Canada – from www.winnipegfreepress.com – Kate Winiarz is young, university educated — and the brains behind what she calls her “not-for-profit nudie site.”

Winiarz, 25, officially launched Cherrystems.com in January, following a couple of false starts after coming up with the idea while in school in 2006.

Though the site has yet to turn a profit, Winiarz says when she starts to generate enough money, it will go into local sex-education programs in the city.

“We’re looking at shelters, organizations that offer sexual-health counselling, pro-choice organizations, all stuff that we’re really behind, to donate to,” said Winiarz. “People who are in the sex industry need more resources available to them. It can be a dangerous and kind of muddy field to be in and a lot of people don’t know much about it, so to keep people informed is our goal.”

Winiarz and her boyfriend manage Cherrystems, and are helped by a volunteer crew of four photographers and a growing list of more than a dozen models.

Fashioned after other soft-core nude photography websites like Suicide Girls, Cherrystems shies away from the full-breasted, Botox-injected models usually synonymous with the porn industry.

“I thought there was a little bit of a niche that needed filling, a place where people could fit no matter what,” Winiarz said.

“Whether they had tattoos and piercings, or coloured hair, to be representative of whatever’s out on the street.

“It definitely operates on a less-is-more philosophy. People aren’t showing everything right off the bat, you know? They’re coming forward with more of their personality through the photos and also ‘Hey, nudity! It’s also here,’ ” she said.

It’s a philosophy the website’s models embrace.

“What Kate is doing is definitely more noteworthy and more acceptable than something like Hustler,” said Holly, a 26-year-old model who didn’t want her last name used.

“The site has given me the opportunity to explore the genre in a respectable fashion that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do otherwise. There are lines and divisions of respect: If a model is not comfortable being without panties, she doesn’t have to take them off. If a girl doesn’t want to spreadeagle, she doesn’t have to.”

“Porn isn’t always about sex,” added Andrea Dietrich, 27, who’s done five shoots for the website. “I wouldn’t even classify some of my sets as porn. It’s sensuality, sexuality and expressing the female form. It’s not taboo or something to shy away from. It’s not something dirty and nasty and something you hide in the closet anymore.

“It’s definitely built up my self-confidence and I’ve been a lot more comfortable with my body,” she said.

Right now, the site is funded by about 100 paying subscribers, most from Winnipeg, though there some subscribers across Canada and even in the U.S. However, Winiarz says, her experience running her site so far has been an illuminating education about the porn industry.

“A lot of people think there’s a lot more money in (porn) than there is. There almost isn’t,” Winiarz said. “The sex industry is very much misunderstood. A lot of women who get into it, and men who get into it, are judged really harshly, seen as sluts and morally inferior and doing it because we’re addicted to cocaine and all of that.

“I’ve never done cocaine and I have no desire to,” she laughed. “We’re trying to put out there that we’re normal people. I live with my boyfriend in a monogamous relationship and no, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s relationship.

“I’m hoping that we can kind of break that stereotype to say ‘No we’re not all greedy, money grubbing, filthy pornographer types. Some people actually want to do this because they’re passionate about it.'”