The off-screen workers who keep the adult webcam industry running
restofworld.org
restofworld.org
I did not know this was a thing until I came across this watching a few podcasts. Then more and more and more I realized this management industry was quite big.
And it makes sense, the performers are performers and not really business oriented for the most part. So its a vacuum that was waiting to be filled.
Then again, is it really any different from managers for actors, musicians, artists and other "normal" industries? I remember my father who was an artist had a few gallery owners who managed his sales, showings, personal commissions and other artist activities.
Now that I think about it decades later, its remarkably like pimping. Hahaha. No wonder dad had a love/have relationship with those people.
Basically pimping out girls, but digitally.
Also because it’s digital, no one actually has to leave their country. As a person living in a very poor country, we look upon this as safer than immigrating to work as a maid for a rich family in Dubai.
Yes, the trope of every single person in the adult entertainment world or escort world is automatically a victim of human trafficking is quite tired. Yes, it absolutely happens and should be stopped when found, but at the same time, there are people doing this work of their own volition and actually enjoy it.
When you make a demand illegal, it doesn't stop that demand, but instead a black market and exploitation happens around it. Making it legal will stop the crimes, make it possible for the police to patrol and arrest people doing the wrong thing, and provide a way for those exploited to seek help without themselves being exposed to another type of danger.
That's complete horseshit...
Human trafficking isn't just applied to sex workers. Human trafficking happens with butlers, maids, housekeepers, drivers, gardeners, and other house-staff.
Human trafficking is a demand problem not a supply problem. People demand slaves, so a slave market is born; period.
Human trafficking is a: 'Humans Suck', problem. Can't stop human trafficking without curing the 'humans suck' thing.
Doesn't matter the protections in place, they're there already. Doesn't matter about exposure to the issue, we all know it's happening. Doesn't matter the legal repercussions we enact, the penalties are on the books.
Doesn't matter... Humans suck, and there are those who will pay a premium for a literal slave.
Humans suck...
I think the solution to demand problems is better options. Tiger poaching to sell their balls as boner pills went away with viagra. Viagra worked better than fake animal snake oils.
Domestic robots will solve the human trafficking for domestic slaves as robots will be cheaper and better.
I think there’s also social progress as neither I, nor anyone I know has human trafficked to get a butler or whatnot, but 100 years ago that probably wouldn’t have been true.
> I think there’s also social progress
Speaking about the US, there's a general aversion to employing people for personal service jobs. Tech workers making 300k can certainly afford a maid who makes 60k, but actively go out of their way to instead employ a variety of people through 'gig' work and 'apps' to do simple tasks. They simply don't want to be seen as employing a maid, but still get all the benefits of having one (via the errand running service).
The problem at hand is _only_ if those people are trafficked, and is not willingly being employed.
Show me your evidence.
So we can prioritize the protection of people forced into sex work at the expanse of willing sex workers, just like we prioritize protecting workers from forced overtime at the expanse of those that are willing to work 24/7 (and like any other work related enforcement, it should be directed at employers, not workers)
I suspect the news article was a bit of subtle protest by that police department, but it kind of illustrate how low we as a society is prioritizing protecting workers. Some people in the construction industry has also came out saying that construction as an industry would not function without the cheap labor that human trafficking contribute. It should be a major alarm clock that protecting workers from the most basic of threats, ie threat of violence and/or threats by the employer to not pay the employee. Some of the enforcement should land at the consumer who benefit from the situation, which would require companies to insure against shady subcontractors.
If you have immigrated to a country where you don't speak the language, don't share customs or culture, and your religion is illegal to practice (ergo no social safety net) then it's not particularly 'safe' for you if you have a disagreement with your employer.
What most people don’t realize is that traditional cam platforms like LiveJasmin and Streamate allocate a 30% cut for themselves and a 30% cut for the referring affiliate, typically a porn site. The remaining 40% is allocated to the model - 30% if the model uses a studio.
Another unspoken player is the credit card processor who typically captures 10% of the revenue for “risk”.
There is a reason that even with those high fees to be made, most processors will not touch the industry.
