This document discusses the impact of new technologies on sex work and research about sex work. It covers several topics: 1. How internet and mobile technologies have impacted the sexual labor market and sex worker communities' use of online platforms and social networks. 2. Challenges with using data mining and other internet-based research methods to study sex workers and the importance of community-driven, collaborative research approaches. 3. Issues of privacy, surveillance, and ethics regarding collecting and sharing data about marginalized groups like sex workers without their consent. 4. Examples of sex worker-led research, media, and knowledge production using platforms like Twitter, blogs, and independent publications.

1. “Research, Knowledge
Production, & New
Technologies”
York University Sex Work Research
Symposium (Sept. 30, 2016)
Kate Zen
Maggie’s: Toronto Sex
Worker Action Project

2. Tech &
Labour
1. Impact of internet &
mobile technologies on
sexual labour market.
Community
Knowledge
Production
2. Sex worker social
networks and online
publishing platforms.
Internet-based
Research
Methods
3. Data mining, social network
analysis, sentiment analysis:
critical subjectivity of the
Machine (learning).
Privacy &
Surveillance
4. Against collecting
and mapping data on
vulnerable groups.
Sex worker-led
Research
5. Community-driven,
collaborative, and non-
hierarchal research in the
neoliberal university.

3. Internet-Based
Research
Methods
Data mining, social network
analysis, sentiment analysis -
and critical subjectivity of the
Machine (learning).
Twitter-mining: social network mapping and
sentiment analysis.
Instagrams of sex workers: internet research
on visual culture.
Coded language: semiotics of stigma.
Comparative studies.
Business analytics: price points and market
segmentation. The cost and compensation of
stigma, oppression, and criminalization.
Feminist research, standpoint theory,
community-based participatory action
research, theory and praxis.

4. Academic Surveillance & Exploitation of Sex Workers
In 2011, Sudhir Venkatesh (Sociology, Columbia University)
tracked down sex workers on Facebook, and published his
research on the popular technology magazine “Wired” - which
spiraled out into media panic on “sex workers using Facebook.”
Daily News headline, following Venkatesh’s
publication on Wired.

5. Privacy &
Surveillance
Against collecting and mapping
public data of sex workers for
private academic advancement.
Five eyes on a criminalized population:
dangers of sharing online - two
approaches to new U.S. imperialism.
Google and Polaris Project seek to “end
human trafficking” through using Big
Data. (FastCompany article)
Tactical Tech’s digital privacy trainings
with sex workers.
https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sex-work-and-surveillance

6. Community
Knowledge
Production
Sex worker social networks and
online publishing platforms.
Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook - community
organizing in anonymity.
Tits & Sass, Red Umbrella Project, Radio Ava: sex
worker independent media.
Academic careerists appropriating unpaid labour
from sex workers as institutionalized
knowledge.
Increasing presence of sex worker self-
representation in mainstream media and
academia.
Allied research, media, and activism: base-
building for advocacy.

7. Sex Worker Independent Media
Sex worker rights activist, Alex
Morgan, talking about technology,
privacy, and sex work at SXSW in
2013.
“Model, View, Culture” - an independent
feminist technology publication provides
analysis on sex worker rights online
Community-produced blog,
Tits and Sass, breaks down
SnapChat for sex workers.

8. Tech & Labour
Changing labour markets: gendered technology
and the techno-economic divide.
Changing sexual culture: dating apps, sugar
babies - impact on demand elasticity and
price sensitivity for erotic services.
Changing financial technologies: sex workers on
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Monopolies off the street: porn giants, online
advertising, review boards, “disruptive tech”
delayed by disempowerment.
Sex worker labour organizing: freelance /
contract model for precarious workers’ rights.
Impact of internet and mobile
technologies on markets for
sexual services.

9. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION:
Sex work as performing gender
Care work is gendered:
Domestic work, childcare
Unpaid and undervalued “marital duties” -
emotional work, intimate work
Gendered because of emotional
performance (i.e. flight attendant)
Emotions as inherently gendered
performances
Sexuality / beauty to be performed
according to heteronormative
images
→ Sex work is the labour of gendered

10. Technology replacing gendered work:
Technologies reducing housewife’s
workload (1950s) - washing machine,
kitchen appliances
Technology as “gendered” - SIRI is a
female voice: servile, sweet
If domestic work can be replaced by
technology, does intimate work also get
replaced or “disrupted” by technology?
How?
Is care work / emotional work
EASIER or HARDER to replace
with technology?

