A phenomenology of online sex work

Thesis

It is well documented that online sex workers are increasingly being made invisible in online spaces due to legislation which equates all sex work with sex trafficking (Blunt and Wolf 2020; Musto et al 2021). This has led to income losses, reduced access to harm-reduction tools and emotional distress for sex workers (Blunt et al. 2020). What has been less examined are the risks visibility entail, including privacy concerns and online abuse (Stegeman et al. 2024). In light of this, I suggest that much of sex workers’ labour is spent ‘managing visibility’, and develop two research questions:

i) How do online sex workers navigate visibility regimes on platforms?

ii) How does ’visibility work’ affect online sex workers?

This dissertation uses critical phenomenology to analyse how visibility regimes affect online sex workers’ experiences of work. I argue that platforms are generally ‘oriented away’ from sex workers bodies, which risks them being made involuntarily hyper(in)visible. Interviews with online sex workers, however, suggest that sex workers navigate and sometimes subvert these orientations, getting visibility to work for them, rather than solely acting on them. Additionally, this study looks at the impacts of doing ‘visibility labour’, suggesting that it is demanding, and often leads to blurring of work and non-work, yet that the flexibility, relatively high-wages and community online sex work offers means that it can also rewarding.

Authors: Bannon, S

• Alternative title: 'This post violates our terms of service': examining sex workers' experiences of doing visibility labour on online platforms
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-54nbaodx0
• Type of award: M.St.
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: platform work; gig work; sex work; phenomenology; sexuality
• Subjects: Gender studies; Digital platforms; Digital harms; Philosophy