Digitalising sex commerce and sex work: a comparative analysis of French, Greek and Slovenian websites. Issue 3 (3rd March 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pajnik, Mojca; Kambouri, Nelli; Renault, Matthieu; Šori, Iztok
• Is Part Of: Gender, place and culture. Volume 23:Issue 3(2016)
• Page Start: 345
• Page End: 364
• Publication Date: 2016-03-03
• Subjects: sex work -- sex commerce -- Internet -- gender hierarchies -- Web crawling; trabajo sexual -- comercio sexual -- internet -- jerarquías de género -- rastreo online; 性工作 -- 性交易 -- 互联网 -- 性别阶层 -- 网路探勘; Human geography -- Periodicals; Feminism -- Periodicals; Géographie féministe -- Périodiques; 305.305
• DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2015.1013449
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0966-369X

Abstract

Abstract : The aim of this article is to explore the complexity of the online sex trade and work by analysing sexuality-related commercial websites, with reference to three European states, France, Greece and Slovenia. The article compares websites in each specific sociocultural context, in order to provide insights into the various types of networks and services that emerge, and to explore how they operate, how they communicate and how sex is being merchandised. We have conducted a two-tier analysis: The first part discusses results of a quantitative macro-analysis exploring 149 websites, while the second part is a micro-analysis analysing the visualisation of egocentric network of three selected websites. The focus is on understanding how gender relations develop in digital environment and how within cyberspace sectorial and national divides are dealt with. While there is evidence to suggest that in some sectors the Internet has opened avenues for sex workers to work independently of the control networks, there are also many forms of exploitation that arise from new media. We observe that sex commerce online is not particularly attentive to the agency of sex workers but is, to the contrary, oriented to provide opportunities and a forum for businessmen and clients.