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Navigating and resisting platform affordances: Online sex work as digital labor

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  • Helen M. Rand
  • Hanne M. Stegeman

Abstract

The context in which labor occurs shapes work. In online work, the platform is one site of work and therefore influences the experiences of workers. Current research on affordances considers how these platform features create value for the platform, shape workers' rights and safety, and reinforce existing racial hierarchies through algorithms. This project, researching online sex work practices in the UK, adds to this literature on platform work by analyzing how workers themselves experience and view the role of platform affordances in their work. With sex work as gendered and stigmatized labor, it also provides unique insights into the role of platforms in valuing typically feminized work both economically and culturally. Drawing on 19 interviews with workers on the UK‐dominant platform AdultWork and platform observations, we show that platform affordances do create, shape, and maintain the valuation of online labor but in dynamic and relational processes with workers. Structural analysis shows how platform affordances may create competition that decreases the value of labor, but individually sex workers revealed strategies to engage with these affordances to resist devaluation and set boundaries in what appears to be a highly competitive market, thus, highlighting the multidirectional, relational agency, and connectivity between platform affordances and workers. By focusing on the experiences of sex workers, the findings contribute to discussions on the role of platforms in valuing feminized online labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen M. Rand & Hanne M. Stegeman, 2023. "Navigating and resisting platform affordances: Online sex work as digital labor," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(6), pages 2102-2118, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:30:y:2023:i:6:p:2102-2118
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.13047
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    1. Teela Sanders & Laura Connelly & Laura Jarvis King, 2016. "On Our Own Terms: The Working Conditions of Internet-Based Sex Workers in the UK," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 21(4), pages 133-146, November.
    2. De Stefano, Valerio., 2018. ""Negotiating the algorithm" automation, artificial intelligence and labour protection," ILO Working Papers 994998792302676, International Labour Organization.
    3. Lilith Brouwers & Tess Herrmann, 2020. "“We Have Advised Sex Workers to Simply Choose Other Options”—The Response of Adult Service Websites to COVID-19," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, October.
    4. Webster Edward, 2020. "The Uberisation of work: the challenge of regulating platform capitalism. A commentary," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 512-521, July.
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