circumstances. He makes his way in the world doing odd jobs, such as collecting glass bottles, selling ice water, and shining shoes. His lack of parental oversight isn’t acknowledged; rather, he lives alone in his makeshift dwelling, enjoying the company of his friends and the competitive games they play, which Amiro excels at owing to his quick pace. 

The 1984 film, screening as part of the Annual Festival of Films from Iran at the Gene Siskel Film Center, is based on Naderi’s formative years; a new restoration with updated subtitles makes this postrevolutionary masterpiece ripe for rediscovery. The Iranian New Wave luminary, along with such other filmmakers as Abbas Kiarostami and Bahram Beyzai (who edited The Runner), turned to making films about children after the 1979 revolution, when the government instituted censorious laws that, among other restrictions, prohibited artists from expressing themselves freely. 

Stories about children served as an entryway into exploring larger societal issues in Iran in the midst of the new regime’s conservative ideology, a subject ever so timely of late. Frustrated masses have taken to the streets—exposing themselves to injury, arrest, and worse—to protest the Islamic Republic following the death of a young Kurdish woman for not properly wearing her hijab. In recognition of recent events, the Film Center will host a free virtual conversation about art and activism in Iran in association with the festival, with details to be announced soon. 

Abed Abest’s Killing the Eunuch Khan (2021) abstractly explores the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s through a modern Iranian lens. Set along the border between the two countries, the film opens on a house where two young girls live with their father; a bomb falls in their yard, killing one of the girls and leaving a seemingly bottomless pit in its wake. What occurs thereafter is sometimes frustratingly oblique, buoyed to an almost gimmicky extent by admittedly stunning visuals, courtesy of cinematographer Hamid Khozouie Abyane. “The serial killer intends to slaughter so many that the blood of the victims spills over the ditches of the city,” reads a commonly propagated summary of the film. “To reach his target, he designs a plan in which victims kill more victims.” This is one of those self-consciously artsy films that mistakes silence—long, dialogue-less sequences that serve only to introduce other long, dialogue-less sequences—for substance. 

The film has garnered comparisons to those of Stanley Kubrick and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Similarly, both Mani Haghighi’s Subtraction (2022) and Arian Vazirdaftari’s debut feature Without Her (2022) may be termed Hitchcockian; the latter specifically recalls Hitchcock by way of Brian De Palma. Another degree of separation from the masters of cinema is that Haghighi (2006’s Men at Work, 2018’s Pig) is the grandson of Ebrahim Golestan, the revered Iranian auteur also featured prominently in the festival. 

Subtraction centers on two couples (both played by Navid Mohammadzadeh and Taraneh Alidoosti, the latter being the star of Asghar Farhadi’s Fireworks Wednesday (2006), About Elly (2009), and The Salesman (2016), who was recently arrested at protest and let out on bail) who are each others’ doppelgängers. One of the couples is working class, the other affluent. The husband from the former and the wife from the latter conspire, with growing intimacy, to help the other man escape the consequences of a violent outburst at his white-collar job. 

Actor-writer-director Haghighi (who’s collaborated with Kiarostami and Farhadi) interprets concerns respective to Iranian cinema somewhat differently than his compatriots, often working in genre to do so. He was inspired to make Subtraction after he saw a picture of a man who looked just like him in a photography exhibition about the Iran-Iraq war. Less specifically, the film speaks to an almost otherworldly sensation of having to accept and live with something out of the ordinary—something that Iranians are more familiar with than most. 

Mohammadzadeh and Alidoosti also star together in Leila’s Brothers (2022), which was banned in Iran after it screened at the Cannes Film Festival without government permission. Alidoosti plays the titular Leila, who’s determined to see her four brothers (one of them played by Mohammadzadeh) lifted out of poverty. A small fortune squirreled away by their status-obsessed father becomes the center of their problems; Leila and her brothers aspire to open a shop with the money, while their father wants to give it to a wealthy family member in exchange for becoming patriarch of their clan. 

Without Her, like Subtraction, is another genre parable: Roya (Tannaz Tabatabaei), a well-to-do woman who’s soon to emigrate to Denmark with her husband, takes in the younger Ziba, who has no one or nowhere to turn to. Ziba soon begins assuming aspects of Roya’s life, with others appearing to believe that she’s actually the person Roya really is. Out of all of the films in the festival, this one possesses the near-maddening ambiguity that suffuses much Iranian cinema, as one feels Roya’s frustration when others in her life stop believing who she is. 