The govt's pretext has been "reputational risk." Isn't it nice of the feds to tell a bank that "someone" might not think well of them if they provide services to "those" people?
It is established law that a business that acts at govt behest is a state actor, so that "pressure" is enough to bring the 1st amendment in. That is, if there's a 1st amendment argument. However, said de-plaforming doesn't seem to succumbed to a 1st amendment challenge.
Maybe such a business would win with a first amendment argument on FedNow, but how many can survive until that decision comes down?
Source? I have never heard of this.
There is a reason CC fees are so high in the porn industry and it isn’t just huge companies ripping off the little guy. The CC processor not only has to factor in the risks of client chargebacks but also the merchant themselves doing something shady (malicious or not)… say getting their DB hacked and having all the CC data in plaintext or something. Or just the merchant folds up shop and bails on the customers…. 10% rates exist for a very good reason
With the system the way it is, the card processors eat a little loss from "fraud", and then use that as a justification to exert editorial control over what industries they want to process payments for, because there's a lot of "fraud" in them. No it's not fraud, it's someone being embarrassed about their spending habits and claiming their card was stolen. If it was harder to steal cards, that would change.
Visa/MC's crusade against legitimization of sex work is a political/religious stance that has absolutely no place in what should be infrastructure. Infrastructure should be neutral.
business
> with it.
There are few meaningful safeguards. Platforms positively identifying performers is good, it helps combat trafficking of kidnapping victims if nothing else. But it doesn't begin to address all the other scenarios in which a performer might be coerced. The platform knowing that Performer X has real name Y doesn't give them any insight into the existence of Pimp Z who has access to all her documents/accounts and threatens to kill her if she ever tries to leave.
Maybe you think "I know this woman, I watch her stream for many hours a week in unrehearsed situations, I have a strong parasocial relationship with her and I know she's not being abused" But you don't know that. Abuse can be hidden from close friends, family, neighbors, and certainly it can be hidden from stream simps.
America prefers to pretend like it doesn't see things, so it isn't expected to do anything about them. Sufficiently underground child trafficking is as good an outcome as none because how could we have known? The same way you know about any other workplace abuses; you inspect, you interview, and you make resources available. But we'd rather treat it like we treat farmwork, and simply wear blinders and continue to buy vegetables.
edit: there's no reason that providing services to sex workers has to be lead to pimping other than that we prefer it that way.
I am sure there are even more ways that I can't personally think of, and obviously some would not be culturally accepted.
That's just how news works.
There are unsexy, short term business models for entrepreneurs.
The story doesn’t answer this question so I suspect that the answers aren’t good.
They lease a building, build "cubicles", make them look like bedrooms, throw in a bunch of girls/guys, who then do stuff there for their viewers, and managers (pimps) collect a part of the earned money. They have a schedule, have to meet quotas, etc. They also hire people to do their make-up, buy toys, manage their accounts, do accounting, price lists for "custom" photos/videos, and even dirty up the underwear that they then sell.
Porn is a huge industry, solo actresses are just a very small part of that, even if onlyfans would like you to believe otherwise.
How many factory style jobs do people work not because they want to but because circumstances force them to? How many employers exploit their workers because its unlikely the workers will fight back?
I don’t think comparing people working in factories to pimps and exploited sex workers (or perhaps pimps and fairly compensated sex workers). They are different things.
In reality, it appears the owner of OnlyFans also owns MyFreeCams, which is a massive cam platform. The actual complaints of theft and fraud are accusations of randomly frozen accounts. Companies like PayPal and even banks periodically freeze accounts, but the CEOs of their company are not targeted in a manner such as the linked article.
Further, it is not uncommon to freeze accounts for suspected fraud. Cam platforms are ripe for money laundering with stolen credit cards. Thieves will steal a credit card and use it to pay a model on the platform that they’re working with. The model is paid weeks later and they’ve successfully laundered the money. It does not surprise me that some false positives happen, it’s a pretty tricky cat and mouse game.
The article also mentioned requiring people to switch to a bank in Belize. It’s not surprising given that adult payments and adult companies are routinely targeted by puritanical US and International financial institutions.
