University study- Please delete if not allowed

[rachael_k]

Hi, my name is Rachael Keith and I am currently in my last year studying psychology at Northumbria University. I am interested in studying the relationship satisfaction of webcam models/cam girls for my dissertation project, as I feel this is an area which lacks research and is important due to the increasing presence of online adult entertainment. Before I finalise my study, I would like to see if anyone would be interested in participating in this study and if anyone in the industry has any feedback.

The study will receive ethical clearance from the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Ethics Committee at Northumbria University and I will be able to provide evidence of this prior to recruiting participants. Participants will be given an information sheet before beginning the study and will be given the opportunity to ask any questions. Once the questionnaire has been completed, participants will be fully debriefed and can request feedback if required.


Participation will be voluntary and unfortunately, I am unable to provide any financial compensation for your time due to this being for my undergraduate dissertation.

I will be recruiting participants around Christmas time with questionnaire links being given between Christmas and February. I would also appreciate it if participants can forward the link to a same sex friend who does not work in the industry to also complete.

My email address is rachael.keith@northumbria.ac.uk and I am happy to answer any queries you may have regarding the study or for you to provide any feedback.

If anyone interested in participating could please send me an email expressing their interest and I will send the questionnaire link around Christmas time.


Many thanks

Rachael Keith

 

[AlexaCrush]

How long will this questionnaire take approximately?
Is it safe to assume it will be anonymous?
Are you including male/trans models or only women?
What is your hypothesis going in?
Do we get to see the results when you're done? (I'm a psych minor and would love to get all nerdy about this kind of thing)

 

[Ms_Gingersnatch]

Is this about romantic relationships or all sorts of relationships?
If it's about romantic relationships, is it restricted to models that are currently in one?
Dating as a sex worker can be pretty hard. Once you're settled into something (or if you were in a relationship when you started), I think we tend to have pretty healthful relationships because we and our partners are likely to be relatively open with each other about sex stuff, jealousy, etc. So if you're getting info from models in very different relationship phases, I would think there'd be a lot of variation in terms of relationship satisfaction.
Are you including models with same sex relationships and/or non-monogamous relationships?

 

[AudriTwo]

Oh is it that time of year already? where college students ask us a bunch of monotonous questions? goodie. /jokes

What is your hypothesis going in?

I would like to know this as well. Because there is nothing worse then finding out your participated in a something that paints you in the wrong light.

 

[Ms_Gingersnatch]

Not directed at the OP per se, but there are so many people that want to study us for these ultimately very nebulous theses about whether we're exploited, how much risk we face, if we're all totally damaged people, whether we do this because we were abused, how we relate to the legal system, etc.

If people, especially those in the psychology field, would really like to benefit our community, I think it would be interesting to study cam models and social isolation. Sex workers in general tend to restrict their social networks (for obvious reasons), and for cam models, it's compounded because we can go rather long periods of time without setting foot outside our homes. Quite a few of us range somewhere from "below average levels of social engagement" to full on hikikomori/hermit. How common is social isolation among us? How severe is it? Are there other populations with comparable isolation? Are there existing resources and strategies that have helped those populations and might benefit cam models?

Just saying... college students, feel free to scoop up this proposed research topic!

 

[SMuser69]

I think it would be interesting to study cam models and social isolation. Sex workers in general tend to restrict their social networks (for obvious reasons), and for cam models, it's compounded because we can go rather long periods of time without setting foot outside our homes. Quite a few of us range somewhere from "below average levels of social engagement" to full on hikikomori/hermit.

That would be a very potentially biased study in itself. What I mean is if the study's focus is sex working then it should be of an affect CREATED or relayed by being a sex worker. Sex working doesn't make someone anti-social they usually show anti-social behavior before starting their sex working. Which I agree there should be more study of symptomatic behavior post sex working (If there's a sex workers version of PTSD) or does too many dick pics truly make a female sex worker hate men. Do straight male sex workers change their concepts of anal sex association to being gay (this study I would really like since I'm not gay but find anal sex enjoyable)?

What you're suggesting would more be a study of what sort of career paths are compatible for someone to extreme anti-social of phobia level behaviors.

 

[AudriTwo]

That would be a very potentially biased study in itself. What I mean is if the study's focus is sex working then it should be of an affect CREATED or relayed by being a sex worker. Sex working doesn't make someone anti-social they usually show anti-social behavior before starting their sex working. Which I agree there should be more study of symptomatic behavior post sex working (If there's a sex workers version of PTSD) or does too many dick pics truly make a female sex worker hate men. Do straight male sex workers change their concepts of anal sex association to being gay (this study I would really like since I'm not gay but find anal sex enjoyable)?