Annual Festival of Films from IranGene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 2/10-2/19General admission $13 per film, with discounts for Film Center members, students, youth, and SAIC students, staff, and facultysiskelfilmcenter.org/annual-festival-films-iran

Perhaps second in that regard would be Houman Seyyedi’s World War III (2022), Iran’s submission to this year’s Academy Awards in the Best International Feature category. Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh) is an aimless day laborer whose wife and child died in an earthquake years prior. He takes a job on a nearby shoot for a film set during the Holocaust and featuring Hitler as a main character. Against all odds, Shakib lands a role in the film—the starring role as the dictator, in fact. He boasts about his newfound success to a young, deaf-mute sex worker with whom he’s been in a long-standing (albeit transactional) relationship. Tensions escalate when she comes to stay with him on set, her vengeful pimp having followed her. I won’t disclose what happens next, but the questions it raises—as to what’s going on, who’s telling the truth, and the degree to which parallels between the movie in the film and Shakib’s dilemma are intentional—certainly account for a heightened level of ambiguity. 

Ebrahim Golestan was a leading figure in the initial, prerevolutionary Iranian New Wave, as well as a respected literary figure. His debut feature Brick and Mirror (1965) will screen at the festival, along with a program of his short films. Merging neorealist qualities with a visual sensibility that evokes German expressionism, the film follows a young taxi driver after a female passenger abandons her baby in his cab. What to do with the child becomes a source of concern and contention among his social circle, his girlfriend in particular aspiring to marry and keep the child as their own. 

Brick and Mirror offers a prescient glimpse of prerevolutionary Iran with all its seemingly modern zeal, beneath which festers troubles portending future conflict. It was the first Iranian film to use direct sound and is the first and only feature made under the auspices of the Golestan Film Workshop, which Golestan founded to produce his own films as well as Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad’s landmark documentary short, The House Is Black (1963), about a leper colony. Golestan’s short films Courtship (1961), A Fire (1961), The Hills of Marlik (1963), and The Crown Jewels of Iran (1965) compose the short films program, aptly titled “Radical Artistry.”

Mitra Farahani’s See You Friday, Robinson (2022) documents the unlikely correspondence between Golestan and Jean-Luc Godard, who died in September. (Meanwhile, Golestan turned 100 last year.) Though the two never met in person, they exchanged communications every Friday for several months in 2014. It was Farahani who brought the two filmmakers together, at least in an epistolary sense, and it’s the creation and detangling of their emails and letters that make up much of the film. 

Anyone familiar with Godard will recognize—and, like me, will be frustrated by—the obscure content of his messages. Golestan himself comments on it, though he persists in their exchange. The documentary footage of the filmmakers is both edifying and endearing; apparently Godard putters around his Swiss cottage wearing T-shirts and cargo shorts like any other homebody. It feels less like a film about two major figureheads of world cinema and more like a vade mecum for getting on in years and attempting finally to answer life’s lingering questions—or at least becoming content with realizing that might not happen. Even later in life these elder sages are much like young Amiro, eager to learn about what’s off in the distance. 

Read More

Roger Corman’s X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) opens on a giant eyeball, bloody, veined, enormous. You stare at it for what seems like forever, looking at it as it looks at you while Les Baxter’s eerie, dissonant score quivers and scrapes. Finally, the camera pulls back, and you can see that the eyeball is a specimen, floating in a jar, trailing viscera. It is an organ of observation reduced to an observed thing—and it’s difficult to see it without thinking about how you’re seeing it, with organs that will one day cease to see and only have the capacity to be seen. The thing sight reveals is the end of sight. The vision—of science, of the screen—opens on its own blindness. 

The limitations of human perception and human existence, and the longing to extend both, are at the center of the Block Museum’s latest exhibit, “The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto.” Corman’s X is part of a related film series, Science on Screen: Inner and Outer Space, to be screened with a talk by Catherine Belling, a professor of medical education at Northwestern.

