Webcam Performers Resisting Social Harms: “You're on the Web Masturbating… It's Just about Minimising the Footprint”

Abstract

This article will bring together Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of Smooth Space and zemiological debates of social harms to respond to the question set by Jane Scoular (2015): does the law matter in sex work? The regulation and policing of performers by hosting sites allow sites to avoid state-level legislation. However, site regulations cause performers to experience harm that traditional concepts of the law cannot address because the law is powerless against the intrinsic injuries done by neo-liberalism. The damages experienced by female performers were not generally criminal but nonetheless harmful to those experiencing them, even though generally no laws were transgressed. When performers did experience crime, the non-territorial nature of the internet prevented action from being taken. This article will explore the irrelevance of the law in the context of webcamming and the potential harms caused by academia’s fixed gaze on the customer, preventing consideration of the damages done to webcam performers by other social actors.

Navigating and resisting platform affordances: Online sex work as digital labor

“…Like algorithms more generally, studies show how such affordances uphold white supremacy, which (inadvertently) tends to reinforce white heteropatriarchal beauty standards (Glatt, 2022; Jones, 2015). Research has paid attention to how capitalist companies, such as adult platforms, are shaping and benefitting from some sex workers' move online (Stuart, 2022, p.189). They have a vested interest in maximizing their profits, and their technological designs reflect this, not the needs of workers.…”

Winner-Take-All? Visibility, Availability, and Heterogeneity on Webcam Sex Platforms

“…Sex work is no exception to the larger trend of platformization. Webcamming, a popular type of sex work (Sanders et al, (Jones, 2020;Nayar, 2017;Stuart, 2022). However, ranking systems can vary significantly, calling for studies that compare them across multiple platforms.…”

“…Therefore, their presence on the platform needs to be taken into account. Finally, existing research on webcamming often focuses on a single platform (Hernández, 2019; Jones, 2015; van Doorn & Velthuis, 2018; Velthuis & van Doorn, 2020), a specific geographic location (Caminhas, 2022; Mathews, 2017; Vlase & Preoteasa, 2021), or the overall experience of camming (Jones, 2020; Nayar, 2017; Stuart, 2022). However, ranking systems can vary significantly, calling for studies that compare them across multiple platforms.…”