The New Frontier: Sex Workers and Social Media
Sex workers and social media have been a hot topic lately, especially when it comes to sex workers in Silicon Valley.
Recently LinkedIn banned legal escorts from using their site, and the coverage around the story seemed largely focused on how shocking it is that escorts were even using the site. It should be no surprise to find out that sex workers utilize the same tools that other businesses use to find new clientele and build a brand. Although LinkedIn may be unjustifiably comfortable with moralizing against “the oldest profession,” other social media sites serve as a community hub for the sex worker community and are an important part of how they advertise.
As a professional dominatrix, social media is a vital part of my marketing and business. The number of clients I’ve met through Twitter or Tumblr has actually surpassed those that I have met through the main advertising platforms. Having a regularly updated blog and online presence tells my clients that I am highly engaged in my work, drives hits to my sites, and increases my site’s SEO. To the technologically savvy, this is all a normal component of building a business.
In addition to using social media as a way to connect, many sex workers end up developing web design and programming skills by virtue of necessity. Due to the stigma against the sex industry (and more specifically, sex work), sex workers are often locked out of opportunities to use traditional marketing tactics or to even hire people to assist them in creating what they need for their business. Even if a company or contractor doesn’t take issue with the sex industry itself, anti-prostitution laws do not only affect escorts and their clients; being even tangentially connected to sex workers in any professional capacity can be a liability.
For the last twenty some odd years, sex workers have been fending for themselves, and many have developed successful businesses by learning the basics of operating a business online. That is part of why so many sex industry sites (from porn, to private entertainment advertising, to the individual sites of sex workers) look like they fell out of 1995: many sex-related sites are built by people with little to no experience who are just trying to make it work. Most sex work sites, and most advertising sites for sex workers are terribly designed (the exception being, in my biased opinion, Slixa, which is so well-designed that it can make a grown nerd cry).
As the Internet becomes ubiquitous, a higher quality of both design and function is becoming a necessity. As people see the effectiveness of social media campaigns, excellent design, and clever marketing, the demand for (as well as the expectation of) such things has grown in the sex industry.
Sex workers are often maligned in “polite society,” regularly facing significant legal and social repercussions for what we do. The only reason it is surprising that the sex industry is using technology just like everyone else is due to the dehumanization and othering that the workers are subjected to. Perhaps the real “new frontier” is how sex workers are harnessing technology to humanize themselves and fight for their rights. After all, we just want our businesses and brands to be “liked,” just like everyone else.
