Sign up. Sign in. Lena Chen. A techno track played in the background as I spotlighted his video, enlarging it for viewers. A submissive craving humiliation, Henry decided to fulfill his fetish by broadcasting his anus via Play4UsNow , an immersive online performance that I produced with artists Esben Holk and Stephanie Ballantine in November In a moment when sex workers face seemingly insurmountable legislative and algorithmic odds, experiencing discrimination on and off-line, we wanted to discover the political limits and possibilities of erotic power exchange.
What happens when we imagine sex workers as the digital gatekeepers and subvert the power relationship between sex workers, technology, and audience?
What are the implications of placing such exchanges within a public art context versus a purely transactional private one? Since the passage of FOSTA-SESTA, online platforms have been steadily banning sexual content in a wave of digital gentrification with devastating consequences for sex workers and erotic content producers. Sex workers have long relied on digital networks for marketing and self-promotion, screening clients, and sharing professional advice.
Similar to other stigmatized communities, sex workers also connect with peers online for interpersonal and emotional support when coping with issues like the threat of family disapproval or outing. Considering the many ways in which sex workers get fucked by the system on a daily basis, we wanted to imagine a speculative world where we are the ones holding power. Within the marketplace of surveillance capitalism, power is data, and data is the 21st century fetish object. Recalling a Geocities aesthetic, the website bombards visitors with flashing banner ads for adult services and persistent pop-up windows.
In private breakout rooms, audiences watched the dommes perform pieces ranging from burlesque and clowning to electric stimulation and pet play.
