Overview

How technology transformed the nature of sex work The internet has revolutionized sex work perhaps more than any other profession. Today's sex workers go online to attract clients, shape personas, share information, screen potential clients, and build community. The Rise of Digital Sex Work is an intimate look into the changing face of the industry, telling the stories of workers themselves and revealing how they use the internet to share information, grow their businesses, and establish global communities. Kurt Fowler takes us inside the lives of sex workers who provide a variety of services: web-camming, dominatrix work, burlesque, and escorting. He provides insight into how race, class, and privilege affect their work and the role the internet has played in their professional journeys. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fifty workers from the United States, England, Canada, Germany, Australia, South Africa, and other industrialized countries, Fowler explores how they first entered the profession, how they manage their daily business and client relationships, their use of digital technology for safety and as a broader social resource, the role race plays in their work, and how they view their own level of risk and that of fellow sex workers. Fowler provides a look inside sex workers' digital worlds, as well as the complex meanings they attach to their experiences in their line of work.

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9781479824151

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Reviews

"""In this fascinating study, Kurt Fowler demonstrates how this migration from the streets to the internet has transformed contemporary sex work and rendered much of the existing research on the topic nearly obsolete. The wide array of sex workers we meet in the book emerge as neither ‘offenders’ nor ‘victims,’ but rather full blown humans engaged in the most human of enterprises."" * Shadd Maruna, author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives * ""Drawing heavily on the workers’ own voices, the book describes their inventive online strategies for minimizing risks and safeguarding their agency and independence. A major contribution to our understanding of the new frontier of digital sex work."" * Ronald Weitzer, author of Sex Tourism in Thailand: Inside Asia’s Premier Erotic Playground * ""Highly engaging and richly descriptive, this ultra-modern exploration of sex work in the digital age yields compelling insights not just about sexuality, labor, and technology, but about identity, performance, emotion, and safety as well. The book also engages with timely and important questions related to societal expectations, employment conditions, digital culture, and personal empowerment, both within and outside of the context of criminalization."" * Vanessa R. Panfil, author of The Gang's All Queer: The Lives of Gay Gang Members * ""With a unique voice and vivid prose, Fowler brings the reader into the world of contemporary sex work, revealing both its appeal and risks. These sex workers buck what scholars think we know about their jobs, illuminating the complications and tensions of life in the digital age."" * Jody Miller, author of Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence *"

In this fascinating study, Fowler demonstrates how this migration from the streets to the internet has transformed contemporary sex work and rendered much of the existing research on the topic nearly obsolete. The wide array of sex workers we meet in the book emerge as neither 'offenders' nor 'victims, ' but rather full blown humans engaged in the most human of enterprises. -- Shadd Maruna, author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives The Rise of Digital Sex Work examines how escorts and erotic webcammers--the two least- studied types of sex workers--use technology to advertise, screen clients, and connect with other sex workers. Drawing heavily on the workers' own voices, the book describes their inventive online strategies for minimizing risks and safeguarding their agency and independence. A major contribution to our understanding of the new frontier of digital sex work. -- Ronald Weitzer author of Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business The Rise of Digital Sex Work has achieved a rare feat of scholarship: a scientific study that reads like a novel. Highly engaging and richly descriptive, this ultra-modern exploration of sex work in the digital age yields compelling insights not just about sexuality, labor, and technology, but about identity, performance, emotion, and safety as well. The book also engages with timely and important questions related to societal expectations, employment conditions, digital culture, and personal empowerment, both within and outside of the context of criminalization. -- Vanessa R. Panfil , author of The Gang's All Queer: The Lives of Gay Gang Members With a unique voice and vivid prose, Kurt Fowler's The Rise of Digital Sex Work reads like the best crime fiction. But fiction it is not; Fowler brings the reader into the world of contemporary sex work, revealing both its appeal and risks. Roxy and her cohort buck what scholars think we know about sex work, illuminating its complications and tensions in the digital age. -- Jody Miller, author of Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence

"""In this fascinating study, Fowler demonstrates how this migration from the streets to the internet has transformed contemporary sex work and rendered much of the existing research on the topic nearly obsolete. The wide array of sex workers we meet in the book emerge as neither 'offenders' nor 'victims, ' but rather full blown humans engaged in the most human of enterprises.""-- ""Shadd Maruna, author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives"" ""The Rise of Digital Sex Work examines how escorts and erotic webcammers--the two least- studied types of sex workers--use technology to advertise, screen clients, and connect with other sex workers. Drawing heavily on the workers' own voices, the book describes their inventive online strategies for minimizing risks and safeguarding their agency and independence. A major contribution to our understanding of the new frontier of digital sex work.""-- ""Ronald Weitzer author of Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business"" ""The Rise of Digital Sex Work has achieved a rare feat of scholarship: a scientific study that reads like a novel. Highly engaging and richly descriptive, this ultra-modern exploration of sex work in the digital age yields compelling insights not just about sexuality, labor, and technology, but about identity, performance, emotion, and safety as well. The book also engages with timely and important questions related to societal expectations, employment conditions, digital culture, and personal empowerment, both within and outside of the context of criminalization.""-- ""Vanessa R. Panfil‬, author of The Gang's All Queer: The Lives of Gay Gang Members"" ""With a unique voice and vivid prose, Kurt Fowler's The Rise of Digital Sex Work reads like the best crime fiction. But fiction it is not; Fowler brings the reader into the world of contemporary sex work, revealing both its appeal and risks. Roxy and her cohort buck what scholars think we know about sex work, illuminating its complications and tensions in the digital age.""-- ""Jody Miller, author of Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence"""

Author Information

Kurt Fowler is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State Abington.

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