What you're suggesting would more be a study of what sort of career paths are compatible for someone to extreme anti-social of phobia level behaviors.

there is a common trait with cammodels who become antisocial after getting into sexwork. it is a problem in our community and is worth researching.

i was extremely social before getting into sex work.going out to with friends, traveling, museums, theatre now, not so much. most of the reason why is because the times i would work weren't conventional. and when i wouldn't want to pull away when i was having a good week. with any job you make sacrifices. with sexwork, a social life can be one of them.

there is something there buddy, so slow down your horses.

 

[SMuser69]

there is a common trait with cammodels who become antisocial after getting into sexwork. it is a problem in our community and is worth researching.

i was extremely social before getting into sex work.going out to with friends, traveling, museums, theatre now, not so much. most of the reason why is because the times i would work weren't conventional. and when i wouldn't want to pull away when i was having a good week. with any job you make sacrifices. with sexwork, a social life can be one of them.

there is something there buddy, so slow down your horses.

Not to say there's NEVER a change however there are a lot of outlining things in any career path that lead to the same outcome. The long and short of it is this might be the same outcome if you were part of any time consuming life encompassing career path. You see the same behavioral changes with Wall Street traders and even with homemakers. A research paper that would specifically result in sex work career path being unique in this would be torn apart in cross examination.

tl;dr These behavior changes are not UNIQUE to this profession to make such a direct association. Research paper study topics UNIQUE to the research topic.

 

[Ms_Gingersnatch]

That would be a very potentially biased study in itself. What I mean is if the study's focus is sex working then it should be of an affect CREATED or relayed by being a sex worker. Sex working doesn't make someone anti-social they usually show anti-social behavior before starting their sex working. Which I agree there should be more study of symptomatic behavior post sex working (If there's a sex workers version of PTSD) or does too many dick pics truly make a female sex worker hate men. Do straight male sex workers change their concepts of anal sex association to being gay (this study I would really like since I'm not gay but find anal sex enjoyable)?

What you're suggesting would more be a study of what sort of career paths are compatible for someone to extreme anti-social of phobia level behaviors.

I'm not saying that camming is necessarily causal. It's pretty common that people who have social anxiety and/or other health problems are drawn to camming because it can accommodate them. That said, I think there are aspects of camming that can exacerbate isolation, even in people that were fairly social before. It's not really a PTSD thing either.

there is a common trait with cammodels who become antisocial after getting into sexwork. it is a problem in our community and is worth researching.

i was extremely social before getting into sex work.going out to with friends, traveling, museums, theatre now, not so much. most of the reason why is because the times i would work weren't conventional. and when i wouldn't want to pull away when i was having a good week. with any job you make sacrifices. with sexwork, a social life can be one of them.

there is something there buddy, so slow down your horses.

I agree with this, but also there are other practical issues. If you have friends and family that you don't want to know about camming, the more time you spend with those people, the higher the risk that you'll slip up and get caught in a lie, so you may start limiting your time with them. If you go out to a venue where you interact with strangers, there's the inevitable questions and follow up discussion about what you do for work, and the lying can get old in that scenario, too. Even among people that know what you do, sometimes they want to hear all the gory details and treat it like a circus freak show. You have to watch yourself all the time with a lot of people, and eventually it gets easier to just narrow your social circle.

Also, every time you go out, there's the chance that someone will recognize you from cam. It's unlikely, but you always wonder if today will be the day.

Sometimes you just don't want to risk running into your neighbors because you don't really know how much of your work they've overheard.

And while this is pretty minor, there are times that I've wanted to do something as simple as walking my dog while I'm between shifts, but it's daylight and I'm wearing a fuck ton of makeup, so better to wait until I'm done with work or it's dark out.

 

[JickyJuly]

Not to say there's NEVER a change however there are a lot of outlining things in any career path that lead to the same outcome. The long and short of it is this might be the same outcome if you were part of any time consuming life encompassing career path.

Sure. If it's a job that is time consuming, causes you to be judged openly, leads to less career and social potentials in the future, makes you a less sympathetic victim should you be murdered, devalues your family and leads many to believe you're a danger to children and society. I mean, I'm not for pretending that those in sex work are super special and different. In most ways our issues are totally the same as anyone. But, socializing once you're at the sex work table is problematic. I can't think of other jobs that combine difficulty in speaking about with utter lack of respect. Like... if someone is a rocket scientist, they'll have a hard time talking about their job with random folks, but they'll be respected at least. We can't even take a college girl's survey without worrying that we're helping her throw us under the bus.

