Academic Research

[rachel]

Hi I am a female academic who is interested in how women performers experience webcamming as a form of sexual commerce and labour. Despite this being a hugely profitable market there has been very little academic literature about this type of sex work. I wish to conduct a series of semi structured qualitative interviews with women who are either currently engaged in webcamming or have performed via webcam in the past. This research is in order to explore their experiences of this type of sex work and will go some way to filling the gap in the academic knowledge about webcamming .While at the same time building on existing academic literature about sex work, which to date has neglected online forms of sex work.

Advantages of the project are that you get to talk about your experiences of working online , there is of course your time I am taking up, but I hope that you are keen to support the gathering of data on this important topic. I will reimburse your time with an electronic book token worth £20. I will use your anonymised information to inform my PhD and future academic publishing, you can of course withdraw consent for your interview data to be used in my work at any time.

Feel free to contact me on rs643@kent.ac.uk in order to verify my authenticity

 

[RebelleHart]

1. How did you hear about ACF?

2. What is your academic background?

3. Why are you interested in us?

4.Have you cammed yourself or worked in any kind of sex work?

5. What kinds of questions will be asked in the interviews?

6. Who is funding the research? (This is the biggest thing I learned in university - find out where the money comes from)

7. How much personal information will be required?

8. Do you only accept UK models?

9. Why are you only interviewing female models?

10. What research have you conducted prior to the interviews?

11. Are you the sole author/who will have access to our information before we become anonymous in the paper itself?

Basically, I think we need more to go on here.

 

[rachel]

1. How did you hear about ACF?

2. What is your academic background?

3. Why are you interested in us?

4.Have you cammed yourself or worked in any kind of sex work?

5. What kinds of questions will be asked in the interviews?

6. Who is funding the research? (This is the biggest thing I learned in university - find out where the money comes from)

7. How much personal information will be required?

8. Do you only accept UK models?

9. Why are you only interviewing female models?

10. What research have you conducted prior to the interviews?

11. Are you the sole author/who will have access to our information before we become anonymous in the paper itself?

Basically, I think we need more to go on here.

Thank you for getting back to me, i really appreciate the questions you have asked me and will answer them in order

1) I knew about ACF because i have worked in the sex industry periodically throughout my life. As an escort in my teens and twenties, webcamming for a period in my thirties and more recently phone chat. I have pretty well retired from sex work now but do occasionally do phone chat and IM when needs must. Student life as a single parent is dear!!!

2) My academic career: I have First Class Honors Degree in Criminology and Cultural Studies. An LLM (Law Masters) in Criminal Justice and Human Rights and the PhD I am studying is a Criminology PhD. The title of which is, "The discourses that pertain to webcamming as a form of sexual commerce; How those discourses differ from those that pertain to other forms of sex work; How webcamming as a form of sexual commerce is experienced by female performers".

3) The reason I chose to pursue this line of inquiry for my PhD was because in the UK in 2014 it became illegal to upload certain types of pornography. The rationale being that kids with direct debit cards could access this stuff, I was struck (and very pleased!) that there was no mention of webcamming. It would have been the perfect opportunity to legislate against it. I did some research and came up with several explanations of why this was the case. The first was money, it is very hard to pinpoint how much money is generated by webcamming as no one is really studying it but to give you an example Gyorgi Gattyan, the founder of Livejasmin.com, the most popular webhosting site is Hungary's richest man as well as being very corporate (The Economist 2015). The second reason was that webcam performers challenge the idea that all women involved in sex work are victims in need of rescue, that webcamming empowers women to define their own identities because the webcam performer is able to maintain control of their representation and set the terms and conditions of viewing. This isn’t to say that there aren’t abuses, I believe there are but I think webcamming allows women who wouldn’t normally participate in sex work to do just that. It’s their stories of how they experience webcamming that is the central focus of my research, I have interviewed 7 women so far and their data is fascinating. I think this research is important because if women don’t tell their own stories about how they experience sex work then others do it for them. You only have to look at how prostitution has become conflated with trafficking to see how damaging that can be.

4) As mentioned I am a working girl to the core! As an escort in my teens and twenties, webcamming for a period in my thirties and more recently phone chat. I have pretty well retired from sex work now but do occasionally do phone chat and IM when needs must. I have also worked in flats, massage parlours,I have dommed and worked for madams. I have pretty well covered the field!

