What Do Camsite Users Learn About Sexual Consent?

As technology continues to evolve, there are an increasing number of ways to connect with others and experience digital intimacy. In other words, it’s easier than ever to explore sex and romance through mediated channels, and this has increasingly become a focus of sexuality research. Today, we’re going to talk about an article that was recently published [1] in The Journal of Sex Research that explores digital intimacy in the context of what users on camsites learn about consent. We’ll first review what camsites are, followed by how media shapes our knowledge and understanding of consent. Then we’ll hear from the lead author on the study to discuss some of the key findings.

What Are Camsites, and How Does Media Shape Our Understanding of Consent?

Broadly speaking, camsites are websites where users pay money to interact with sex workers in a live, video-based format. Examples of popular camsites include LiveJasmin, Chaturbate, and MyFreeCams. On these sites, performers often have livestreams where audience members (site users) can donate a certain amount of money to have a message read aloud, have the performer engage in certain sexual or non-sexual behaviors, or just interact with the performer through text. Private sessions, where users and performers engage in one-on-one video sessions, are more expensive, but are understood to be more intimate than a group setting. 

Although the literature about mediated consent is still emerging, current research recognizes that the media that we consume shapes our knowledge about not just consent, but romantic and sexual relationships more broadly. [2] For example, media depictions of consensual relationships have been found to influence how adolescents interpret the role of gender in sexual initiation [3], including pornography that contains hints about how consent is given and received. [4] Broadly speaking, it appears that our interactions with digital media influence how we come to understand processes of sexual consent within our intimate interactions. 

The Present Study 

Given the potential for new technologies to help individuals learn about consent, a group of researchers at The Kinsey Institute were interested in investigating whether users of the camsite LiveJasmin had learned about consent while being on the website, and if so, the main lessons they learned about it. To do so, the research team recruited users on the website through a popup that asked individuals to contribute to science and take the survey. During this survey, participants  were asked about their behaviors on the site (e.g., how much money they spend, how long have they been using the site), and to indicate whether they had learned something new about consent while on the site. If they did, participants were presented with an open-ended response question to describe what they had learned. 

Out of their total sample of 5,828 participants, 12% (699 users) reported that they learned something new while on the website. These participants were largely heterosexual white men, and they reported learning about the importance of respecting boundaries and recognizing explicit sexual consent communication (such as “no means “no”). Additionally, participants indicated learning that consent is oftentimes more complicated than a verbal “yes” or “no.” They learned that consent is different for each person, and can also be expressed through indicators such as body language and tone of voice. Notably, the transactional nature of camsites nuanced participants’ understanding of consent in the sense that site users wanted to ensure that, despite being paid, models were also voluntary participants in the sexual acts requested of them. 

How Do Camsites Facilitate Consent For Their Users? 

A unique aspect of the camsite is that both exchanges of consent and the sexual interactions between users and performers take place entirely online. I asked Dr. Gesselman, the lead of this study, what is important to pay attention to in this context. Here’s what she told me: 

One of the most unique aspects of navigating consent on camsites is that the clients and models have to explicitly communicate. In offline interactions, people often use non-verbal cues to guide their understanding of consent, but the digital environment of camsites requires a clear and direct verbal or text-based exchange. This explicitness is out of the norm for a lot of people, but it can lead to a better understanding of consent as an ongoing process where everyone involved actively participates in setting boundaries and ensuring mutual comfort. The transactional part of these interactions also challenges clients to rethink the power dynamics and personal agency involved, which can prompt them to respect the autonomy and boundaries of models in ways that they might not have considered before. 

In this case, the explicitness of camsites may be something that individuals have not experienced before during their in-person sexual interactions. Importantly, Gesselman indicated that mediated spaces like camsites “might be more impactful for some people than traditional educational settings would be.” How so? As she further explained, “[the] real-time, interactive nature of camsites creates a space for users to directly engage with the concept of consent in a practical, immediate way.” 

Key Takeaways 

As opposed to offline sexual encounters, consent procedures are built into the infrastructure of camsites themselves, the importance of which should not be taken for granted. Gesselman explained that one of the most important things to take away from this research is that “digital platforms, including camsites, aren’t just spaces for entertainment but can also serve as important contexts for learning about sex and sexual consent. The nuanced, real-time interactions that people have on these sites have the potential to reshape traditional sexual scripts, and foster a more explicit, communicative approach to consent.”

In the future, it will be fascinating to see how this research continues to evolve and to learn more about how sexual consent is learned through digitally-mediated adult entertainment. In the meantime, if you want to learn more, we encourage you to read the study in full via this link.

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References:

[1] Gesselman, A. N., Kaufman, E. M., Bennett-Brown, M., & Campbell, J. T. (2024). Camsites as a context for sexual consent education: User experiences. The Journal of Sex Research, OnlineFirst, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2024.2369662

[2] Fox, J., & Frampton, J. R. (2023). Romantic relationships and traditional media. In B. G. Ogolsky (Ed.), The Sociocultural Context of Romantic Relationships (1st ed., pp. 168–200). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009158657.010

[3] Alexopoulos, C., Cingel, D. P., & Stevens, H. (2024). Media portrayals of sexual consent and refusal influence adolescents’ gender-related attitudes. Psychology of Popular Media, No Pagination Specified-No Pagination Specified. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000550

[4] Willis, M., Jozkowski, K. N., Canan, S. N., Rhoads, K. E., & Hunt, M. E. (2020). Models of sexual consent communication by film rating: A content analysis. Sexuality & Culture, 24(6), 1971–1986. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09731-7

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