Some Findings

Here, I outline only a few of the findings to highlight the centrality of time to the indoor sex industry:

  • Time is a central resource in the sex industry. It is used to bound labour, produce the sex work experience, and regulate relationships.
  • The unit of time is denoted monetary value rather than individual services. This allows time to act as a container for specialised experiences as negotiated by the sex worker and client, thus enabling the diversification of the sex industry.
  • The value of that time is set according to competitive rates and demand for specific experiences. Despite economic decline, rates have not changed, which is a proactive choice made by individual sex workers to protect the value of their time and to maintain control. Although there is no evidence of formal organisation, individual sex workers recognise that dropping prices would have a collective impact. This represents one way that sex workers can formally and collectively organise to manage power balances with clients.
  • Participants who had worked in the industry for a longer period perceived ‘detrimental’ changes to clients’ behaviours over time. Specifically, clients are making increased demands on sex workers in terms of the immediacy of contact. Comparisons were drawn to clientele of previous periods who were less particular in their requests, were more inclined to wait for an appointment, and more reliable in their time-keeping. This was reflective of a more demanding consumer culture which is facilitated by online technology and driven by a capitalist need for productivity through consumption.
  • Interestingly, participants who were newer to the industry were more adaptive to these consumer demands because they had only worked in the industry after the onset of such changes. These participants invested greater time and effort in presenting a ‘brand’ and interacting with clients online to generate further income. Sex workers were having to work more intensely to secure income in a stagnated economy, therefore, but some were more accustomed to this than others.
  • To protect their control over time, sex workers sought clients with good temporal behaviours, i.e. not ‘time-wasters’. This contrasted to sex workers’ perceptions of clients seeking sex workers who gave extra time and did not ‘clock-watch’. These temporal practices are a site of fluctuating power, which is negotiated in the interactions between sex workers and clients.

While this list does not reflect the full findings of the research, I hope it gives an overview of the direction of the research. I welcome all comments!