Daphne? Insert Tokens

"Daphne? Insert Tokens" is a visual research in the phenomenon of digital sex work, and a window into a glimpse of this stigmatized and fragmented corporeality.

As Daphne smiled on camera, the typing on the keyboard became frantic. The brief message was blunt: “I am not your girlfriend, please follow the rules.”

This is the most common line I came across in the world of digital sex work – no matter gender or sexual orientation. "Daphne" is a non binary avatar for captions that I created to protect the identity of the cam models I photographed the past two years and to give this subterranean reality a voice.

“Daphne? Insert tokens.” is the full title of this visual investigation, which was conducted, mostly attending complimentary shows, that digital sex workers offer to increase their paying viewership.

For nearly 24 months I jotted down interactions, broken interviews, and shot identity-less images of “cammmers,” all through my laptop screen. Eventually, I printed the images in an Instax square format and collaged them together or along with other printed metaphorical frames I created - to hint at themes such as body commodification, empowerment, stigma, technology and "market competition." Ideally, the square format represents both the users’ screens and grids from which the performers get chosen, and a window into a glimpse of this stigmatized and fragmented corporeality. A few handwritten notes on the photographs, alternatively, record some of the echoes from that virtual world.

After the pandemic isolation, which topped the widespread social alienation frequently caused by an addiction to our devices, the numbers and revenue of several digital sex work enterprises spiked – raising questions about the performers’ working conditions and psyche.

Several "cammers" celebrate this new course of body commodification as a form of empowerment. Current Feminist theories tend to slam it as blatant exploitation. Frankly, digital sex work capitalizes the notion of content creation and its flow, through a supersized communication technology, suitable to cash-in on desire, form, and attention, almost in a safer way than traditional sex work.

What is left, in many cases, is the ideal of easy money, hard to come by in regular jobs, and a two-way psychological dependency on these platforms, often affecting those more vulnerable among users and performers.

“Nothing of what you see here exists in real life. I am just an image on a computer screen,” Daphne says.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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According to a 2019 PCMag report, roughly 12,550 gigabyte of data per minute are transferred on average on one of the main X-rated platforms. Romania, Colombia, USA, Australia and Czech Republic are thought to be the top five countries for cam shows. However, precise figures are hard to come by due to the shifting nature of the business worldwide.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
i

Digital sex work delves its roots into the shift from "social network" to "social media' - or the transition from platforms created to connect people, to entities focused on dishing out content. The first catalyzed medium offering 24-hour live and recorded visual content was the TV. However, unlike the web, access to the TV world as a "maker" has always been regulated by a dynamic based upon talent, skills, education, and politics.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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According to Professor Ian Bogost of Washington University, the shift in online social platforms from the idea of connecting people to the business goal of maximizing the flow of content, has indeed enabled several individuals, e.g. influencers, to generate revenue. Daphne capitalizes on this phenomenon through digital sex work, which relies on aspects of human nature such as exhibitionism, kinks, fetishism, the need for attention, and loneliness overall.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Daphne and their partner receive only a portion of the money they make. Both payment processing companies and "camming" sites take percentages. Daphne generally comes away with between 30 and 80 percent of their earned total.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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It is not uncommon for Daphne to use role play as a kink to attract more users. French philosopher Michel Foucault described transgression as the death of God, which renders to us a world exposed by the experience of its limits, made and unmade by that excess which transgress it.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Daphne has their own limits and specialties. They will let their clients know what they will and won’t do via their profile. Eventually, Daphne would invite their clients into a private session to clarify those boundaries.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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In a competitive and growing cam model market, it is an absolute myth to assumes that Daphne makes easy money. According to them, it takes an average of 4 years to achieve a decent wage and client base. Daphne works an average of 50 to 60+ hours a week, with the largest amount of time spent off camera doing marketing duties.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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According to Adult Cam Review website, despite the difficulties in gathering official figures, it is safe to say that cam models are viewed by about 5 percent of the entire world’s internet users every day. Cross referencing several figures from X-rated platforms shows that roughly 70 percent of users are composed of males. Due to the stigma around consuming X-rated material, it is hard to identify age groups. However, the same stigma is what feeds the exhibitionist nature of the performers, and its commodification within the digital realm.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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J.C., a BDSM expert, is the only subject that agreed to be photographed in person and talk about adult kinks. Although he does not cam, he said that more and more young people do not engage in physical sex, almost as if they do not realize that they live in a physical space. Most of their lives are lived in their heads and online. That, according to him, explains the proliferation of digital sex work.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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When the whole digital sex work phenomenon began, according to Daphne, it was a little harder for them to reach the same level of earnings of their female colleagues. However, as the business model consolidated and evolved, it is not uncommon to find real agents promoting performers, many of which are young males, to a specific viewership or niche.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Daphne does not like to be stereotyped as a tragic victim of drug addiction or sex trafficking. If this could be true in multiple reported cases, Daphne defies that stereotype, and their life is often totally different than what we assume.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Amy Dobson, of the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University, Perth, Australia, writes that the cam girl phenomenon could not have happened before this moment in history. In fact, it is the result of a combination of specific ingredients, most of all inex­pensive yet powerful technology to send and receive video images over the Net, along with a culture that places a higher value on fame than on the skills and talent to achieve success.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Daphne considers cam performances a professional occupation and a steady source of income. They advertise their webcam accounts in social media, create personal websites, and invest significant amounts of time to create their "online persona." For Daphne, camming has become a road to empowerment, which provides them with a unique opportunity to fulfill their fantasies while earning a substantial income.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Daphne does not always offer sex oriented shows. Sometime, Daphne sells their company mostly to lonely individuals. For example in Japan, the eleventh most populated country of the world, a total of 18.4 million adults live alone. Projections suggest that by 2040, 40 percent of the country will be composed by solo dwellers.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Several researchers and scholars with a modern feminist approach are skeptical about the empowering potential that cam modeling has for its workers. There are likely thousands of women who choose to participate in live webcam performances because they don’t have a better choice. Lack of employment opportunities or insufficient income, cultural stigma, and/or lack of education help/force these individuals to enter the digital sex industry.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
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Daphne, who is about to publish a novel about online crime/revenge porn, states that desire and pleasure have always been nomadic and elusive. Therefore, digital sex work only provides a fast paced and fertile playground to commodify them.

© Giovanni Capriotti - Image from the Daphne? Insert Tokens photography project
i

According to LDV Capital, as of 2022, there are roughly 45 billion of cameras across the planet producing all sorts of content, much of which is live. Sixteen percent of internet users have viewed a remote person or place using a web cam. The idea of privacy reflects the fluidity of cultures, politics, and habits worldwide. In the case of cam models, a neoliberal commodification of the concept of privacy is at the core, converting intimacy into an on-demand digital performance.

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