![Rebecca Saunders](https://profiles-cardiff.imgix.net/attachments/10261?w=200&h=200&auto=format&crop=faces&fit=crop&q=90")
Dr Rebecca Saunders
Teams and roles for Rebecca Saunders
Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society
Course Director for Masters in Digital Media and Society
Overview
Dr Rebecca Saunders researches the impact of digital and AI technologies on sexual cultures.
Her funded projects have investigated the data economies of porn platforms; the rise of digital sexual health technologies; and the effects of using smart sexual devices to quantify sexual experiences.
Her research sits within critical, queer and feminist data studies and seeks to understand the impact of data cultures on sexual behaviour and attitudes. Her current AHRC research project also explores the role of creativity in delivering fit-for-purpose consent education to university students, using queer data practice as a sex education resource.
She is the founder of the Digital Sexual Health and Wellbeing Research Collective. thedishcollective.com
Funded projects:
- UKRI Impact Acceleration Award, 2026, The Art of Consent: Visual Arts Consent Curriculum for the HEI sector
- International Collaborative Research Award, Cardiff University, 2026
- GW4 Building Communities Award, 2025, The Digital Sexual Health and Well-being Research Community
- Research and Innovation Seed Fund, 2024, Smart Sexual Devices and the Quantification of Sex
- UKRI Screen Industries Growth Network, 2023, Regional UK Content Creators and Labour Inequalities
- King's College London Continuation Award, 2017, Material Labour of Sex and Data and Attention Economies in Digital Porn Platforms
Dr Saunders is the author of Bodies of Work: the Labour of Sex in the Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and editor of Special Journal Issues Sexual Datafication (Sexualities Journal, 2024) and Porn, Sex + Big Data (Journal of Porn Studies, 2023).
She has published work on sexual consent apps (Edinburgh University Press, 2025); sex tracking apps (New Media and Society, 2024); the biggest porn producer in the world, Pornhub (Convergence, 2025) and the relevance of algorithms to feminist data studies (Feminist Media Studies, 2023).
She also publishes qualitative research on how the contemporary sexual body is represented, including the medicalisation of the female sexual body (Cambridge Scholars 2016), the postfeminist grotesque (Porn Studies, 2018) and masculinity as monstrosity in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein and Jimmy Saville cases (Feminist Media Studies, 2023).
Dr Saunders' most recent funded project on digital sexual health and well-being can be found here: https://gw4.ac.uk/community/digital-sexual-health-and-well-being-research-community/. She was awarded funding to curate two art exhibitions on sex work: for the international digital arts festival Ars Electronica and for London art gallery LOW Studios (2019, 2020) and was Co-Investigator on the Screen Industries Growth Network project which investigated experiences of exploitation by regional social media content creators in the UK (Social Media + Society, 2024).
She has been a guest speaker on documentaries and podcasts (Good Sex Podcast, 2026; Digital Health Diagnosed 2024; The Sex and Relationships Podcast, 2021; Fem’s Way 2019) to discuss the impact of datafication on people’s sexual and romantic lives.
PhD proposals in the following areas are welcome:
· Sex-tech, fem-tech and digital sexual health technologies
· Critical, queer and feminist data studies
· Pornography platforms and sex work
· Feminism and Queer and Trans Culture
Publication
2026
- Saunders, R. 2026. Sex on the very small screen: Data culture and sexual consent. In: Kerr, D. and Peberdy, D. eds. The Sex Scene: Space, Place, Industry. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. , pp.227-247. (10.3366/9781399520034-015)
2025
- Saunders, R. 2025. Big data on pornhub insights: Datafication and the making of a new sexual culture. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 31 (6), pp.1847-1864. (10.1177/13548565251363693)
- Saunders, R. 2025. Sexual datafication [Editorial]. Sexualities 28 (5-6), pp.1968-1985. (10.1177/13634607241307173)
2024
- Saunders, R. ed. 2024. Sexualities 27 (7) [Special Issue: Sexual Datafication].. SAGE.
- Salamon, E. and Saunders, R. 2024. Domination and the arts of digital resistance in social media Creator labor. Social Media + Society 10 (3)(10.1177/20563051241269318)
- Saunders, R. 2024. Sex tracking apps and sexual self-care. New Media and Society 26 (4), pp.2006-2022. (10.1177/14614448221079631)
2023
- Saunders, R. ed. 2023. Special issue of Porn Studies, Volume 10, 2023 - Issue 2: Porn, Sex + Big Data. Taylor and Francis.
- Saunders, R. 2023. Sex tech, sexual data and materiality. Porn Studies 10 (2), pp.120-134. (10.1080/23268743.2023.2194320)
- Saunders, R. 2023. Here be monsters: monster porn and the crisis of masculinity. Feminist Media Studies 23 (5), pp.2085-2101. (10.1080/14680777.2022.2041253)
2020
- Saunders, R. 2020. Bodies of Work: the Labour of Sex in the Digital Age. Dynamics of Virtual Work Palgrave.
