A Work and Employment Relations Study
Outsourcing Digital intimate Labour
Survey Invitation and Information
S
Study on the Outsourcing of Digital Intimate Labour
You are being invited to participate in a research study titled Outsourcing Digital Intimate Labour. This study is being done by Victoria Antonio from the University of Leeds Business School.
Purpose - The purpose of this research study is to explore the work and employment relations of sexual content creators who use platforms that mediate their work, in particular the outsourcing of elements of the work. The researcher views sex work and work and as such sex worker’s rights are labour rights. The aim of the research is to strengthen the understanding of the labour processes and their organisation, specifically in a business context, thereby further contributing to the recognition of sex work as work and sex workers as workers inherent of labour rights. Digital sex work can be perceived as "too fun' to be work (Scholz, 2012, Ruberg, 2015). This perception needs to change, once digital sex work is recognised as actual labour, then the focus can be on fighting for labour rights.
Why have I been Invited to Participate? - You have been invited to participate in my research as you are a sexual content creator or are employed by or have a working relationship with someone who is. I am looking to speak to sexual content creators and anyone who is employed by the content creator to assist in the running of the written side of their business, such as replying to correspondence on their behalf, managing subscriptions or replying to DMs.
What will my participation entail? - This Survey will take you approximately 15 minutes to complete and contains questions about your experiences of your work and some demographic information questions. The survey will consist of some multiple choice options to select and some open-ended questions about your work and its labour relations, perhaps a few sentences for each question but you are free to write as much as you wish. Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary and You do not have to answer any questions you do not want to. You may also request to withdraw your data after participating in the study. The request must be made within 4 weeks of the data collection (after which data analysis will have begun and withdrawal will not be possible).
Confidentiality - Your participation in this study will remain confidential, data will be anonymised and pseudonyms used. Further information is available via the University of Leeds Privacy Notice. The anonymised data will be seen by myself (Victoria Antonio), my supervisors (Kate Hardy & Charles Umney), the examiners and potentially may be published in academic journals. You will not be identifiable in any way by the data.
If you have any questions or problems, please contact the researcher –
Victoria Antonio bnvma@leeds.ac.uk
Or their supervisors
Charles Umney c.r.umney@leeds.ac.uk
Kate Hardy k.r.hardy@leeds.ac.uk
About the Researcher
Victoria Antonio (She/ Her)
Second Year PhD Student at Leeds University Business School (Work and Employment Relations Department)
Who Am I? How did I get here? – A little introduction:
Victoria Antonio (She/Her) - Welsh/ 40 something/ Bit of a goth/ loves terrible puns and wordplay
BA Photography & New Media journalism (2005) - Final project was “Online and offline personalities of subcultures”
Worked in Photography, and lighting for stills, film and TV for 15+ Years by day
By night, behind the camera creating content for subculture websites, pin-up, adult and fetish performers, and goth musicians.
MSc Psychology (2020) - Distinction for thesis “Do BDSM practitioners consider BDSM ‘therapeutic’? - A discourse analysis of power, psychology, consent and exchange”
And now… Second Year PhD Candidate at Leeds University Business School within the Work and Employment Relations Department researching work and the employment rights and realities of sex workers who digitally deliver content as part of the online creator economy as mediated by platforms.