5) I am interested in how women came into camming, how they experience it as a form of labour, have they experienced stigma as a result of the work that they perform. Im not interested in what you perform so much as your experience of working in a form of sexual commerce that hasn't been regulated against .

6) My research is funded by the alumni of my university. I am lucky because this is a prestigious scholarship that means I don't have to teach. They pay me a monthly stipend for three years in order to complete my research. Its basically a low paid job.

7)I have had to go through vigorous ethical clearing to be able to be allowed to do this research by my university and I have agreed that I will not ask participants for any personal identifying information such as name or address. All interview participants will be assigned aliases. I will initially address them by the name of the avatar that they advertise themselves under. To give added protection to their professional identity I will anonymise their online profile. Once the interviews have been transcribed I will anonymize the data by attaching all interview data to respondents’ aliases. All digital files will be stored on my password protected computer, and on a portable storage device that will be stored in a locked drawer. The emails giving informed consent will be immediately cleaned of identifying information after printing off one ‘hard copy’ for back up the message will be put into a computerised folder system that will be password protected. Hard copies will be kept in binders in a locked cabinet. The email will then be deleted (and re-deleted from the delete file) as soon as response is sent or received. The information that you supply will remain anonymous at all times and will only be accessible to myself and my two doctoral supervisors.

8) I am interested in interviewing anyone who lives in a country where camming is legal, so that includes pretty well everywhere except The Philippines . As long as they can speak sufficient English for me to interview them , as I am such a Luddite I only speak English.

9) I am only interested in women as I believe to spread my research too thin would be to do it a disservice. Also I believe that women have been disproportionately affected by the discourses that radical feminism have imposed on women who work in the sex industry. That all sex work is a form of abuse and that all women who sell sexual services of any kind must therefore be victims. I am opposed to this view, of course their are people working in the sex industry that have been abused and coerced but i think that they make up a small minority of sex workers. Webcamming technology has, i believe, created a considerable paradigm shift in the power relations that have traditionally existed within the adult entertainment industry. Providing them with an opportunity to redistribute the wealth from the profits of the traditionally male dominated pornography industry into their own pockets and i suspect allowing women who wouldn't normally consider sex work to profit from it. Basically i want to challenge the notion that all sex workers are victims and its webcammers who i believe best represent this. Webcam performers because of their cleverly orchestrated use of social media are perhaps inadvertently challenging radical feminist’s contrived "victim" in need of rescue. They assert their own narrative in a way that is seldom implemented by other types of sex workers, a shrewd business woman who may have a fan base that runs into the thousands because of her clever use of social media is difficult to tally with the notion of victim. That isn't to say there isn't victimization of performers, I believe the web hosting sites can be very exploitative and there is already in my research evidence of third party exploitation but its these positives and negatives of a mediated form of post industrial sex work that I am hoping to explore with my interviews

10) I did my masters dissertation about the lack of regulation around webcamming. I have spent the first year of my PhD (I have just started my second year) exploring the webcamming industry, the lack of feminist discourse around webcamming both radical and liberal. I have also done a small pilot study to test my questions.

11) I am the sole author of my work. You will be anonymised right from the start because i will never ask you for any identifying information.
The information that you supply will remain anonymous at all times and will only be accessible to myself and my two doctoral supervisors. If you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact either myself on rs643@kent.ac.uk or either of my supervisors https://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/e-i/hubbard-phil.html or https://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/c-d/duggan-marian.html . If you would like to confirm my identity further, please feel free to do so. My profile can be found either here https://www.kent.ac.uk/giving/opportunityfund/scholarships/rachel.html or https://kent.academia.edu/rachelstuart .




I hope this answers your questions and once again thank you for taking the time out to ask them. On a personal level I think its important that women involved in selling sexual services should be able to put forward their own narratives and in doing so i believe we will redress the unbalanced view of all sex work as being a site of abuse and victimisation


Look forward to hearing from you (nervously optimistic)

Rachel x

 

[RebelleHart]

Thank you for getting back to me, i really appreciate the questions you have asked me and will answer them in order

1) I knew about ACF because i have worked in the sex industry periodically throughout my life. As an escort in my teens and twenties, webcamming for a period in my thirties and more recently phone chat. I have pretty well retired from sex work now but do occasionally do phone chat and IM when needs must. Student life as a single parent is dear!!!

2) My academic career: I have First Class Honors Degree in Criminology and Cultural Studies. An LLM (Law Masters) in Criminal Justice and Human Rights and the PhD I am studying is a Criminology PhD. The title of which is, "The discourses that pertain to webcamming as a form of sexual commerce; How those discourses differ from those that pertain to other forms of sex work; How webcamming as a form of sexual commerce is experienced by female performers".

