Sex Work and SWTOR: Compare and Contrast

Issues of identity and privacy are two large topics that surround navigation of the internet. In comparing my experience with Star Wars: The Old Republic, a Massive Multi Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), and a fellow classmate Jackie’s experience on the Reddit forum r/SexWorkers, some similarities existed among identities within each community, while privacy among the two clearly had differentiated issues.

Identities within the SWTOR community were generally in line with what would appear to be the personalities many individuals would express as “their embodied selves,” a concept introduced by Baym (p. 118). Identities in Jackie’s experience with r/SexWorkers seemed very much in line with their authentic selves, as people freely spoke of their experience as clients and providers (Jackie, blog post 4). Yet Jackie expressed her need for privacy around the issue of sex work around her parents and peers in real life instances, whereas my experience with SWTOR did not reveal anything I would be afraid to tell my mother or my girlfriend.

Although there were varying degrees of identities on SWTOR, being that many use the role playing aspect to perform one identity, a considerable core of the community in the general chat had regular everyday discussions and interacted as the average person might in an offline experience. Although some disembodiment in online identification occurred on SWTOR, the majority of identification was in line with Baym’s (p. 118) statement that people often don’t try to mislead or form a false identity when given the chance to do so online. In Jackie’s experience, just about everyone on r/SexWorkers expressed themselves quite honestly as well. Yet much of this embodied expression seemed to be based on the fact that privacy and anonymity were paramount to the Reddit forum, as anonymity is mostly the norm for the platform (Massanari, p. 335; 341). So Jackie and I both experienced online characterizations of individuals to be generally consistent with individual’s true selves. In this way, identity expressed online through both our experiences with different communities was comparable.

The difference between our experiences was notable in the way privacy was enacted in online spaces in order to create privacy in offline spaces. Jackie mentioned being uncomfortable letting her parents or even friends know of her involvement with the r/SexWorkers community (Jackie, blog post 2), while my experience produced no need to cover up the identity I expressed in SWTOR. Jackie and I both seemed to express our identities quite genuinely to our embodied selves in our own specific communities. Yet Jackie’s experience led to the need for privacy present within the online channel she used to access such intimate conversations, while mine did not.

Marwick & Boyd (p. 1158) “find that people…develop innovative strategies to achieve privacy” when interacting in such online situations. One such strategy Jackie used in her experience with r/SexWorkers was to create a username that somewhat identified her, but would allow her to remain anonymous to loved ones without her particular consent. She also expressed using a less threatening topic as an alibi when her parents asked what she was doing for her class project (Jackie, blog post 3). Although I did not use my real name in SWTOR, I had no concern over privacy in offline spaces, considering I told my girlfriend I named my SWTOR character after her. Jackie’s need for privacy was based in a part of her identity she felt uncomfortable expressing to those close to her. Whereas the identity I expressed online, while being mostly my embodied self, as was Jackie’s, was not one I felt uncomfortable sharing with my loved ones. So although we both had a level of privacy built into our accounts, Jackie’s privacy was based on tactics discussed by Marwick & Boyd so that she did not expose this facet of her identity in offline settings.

This differentiation of need for privacy while expressing our embodied selves is the result of the way society judges specific identities. Marwick & Boyd (p. 1158) express issues of privacy based on lack of privilege among marginalized groups. Sex workers are among a group that is marginalized in society, and do not hold the same privileges under the law as non-sex workers. So privacy in Jackie’s experience could be based in the need for privacy to avoid legal ramifications for admittance to such work. Whereas my experience using SWTOR had no need for privacy based on fear of a particular possible outcome. In this way, Jackie’s experience was much different than mine concerning the issue of offline privacy with those close to her, as well as with online privacy within the Reddit forum.

In relating Jackie’s experience with the Reddit forum r/SexWorkers and my experience with SWTOR, we can see how issues of identity and privacy overlap but also differentiate themselves based on context. Jackie and I both experienced the online production of embodied identities within our communities, yet Jackie’s was based specifically on privacy issues online as well as offline, whereas mine was not. Yet at the same time, it was the privacy present within the forum r/SexWorkers that allowed for the more genuine production of embodied selves to occur.

Works Cited

Baym, Nancy. “Personal Connections in the Digital Age.” Bcourses, Polity Press, 2015, bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1490538/files/folder/Readings?preview=76453118.

Marwick, Alice E, and Danah Boyd. “Understanding Privacy at the Margins.” Bcourses, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, Annenberg Press, 2018, bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1490538/files/folder/Readings?preview=76453132.

Massanari, Adrienne. “#Gamergate and The Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures.” Bcourses, Sage, 2017, bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1490538/files/folder/Readings?preview=76453126.

I have not included Jackie’s blog as a works cited for anonymity purposes.