[0] https://forensicnews.net/onlyfans-faces-allegations-of-fraud...
The main distinction of a pimp is someone who is willing to deal with all the bull shit of the business to help hoes - this was mainly protection from abusers and help with advertising, but also includes a ton of other help - rides, shelter, healthcare appts.
'pimping' became a pop slang term what, around the myspace time? and it's become synonymous with gaudy but cool glamour - 'those shoes are pimpin' - to also jest about 'control' - like "pimpin' these robots to get that paper (money)".. "you are being pimped by toptal".
After some years of research I would say not just most (51%) - but more like 99% of 'pimps' want nothing to do with underage, kidnapped, forced/coerced type hoes.
This is more of a stereotype that fits some groups' narratives who are often trying to get money to fight boogeymen.
Not to say that there shouldn't be money / resources dedicated to destroying the 1% who would use violence to traffic - but I've noticed how easy it is to skew the recently changing narrative / perceptions, and mostly the news is promoting false stereotypes to gain clicks and clout at the expense of real help.
This is not to say it's not completely different stats say, south of the border or Baltic or whatever.
Sure you are right if you included the thousands of Asian hookers being coerced by some int'l trafficking org. Sure if you include the small number of Somali gangs doing kidnaps and sales.. some of the more hardcore gangs in the inner cities that actually use all sorts of methods for the overall syndicate -
sure - those people may be technically 'pimping' (at least some) - but I do not think that those types of people come to mind when someone is casually discussing 'pimps' - I believe people are more likely to conjure up someone in their mind more like snoop dogg or 'I'm gonna get you sucka' type of character. Or like 'money mike' the pimp in the next Friday movie by Kat Willaims.
I have come to learn that a majority of those types of people don't want underage or beat-down girls and they generally frown upon, and try to reduce drug use as well.
Like I said in original comment there are those out there that are using force or other coercion (we have your passport, and have your family in regime place X - do this or else jail and loss of family) - and they should be stopped.
It gets more fuzzy when you run into people who are voluntarily sex working for things like debts to flee a place - however it's easy to lump in those numbers.
My point was not to try to throw hard numbers at X amount of sex workers are not being forced, that too depends on how certain terms are defined of course as well.
My point was that many orgs included news orgs are happy to paint all sorts of things as 'trafficking' that are nothing more than people looking for sex or people who are looking for ways to trade it - without violence, and it's not accurate to think 'pimps' or 'pimping' is:
"the distinction of a pimp is due to using violence, drugs, or other coercion on vulnerable subjects such as runaways, underage, or trafficked/kidnapped persons."
as is the comment I was replying to, and trying to shed additional light on.
I've had an eye on that part of the industry for some years now (since '95).
My first full time club gig including finding and ejecting hoes and pimps (some are quite sneaky / hard to define) - you could say we hated pimps and despised hoes (it was believed they hurt our business and took clients from our business permanently)- for the first several years of that part of my past club/djing career.
It wasn't until hbo's pimps up series came out that I started looking deeper into all that and learned that many / most are there to help each other not trying to hurt each other - it's pretty complicated.
People have different definitions in their mind on many of the terms used in describing these things, so defining the terms instead of stereo typing is better - which was my point in the first place.
edited to add Kat W / Money Mike reference.
Is a strip club GM a pimp? The whole "maintain and operate facility" thing sounds a lot like a strip club.
Basically “managers” are a thing when you have a large number of employers who need to coordinate.
Legit managers can look a lot like pimps. For example, they usually require employees “to be on time” and “always have a good attitude.”
But if someone isn’t on time, than everyone else is waiting, and typically not getting paid. So failing to show up on time means your coworkers are paying for you to do your own thing.
So there an element of “you know it when you see it.”
Tim Cook and team do not collect anywhere near 75% of the total income of Apple workers.
I used to do tech consulting where I would be bodyshopped through a contracting firm and they would typically take 20-40%. I wouldn’t work for a firm that took 75%.
Which tells you everything you need to know about this kind of dirty work.