3) The reason I chose to pursue this line of inquiry for my PhD was because in the UK in 2014 it became illegal to upload certain types of pornography. The rationale being that kids with direct debit cards could access this stuff, I was struck (and very pleased!) that there was no mention of webcamming. It would have been the perfect opportunity to legislate against it. I did some research and came up with several explanations of why this was the case. The first was money, it is very hard to pinpoint how much money is generated by webcamming as no one is really studying it but to give you an example Gyorgi Gattyan, the founder of Livejasmin.com, the most popular webhosting site is Hungary's richest man as well as being very corporate (The Economist 2015). The second reason was that webcam performers challenge the idea that all women involved in sex work are victims in need of rescue, that webcamming empowers women to define their own identities because the webcam performer is able to maintain control of their representation and set the terms and conditions of viewing. This isn’t to say that there aren’t abuses, I believe there are but I think webcamming allows women who wouldn’t normally participate in sex work to do just that. It’s their stories of how they experience webcamming that is the central focus of my research, I have interviewed 7 women so far and their data is fascinating. I think this research is important because if women don’t tell their own stories about how they experience sex work then others do it for them. You only have to look at how prostitution has become conflated with trafficking to see how damaging that can be.

4) As mentioned I am a working girl to the core! As an escort in my teens and twenties, webcamming for a period in my thirties and more recently phone chat. I have pretty well retired from sex work now but do occasionally do phone chat and IM when needs must. I have also worked in flats, massage parlours,I have dommed and worked for madams. I have pretty well covered the field!

5) I am interested in how women came into camming, how they experience it as a form of labour, have they experienced stigma as a result of the work that they perform. Im not interested in what you perform so much as your experience of working in a form of sexual commerce that hasn't been regulated against .

6) My research is funded by the alumni of my university. I am lucky because this is a prestigious scholarship that means I don't have to teach. They pay me a monthly stipend for three years in order to complete my research. Its basically a low paid job.

7)I have had to go through vigorous ethical clearing to be able to be allowed to do this research by my university and I have agreed that I will not ask participants for any personal identifying information such as name or address. All interview participants will be assigned aliases. I will initially address them by the name of the avatar that they advertise themselves under. To give added protection to their professional identity I will anonymise their online profile. Once the interviews have been transcribed I will anonymize the data by attaching all interview data to respondents’ aliases. All digital files will be stored on my password protected computer, and on a portable storage device that will be stored in a locked drawer. The emails giving informed consent will be immediately cleaned of identifying information after printing off one ‘hard copy’ for back up the message will be put into a computerised folder system that will be password protected. Hard copies will be kept in binders in a locked cabinet. The email will then be deleted (and re-deleted from the delete file) as soon as response is sent or received. The information that you supply will remain anonymous at all times and will only be accessible to myself and my two doctoral supervisors.

8) I am interested in interviewing anyone who lives in a country where camming is legal, so that includes pretty well everywhere except The Philippines . As long as they can speak sufficient English for me to interview them , as I am such a Luddite I only speak English.

9) I am only interested in women as I believe to spread my research too thin would be to do it a disservice. Also I believe that women have been disproportionately affected by the discourses that radical feminism have imposed on women who work in the sex industry. That all sex work is a form of abuse and that all women who sell sexual services of any kind must therefore be victims. I am opposed to this view, of course their are people working in the sex industry that have been abused and coerced but i think that they make up a small minority of sex workers. Webcamming technology has, i believe, created a considerable paradigm shift in the power relations that have traditionally existed within the adult entertainment industry. Providing them with an opportunity to redistribute the wealth from the profits of the traditionally male dominated pornography industry into their own pockets and i suspect allowing women who wouldn't normally consider sex work to profit from it. Basically i want to challenge the notion that all sex workers are victims and its webcammers who i believe best represent this. Webcam performers because of their cleverly orchestrated use of social media are perhaps inadvertently challenging radical feminist’s contrived "victim" in need of rescue. They assert their own narrative in a way that is seldom implemented by other types of sex workers, a shrewd business woman who may have a fan base that runs into the thousands because of her clever use of social media is difficult to tally with the notion of victim. That isn't to say there isn't victimization of performers, I believe the web hosting sites can be very exploitative and there is already in my research evidence of third party exploitation but its these positives and negatives of a mediated form of post industrial sex work that I am hoping to explore with my interviews

10) I did my masters dissertation about the lack of regulation around webcamming. I have spent the first year of my PhD (I have just started my second year) exploring the webcamming industry, the lack of feminist discourse around webcamming both radical and liberal. I have also done a small pilot study to test my questions.

