Paper short abstract:

Within pornography’s live cam sector we examine the sociocultural implications of quantifying sex and self through wearable technologies, apps and the regulation of performer behavior, questioning technologies’ revolutionary potential for democraticizing sexual expression that has been much touted.

Paper long abstract:

Digital technologies' revolutionary potential for democraticizing sexual life and expanding sexual expression has been much touted. Within pornography's live cam sector we examine the sociocultural implications of quantifying sex and self. This sector is the one of the fastest growing areas of a thriving industry, with over 20,000 performers online at any time (Weisman, 2015), a $1 billion annual revenue, and over 30 million visitors monthly (Richtel, 2013). Yet only 15-35% of those performers are US based (Morris, 2015) and sexual identity and behavior is quantified in several respects on these sites, including categorization by nationality, racial features and orientation, as well as through regulation of language (English-only), established 'fetishes,' statements of local 'norms,' and requiring agreement to "a sound mind and body." Further, performers are now pressed to make their performances more interactive by incorporating wearable technologies and apps. Devices such as OhMiBod, a 'control your secretary's orgasm' vibrator accompanied by lacy panties, and the Realtouch masturbator, a 'box' within which to place your genitals, enforce Western normative views of sexual roles and anatomy rather than allow for a multitude of sexual identities, experiences, and desires. Significantly, as pornography produces records of cultural memory, political resistance, and historical traces (which marginalized groups are often denied) (Dean, 2014; Keilty and Leazer, 2014), what is at stake in the live cam space is more than constrained labor practices, but the ways in which sexual selves are fused with the technological environment and formed into posterity for both performers and users.