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

Online ISBN:
9781479829422
Print ISBN:
9781479842964
Publisher:
NYU Press
Book

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

Angela Jones
Angela Jones
Farmingdale State College, SUNY
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Published online:
17 September 2020
Published in print:
18 February 2020
Online ISBN:
9781479829422
Print ISBN:
9781479842964
Publisher:
NYU Press

Abstract

Camming is based on a five-year mixed-methods study of the erotic webcam industry, and tells a pornographic story about the multibillion-dollar online sex industry colloquially called “camming.” Through camming, millions of people from all over the globe have found decent wages, friendship, intimacy, community, empowerment, and pleasure. This deeply rich book is filled with the stories of a diverse sample of cam models from around the world. This book is not a utopian tale. Cam models, like all sex workers, must grapple with exploitation, discrimination, harassment, and stigmatization. Using an intersectional lens, Jones is attentive to how the overlapping systems of neoliberal capitalism, White supremacy, patriarchy, cissexism, heterosexism, and ableism shape all cam models’ experiences in this new global sex industry. This thorough examination of the camming industry provides a unique vantage point from which to understand and theorize around gender, sexuality, race, and labor in a time when workers globally face increasing economic precariousness and worsened forms of alienation, and desperately desire to recapture pleasure in work. Despite the serious issues cam models face, Jones’s focus on pleasure will help people better understand the motivations for engaging in online sex work, as well as the complex social interactions between cam models and customers. In Camming, Jones pioneers an entirely new subfield in sociology—the sociology of pleasure. The sociology of pleasure can provide new insights into the motivation for social behavior and assist sociologists in analyzing social interactions in everyday life.

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