As opposed to waiting tables, selling finance products, working to deny people insurance coverage programming on surveillance on websites, working in retail, nursing, or any other activity where you're working hard barely scraping so some rich guy can buy 37th private jet?
Most jobs are soul crushing.
Why single out camgirls?
It is not a wholly positive thing. There are advantages (remote work from anywhere, etc.) but it doesn't do any favors to the actual people doing this to place sex work on a pedestal.
A cam girl is her own boss, picks her own hours, works from home, sets her own boundaries as to what she's comfortable doing, and does not have to be involved in any office politics. All of the things which normally put the "soul-crushing" in "soul-crushing job" are absent. It's a great deal for a lot of people.
I find your appeal to spirituality shallow and unconvincing, especially given that lots of people engage in casual sex and don't end up with their souls crushed.
I know the kind of people who frequent HN are very pro sex work but there is another side of it that is hushed or pushed aside and that is former sex workers speaking out. It is psychologically punishing to turn yourself into a sex object, repeatedly in front of the unslaking thirst of thousands. It changes how you view men, it changes how you view your own body, it changes how you value this "thing" out from which you peer.
Nor an economist?
Besides, not everyone has the desire of ability to go to school.
Are you anti-any of these professions? They for the most part definitely knew what they were getting into as well.
I did a short stint of continuous improvement engineering at a steel mill in Pittsburgh… it was an arguably decent place, but so many those labor workers gave zero fucks about the money they were making & would’ve left so long ago if they didn’t have family completely reliant on them.
The mistake is in making like for like comparisons as you just did. Sex is not a simple commodity. We would do better to listen to the stories of the sex workers who have left the industry or who are offered therapy through orgs specifically created to help sex workers like Pineapple Support as part of workers' contracts with Streamate et al.
I would not advise anyone to be a stripper or to stick with some building trades for a long time.
I was responding to a specific question, “what makes this dirty work” and specifically made no moral judgement or assertions.
Obviously, there’s a chip on your shoulder about the topic. Camgirls have a shitty job and aren’t nurses. That doesn’t mean that camming is uniquely shitty or that it’s some sort of act of personal liberation.
Plus, sex is just a dirty thing. You have to keep clean and shower a lot. Monitor your health more.
That kind of stuff.
Wouldn't be especially dirty either — nothing a few tissues couldn't wipe away, frankly, not as a solo performer. You get dirtier than that just by using the bathroom.
So, again — how is it "dirty work"?
Two eras portraying pornography is about as much as you can say is similar between then and now.
For more on the kinds of films Denmark was producing, have a read of this article [1] by Jack Stevenson who used to hold little events of porno history at a local art theater here in Copenhagen.
[1] https://brightlightsfilm.com/porno-to-the-people-the-danish-...
"High wealth equality such as the Nordics"? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Gini_Coe...
Which is easy to figure out once you realize how outdated marriage has become in the West. Everything is done for the money, kids are an afterthought.
Probably because they can find other work which pays more while non western nannies do the job because they cant find other work due to their English language issues.
How can the industry be unregulated if it's legal? I doubt it has the clout to get itself exempted from whatever the normal employment regulations in that country are.
To be clear, that was mostly a rhetorical question and I think the author's implied assumption that every industry deserves bespoke regulation by default is asinine. A small industry that's not causing big problems doesn't need legislative attention.
Unegulated: no one tells how it should be done. "To regulate something" means that the gorv prescribes how some aspect of the activity must be done.
If we have infinite possibilities, the norm is to be legal and unregulated.
> the norm is to be legal and unregulated
doesn't hold for anything that touches employment; as soon as there is deemed by the courts to be an employer--employee relation, all the existing statutes and case law are applicable, so without carve-outs for this specific type of employment it is automatically regulated.
Assuming the above, if the employment is _treated_ as though it is not subject to regulations, despite this not being the case, then presumably the law is being broken somewhere.
A sibling comment makes the point that if the legal system is underdeveloped, then the it may not be able to capture all the instances of employment that would otherwise fall under regulation.
For sex work, some regulation would be a good thing. At they very least requiring condoms when the couple isn’t married (and are untested for STIs) would be a start.