11) I am the sole author of my work. You will be anonymised right from the start because i will never ask you for any identifying information.
The information that you supply will remain anonymous at all times and will only be accessible to myself and my two doctoral supervisors. If you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact either myself on rs643@kent.ac.uk or either of my supervisors https://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/e-i/hubbard-phil.html or https://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/c-d/duggan-marian.html . If you would like to confirm my identity further, please feel free to do so. My profile can be found either here https://www.kent.ac.uk/giving/opportunityfund/scholarships/rachel.html or https://kent.academia.edu/rachelstuart .




I hope this answers your questions and once again thank you for taking the time out to ask them. On a personal level I think its important that women involved in selling sexual services should be able to put forward their own narratives and in doing so i believe we will redress the unbalanced view of all sex work as being a site of abuse and victimisation


Look forward to hearing from you (nervously optimistic)

Rachel x

Thank you for taking the time to respond so indepthly. I find it very brave and interesting that you are so open about both your personal identity and your history of sex work yet you seem to very much understand our need for privacy.

I will contact you, Rachel, via e-mail as I am interested in contributing and I will report back here once my interview is done to tell all you guys how it goes

 

[rachel]

Thank you for taking the time to respond so indepthly. I find it very brave and interesting that you are so open about both your personal identity and your history of sex work yet you seem to very much understand our need for privacy.

I will contact you, Rachel, via e-mail as I am interested in contributing and I will report back here once my interview is done to tell all you guys how it goes

No problem babe, its funny but studying for a PhD has balanced out the stigma of being a sex worker, wasn't always as open but I get that others cant be or chose not to be

 

[SandyPanz]

Feel free to contact me on rs643@kent.ac.uk in order to verify my authenticity

How will you verify the authenticity of your interviewees?

 

[rachel]

How will you verify the authenticity of your interviewees?

Same way i did with you Sandy. I will go and look for you online after you contact me. Did you have a look at my dissertation yet?

 

[AnneDVille]

My question is a lot more practical: Where can these book tokens be spent?

I need to buy books, you're offering book vouchers. I'm in.

(in all seriousness, I shall e-mail you).

 

[Mila_]

I am in but I don't know how you would go about verifying my identity since I have no social media at all and I would prefer if you didn't bring this up in my chatroom. Hopefully the ACF "verified model" status will suffice, as Amber herself verified each one of us.

 

[rachel]

My question is a lot more practical: Where can these book tokens be spent?

I need to buy books, you're offering book vouchers. I'm in.

(in all seriousness, I shall e-mail you).

They are Amazon book tokens. so hopefully you will find what you need there!!! Email me and we can arrange a time and I can send you the consent form

 

[rachel]

I am in but I don't know how you would go about verifying my identity since I have no social media at all and I would prefer if you didn't bring this up in my chatroom. Hopefully the ACF "verified model" status will suffice, as Amber herself verified each one of us.[/QUOTE
That's fine I can see you are verified from here. Email me and we can arrange a time and I can send out your consent form

 

[ThePrincessLuxy]

I participated in an interview for my uni not long ago! Hers was on almost the same thing. My only hesitation with participating again in your research is that I don't want this little cam secret to get out. The more it becomes exposed for all its empowerment and goodness the more saturated the working side becomes. That means more competition for me to make my dollar.

I do wish you the best of luck though! I love seeing educated SWers. FYI the lady I helped killed her presentation and passed. She has her phD now You will rock it.

 

[rachel]

Same way i did with you Sandy. I will go and look for you online after you contact me. Did you have a look at my dissertation yet?

I am in but I don't know how you would go about verifying my identity since I have no social media at all and I would prefer if you didn't bring this up in my chatroom. Hopefully the ACF "verified model" status will suffice, as Amber herself verified each one of us.

I wouldn't dream of interrupting your work environment at all , I really hope that I have managed to communicate my respect and empathy for other SWs. I can see that you are verified and I know that Amber is rigorous about verification and that's all I need. Until I posted on here I had been recruiting via twitter, messaging directly via Adultwork private message and among friends who I know webcam, so verification wasn't an issue but I just goes to show that everyone has something to teach us and I am really grateful to you and Sandy for raising this really important point. The only defence I have for my previous remark to Sandy is that as I type its 7.35 am and when I replied to Sandy it was way way past my bed time so I don't think my brain was firing on all cylinders . Its interesting that no one on the ethics committee that I had to present my research proposal to picked up on this at all. As ever I am overwhelmed by the generosity and insight of you ladies and thank you very much for raising this.

