Auto-ethnographical talk on developing trans*/non-binary personae via digital/online media and interactions (a few sections are derived from texts written for this very blog). Presented 8/7/22 at:
https://www.scribd.com/document/580649813/Prospectives-2022-Schedule-Abstracts-Bios
Youtube video link to full paper.
My original pitch, with footnotes, sent in mid-May '22:
" Pornographics as Queer Method(1): Using Adult Online Entertainment as a Strategy for Developing Non-Binary Gender and Being
Coronavirus in the summer of 2020 changed many things – not least of which, my job prospects for earning essential money over the summer break between degree courses.
Internet sex work (specifically, webcamming or ‘camming’) wasn’t the top of my preferred list of options, but a number of contributing factors made it so, not least of which were safety, zero setup costs and simplicity. Via text chat, speech and visual stream, I spent the summer operating within an industry with which most people have only passing familiarity, and which is part of what Ashley Mears and Catherine Connell call “display work(2)”, namely the display and/or performance of femininity by female workers. As a non-binary (assigned male at birth) artist, the performance of femininity is something I have honed and practiced over four decades.
The purpose of this proposal is to investigate the digital realm, specifically the world of what was once called “cybersex”, and its potential for liberation, growth and experimentation among non-binary users, as a tool for alternative genders to (re)construct themselves and discover new ways of expressing both sexuality and personhood, whilst giving voice to a personal lived experience through what trans writer Juliet Jacques refers to as “Écriture trans-féminine(3)”. The concept of appearing, of performing, for the benefit of others – yet simultaneously being denied voice – is one long associated with women in Western performance and art. One of my purposes is to give voice to a stigmatized practice (sex work generally) which nonetheless is the only means of support for millions of people around the world, especially transpeople, who are most at risk of physical abuse (especially in the Americas).
I will use the medium of laptop webcam to record the talk/presentation (and performance?), therefore siting the analysis and topic within the very medium under examination – the exchange between a ‘performer’ on one side of a computer screen, with an observer on the other.
I can take this from a purely auto-ethnographical angle, or from a less 'hands-on' position in which I weigh up the pros (freedom, safety) against the cons (surveillance capitalism, giving currency to a hegemonical structure designed for maximum exploitation of labour, usually female).
Ultimately, my intention is to reclaim the nonbinary body and being as a tangible and addressable thing in its own right, to argue for 'third gender' status as a resolution to many of the societal, cultural and political problems of adhering to an outdated binary system of gender identification and body policing. To show that “inclusion is better than exclusion”, in any genre, even if that genre is itself problematic, and seek ways in which users can turn such modes of expression into potential liberation.
(1) The title, and basic theme of this proposal, are derived from an essay by Dr. Angela Jones. Her book ‘Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry’ is also a key text. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351721122_Camming_Money_Power_and_Pleasure_in_the_Sex_Work_Industry_By_Angela_Jones_New_York_New_York_University_Press_2020_Pp_xxii322_8900_cloth_3000_paper
(2) Mears, Ashley, and Catherine Connell. 2016. “The Paradoxical Value of Deviant Cases: Toward a Gendered Theory of Display Work.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 41
(3) After Hélène Cixous. See: https://maljournal.com/1/that-obscure-object/juliet-jacques/ecriture-trans-feminine"
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