 

[AudriTwo]

I agree with this, but also there are other practical issues. If you have friends and family that you don't want to know about camming, the more time you spend with those people, the higher the risk that you'll slip up and get caught in a lie, so you may start limiting your time with them. If you go out to a venue where you interact with strangers, there's the inevitable questions and follow up discussion about what you do for work, and the lying can get old in that scenario, too. Even among people that know what you do, sometimes they want to hear all the gory details and treat it like a circus freak show. You have to watch yourself all the time with a lot of people, and eventually it gets easier to just narrow your social circle.

I deleted out how i have the luxury of not being from where I live, so i'm pretty open to new people, where as other models don't. i was going to go in more, but i was lazy. ;p

 

[Gen]

Research paper study topics UNIQUE to the research topic.

That's not true at all? You can essentially take any two factors and research them. How do doctors/prisoners/Indians/seniors compare to the general population when it comes to environmentalism/anxiety/coffee consumption/diabetes rates? None of those are unique but they're all things that might get studied. It could be important to know if doctors experience higher levels of hypochondria, or black people are more likely to be depressed, or people who exercise live longer than people who don't, even if we can't accurately say why. Maybe people who exercise also eat healthier or exercise lessens stress or the physiological effects of exercise cause you to live longer. All of those factors can be studied once you know that there's a correlation between exercise and longevity.

If you want to say one of those things caused the other, you need an experiment or at least some intense long-term studies, but you can draw a correlation without saying which causes the other. And studies frequently do, even if the media tends to present it as an obvious causation.

A study seeing if sex workers are more socially isolated would be a good jumping-off point to say "okay, yes, so why?" or "no, they aren't, but they perceive themselves to be, so why?".

 

[AudriTwo]

@rachael_k I hope you don't mind, but we hijacked your study and it's already causing controversy!

this will be your new topic! it has been decided!

 

[rachael_k]

The questionnaire will take around 5-10 minutes to compete and is completely online. Your information will be completely anonymous, you will not need to provide your name, just a code word that you've picked that you can provide me with if you wish to withdraw your data from the study. Once the study is complete (around March) I will happily provide feedback to anyone who wishes. There will be an optio in the questionnaire to provide an email adress if you would like feedback.
The study is open to anyone in the industry not just females.

My hypothesis going in is that cam models will have lower relationship satisfaction in romantic relationships than those not in the industry. This is my hypothesis as there areseveral studies showing a link between sex work offline and low relationship satisfaction. However, there are no studies exploring relaionship satisfaction in those who wotk purely online. Due to the growing online industry, I feel this is an important area to explore.

You do not need to be in a current romantic relationship, provided you have been in one before.

Thanks everyone! Hope I haven't missed any questions

Rachael

 

[Gen]

You do not need to be in a current romantic relationship, provided you have been in one before.

Is that how they did it in the other studies too? My hypothesis would be that people who've had relationships and are currently single would have lower satisfaction than those who are still in relationships...because if they were satisfied they might still be in one.

 

[Mintx]

Is that how they did it in the other studies too? My hypothesis would be that people who've had relationships and are currently single would have lower satisfaction than those who are still in relationships...because if they were satisfied they might still be in one.

Yeah, I think that'd have a huge factor in it- or how the relationship is going when the model takes the survey. We're people too, and people argue and bicker and fight over petty stuff that won't end the relationship but makes the person think "wow why am i dating you".

 

[AudriTwo]

How old were those other studies on sex workers? I'm just asking because even though sexwork isn't fully accepted, we have had a bit of sexual revaluation. It's more accepting mostly now among younger crowds.


Idk just a thought.

 

[Ythee_Fox]

i think this is more linked to the stigma about being a sex worker, the society pressure and sometimes the partners will be really shitty people when they know what you do for a living than with just the fact we work with sex related stuff

i speak for myself, but i think if society had more acceptance towards us, this wouldnt even be an interesting subject to study

sorry if i sound inconsistent, i am not an english speaker ;s

 

[AudriTwo]

revaluation

revolution*

 

[SMuser69]

Is that how they did it in the other studies too? My hypothesis would be that people who've had relationships and are currently single would have lower satisfaction than those who are still in relationships...because if they were satisfied they might still be in one.

Reasons for leaving a relationship aren't always negative. In most cases one of the people involved are satisfied when the relationship ends. Relationships always involve two or more.