Incidentally Sandy raised the point of seeing my dissertation , I have uploaded it to my Academia.edu account , please feel free to have a look. https://www.academia.edu/28971041/Silence_of_the_Cams

 

[rachel]

I participated in an interview for my uni not long ago! Hers was on almost the same thing. My only hesitation with participating again in your research is that I don't want this little cam secret to get out. The more it becomes exposed for all its empowerment and goodness the more saturated the working side becomes. That means more competition for me to make my dollar.

I do wish you the best of luck though! I love seeing educated SWers. FYI the lady I helped killed her presentation and passed. She has her phD now You will rock it.

Its funny that you raise this point about not letting the cat out of the bag. Because I have encountered this before and I think its interesting that people feel that way about camming . I think that the fact that Gyorgi Gattyan, the founder of Livejasmin.com, the most popular webhosting site is Hungary's richest man as well as being very corporate (The Economist 2015) means that the cat is not only out the bag but its had kittens too!!!!!! But the feeling you express is significant and it just makes me want to interview you even more lol. I would love to think that my research would reach such a wide audience that people joined our gang but I have to be realistic and assume that this is academic publishing and that it wont be widely read. I am hoping though that should radical feminism decide that webcam performers are victims in need of rescue that good and thorough research will keep them at bay. I wonder if the feeling of webcamming being a clandestine activity because its performed often in the privacy of homes and bedrooms??I wonder if women in studios feel the same?? Stop it!!!!!I can feel another PhD coming on.................Thank you for the point you have raised ,Rachel x

 

[SandyPanz]

Same way i did with you Sandy. I will go and look for you online after you contact me. Did you have a look at my dissertation yet?

Not yet...I'm hung up on the part where academia dot edu demands access to my email contacts...

 

[RebelleHart]

Not yet...I'm hung up on the part where academia dot edu demands access to my email contacts...

That confused me too when I first looked at it. You only need to give your e-mail if you want to download it. You can just keep scrolling down the page to see it all online without having to give your e-mail

 

[rachel]

That confused me too when I first looked at it. You only need to give your e-mail if you want to download it. You can just keep scrolling down the page to see it all online without having to give your e-mail

Be interested to hear what you thought of it!!!! I had to put it somewhere where you could read it but where it couldn't be plagiarized. Thank you for all your responses and help. You have no idea how grateful i am xxx

 

[Sevrin]

Since this is a criminology dissertation, I'm curious as to why camming would be of particular interest to the law enforcement/administration community.

 

[rachel]

Since this is a criminology dissertation, I'm curious as to why camming would be of particular interest to the law enforcement/administration community.

Since this is a criminology dissertation, I'm curious as to why camming would be of particular interest to the law enforcement/administration community.

The type of criminology that i specialize in is more NWA than CSI. Criminology in the UK is markedly different than that in the USA, I am in no way connected with either law enforcement or administration. I am interested in how women experience webcamming as a form of sexual commerce that has not seen the usual discourses around victimization and the consequent legislation that accompanies that type of discourse. My research and own personal experience is that its an economic option that women take who wouldn't usually consider participating in sex work and that in a post industrial , neo-liberal economic era it represents a main streaming of sexual commerce, that the women who participate in experience in many different ways. I am in no way interested in seeing the legislation of webcamming and more interested in how the women involved find it as a form of labour

 

[Mila_]

I was going to participate but I don't like the introduction to your dissertation so I think I will skip this. In case you want to know why... there are many problems with it.



The full title of your dissertation is "Silence of the cams: lack of discourse means a lack of regulation". It looks like the main reason you think talking about camming in an intellectual level is needed is because that way we can add more regulation to it.

I am not a fan of regulation and I like my job the way it is: freeform and wild. More regulation towards me, my clients, or my platforms means it will be less easy for me to work. I also really dislike this type of over the shoulder intellectualism where it looks like everything needs to be dissected and analyzed with verbiage. I never had a problem that was solved by adding more words to it. So I would rather not be a part of your study.

