Clients’ Perceptions of Authentic Intimate Connection on Erotic Webcam Modeling Sites

Abstract

ABSTRACT While early uses of technology in the sex industry centered on increasing accessibility to pornography or expanding advertising opportunities for direct service sex workers, the growing prevalence of personalized, platform-based sexual technologies reflects the postindustrial paradigm of sexual labor in which “authentic” emotional and physical connection is increasingly prioritized. In this study, we explored how erotic webcam modeling platforms (e.g. LiveJasmin) exemplify “bounded authenticity” by offering clients an experience of “genuine” intimacy that is nevertheless constrained by both its transactional nature and technological reality. We conducted a web-based survey of LiveJasmin clients (N = 2,047) in 2020. We assessed participants’ perceptions of the authenticity of their emotional bonds with models – and the boundaries that potentially constrain these relationships – via quantitative and qualitative measures. Quantitative results revealed that 65% of participants reported having ever experienced an emotional bond with a model, with over half of participants (51.6%) reporting that they believed the models cared about their lives outside the platform. Providing nuance to these findings, qualitative results illustrated the ways in which participants’ perceptions of the emotional authenticity and boundaries of these relationships varied, with participants reporting a range of experiences that extended from perceived “real” connections to those that feel transactional and hollow, but nevertheless shaped by the platform. Our findings ultimately underscore how camsite clients’ perceptions of these relationships mirror the tension between desiring genuine feelings of emotional intimacy from the models and the market and technological constraints of these experiences.