The author explores the contemporary erotic webcam industry, known as "camming," by drawing on her five-year study that used web analytics, participant observation on webcam sites, statistical analysis of data collected from cam-model profiles, content analyses of web forums for cam models, survey data, interviews, and auto-ethnography, to detail the industry's current size, profitability, history, and the motivations and experiences of cam models. She includes discussion of the pleasures of working in the industry, to help readers understand the motivations for online sex work, as well as the complex social interactions between models and customers. She describes how models find decent wages, friendship, intimacy, community, empowerment, and pleasure in the work, as well as deal with exploitation, discrimination, harassment, and stigma. She also discusses economic aspects, how the industry excludes economically vulnerable people and privileges white bodies and native English speakers, the creation of community and social support, the role of gender performance and manufactured identities, racism, and kink work in the industry. Annotation ©2020 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
The first inside look at how sex workers use webcams to make a living The erotic webcam industry, also known as “camming,” is a thriving global business. Angela Jones takes readers inside this multi-billion dollar industry, revealing how its workers experience intimacy, community, empowerment—and, as she compellingly argues, pleasure. Drawing on in-depth interviews, survey data, web analytics, and more, Jones highlights not only the dangers, but also the rewards, of working in one of the most taboo corners of the Internet. She provides an inside look at the public and private shows between cam models and their customers, from exotic dancing and pornographic videos, to masturbation shows and erotic chatrooms. A fascinating, much-needed glimpse into the lives of cam models, Camming takes us behind the webcam lens to experience the power of erotic labor in the twenty-first century.