- Bishop, S. et al., 2020. Introduction to the special issue: Algorithms for her? Feminist claims to technical language. Feminist Media Studies 20 (5), pp.730-732. (10.1080/14680777.2020.1783797)
2019
- Saunders, R. 2019. Computer-generated pornography and convergence: Animation and algorithms as new digital desire. Convergence 25 (2), pp.241-259. (10.1177/1354856519833591)
2018
- Saunders, R. 2018. Grey, gonzo and the grotesque: the legacy of porn star Sasha Grey. Porn Studies 5 (4), pp.363-379. (10.1080/23268743.2018.1505544)
2016
- Saunders, R. 2016. “Open wide and say ‘aah’ ”: The body and the medical authority of pornography. In: Brunskell-Evans, H. ed. The Sexualised Body and the Medical Authority of Pornography: Performing Sexual Liberation. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. , pp.95-116.
2014
- Saunders, R. 2014. The pornographic paratexts of Pornhub. In: Desrochers, N. and Apollon, D. eds. Examining Paratextual Theory and its Applications in Digital Culture. Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology (AHSAT) IGI Global. , pp.235-251. (10.4018/978-1-4666-6002-1.ch012)
Articles
- Saunders, R. 2025. Big data on pornhub insights: Datafication and the making of a new sexual culture. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 31 (6), pp.1847-1864. (10.1177/13548565251363693)
- Saunders, R. 2025. Sexual datafication [Editorial]. Sexualities 28 (5-6), pp.1968-1985. (10.1177/13634607241307173)
- Salamon, E. and Saunders, R. 2024. Domination and the arts of digital resistance in social media Creator labor. Social Media + Society 10 (3)(10.1177/20563051241269318)
- Saunders, R. 2024. Sex tracking apps and sexual self-care. New Media and Society 26 (4), pp.2006-2022. (10.1177/14614448221079631)
- Saunders, R. 2023. Sex tech, sexual data and materiality. Porn Studies 10 (2), pp.120-134. (10.1080/23268743.2023.2194320)
- Saunders, R. 2023. Here be monsters: monster porn and the crisis of masculinity. Feminist Media Studies 23 (5), pp.2085-2101. (10.1080/14680777.2022.2041253)
- Bishop, S. et al., 2020. Introduction to the special issue: Algorithms for her? Feminist claims to technical language. Feminist Media Studies 20 (5), pp.730-732. (10.1080/14680777.2020.1783797)
- Saunders, R. 2019. Computer-generated pornography and convergence: Animation and algorithms as new digital desire. Convergence 25 (2), pp.241-259. (10.1177/1354856519833591)
- Saunders, R. 2018. Grey, gonzo and the grotesque: the legacy of porn star Sasha Grey. Porn Studies 5 (4), pp.363-379. (10.1080/23268743.2018.1505544)
Book sections
- Saunders, R. 2026. Sex on the very small screen: Data culture and sexual consent. In: Kerr, D. and Peberdy, D. eds. The Sex Scene: Space, Place, Industry. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. , pp.227-247. (10.3366/9781399520034-015)
- Saunders, R. 2016. “Open wide and say ‘aah’ ”: The body and the medical authority of pornography. In: Brunskell-Evans, H. ed. The Sexualised Body and the Medical Authority of Pornography: Performing Sexual Liberation. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. , pp.95-116.
- Saunders, R. 2014. The pornographic paratexts of Pornhub. In: Desrochers, N. and Apollon, D. eds. Examining Paratextual Theory and its Applications in Digital Culture. Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology (AHSAT) IGI Global. , pp.235-251. (10.4018/978-1-4666-6002-1.ch012)
Books
- Saunders, R. ed. 2024. Sexualities 27 (7) [Special Issue: Sexual Datafication].. SAGE.
- Saunders, R. ed. 2023. Special issue of Porn Studies, Volume 10, 2023 - Issue 2: Porn, Sex + Big Data. Taylor and Francis.
- Saunders, R. 2020. Bodies of Work: the Labour of Sex in the Digital Age. Dynamics of Virtual Work Palgrave.
Teaching
She is Course Director for the Masters in Digital Media and Society and also leads on the following modules (2024/25):
· Postgraduate - Understanding Digital Media
· Postgraduate - Gender, Sexuality and Digital Culture
· Postgraduate – Social Media and Politics
Previously led (2023/24):
· Undergraduate - (Me)me, Myself, and I: The Power and Politics of Digital Remix Culture and Online Inequalities
· Postgraduate – Digital Economies and Digital Labour