Camming by Angela Jones

Author:Angela Jones [Jones, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC026000 Social Science / Sociology / General
Publisher: New York University Press

I tell my cam family how old I am [and] what country I live in; because of my modeling, people know what state I live in. I tell them I have a Daddy (boyfriend) who I live with. They know I swing either way; I don’t really care for labels. Without ever giving away my real name, I’m pretty open and honest about my life.

Similar to Candice, Vicki, a 20-year-old bisexual White cis woman from the United States, simply told me that she changes nothing: “I come as I am.” Performers like Andres, Candice, and Vicki can come as they are because they have privileged embodiments. They are capitalizing on existing privileges that mark their bodies as hot and, thus, already sexually valuable. Young performers and those who are White were the least likely to actively manufacture a cam identity that is different from their offline identity. Andres and Candice are both people of color, but both are in their early 20s and are privileged by colorism within the system of White supremacy.6 They are both cisgender and able-bodied. The crucial point is, people with the most privileged embodiments do not have to craft manufactured identities and, most often, do not have to perform sex in ways that are inauthentic or not in line with their real desires. People whose bodies have the most sexual capital in this field are also able to earn decent wages, feel empowered and agentic, and derive pleasures from their work. Pleasure is derived from the successful accomplishment of normative embodiment.

Manufactured identities and all these performances shift over time. The identities performers craft are not static, but in flux. Performers who have been camming for long periods may no longer manufacture identities once they have acquired a loyal following. Mihela is a 29-year-old straight White cis woman from Romania who has been camming for four years. When I asked about her manufacturing a cam identity, she responded, “I did this at the beginning, but now, I show myself as I am, years, heterosexuality, relationship.” Identities offline and online are malleable and shift over time, especially as we move in and out of different social contexts and fields.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.