iStripper

StashDB Ministry of Truth
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As the person who added most of the scenes to StashDB, I wanted to create this explainer for the metadata.

iStripper (istripper.com) is a Paris-based studio that produces adult content (softcore, masturbation, and lesbian), under a company called Totem Entertainment. The studio was originally called VirtuaGirl and had offshoots called DeskBabes and VirtuaGuy. In January 2016 they rebranded as iStripper, including both VirtuaGirl and DeskBabes content, but continued to keep VirtuaGuy largely separate. See “Studio Codes” below for more on the different names.

The studio produces porn in various formats, some unique to them:

  • Desktop striptease animations, which are played as a screen overlay using the studio’s proprietary Windows or MacOS software. A show consists of about 10-30 clips totaling 30-45 minutes duration, all with the same outfit.
  • Photo galleries, typically about 50-60 photos, matching the card outfit.
  • “Bonus” mp4 videos, typically 1-5 minutes long.
  • Virtual reality videos.
  • “Dressing Room” videos: vertical videos shown as a desktop overlay on the desktop app.

Desktop shows and the accompanying photo galleries are purchased as “cards” and have a cover image that looks like a trading card. Typically a performer will visit the studio for 2 days and film 6 cards, each with a different outfit, over the course of 2 days, along with 1 or 2 bonus videos, a VR video, and a dressing room video. Each card has an individual webpage on the website. Some of the cards (maybe 1/4) are also released as phone-friendly videos on mobile.istripper.com and have separate webpages there.

Most of the iStripper scenes on StashDB are for the bonus videos or VR shows. Metadata details for each type below:

Virtual Reality Scenes

Let’s start with the easy one: iStripper releases the VR scenes through their channels on SexLikeReal and vrporn.com, so metadata can be obtained for these videos like for any other studio on these platforms. iStripper also distributes VR scenes through their own websites, but little metadata is provided: there are no release dates or descriptions, although it might be possible to obtain original release dates from the “vr-180” channel on the iStripper Discord server. (Not yet resolved if there should be separate entries for multiple releases of the same VR scene on different platforms; this would be most consistent with the principle of tracking releases rather than scenes, but would take a lot more work and possibly be confusing.)

Bonus Videos

These short videos are filmed alongside the desktop shows, typically showing the performers stripping, masturbating, showering, or being interviewed. Unlike with the photo galleries, they don’t come packaged with the desktop show when you buy a card. Instead you download them from each performer’s profile page. Still, they usually use the same clothes and props as the desktop shows, which means each bonus video can be matched to a specific card release. The metadata for the card is what gets added to StashDB.

Matching bonus videos to cards

This is the tricky part. Usually, the bonus video features an outfit from one of the cards with the same performer, and the file name also contains a studio code matching that card. That makes it easy to determine which card the video is for. But sometimes it is less straightforward. Here’s how I’ve handled these edge cases:

  1. Sometimes the outfit in the video and the studio code in the file name match different cards. In this case, map to the card with the matching outfit. The clothes should take priority over the studio code in the file name because each show is strongly associated with an outfit, and the artistic intent outweighs a labeling mistake on the file.
  2. If the performer is fully nude throughout the bonus video, or her clothes do not match any of her desktop striptease shows, map to the release with the matching studio code in the filename.
  3. If there are no clothes matching a card and no studio code in the file name, look for other indicators like hairstyle, makeup, or accessories matching the cards.
  4. If there are multiple card outfits shown in the bonus video (like some of the A series photoshoot videos), pick one of them, avoiding conflicts with the performer’s other bonus videos if possible.
  5. Occasionally, multiple bonus videos map unambiguously to the same card release, like if both videos have the same outfit, or both are fully nude and have the same studio code in the file name. In this case, make a submission for one of the videos and add the 2nd one as additional hashes after the scene is accepted, writing in the edit note that you will do this.

