Event

Interacting with coworkers is tricky work. To collaborate effectively, coworkers must build rapport while also not overstepping personal boundaries. Navigating this boundary between the personal and the professional is riskier when one’s job requires having sex with different coworkers every day. I explore this core workplace tension by drawing on an extensive ethnographic study of the Los Angeles pornography and adult content creation (i.e. OnlyFans) industry, including 70 interviews with industry members, observations of over 50 pornographic shoots, and fieldwork at other events. I examine how performers navigate efficiently producing pornographic scenes, while also managing sexual intimacy both on and off camera. Building on relational approaches from cultural and economic sociology, I reveal how conflicting orientations toward sexual appropriateness—potentially leading to allegations of sexual misconduct—rarely center around sex acts themselves, but instead develop from mismatched interpretations of the symbolic meaning of their work.