Then it is the issue of you seeing camwork as "the merge of pornography and prostitution". While I do not have a problem with either pornography or prostitution, your description is simply off. This has nothing to do with prostitution because we only work with our image, there is never physical contact with a consumer. Even if the camgirl does private shows and a client pays for a 1 on 1 show, this would be closer to a peep show if there is masturbation involved, or a strict no-contact strip club private dance. Prostitution and camming are both sex work but they don't have much to do with one another.



The camming industry is incredibly diverse. Unless you want to single out a type of model you will have a very hard time describing it in those terms. Just to give you an example: there are non-nude models who don't do anything sexual and members tip them to play games of poker. There are girls who are sexy but don't do any nudity or private shows. People tip them for things like playing the piano, dancing or singing. There are models who do back to back masturbation shows in public chat in exchange for tips but never engage in any sort of 1 on 1 shows. There are models who have a very close intimate relationship with their regulars and spend most days texting them, sending pics, etc, so they build romantic platonic relationships with them. There are models who only do privates and show nothing in public chat, everything they earned is from time spent in paid chat. So we don't all fit the same little box.



Then you seem to be contrasting two feminist discourses around porn/prostitution. One of them is "sex work is intrinsically abusive to women" the other one is "sex work is a choice for women who have little options". Guess what? I have all the options in the world. I am a successful journalist, I come from a wealthy family, I could do whatever I want. But I hate working for other people, office settings, the 9 to 5 mindset, or owing my success to others. I cammed the first time for the fun of it, and fell in love with it.

As a camgirl I am incredibly successful. Camming lets me travel the world and live a lifestyle that people can only dream of. I have all the options in the world, and I choose this one because it is the one that makes me happy.

 

[rachel]

I was going to participate but I don't like the introduction to your dissertation so I think I will skip this. In case you want to know why... there are many problems with it.

View attachment 66055

The full title of your dissertation is "Silence of the cams: lack of discourse means a lack of regulation". It looks like the main reason you think talking about camming in an intellectual level is needed is because that way we can add more regulation to it.

I am not a fan of regulation and I like my job the way it is: freeform and wild. More regulation towards me, my clients, or my platforms means it will be less easy for me to work. I also really dislike this type of over the shoulder intellectualism where it looks like everything needs to be dissected and analyzed with verbiage. I never had a problem that was solved by adding more words to it. So I would rather not be a part of your study.

Then it is the issue of you seeing camwork as "the merge of pornography and prostitution". While I do not have a problem with either pornography or prostitution, your description is simply off. This has nothing to do with prostitution because we only work with our image, there is never physical contact with a consumer. Even if the camgirl does private shows and a client pays for a 1 on 1 show, this would be closer to a peep show if there is masturbation involved, or a strict no-contact strip club private dance. Prostitution and camming are both sex work but they don't have much to do with one another.

View attachment 66056

The camming industry is incredibly diverse. Unless you want to single out a type of model you will have a very hard time describing it in those terms. Just to give you an example: there are non-nude models who don't do anything sexual and members tip them to play games of poker. There are girls who are sexy but don't do any nudity or private shows. People tip them for things like playing the piano, dancing or singing. There are models who do back to back masturbation shows in public chat in exchange for tips but never engage in any sort of 1 on 1 shows. There are models who have a very close intimate relationship with their regulars and spend most days texting them, sending pics, etc, so they build romantic platonic relationships with them. There are models who only do privates and show nothing in public chat, everything they earned is from time spent in paid chat. So we don't all fit the same little box.

View attachment 66057

Then you seem to be contrasting two feminist discourses around porn/prostitution. One of them is "sex work is intrinsically abusive to women" the other one is "sex work is a choice for women who have little options". Guess what? I have all the options in the world. I am a successful journalist, I come from a wealthy family, I could do whatever I want. But I hate working for other people, office settings, the 9 to 5 mindset, or owing my success to others. I cammed the first time for the fun of it, and fell in love with it.

As a camgirl I am incredibly successful. Camming lets me travel the world and live a lifestyle that people can only dream of. I have all the options in the world, and I choose this one because it is the one that makes me happy.

 

[AnneDVille]

I have just completed the interview with Rachel and I must say she handled the interview in a very respectful and professional manner. I can fully vouch for it if anyone else is thinking of participating in this study.

