Angela Jones - Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry

Angela Jones

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2020 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jones, Angela, 1978 author.

Title: Camming : money, power, and pleasure in the sex work industry / Angela Jones.

Description: New York : New York University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009085| ISBN 9781479842964 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479874873 (pb : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Sex-oriented businesses.

Classification: LCC HQ121 .J6 2019 | DDC 338.4/73067dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009085

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Also available as an ebook

Figure 1.1. The charmed circle

Figure 3.3. Monthly unique visitors to major cam sites, May 2018

Figure 3.4. Glamour Studio in Romania

Figure 3.5. Glamour Studio in Romania, sample model room

Figure 3.6. Glamour Studio in Romania, sample model room

Figure 3.7. Glamour Studio in Romania, sample model room

Figure 3.8. Glamour Studio in Romania, sample model room

Figure 4.1. Elizabeth in front of her computer

Figure 5.2. Carl recording an extreme anal show

Figure 5.3. Carl fisting himself as part of the same video recording

Figure 5.4. Carl doing a show in his kitchen in 2015

Figure 7.1. Tiffany in her studio room looking into her webcam

Figure 7.2. Aron showing off his tattoos

Figure 7.3. Ronnie working with a female cam model

Figure 9.1. Adeline degraded in a private show

Figure 9.2. Adeline degraded in a private show

Table 2.1. Percentage of Population Using the Internet in Camming Industry Hubs

Table 2.2. Overview of the Early Major Cam Sites

Table 3.1. Major Cam Site Traffic Scores

Table 3.2. Popular Niche Cam Site Traffic Scores

Table 3.3. Top Earners in the Survey Sample

Table AA.1. Survey Participants and Demographic Responses

Table AA.2. Survey Demographics

In 2013, when one of my favorite students stopped attending class I became very concerned. Alyssa had taken a couple of courses with me, and we had developed an excellent rapport. She was a highly motivated student who always attended class, completed the reading assignments, and participated meaningfully in class discussion. Alyssa was a self-proclaimed feminist who was never afraid to speak up in class, especially about progressive issues. I sent Alyssa an email. I wanted to see if she was okay and to make sure she knew that if she returned to class that I would be happy to help her catch up on the materials she had missed. Alyssa replied that she was well but asked if we could meet in person because she was considering leaving college. I responded that I would be happy to meet with her, which we did the following week.

Once in my office, she asked to close the doorshe wanted to share something personal: she had started camming on a site called MyFreeCams. She explained that in the last month she had made $10,000. Given these high earnings, she decided to take a break from school. She explained that she could always return to school if the wages she was making did not continue or if she tired of the work. In addition to being profitable, Alyssa described camming as fun, easy, and pleasurable. I congratulated her on her success and we remained in contact for some time.

Alyssas disclosure struck me$10,000 a month for being a cam model? I did not think she was lying about her income, but I did wonder if it would remain so high. I wondered, Was there a new online sex work industry that could promise sex workers physical safety and high wages? Alyssa was not the only student who confided in me that they had worked as a cam model. However, it was her disclosure that made me begin this research project and so to AlyssaI am forever grateful and hope wherever you are now, you are happy.

Alyssa also made me think more about my past as a former sex worker. After dropping out of college, I worked as a stripper for about four years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I also entered into what is now on the Internet called a sugarbabying relationship, and exchanged emotional labora girlfriend experience outside of the strip club with a regular client. There were things I loved about stripping. I loved being naked (and still do). I loved dancing. I loved having people appreciate and compliment my body. I loved that entranced look in a mans eye that told me he was so captivated with me that hed empty his wallet if I commanded him to. I had never felt this empowered before: I had power over these men and power over my own body, sexuality, and destiny, despite the stigma perceived by friends and family. I loved getting paid to consume alcohol and party, and yes, I loved making money. I will never forget being able to take my friends down to South Beach in Miami, all expenses paid. I lived well and had a beautiful one-bedroom apartment in New York.

But the work was not always pleasurable, and customers were not always pleasant. They were often demanding, cheap, and menacing. My managers were creeps and as an independent contractor who paid house fees to work I was conscious of the exploitation I was experiencing. Over time, I stopped making consistently high wages. In the context of a strip club, regulars quickly tire of their favorite dancers and move on. Also, I began finding that I was drinking excessively; for mental health reasons, I had to stop stripping. My decision to stop was about my sobriety and my struggles with drug addiction, not about the industry itself. I eventually got clean and went back to school, but I often still look back on my time in the industry with great fondness.

Thus, when Alyssa animatedly told me her story, it made me recall the good times I had stripping. She reminded me of the excitement and pleasure I often experienced as a dancer. I wondered, Was it possible that the Internet had resolved many of the problems I and other strippers encountered working in strip clubs in the late 1990s? Online, dirty men cannot sexually assault you. Online, there are millions of potential clientsnot the regular cast of a hundred customers or so who patronize a strip club during a given evening. Also, I thought, the Internet never closes. In the camming industry, nobody is setting your hours, or charging you fees to work and assessing you penalties for being late. I remember thinking to myself, Under the working conditions Alyssa described would more people from various socioeconomic backgrounds start performing sex work?

As Id come to learn, the camming industry is not a utopian paradise. It is an exploitative capitalist marketplace that also reproduces White supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism, cissexism, and ableism. However, it is also an industry where cam models report high rates of job satisfaction and experiences of pleasure. For many cam models in this study, the industry presented an opportunity to earn decent wages. Cam performers, like all sex workers, are motivated to perform erotic labor for a myriad of reasons, many of which are not about money. The physical safety found in online sex work can be appealing to people who ordinarily would not perform offline erotic labor. The bourgeoning erotic webcam industry is part of a rapidly and exponentially growing online global network of sex work industries. These are exciting times, then, to be living ina period of increased sexual commerce and sexual exploration. I believe the growth of online sexual commerce will continue to push cultural mores forward, challenging hegemonic neo-Victorian discourses regulating sex and pleasure. If my research on the camming industry and my brief background as a sex worker have taught me anything, it is that sex workers have always been on the frontlines of the struggle for human and sexual freedom.