Studio Code

Each card has an alphanumeric code for a unique identifier, like e1234, which shows up in the scene webpage URL and (without the letter) on the card image. The first letter indicates the “collection” the show belongs to, which differ by time of release and softcore vs. sexually explicit:

A series: 2007-2014. Softcore striptease shows filmed in 720p or 1080p. Originally called “VirtuaGirl HD”.
B series: 2008-2011. An experiment with male performers called “VirtuaGuy HD”. This content is not visible in the software by default and has a separate website (gay.istripper.com), and is listed under a sub-studio on StashDB.
C series: 2010-2014. Shows featuring masturbation or lesbian sex filmed in 720p or 1080p. Originally called “DeskBabes”. Every show has the title “Solo” or “Duo”.
D series: Rereleased 2010-2013, originally filmed on videotape from 1998-2007 and released on early versions of the VirtuaGirl software. Now referred to as “VirtuaGirl Classic” in the app and video watermarks. Every show has the title “Classic”.
E series: 2014-present. Softcore striptease shows in higher resolution than A series, watermarked with “iStripper” since 2016.
F series: 2014-present. Shows featuring masturbation or lesbian sex in higher resolution than C series, watermarked with “iStripper XXX” since 2016.
G series: 2023-present. Require purchasing NFTs to play the desktop shows. Branded as “Dolz x iStripper” (Dolz is the corresponding NFT collection and cryptocurrency).

After a comment on this post, I thought about whether the old names should be sub-studios, but decided to do this only for VirtuaGuy, and make the other names aliases for iStripper. Splitting out former names for rebranded studios into sub-studios does not seem workable. See more discussion in comments.

Descriptions

Typically there are no text descriptions of each card, but there are exceptions that I’ve put in this field:

  • Around 2019 some shows had “Director’s Notes” with comments on the individual releases, which was visible in the desktop software and the scene webpages. As of writing, a recent website update removed the notes, but they are still shown in the desktop app under the performer bio.
  • For the lesbian shows, the performer bio field in the desktop app had descriptions specific to each model pair discussing the chemistry between them. These have been removed in newer versions of the app, instead showing performer bios for the individual performers, but most of these descriptions are preserved on StashDB.
  • Some of the solo C series shows were the only cards with a particular performer. In that case the performer bio could also be considered a scene description, especially if it referenced the filming of the scene.

Cover Image

The show’s card image should be used as the scene cover in StashDB. (Hopefully Stash will have better support for vertical cover images soon.) The highest resolution cover images for most E and F series cards are available at (replace ##### with the studio code):

https://www.istripper.com/free/sets/#####/illustrations/#####_card_fullMobile.jpg

If nothing is at that link, lower resolution images for all cards are at:

https://www.istripper.com/free/sets/#####/illustrations/#####.jpg

Release Date

Until recently, the scene webpages only had the year of release for older cards, and the full release date had to be manually copied from the desktop software. An April 2026 website overhaul restored these for all cards. However, as of writing these are all one day too early compared to the actual release date.

The bonus videos are typically available a few weeks before the matching cards are released. But since it’s hard to determine the exact date those videos dropped, the release date should be that of the card according to the desktop app.

Duration

Each scene webpage includes a duration that is the total length of the desktop animation clips. However, since the bonus videos are the only hashes that are likely to be submitted to StashDB, the duration on StashDB should be that of the bonus video.

Tags

Tags are included in the scene webpages and the desktop software, but since there is no community scraper, these need to be added manually. In any case, the tags on the website are specific to the desktop shows, and might not match the content of the bonus videos. Since the video itself is the main source of truth for the tags, I’ve been manually adding tags based on the bonus video content.

Director

Included with the Director’s Note if there is one, otherwise blank.

Production Date

Can sometimes be determined from announcements on iStripper’s discord server or on their web forum.

Other edge cases

NFT shows (G series)

At some point, the studio got in on the crypto craze, and started releasing cards as NFTs. You have to buy the NFT with a cryptocurrency called Dolz in order to play the desktop shows. Sometimes the bonus videos have the outfits from these cards (you don’t have to buy the NFT to download the bonus video). In this case, the cover image should be the “Legendary” version of the card image, available from dolz.io/nft. Release dates are announced in advance there, or can be obtained from the iStripper Discord server.

Classic shows (D series)

These old shows do not have unique webpages on the studio’s website, and have been inaccessible in some recent versions of the software. But the card images are still hosted on the website (see link above) and a fan-created site, isworkshop.eu, hosts metadata for these cards mirrored from the desktop software. 480p bonus videos matching some of these shows can be obtained, more easily if the performer later performed in more recent shows. Uniquely, these cards contain clips and photo galleries with multiple different outfits.

Dressing room videos

These are a new feature and cannot currently be downloaded, only played as a video overlay in the desktop software. They also don’t have scene-specific webpages. They could potentially be added to StashDB if that changes.

Desktop shows as entries on StashDB

Since there is no easy way to play these videos in Stash, it’s unlikely that hashes for them will be submitted to StashDB. But it can happen, for example if someone uploads a screen recording to a tube site. These entries should be allowable if the user documents where the hash came from.

