The Beyond the Interface: Critical Perspectives on Sex Work and Sextech Conference hosted by the Critical Trafficking and Sex Work Studies Cluster of the Centre for Feminist Research at York University was a fascinating and innovative conference discussing how technology is related to sex work. Speakers from Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Americas came together to discuss their perspectives on how technology and sex intersect. Topics ranged from legal and ethical debates to technological innovations for sexual pleasure and domming. The transcending message was that technology occupies a complex space that serves to both aid and further marginalize sex workers.
There were many interesting panels, including several presentations from alumni of Sextech School, a business school that supports entrepreneurs who wish to establish a business in the sex tech space. As a socio-environmentalist who is also a sex work activist, it was extremely informative for me to learn from another speaker about ecosexuality. Yet another speaker discussed the invisibility of disabled people in the world, and in sex work in particular: "Disabled people are the one minority group that you can become a part of at any time." The second day was largely focused on AI and VR sex workers, as well as harm caused by deep fakes. The third day covered sex work payment processing and financial exclusion, sex work advertising and subversive media. The theme of colonialism and how it informed views on sex kept returning over the three days of the conference and almost all the presentations touched upon safety, whether the presenter was speaking on artistic performance, BDSM, tech inventions, or enforcement agencies.
The paper I presented is called "Mining Data as Digital Resources: Technocolonialism and the Sex Work Industry". It focuses on the animating debates around technocolonialism, surveillance capitalism and ambivalent sexism through a theoretical framework of labelling and institutional theory. I discussed the issues of data mining and extractivism, privacy issues and function creep, particularly as it applies to the Nordic Model for sex work in Canada. I explained how Bill S-210, with its dependence on "age verification systems", leans into the logic of solutionism and securitization of technocolonialism and encourages a culture of shame around pornography. Instead of teaching young people about pornography, through human interaction, it turns to technological solutions that are biased and marginalize sex workers. Moreover, it encourages creating an iron cage based on coercive isomorphism; politicians would shy away from voting against the "Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act" for fear of being accused by colleagues and the electorate of supporting the exposure of young persons to pornography. The paper concludes by highlighting once again the need for full decriminalization and underscoring the fact that technological solutions will only serve in the end to harm those in the sex work industry.