Robleto has been working with Northwestern for the last five years or so as the first artist-at-large of the school of engineering. His work presents a “melancholy view of science,” according to Michael Metzger, curator of the Robleto exhibit and of the associated film series. Robleto, Metzger told me, is fascinated by how science allows us “to record traces of people and communities before death and the erasure of time and history.” 

The exhibit includes a series of lacquered brass-plated reconstructions of waveforms that show blood flow from the heart during various auditory experiences—listening to a tuning fork, for example, or to a melancholic melody. A triptych of images called Survival Does Not Lie in the Heavens shows what appear to be stars against a black background. In fact, they’re images of stage lights taken from the album covers of live performances by jazz, blues, and gospel musicians who are now deceased. 

In two almost hour-length films, The Aorta of an Archivist and The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed, Robleto covers a range of topics focused on science, humanity, and loss. He talks about stars that, in an expanding universe, emit light that can no longer reach us, about the oldest human voices ever recorded, and about other doomed but valiant scientific efforts to preserve the unpreservable. The work is immersed in a kind of anti-Buddhism, clinging determinedly to life’s vanishing traces.

Metzger hasn’t yet chosen the films in the series for spring, though he hopes to include a magic lantern performance and a collection of early medical silent films curated by scholar Patrick Friel. In addition to X, the other film showing in winter is First Man, the 2018 drama based on the Apollo program and Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon. University of Chicago historian of science Jordan Bimm will lecture at the screening.

First Man seemed like an appropriate choice, Metzger says, because it resonates with Robleto’s fascination with space exploration—Carl Sagan is mentioned several times in the exhibit. The movie is also about Armstrong’s grief at the loss of his daughter, which in part inspires his ambition and exploration. “It really speaks to the question of how we understand the lives of the people around us,” Metzger told me—a theme that is central to Robleto’s work.

To some extent, though, First Man can be seen as resisting or critiquing Robleto’s fascination with science as a universal human quest for persistence. The Apollo space mission was not a universal quest, but a nationalist endeavor, inseparable from the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. In the movie, Leon Bridges reprises Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon”—a song that indicts the U.S. for using space exploration as a distraction from inequities on Earth.

Robleto muses on the miraculous preservation of human song as a triumph of art and scientific advances. But First Man reminds us that some song, at least, is skeptical of scientific advances, and of a vision of progress that gestures toward universal humanity while leaving some humans behind.

X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes also speaks both to and against Robleto. The film is about Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland), a doctor who discovers a formula to allow him to see beyond the human visual spectrum. Metzger said he chose the movie because it “reflects not only our desire to see underneath the skin, or underneath the clothes of the people around us, but also to have our vision penetrate the farthest reaches of the universe.” Or as Xavier says early on in the film, “What could we really see if we had access to the other 90 percent [of the visual spectrum]? Sam, we are virtually blind, all of us.”

Science on Screen: Inner and Outer SpaceThrough 6/30, Block Cinema; X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) 2/10 7 PM, First Man (2018) 2/18 1 PM, spring screenings TBD; presented in conjunction with “The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto,” through 7/9, The Block Museum of Art, free

Robleto presents the desire to see further, to know more, to extend human perception, as a noble if doomed goal; he celebrates the science that tries to let us hold onto sight and sound just a little bit longer. X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes is (much) less starry-eyed. Xavier’s increasing powers of sight don’t give him greater insight into the human condition. Instead, his vaulting ambition turns him into an outcast, a murderer, a carnival attraction, and a card cheat. He’s so set on seeing the face of God he ceases to be able to recognize the face of the woman he loves. 

Science is a human thing, and so it reflects human dreams, human fears, and human hopes. Robleto’s art captures that. The films in the Science on Screen series, though, add that science reflects human prejudice and human egotism as well. To want to see more of the universe is natural and even beautiful. But it’s also a dream of power, which can leave you looking only at the dead, gaping eyeball of your own desire.

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. 

Read More

In Amir Naderi’s The Runner, there’s a recurring motif where the young protagonist sprints toward the cargo ships he sees in the water and the planes that fly overhead the Iranian port city of Abadan, where he lives. The 11-year-old Amiro, who’s made a home of an abandoned tanker, is enthralled by the roving leviathans, yelling hey, hey, hey relentlessly at them. His gleeful entreaty is open for interpretation: is he merely seeking attention from the enviable explorers within, or do they represent a yearning for a sort of liberation? 

