By Raha Boshra
Every business has its pros and cons, much like how trouble arises in many jobs. It happens. This is with the inclusion of sex work, online or not. So, let’s talk about it.
Carol Leigh, also known as Scarlet the Harlot, coined the term “sex worker” in 1978 (Leigh 1997). Since then, countless activists have struggled to obtain a legitimate status for sex workers as service professionals who perform erotic labor in a highly competitive capitalist marketplace (Jones, 2016). Sex work is treated as a legitimate business, whether it is online or in person. Online sex work, also known as webcamming or camming, has brought a different and easier approach to sex workers and their business. Unlike traditional pornography, the live-streaming video and interactive components of webcamming allow workers and customers to create unique content for each performance (Jones, 2016).
The rise of camming has brought a massive change to sex work and its payers. Webcam modeling is part of a new, large, and diverse online market in which sex workers advertise and sell sexualized services online (Jones, 2016). Sex workers and those who do webcamming describe this work as a pleasure for themselves, and that they find it enjoyable and easier to manage. Webcam performances, particularly in private shows, are unlike other forms of service work in that they are not just ordered by the customer and served by the worker. These shows are often highly pleasurable for workers because the model, not the customer, often dictates the show’s content and pace (Jones, 2016).
Nowadays, the rise of OnlyFans and the workers within it are too common to go unnoticed. However, as glorified and easy as it is claimed to be, webcamming comes with its own problems and stigmas that affect those within the business. Online workers are often protected within the apps or services that they use, which is usually a paywall. However, this does not stop some consumers from recording or reposting the material they receive somewhere else. So privacy is sometimes a worrying issue for the workers. On the other hand, much like any online business, there are exploiters, trolls, doxxers, and other dangerous individuals involved. A troll is a slang Internet term for a person who participates in online forums, chat rooms, message boards, and other forms of social media by posting inflammatory comments that are meant to cause conflict, disruption, and an emotional response. A troll often enters a model’s room and posts menacing statements in the public chat room (Jones, 2016).
The negative sides of sex work also include the stigma that comes with it. Stigma is a universal in the sex work arena: well-documented in research on pornography, prostitution, and commercial stripping as an obstacle that sex workers and their associates confront on a regular basis (Weitzer, 2018). The intensity of these stigmas differs from one another, the worst one being associated with prostitution or street prostitution, to be exact. Not only does this affect the workers themselves, but also their families, partners, customers/clients, and their managers. Even some researchers who have worked on the topic of sex work are not safe from negative stigma and derogatory comments. Destigmatization is both an academic and a political issue. Politically, we can identify a set of practical strategies for fighting stigma, based on the tactics of deviance liberation movements (Schur, 1980). Academically, we can identify a set of preconditions for reducing and ultimately eliminating stigma from a category of people (Weitzer, 2018).
When it comes to sex work being considered an issue and stigma rising against it, it is better to steer the focus to the more problematic side of things, such as pornography and trafficking.
Reference:
Jones, A. (2016). I get paid to have orgasms. Vol. 42 No.1, pp. 227-256
Weitzer, R. (2018). Resistance to sex work stigma. Sexualities, 21(5-6), 717–729.
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