That said, how does the OP plan to do appropriate research with only one half of a relationship taking the survey? A one sided survey on relationships is unquestionable biased.

I still think there should be much more definition to research like this so it doesn't because something people point to later when they want to make a point in a biased argument.

We're still dealing with people that don't give their children shots pointing to biased/debunked research as their proof.

 

[Gen]

Reasons for leaving a relationship aren't always negative. In most cases one of the people involved are satisfied when the relationship ends. Relationships always involve two or more.

I'd guess "relationship satisfaction" measures if you're happy in a relationship, not if you're happy it ended. I don't think it's a leap to say people who stay in relationships have greater satisfaction with their romantic relationship than people who leave them. If you poll 100 sex workers and 75 of them are single, I'd hypothesize that they'd be less satisfied compared to 100 general population people of which 75 are married. Same way I'd guess single people in general report less relationship satisfaction.

That said, how does the OP plan to do appropriate research with only one half of a relationship taking the survey? A one sided survey on relationships is unquestionable biased.

There's nothing biased about investigating a specific population! If I'm studying football players, there's no bias against hockey players, that's just not who I'm studying. If I'm interested to know how sex workers feel, I'm not going to waste resources polling their boyfriend. This isn't a study on how partners of sex workers rate relationship satisfaction (though I'd be interested in reading that too). All studies are "biased" if you think including only a specific population is biased. It's also not biased to focus just on one person's perception of the relationship.

ETA:

I still think there should be much more definition to research like this so it doesn't because something people point to later when they want to make a point in a biased argument.

Psych studies are required to have operational definitions, so you can't just say you're measuring depression without stating what it means and how you're measuring it. The studies people misinterpret probably have them too, people just rarely actually read the studies and often misunderstand it.

 

[Kiki Jane]

I'm happy to be single. I can't imagine telling my therapist that I'm a camgirl, though, so I'm not sure what the official consensus on my happiness would be.

 

[Just_A_Guy]

Psych studies are required to have operational definitions

Well I'd like to know what the operational definition of satisfaction is. Because I guess it varies/differs between genders/ages and across lifetime.

 

[JickyJuly]

What is the purpose of doing a study in which you base your hypothesis on studies that have already been done? Sounds like a lazy, pseudo-science circle jerk to me.

 

[JickyJuly]

Eh... I'm just going to take a minute to spazz out here. We have students come to do this pretty often. It's played out. It's easy. You've picked a group to study and paired us with the answer that everyone wants to hear. Your peers can smile and listen and think you're oh so edgy having chosen something a little sexy. Realistically though, it's boring. It's mediocre. It's totally college student. It's a dinner party with boxed wine and shoes that fit incorrectly but make you feel so grown up. No one at your snoozer dinner party will question the wine or your shoes. They're too busy with their own shoes and pretending to like the damned wine themselves. Similarly, we're the only ones who will question the validity of your "study". And, lord knows, no one listens to us. Pick something else or take a more interesting angle. There's no science or growth in what you're currently doing.

 

[Just_A_Guy]

Just a quick add: It would be much more interesting in my opinion a sort of follow up in these studies/reserches. I mean if we define "satisfaction", let's say, as meeting your expectations, well it's obvious that these expectations vary during your life. So if you are currently living an actual satisfying relationship (whether you are in this industry or not) that doesn't mean it will last and always be that way.

I am a guy not a cam model and have nothig to do with this industry but if you had asked me 1 year ago if I was living a satisfying relationship with my ex I would have said hell yeah. But my expectations/goals have changed, wasn't satisfied at all, thought it would have been better to break up.

 

[AlexaCrush]

My hypothesis going in is that cam models will have lower relationship satisfaction in romantic relationships than those not in the industry.

You do not need to be in a current romantic relationship, provided you have been in one before.

Yep. Any interest I had in this just died.

 

[Kiki Jane]

Just speaking purely anecdotally, I feel that a lot of cam workers are in satisfying relationships. I'd like to see that hypothesis challenged! But, who are you using as a control group to represent "those not in the industry"?

 

[Just_A_Guy]

Is that how they did it in the other studies too? My hypothesis would be that people who've had relationships and are currently single would have lower satisfaction than those who are still in relationships...because if they were satisfied they might still be in one.

That makes sense. Here's your PhD. Wouldn't ever thought! Ok. End of the research.

boxed wine

Ok let's get serious here. Who the hell drinks a boxed wine anyway. Pls do not ever invite me to that party.

 

[AudriTwo]

Ok let's get serious here. Who the hell drinks a boxed wine anyway. Pls do not ever invite me to that party.

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