Despite suggestions that he might wish to leave his impoverished life, Amiro—played to innocent, joyful perfection by Madjid Niroumand, whose performance is reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Léaud’s revelatory turn in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959)—doesn’t seem to lament his circumstances. He makes his way in the world doing odd jobs, such as collecting glass bottles, selling ice water, and shining shoes. His lack of parental oversight isn’t acknowledged; rather, he lives alone in his makeshift dwelling, enjoying the company of his friends and the competitive games they play, which Amiro excels at owing to his quick pace. 

The 1984 film, screening as part of the Annual Festival of Films from Iran at the Gene Siskel Film Center, is based on Naderi’s formative years; a new restoration with updated subtitles makes this postrevolutionary masterpiece ripe for rediscovery. The Iranian New Wave luminary, along with such other filmmakers as Abbas Kiarostami and Bahram Beyzai (who edited The Runner), turned to making films about children after the 1979 revolution, when the government instituted censorious laws that, among other restrictions, prohibited artists from expressing themselves freely. 

Stories about children served as an entryway into exploring larger societal issues in Iran in the midst of the new regime’s conservative ideology, a subject ever so timely of late. Frustrated masses have taken to the streets—exposing themselves to injury, arrest, and worse—to protest the Islamic Republic following the death of a young Kurdish woman for not properly wearing her hijab. In recognition of recent events, the Film Center will host a free virtual conversation about art and activism in Iran in association with the festival, with details to be announced soon. 

Abed Abest’s Killing the Eunuch Khan (2021) abstractly explores the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s through a modern Iranian lens. Set along the border between the two countries, the film opens on a house where two young girls live with their father; a bomb falls in their yard, killing one of the girls and leaving a seemingly bottomless pit in its wake. What occurs thereafter is sometimes frustratingly oblique, buoyed to an almost gimmicky extent by admittedly stunning visuals, courtesy of cinematographer Hamid Khozouie Abyane. “The serial killer intends to slaughter so many that the blood of the victims spills over the ditches of the city,” reads a commonly propagated summary of the film. “To reach his target, he designs a plan in which victims kill more victims.” This is one of those self-consciously artsy films that mistakes silence—long, dialogue-less sequences that serve only to introduce other long, dialogue-less sequences—for substance. 

The film has garnered comparisons to those of Stanley Kubrick and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Similarly, both Mani Haghighi’s Subtraction (2022) and Arian Vazirdaftari’s debut feature Without Her (2022) may be termed Hitchcockian; the latter specifically recalls Hitchcock by way of Brian De Palma. Another degree of separation from the masters of cinema is that Haghighi (2006’s Men at Work, 2018’s Pig) is the grandson of Ebrahim Golestan, the revered Iranian auteur also featured prominently in the festival. 

Subtraction centers on two couples (both played by Navid Mohammadzadeh and Taraneh Alidoosti, the latter being the star of Asghar Farhadi’s Fireworks Wednesday (2006), About Elly (2009), and The Salesman (2016), who was recently arrested at protest and let out on bail) who are each others’ doppelgängers. One of the couples is working class, the other affluent. The husband from the former and the wife from the latter conspire, with growing intimacy, to help the other man escape the consequences of a violent outburst at his white-collar job. 

Actor-writer-director Haghighi (who’s collaborated with Kiarostami and Farhadi) interprets concerns respective to Iranian cinema somewhat differently than his compatriots, often working in genre to do so. He was inspired to make Subtraction after he saw a picture of a man who looked just like him in a photography exhibition about the Iran-Iraq war. Less specifically, the film speaks to an almost otherworldly sensation of having to accept and live with something out of the ordinary—something that Iranians are more familiar with than most. 

Mohammadzadeh and Alidoosti also star together in Leila’s Brothers (2022), which was banned in Iran after it screened at the Cannes Film Festival without government permission. Alidoosti plays the titular Leila, who’s determined to see her four brothers (one of them played by Mohammadzadeh) lifted out of poverty. A small fortune squirreled away by their status-obsessed father becomes the center of their problems; Leila and her brothers aspire to open a shop with the money, while their father wants to give it to a wealthy family member in exchange for becoming patriarch of their clan. 