11. CNN Video
“Average wage of over
$96,000.”
Gendered Technology
& the Techno-Economic divide:
Percentage of
women working
in tech roles in
major tech
companies.
CNet (March, 2015)
Kitty Stryker & Siouxie Q -
“Sex worker millionaires in the
Silicon Valley” (OK! Magazine 2013)

12. Changing Sexual Culture:
Millenial Hookup Culture & Apps
Wikipedia
Technology facilitates hookups,
increasing both free and paid
sexual communications & activities.
Catherine MacPhail, John Scott & Victor Minichiello
(2014): Technology,
normalisation and male sex work, Culture, Health &
Sexuality: An International Journal for
Research, Intervention and Care
Link
Sex workers
on Tinder
cause alarm.

13. Economist:
“Prostitution and
the Internet: More
Bang for Your
Buck”
(Aug 2014)
“average pay of sex
workers decreasing
worldwide, from
2006-2014”
Bringing down the oldest profession: not through “end demand” but increasing supply of sex on the internet?
Supply
Model of
Prostitution

14. Lena Edlund and Evelyn
Korn, “Theory of
Prostitution”
(Journal of Political Economy, 2002)
Prostitution price is driven by cost of
“social capital” for women who choose to
do prostitution during the peak time when
they could be finding a marriage partner
(age 25-30).
Stigma Model of
Prostitution
Bringing down the oldest profession: not through partial criminalization but through decreasing stigma?

15. Sex Robot
Obsession
Replacement of sex work by
technology?
link
● Displacement Hypothesis - sex workers, like other workers, will be displaced sex robots
because robots will be better and cheaper at delivering the service than humans
● Resiliency Hypothesis - sex industry will remain robust due to a preference for human
sexual partners and an increased supply of sex workers due to overall labour
displacement by technolgoy

16. Sex Robot
Obsession
Replacement of sex work by
technology?
Link

17. But more
interestingly...
How sex workers use
technology now
“Sex has always been a crucial driver of technological
innovation, from VHS players and camcorders to home
answerphones (prostitutes were early adopters of home
answering machines in the 1950s, argues historian David
Morton).”
WHY WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY IS THE FUTURE OF SEX
Ad listings shifted street
work indoors:
Craig’s List → Backpages
Eros / Slixa
Twitter (social media)
Review sites:
TERB / TER / p411
Communication apps:
Google Voice, Free Tone, phone apps
Money:
SquarePay, Amazon Wishlist, Bitcoin

18. Women who use internet for sex
work in Thailand
http://www.popline.org/node/184905
Camwork from a Disability
Justice lens
Sex workers as “Third World”
digital natives / digital nomads
Sex Workers Navigate
Technologically-Disrupted Labour
Markets Under Neoliberal
Globalization
Zulfiya

19. Sex Workers Barred from Mainstream Tech:
TECH COMPANIES THAT DISCRIMINATE
AGAINST SEX WORKERS:
AirBNB - link
GoFundMe - link
PayPal - link
Visa / Mastercard - After Visa and Mastercard
decided to longer be available as payment for
Backpage ads, sex workers taught each other
how to use Bitcoin and other practical tech
solutions.
SEX WORKERS THAT ORGANIZE CREATIVE
SOLUTIONS TO OVERCOME DISCRIMINATION:
Sex workers
continue to be at
the forefront
driving new
technologies like
cryptocurrency.

20. Sex Worker Community Tech Trainings
Red Light Legal training (Link)

21. Sex Worker Community-Driven Safety Apps
Ugly Mugs - sex worker-drive bad date list app in
the UK
Other existing apps include:
Peppr / Oh La La
Kitestring
Screeningmate
Karmascreen

22. Sex Worker-Led
Research
Community-driven, collaborative,
and non-hierarchal scholarship
in the neoliberal university.
Appropriation of free labour from sex
workers for academic advancement.
Channeling institutional resources
towards community-driven initiatives.
Opportunities for impactful research in
disruptive technology development
for sex workers.
Community-Led Research with the
Global Network of Sex Work Projects

23. Community-driven collaborative research
Tactical Tech - Working with sex workers
in India and Cambodia (Link)
“Problems not solutions”
“What we’ve learned from sex workers: Or how to
work with marginalized communities on using data
and technology in advocacy”
(Maya Ganesh, BeatriceMartini, and Dirk Slater) Link