“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”
–Paulo Freire
The Politics of Education
Being free is the dream for so many: free to decide, free to speak, free to live. Yet, how many are brave enough to cut the cord from their oppressors? That is, if they even are able to admit that they are oppressed in the first place.
I would like to write about freedom and oppression in this text.
Awareness could prove a painful process to people who have naturalized such subtle and common practices. Things do not have to be this way. The pain we suffer should not be a reason to desire to inflict pain on others.
So the “natural behavior” is only “natural” because we have never met anything else and many times have the idea that no other option exists. For instance, the dream of many oppressed people is to oppress as a result of being exposed for so long to such negative experiences (FREIRE, 1970). The New Camming Perspective is being developed to remind the camgirls, executives and even users that nothing of this is natural; everything is a social construct. (SMITH, 2010). Yet, just because social practices are not built of brick and mortar it does not mean they are easy to change; however, there is this possibility. It is just through critical thought that it is possible to recognize and face the forces that hold us back from developing our full potential. Such potential is literally called freedom.
Freedom is first constructed through knowledge and struggle, and it is quite obvious that this excludes passive behavior. One of the consequences of freedom is conflict, but this is not necessarily bad, as we could imagine that the most guaranteed way to fail in anything in life is to try to please everyone.
Pleasing everyone also means paying special homage to the oppressor. At first, it may feel like a sense of (false) security. But, in fact, everything that the oppressor wants is to remain in power. It is not very obvious but flattery does not change the status of those who suffer the oppression, it is just more humiliation for them. That is why it is not a good idea to exchange freedom for this sense of security that is not even real. Thus, oppression is characterized by relationships that dominate, scare, exploit individuals between social groups in economic, social and psychologic terms (GIL, 1994).
The point which can be made is that we all have some sort of fear—it could be about our physical integrity or the future that lies ahead, yet we should not allow this fear to paralyze us and prevent us from seeking a purpose and the necessary steps to make it happen.
On top of that, there are many forms of violence and many of them are not physical, so, they are not so obvious to notice, and thus, to prove. For instance, abuse of power, especially at the workplace. Recently I heard from a woman exec in our industry that she cried every day for being disrespected by her bosses; however, she cried at home, not in public like I have done many times. She advised me to “be strong”: to tell the world how happy I am in my job position as an exec, too, because by smiling and showing happiness, I would be respected. Besides, why was I “still protesting for the models’ human rights if I was not a model anymore?"
I was never so sure about the direction of the New Camming Perspective after listening to this!
•If something hurts you, why do you have to cry in private? I cry in public, why not?
•Who said that being strong is about being happy about the way you make a living when you, in fact, only follow rules that you don’t even agree with? I believe that being strong is having a purpose and fighting for it. Who has a purpose has emotions, after all, every purpose was born from an emotion. I thought it was obvious! Isn’t it?
•Respect is not analogous to passivity, in fact, sometimes you are only respected when you demand respect.
•The New Camming Perspective is not about myself, but a project that aims to discuss human rights in camming. I will protest until the end of my days for better work conditions for the models, doesn’t matter my job position in the scene.
The subjection to invisible violence is so strong because it has already been internalized as part of daily life (TRIVINHO, 2011). For instance, when I expressed in a public seminar that it was inhumane to demand that models had to have their vibes on and in them all day long in order to be rewarded and to stay in the first positions of the Host List, this did not shock anyone. Of course, why worry about the models’ health if the money is coming in?
Not only that but also, the vibe toys—apparently so small and harmless—have given way to penetrating sex machines (which are made from a dildo attached to an electric engine that penetrates the camgirl when the member tips her). What was even more terrifying to me was the fact that while I spoke about how I felt really sad and cried in outrage because of the direction the industry is taking, this demonstration of humanity was more shocking for some of the audience than my speech. Furthermore, there was some hearsay about my tears and I heard that I was “supposed to keep up to the business level."
I was really impressed that dehumanizing human bodies was more natural than showing humanity through emotions. The funny part (if there is any) is that nowadays the most used slogan is “be yourself." However, it has become quite obvious to me that this is only allowed to “be yourself” if you do not cry, do not scream, do not suffer, do not complain, do not think and smile while you accept your fate as part of the oppressive reality!
Fortunately, part of the audience is not the whole audience. While I was explaining why the New Camming Perspective is so radical in its direction and values, I was applauded by some of the women—and the moderator—in the room, who hugged me tight at the end of the panel, stimulating me to keep strong in my journey. That is not all; this seminar has received a lot of positive feedback on social media, which made me sure that the path that the industry is following must contemplate a division between those who care about the human aspects and those who see the models only as products.
My role here is not really try to change the mind of those who do not understand that models are also people—these people don’t even need to say “Hi” to me!—but to connect those that believe it is possible to build a more humane cam community, conciliating some human rights to a profitable business model and making a win-win for everyone.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
FREIRE, P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder. (1970)
________. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey. (1985)
GIL, D. G. Confronting social injustice and oppression. In F. G. Reamer (Ed.), The foundations of social work knowledge. New York: Columbia. (1994)
SMITH, NEIL. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. University of Georgia Press. (2010)
TRIVINHO, E. Mediatic visibility, melancholia of the unique and invisible violence in cyberculture. MATRIZES, VOL 4 N. 2 (2011). DOI: https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1982-8160.v4i2p111-125
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Priscila Magossi is a journalist (Mackenzie-SP/Brazil, 2002-2005), with a Master’s degree (2006-2008) and a Ph.D. (2010-2014) in Communication and Semiotics (PUC-SP/Brazil). Since she has started her journey in the communication field, she has been studying the impacts of the Mass Media and the Cyberculture in the post-modern society, focusing primarily on the social bonds dynamics.
Regarding her main activities in the camming industry, Dr. Magossi is the author of the New Camming Perspective: a formal study about camming that also looks into the porn industry, the mainstream media, and social behavior in order to draw conclusions.
This new approach for understanding camming is centered on the main concepts of (1) Building Connections between models and members through the (2) Social Aspect of Camming, which is only possible to be developed when in touch with access to the (3) Social Traffic.
The goal of this project is to maximize profit, retain return customers, offer better working conditions and female empowerment.
