Originally Posted by
E.S. Camgirl, Ph.D.
I am also a camgirl with a strong academic background. And whaddaya know, I'm also working on a research project on sex work and webcam (although mine is much cooler :P). While I'm not much further along than you (still finding participants), everyone who has agreed, or is thinking about participating, is someone I've asked personally, either in a DM on twitter or a text message because they are people I already know and communicate with regularly. At some point I'm sure I'll approach a model I've never met or talked with before, but I'll be able to say "Camgirl A and Camgirl B, whom you know, are friends of mine and are already on board."
While I believe you have experience in the industry, as well as academic training, you are not a part of this community. I imagine criminology is a little rougher than what I'm used to in terms of how to conduct research, but as an ethnographer, we come from a position where we favor participation, and I bristle at the sudden call-for-participants approach you've chosen. Even if I posted a similar request here on SW, anyone could look at my 1.5 years here on SW, read my old posts, see the posts I've given thanks on, and you could probably figure out a lot about me and whether to trust me or not. I trust PGD's vouch for you, but ideally you would have enough of a reputation within a community before you started asking it for things.
Academic to academic.