Currying Favour with the Algorithm: Online Sex Workers’ Efforts To Satisfy Patriarchal Expectations
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Date
2024-09-19
Open Access Location
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
Rights
(c) 2024 The Author/s
CC BY 4.0
CC BY 4.0
Abstract
The rise of the online sex work industry is reshaping how people conceptualise and negotiate sexual encounters across digital and offline spaces. This article analyses content from an online sex work forum (AmberCutie Forum (ACF)) to examine how online sex workers establish boundaries between their online and offline lives to manage competing expectations from their partners and viewers. Our analysis reveals a misogynistic double standard whereby workers are seen to threaten monogamous values, while viewers escape the same level of moral culpability. We argue that the cultural logics of monogamy function to delegitimise the labour involved with online sex work and increase the risk posed to online sex workers through retributive misogyny, including cyber-harassment toward sex workers. This impacts sex workers’ emotional and financial wellbeing and reinforces gendered power relations by prioritising stereotypically masculine pleasure over workers’ economic interests.
Description
Keywords
Platform capitalism, Online sex work, Affective boundary work, Misogyny, Cyber-harassment, Monogamy
Citation
Palatchie B, Beban A, Nicholls T. (2024). Currying Favour with the Algorithm: Online Sex Workers’ Efforts To Satisfy Patriarchal Expectations. Sexuality and Culture. Latest Articles.