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Abstract
This article explores the dynamics of sex commerce on the web that occurs on various websites, and offers services ranging from escorts, nightclubs, massage parlors, and dating sites to multifunctional hubs. The study analyzed 149 commercial websites, focusing on three European countries, France, Greece, and Slovenia, with the purpose of revealing the representational patterns of online sex commerce. The aim is to explore the kinds of texts that are published on these websites and analyze actors’ profiles and sex services. We examine marketing strategies, look at the role of gender, and discuss the impact of profiling on the agency of sex workers. The analysis shows that websites and online networks tend to represent sexualities as a commercial niche where gender, ethnicity, and class intersect to reproduce gender stereotyping. We theorize sex work as (gendered) work that is similar to but also different from other work, and analyze web representation in this context.