Without Her, like Subtraction, is another genre parable: Roya (Tannaz Tabatabaei), a well-to-do woman who’s soon to emigrate to Denmark with her husband, takes in the younger Ziba, who has no one or nowhere to turn to. Ziba soon begins assuming aspects of Roya’s life, with others appearing to believe that she’s actually the person Roya really is. Out of all of the films in the festival, this one possesses the near-maddening ambiguity that suffuses much Iranian cinema, as one feels Roya’s frustration when others in her life stop believing who she is. 

Annual Festival of Films from IranGene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 2/10-2/19General admission $13 per film, with discounts for Film Center members, students, youth, and SAIC students, staff, and facultysiskelfilmcenter.org/annual-festival-films-iran

Perhaps second in that regard would be Houman Seyyedi’s World War III (2022), Iran’s submission to this year’s Academy Awards in the Best International Feature category. Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh) is an aimless day laborer whose wife and child died in an earthquake years prior. He takes a job on a nearby shoot for a film set during the Holocaust and featuring Hitler as a main character. Against all odds, Shakib lands a role in the film—the starring role as the dictator, in fact. He boasts about his newfound success to a young, deaf-mute sex worker with whom he’s been in a long-standing (albeit transactional) relationship. Tensions escalate when she comes to stay with him on set, her vengeful pimp having followed her. I won’t disclose what happens next, but the questions it raises—as to what’s going on, who’s telling the truth, and the degree to which parallels between the movie in the film and Shakib’s dilemma are intentional—certainly account for a heightened level of ambiguity. 

Ebrahim Golestan was a leading figure in the initial, prerevolutionary Iranian New Wave, as well as a respected literary figure. His debut feature Brick and Mirror (1965) will screen at the festival, along with a program of his short films. Merging neorealist qualities with a visual sensibility that evokes German expressionism, the film follows a young taxi driver after a female passenger abandons her baby in his cab. What to do with the child becomes a source of concern and contention among his social circle, his girlfriend in particular aspiring to marry and keep the child as their own. 

Brick and Mirror offers a prescient glimpse of prerevolutionary Iran with all its seemingly modern zeal, beneath which festers troubles portending future conflict. It was the first Iranian film to use direct sound and is the first and only feature made under the auspices of the Golestan Film Workshop, which Golestan founded to produce his own films as well as Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad’s landmark documentary short, The House Is Black (1963), about a leper colony. Golestan’s short films Courtship (1961), A Fire (1961), The Hills of Marlik (1963), and The Crown Jewels of Iran (1965) compose the short films program, aptly titled “Radical Artistry.”

Mitra Farahani’s See You Friday, Robinson (2022) documents the unlikely correspondence between Golestan and Jean-Luc Godard, who died in September. (Meanwhile, Golestan turned 100 last year.) Though the two never met in person, they exchanged communications every Friday for several months in 2014. It was Farahani who brought the two filmmakers together, at least in an epistolary sense, and it’s the creation and detangling of their emails and letters that make up much of the film. 

Anyone familiar with Godard will recognize—and, like me, will be frustrated by—the obscure content of his messages. Golestan himself comments on it, though he persists in their exchange. The documentary footage of the filmmakers is both edifying and endearing; apparently Godard putters around his Swiss cottage wearing T-shirts and cargo shorts like any other homebody. It feels less like a film about two major figureheads of world cinema and more like a vade mecum for getting on in years and attempting finally to answer life’s lingering questions—or at least becoming content with realizing that might not happen. Even later in life these elder sages are much like young Amiro, eager to learn about what’s off in the distance. 

Read More

Roger Corman’s X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) opens on a giant eyeball, bloody, veined, enormous. You stare at it for what seems like forever, looking at it as it looks at you while Les Baxter’s eerie, dissonant score quivers and scrapes. Finally, the camera pulls back, and you can see that the eyeball is a specimen, floating in a jar, trailing viscera. It is an organ of observation reduced to an observed thing—and it’s difficult to see it without thinking about how you’re seeing it, with organs that will one day cease to see and only have the capacity to be seen. The thing sight reveals is the end of sight. The vision—of science, of the screen—opens on its own blindness. 

