Identificar las fuentes de riesgo y construir una estructura jerárquica de riesgos

Many factors were considered in the selection process in order to ethically access participants.

3.4.1. Ethics Approval

As this thesis involved interview human subjects, ethical approval was sought. An application for ethical approval was submitted to the DCU Research Ethics Committee. This application outlined the process of interviewing participants in Las Vegas at the AEE/AVN expo, and attached the Plain Language and Informed Consent forms, which can be found in Appendix Three and Four. Ethical approval was granted in 2015, and a copy of this can be seen in Appendix Five. A recording device was sourced in order to record the interviews for later transcription.

3.4.2. Selection Methods

The participants were chosen using snowball sampling, approaching performers at the convention and randomly contacting performers through social media prior to the event.

Snowball sampling, also known as chain referral sampling, was chosen due to time constraints and it allowed participants to refer their friends to participate if they felt that they had a positive experience. This method represents an opportunity for the performer to experience more power in the research process, and is close to a participatory research approach. However, to counteract the risk that snowball sampling would result in sample bias, performers were also randomly approached at booths. There, the performers were engaged in conversation and the research project explained to them, and they were and asked if they wanted to participate. This was in conjunction to contacting performers via social media and making arrangements to meet at the event to conduct the interview.

Damianakis and Woodford argue that snowball sampling can increase negative implications for confidentiality in small research populations, in what they refer to as ‘ethical vulnerabilities’

(2012, p.709). They posit that measures taken to negate these risks can include the use of pseudonyms and the removal of identifying details, as well as giving the participants the right

to refuse to answer any questions they are uncomfortable with. Damianakis and Woodford also support the process of reflexivity in order to examine ethical issues. These measures were adopted during this PhD. While these concerns with snowball sampling in small communities are valid, the potential for equalisation through giving participants choice, agency and opportunity to participate in the research process cannot be dismissed.

3.4.3. Participant numbers

The number of interviews planned for was capped at 10, and resulted in 8 interviews conducted.

I approached approximately twenty performers at the expo, and approximately 5 on social media before the exp. All were contacted at random, and a range of ethnicities and ages were included. Two performers who were contacted via social media agreed to meet at the expo; I received no response from the others.

The small number of interviews was due to time constraints, both at the event itself, and within the time constraints of the PhD for in-depth analysis and write up. However, it is recommended for future research for a larger number of semi-structured interviews to be conducted in this area to contribute to the pool of knowledge to build a bigger picture of the realities of working in the industry.

3.4.4. Research schedule

The interviews took place over five days at the AEE/AVN event in January 2016. Interview times averaged approximately 40 minutes, with the shortest being approximately 30 minutes and the longest being almost one hour.

The participants chose the time, date and location of the interviews. This freedom of choice was to ensure the interviews did not conflict with their schedules, and to allow them control over this aspect of the interview process. For Amanda, Louise, Emma and Sophie, this was a quiet place in the hotel away from the expo. Katie wished to conduct the interview over breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Holly chose to meet and have food in a cafe away from the hotel. Ava chose the location of the Cupcake Girls suite. This was a rest area run by a support organisation for sex workers who provided a chill-out space for performers during the expo that was off limits to non-performers. Hannah could not make the allotted time in the end and so emailed her answers as she still wished to take part.

3.4.5. Performer Profiles

The performers had a mix of educational and professional experiences, as well as differences in age and ethnicity:

Name Age Experience Ethnicity Education

Louise 27 8 years White Did not finish

Sophie 21 11 months White/ Romani Currently

enrolling in

Due to the performers’ ages and length of experience in the industry, this thesis will most likely differ in experiences from those who are very new to the industry, are younger or are different ethnicities. However, people with extensive experience in any industry will have built up a large amount of experience and should be considered as experts in their own experiences.

It is notable that with the exception of Sophie, the performers were not new to the industry, and were older in age. Younger participants were asked but declined to take part. It could be speculated that participants were older and more experienced and this gave them more confidence to take part and discussed their wealth of experiences, whereas a younger or newer performer may not have this confidence yet.

The mixture of educational experiences is also interesting as it may challenge any stereotypes that women turn to pornography due to being uneducated or having a lack of options.

Participants did not reference their own levels of education or those of their colleagues; instead they focused more on their ages or levels of life experiences. For example, Emma, who had the highest educational achievement at PhD level, referred solely to life experience when discussing the vulnerability of new entrants to the industry. It appears that the level of stigma and negative on-set working experiences did not vary due to educational achievement, as all participants reported incidents of stigmatisation. Therefore, this variable was not explored further.

The performers self-identified within a variety of ethnicities. However, it must be noted that despite being asked to participate, no African-American/Black performers chose to participate.

Some of those asked refused outright, others stated they were too busy. As Miller-Young (2014) outlines, black performers experience the industry in different ways than white or Asian performers. The racial dynamics of a black woman being interviewed by a white woman is also

to be considered as part of reflexive research, and it may have been a factor in their decision not to take part. All performers mentioned stigmatisation so race was not counted as a distinguishing factor in this context. However, it would be interesting to consider racial differences in future research.

3.4.6. Anonymity

The participants were ascribed a pseudonym to protect their anonymity in publication. Each pseudonym was chosen randomly from a list of popular girls names and assigned randomly to the participants. This was decided upon in order to allow the participant more freedom to give personal opinions without fear of having this affect their employment opportunities, and to protect them from personal attacks from those who may dispute their accounts e.g. anti-pornography feminists or religious protestors. However, the participants were reminded that while this was done as much as possible, complete anonymity could not be absolutely assured due to others recognising anecdotes etc. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and then held on a secure computer that only the researcher had access to.