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Really glad to see this explainer – as someone who owns iStripper content and has contributed a handful of edits for the studio, I’ve quietly wanted something like this to exist.

The matching priority rules for bonus videos are particularly useful. The outfit-over-studio-code hierarchy is a defensible call and I’d be curious whether others who’ve worked with this content agree – if so, that’s worth enshrining more formally.

One question the post prompted: iStripper has gone through several names – VirtuaGirl, DeskBabes, VirtuaGirl Classic – and StashDB currently only lists iStripper as a studio. Should the historical names be sub-studios, or is the current name canonical for all content regardless of era? I don’t have a strong opinion, but I’d love to see a documented answer somewhere, ideally as a StashDB-wide principle on studio renaming rather than an iStripper-specific call, but I’ll take what I can get.

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Thanks! I think sub-studios are only useful when there’s specific content associated with them, otherwise it might just be confusing to have the empty studios for former names. Ideally we want to capture metadata as of the time of release; like we could create sub-studios for “VirtuaGirl” (A and D cards) and “DeskBabes” (C cards) and change all the studio names for those scenes, or have “iStripper”, “VirtuaGirl”, “DeskBabes”, “VirtuaGuy” all as sub-studios of the parent company, Totem Entertainment. But this might be more confusing than it’s worth since it’s not what new users will see from the studio.

At one point I remember VirtuaGirl and DeskBabes coexisted, with DeskBabes having the more sexually explicit content. They might even have used separate desktop apps. But then they were merged under the new iStripper name.

Also I believe they changed the card image format for the A and C cards at some point, because there’s an alternate set of card images available from the isworkshop site. But since everything was changed retroactively, it’s hard to prove what the original metadata was.

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Another option would be to add these old names as aliases for the studio. I don’t see anything in the guidelines about when an old studio name should a sub-studio vs. an alias.

As far as making substudios and assigning old scenes to them, I can see pluses and minuses:

Pros:

  • Stay true to the StashDB principle of preserving original metadata at the time of release. “iStripper” wasn’t a thing when a lot of these scenes were produced.
  • Older bonus videos have watermarks matching the older names, e.g. the A videos say “VirtuaGirl HD” or later “VirtuaGirl”, the C videos all say “DeskBabes”, and the D cards all say “VirtuaGirl Classic”. Having the studio name match the watermarks might seem more intuitive to users.
  • The separate studios would make it easier to filter by these different collections in Stash and the StashDB UI.

Cons:

  • Would require editing at least 700 existing scenes, a lot of editor and reviewer labor, especially considering most pre-2014 scenes aren’t very popular, measured by fingerprint submissions.
  • It is already possible to browse the individual collections in Stash by filtering by studio code containing the letter.
  • The exact changeover to “iStripper” doesn’t line up neatly with the studio codes, looks like the watermarks were changed in early 2016 after a lot of “e” and “f” scenes were already released still under the “VirtuaGirl” and “DeskBabes” names. Figuring out the correct studio around this time period would be tricky.
  • Might be confusing to have the studio name not match the current website and software where the content is acquired.

If the community thinks the case for reassigning old scenes to sub-studios matching their original names is strong, we can go ahead with that. Otherwise I can make an edit adding the old names as aliases.

(Also, could reassigning studios based on the studio code possibly be automated as a bot edit?)

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Another example on studio rebrands and sub-studios: in 2017 ShemaleYum rebranded as Grooby Girls (source) to stop using a term some consider offensive. Both studios have entries on StashDB (Shemale Yum, Grooby Girls), as sub-studios of the parent Grooby. But there are only 5 scenes under ShemaleYum, versus hundreds of scenes from that era under Grooby Girls, even though they clearly have watermarks saying ShemaleYum. Similar story for tgirls.xxx and its former name, shemale.xxx: the old name only has 7 scenes on StashDB.

This suggests that in general, it would be hard to get people to abide by a rule that for rebranded studios, the old scenes should be listed under the studio’s original name (even if it could work for iStripper since no one else is submitting old scenes besides me). Aliases would be much easier to implement.

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The ShemaleYum/Grooby Girls example is pretty compelling – if sub-studios for rebranded names don’t get used consistently even when they exist, aliases seem like the pragmatic answer.

The replies here have done most of the analytical work for a guideline on studio rebranding. It might be worth folding those conclusions back into the top post so the reasoning is captured alongside the recommendation.

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Edited: updated info on former names, aliases and substudios, as well as another platform where they distribute VR content.