Internet Sex Work

Behind the screen: Commercial sex, digital spaces and working online

“…Instant messaging is charged by the messages received from the sex worker and there are character limits per message. A key finding from the BtG study was the extent to which there was significant crossover between indirect and direct work with the majority of sex workers offering a range of different services [20].…”

“…Sometimes, also clients will intentionally and maliciously breach privacy as Kate (43, provides escort services) notes when she says 'some of them would spitefully actually just put your address up'. This raises further issues of the broader threats and harms generated through online mediums, ranging from verbal harassment and defamation to other types of serious crimes as other aspects of the Beyond the Gaze project has reported on [20].…”

Sexuality and digital Space

“…Given the abundant research on inequality, scholars have the opportunity to explore the pleasures and desires—along with the pitfalls and dangers—that accompany digital intimacies. Scholars working in the areas of sex work and pornography have also called for more nuanced approaches to the study of digital intimacy practices (Attwood, 2011; Jones, 2015; Sanders et al, 2017). In a review of pornography studies, Attwood (2011) reminds us that concerns and anxieties about sexuality and technology are anything but new.…”

"We come together as one...and hope for solidarity to live on"

“…Academic researchers have also explored stigma as experienced by street-based sex workers [38], student populations [51], or sex workers with other various intersecting identities [37,74]. More recently, a long-term project has explored experiences of sex workers that work primarily online finding that they also experience detrimental impacts in their lives due to stigma [55]. While Sanders et al do not write in or about HCI research, this work in the social sciences has helped us identify problematic HCI research, such as when scholars have used data scraping techniques to track and monitor sex workers' online advertisements under the guise of protection and anti-trafficking campaigns.…”