@Kitsune I think you're nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking here. I personally think it's impossible to fully converse the huge diversity of camming in one single paper. You can also spend a lot of time arguing the definition of prostitution. If you define prostitution as sexual gratification in exchange for money, then yeah, maybe camming can be seen a form of it. If you define it as strictly physical sex for money, then I would agree with you. Sex work is diverse and comes in many shapes and sizes and it's difficult to pin down one part of it and give it an ultimate definition. Yet I do think it's cool for academics to actually look at us and validate our little form of sex work.

I agreed to participate in this study because amazon voucher (joke).

The real reason I participated is because I find it inspiring that a former sex worker who has done both escorting and camming through her life is now getting funding for her PHD and trying to give us a voice in the real world through her academic career.

And I don't think it's particularly positive or productive for us to shun her efforts down by nitpicking like that.

 

[rachel]

1) I wrote my dissertation two years ago and so it was while i was still in the embryonic stage of my research. I categorically dont think that webcamming should be legislated. It aint broke dont fix it!!!

2) My dissertation was for a law masters and so law academia tends to see everything in terms of the law. My conclusion was that a lack of legislation has meant that women have been able to define and repossess for themselves a corner of sex work where they are abundantly not on the whole victimized. Also i do point out that a lot of women camming have the type of cultural capital that means that other employment options are available to them but they chose to webcam for a variety of reasons and that it is not the best option of a limited number of options available to them. They have numerous choices they chose this cos they want to

3)"the merge of pornography and prostitution". The full quote which i mention later on in the work is that performing via webcam offers the visually explicit content of pornography while supplying the customer focus and interaction that is generally associated with prostitution. I gather that you dont meet the people you cam with but a significant percentage of the women i have interviewed have met people they have cammed with- thus far i would say 50%

4) "I also really dislike this type of over the shoulder intellectualism where it looks like everything needs to be dissected and analyzed with verbiage. I never had a problem that was solved by adding more words to it." -- Fell my pain babe, its academia and there is a way that i have to present certain types of academic writing in order to get the marks i need ! However when i publish in academic journals i will make it a lot easier to read, i promise.

5) I really appreciate your feedback, it was incredibly generous of you to take the time to do that and i am grateful. I understand your concerns about regulation and i cant emphasis enough that my goal is not to encourage legislation in any shape or form. I just want to put out a robust piece of academic research that presents a balanced and informative view of an understudied and misunderstood form of sex work

 

[Gen]

I giggled a little bit when I saw your second post because I feel like it's a right of passage for all student sex workers to study/write about sex work, hahaha. I am among those ranks and I think a lot of other girls on here too, lol.

Anyway I'll email you!

 

[Mila_]

I have just completed the interview with Rachel and I must say she handled the interview in a very respectful and professional manner. I can fully vouch for it if anyone else is thinking of participating in this study.

@Kitsune I think you're nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking here. I personally think it's impossible to fully converse the huge diversity of camming in one single paper. You can also spend a lot of time arguing the definition of prostitution. If you define prostitution as sexual gratification in exchange for money, then yeah, maybe camming can be seen a form of it. If you define it as strictly physical sex for money, then I would agree with you. Sex work is diverse and comes in many shapes and sizes and it's difficult to pin down one part of it and give it an ultimate definition. Yet I do think it's cool for academics to actually look at us and validate our little form of sex work.

I agreed to participate in this study because amazon voucher (joke).

The real reason I participated is because I find it inspiring that a former sex worker who has done both escorting and camming through her life is now getting funding for her PHD and trying to give us a voice in the real world through her academic career.

And I don't think it's particularly positive or productive for us to shun her efforts down by nitpicking like that.

Prostitution is literally engaging in sexual relations in exchange for payment. If we stretched the meaning of that term to include "sexual gratification" everyone from Natalie Portman to belly dancers, to a masseuse would be considered prostitutes.

As of academia, I have a personal distrust towards the entire field and I don't need their validation. I don't need anyone's validation really but having the validation of academia would almost feel like I am doing life wrong haha

1) I wrote my dissertation two years ago and so it was while i was still in the embryonic stage of my research. I categorically dont think that webcamming should be legislated. It aint broke dont fix it!!!