The limitations of human perception and human existence, and the longing to extend both, are at the center of the Block Museum’s latest exhibit, “The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto.” Corman’s X is part of a related film series, Science on Screen: Inner and Outer Space, to be screened with a talk by Catherine Belling, a professor of medical education at Northwestern.

Robleto has been working with Northwestern for the last five years or so as the first artist-at-large of the school of engineering. His work presents a “melancholy view of science,” according to Michael Metzger, curator of the Robleto exhibit and of the associated film series. Robleto, Metzger told me, is fascinated by how science allows us “to record traces of people and communities before death and the erasure of time and history.” 

The exhibit includes a series of lacquered brass-plated reconstructions of waveforms that show blood flow from the heart during various auditory experiences—listening to a tuning fork, for example, or to a melancholic melody. A triptych of images called Survival Does Not Lie in the Heavens shows what appear to be stars against a black background. In fact, they’re images of stage lights taken from the album covers of live performances by jazz, blues, and gospel musicians who are now deceased. 

In two almost hour-length films, The Aorta of an Archivist and The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed, Robleto covers a range of topics focused on science, humanity, and loss. He talks about stars that, in an expanding universe, emit light that can no longer reach us, about the oldest human voices ever recorded, and about other doomed but valiant scientific efforts to preserve the unpreservable. The work is immersed in a kind of anti-Buddhism, clinging determinedly to life’s vanishing traces.

Metzger hasn’t yet chosen the films in the series for spring, though he hopes to include a magic lantern performance and a collection of early medical silent films curated by scholar Patrick Friel. In addition to X, the other film showing in winter is First Man, the 2018 drama based on the Apollo program and Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon. University of Chicago historian of science Jordan Bimm will lecture at the screening.

First Man seemed like an appropriate choice, Metzger says, because it resonates with Robleto’s fascination with space exploration—Carl Sagan is mentioned several times in the exhibit. The movie is also about Armstrong’s grief at the loss of his daughter, which in part inspires his ambition and exploration. “It really speaks to the question of how we understand the lives of the people around us,” Metzger told me—a theme that is central to Robleto’s work.

To some extent, though, First Man can be seen as resisting or critiquing Robleto’s fascination with science as a universal human quest for persistence. The Apollo space mission was not a universal quest, but a nationalist endeavor, inseparable from the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. In the movie, Leon Bridges reprises Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon”—a song that indicts the U.S. for using space exploration as a distraction from inequities on Earth.

Robleto muses on the miraculous preservation of human song as a triumph of art and scientific advances. But First Man reminds us that some song, at least, is skeptical of scientific advances, and of a vision of progress that gestures toward universal humanity while leaving some humans behind.

X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes also speaks both to and against Robleto. The film is about Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland), a doctor who discovers a formula to allow him to see beyond the human visual spectrum. Metzger said he chose the movie because it “reflects not only our desire to see underneath the skin, or underneath the clothes of the people around us, but also to have our vision penetrate the farthest reaches of the universe.” Or as Xavier says early on in the film, “What could we really see if we had access to the other 90 percent [of the visual spectrum]? Sam, we are virtually blind, all of us.”

Science on Screen: Inner and Outer SpaceThrough 6/30, Block Cinema; X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) 2/10 7 PM, First Man (2018) 2/18 1 PM, spring screenings TBD; presented in conjunction with “The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto,” through 7/9, The Block Museum of Art, free

Robleto presents the desire to see further, to know more, to extend human perception, as a noble if doomed goal; he celebrates the science that tries to let us hold onto sight and sound just a little bit longer. X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes is (much) less starry-eyed. Xavier’s increasing powers of sight don’t give him greater insight into the human condition. Instead, his vaulting ambition turns him into an outcast, a murderer, a carnival attraction, and a card cheat. He’s so set on seeing the face of God he ceases to be able to recognize the face of the woman he loves. 

Science is a human thing, and so it reflects human dreams, human fears, and human hopes. Robleto’s art captures that. The films in the Science on Screen series, though, add that science reflects human prejudice and human egotism as well. To want to see more of the universe is natural and even beautiful. But it’s also a dream of power, which can leave you looking only at the dead, gaping eyeball of your own desire.

Read More