2) My dissertation was for a law masters and so law academia tends to see everything in terms of the law. My conclusion was that a lack of legislation has meant that women have been able to define and repossess for themselves a corner of sex work where they are abundantly not on the whole victimized. Also i do point out that a lot of women camming have the type of cultural capital that means that other employment options are available to them but they chose to webcam for a variety of reasons and that it is not the best option of a limited number of options available to them. They have numerous choices they chose this cos they want to

3)"the merge of pornography and prostitution". The full quote which i mention later on in the work is that performing via webcam offers the visually explicit content of pornography while supplying the customer focus and interaction that is generally associated with prostitution. I gather that you dont meet the people you cam with but a significant percentage of the women i have interviewed have met people they have cammed with- thus far i would say 50%

4) "I also really dislike this type of over the shoulder intellectualism where it looks like everything needs to be dissected and analyzed with verbiage. I never had a problem that was solved by adding more words to it." -- Fell my pain babe, its academia and there is a way that i have to present certain types of academic writing in order to get the marks i need ! However when i publish in academic journals i will make it a lot easier to read, i promise.

5) I really appreciate your feedback, it was incredibly generous of you to take the time to do that and i am grateful. I understand your concerns about regulation and i cant emphasis enough that my goal is not to encourage legislation in any shape or form. I just want to put out a robust piece of academic research that presents a balanced and informative view of an understudied and misunderstood form of sex work

Thank you for answering it's nice to read that your views changed on regulation and cam work being a happy choice.

 

[rachel]

1) I wrote my dissertation two years ago and so it was while i was still in the embryonic stage of my research. I categorically dont think that webcamming should be legislated. It aint broke dont fix it!!!

2) My dissertation was for a law masters and so law academia tends to see everything in terms of the law. My conclusion was that a lack of legislation has meant that women have been able to define and repossess for themselves a corner of sex work where they are abundantly not on the whole victimized. Also i do point out that a lot of women camming have the type of cultural capital that means that other employment options are available to them but they chose to webcam for a variety of reasons and that it is not the best option of a limited number of options available to them. They have numerous choices they chose this cos they want to

3)"the merge of pornography and prostitution". The full quote which i mention later on in the work is that performing via webcam offers the visually explicit content of pornography while supplying the customer focus and interaction that is generally associated with prostitution. I gather that you dont meet the people you cam with but a significant percentage of the women i have interviewed have met people they have cammed with- thus far i w

4) "I also really dislike this type of over the shoulder intellectualism where it looks like everything needs to be dissected and analyzed with verbiage. I never had a problem that was solved by adding more words to it." -- Fell my pain babe, its academia and there is a way that i have to present certain types of academic writing in order to get the marks i need ! However when i publish in academic journals i will make it a lot easier to read, i promise.

5) I really appreciate your feedback, it was incredibly generous of you to take the time to do that and i am grateful. I understand your concerns about regulation and i cant emphasis enough that my goal is not to encourage legislation in any shape or form. I just want to put out a robust piece of academic research that presents a balanced and informative view of an understudied and misunderstood form of sex work

Prostitution is literally engaging in sexual relations in exchange for payment. If we stretched the meaning of that term to include "sexual gratification" everyone from Natalie Portman to belly dancers, to a masseuse would be considered prostitutes.

As of academia, I have a personal distrust towards the entire field and I don't need their validation. I don't need anyone's validation really but having the validation of academia would almost feel like I am doing life wrong haha



Thank you for answering it's nice to read that your views changed on regulation and cam work being a happy choice.

Except i have never thought or said that i believed that webcamming should be regulated, why would I when i have cammed myself and reaped the benefits??. My feeling is that good research would benefit the camming community if ever the discourse around it changes from being something relatively empowering . The point of my dissertation was how the lack of regulation had allowed a form of sex work to evolve . I do understand your suspicions however because too often academia follows the route that all sex work is by definition a site of abuse. As a sex worker and academic i am hoping very much to challenge that. If you change your mind about being interviewed , let me know and once again thank you for your time and input, its appreciated x

 

[rachel]

I giggled a little bit when I saw your second post because I feel like it's a right of passage for all student sex workers to study/write about sex work, hahaha. I am among those ranks and I think a lot of other girls on here too, lol.

Anyway I'll email you!

Lol i agree we do seem to pass naturally into academia. I have emailed you back and i look forward to hearing your experiences xx

 

[RebelleHart]

I just had my interview with Rachel and it went really well She was enthusiastic to hear about my experiences and even let me choose my own alias! She also promised to keep me informed on progress which is cool because if as it goes on, I decide that I don't like where it is going I can withdraw my consent. But, I like her plan so I don't expect that to happen haha.

 

[CutieHasBooty]

I would love to interview I am going to email you now Rachel

 

[rachel]

I would love to interview I am going to email you now Rachel

I would love to interview I am going to email you now Rachel

I have emailed you back attaching consent form. Look forward to speaking to you and thank you for responding !!!