Digitalising sex commerce and sex work: a comparative analysis of French, Greek and Slovenian websites

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.

Digitalización del comercio y el trabajo sexuales: un análisis comparativo de sitios web franceses, griegos y eslovenos

El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la complejidad del comercio y el trabajo sexuales online analizando sitios web comerciales relacionados con la sexualidad, con referencia a tres estados europeos, Francia, Grecia y Eslovenia. El artículo compara sitios web en cada contexto sociocultural específico, con el objetivo de brindar una mirada a los varios tipos de redes y servicios que surgen, y para explorar cómo operan, cómo se comunican y cómo se está comercializando el sexo. Hemos conducido un análisis en dos etapas: la primer parte discute los resultados de un análisis macro cuantitativo explorando 149 sitios web, mientras que la segunda parte es un microanálisis estudiando la visualización de la red egocéntrica de tres sitios web seleccionados. Se puso el foco en comprender cómo se desarrollan las relaciones de género en un ambiente digital y cómo se manejan las divisiones sectoriales y nacionales dentro del ciberespacio. Si bien hay evidencia que sugiere que en algunos sectores la Internet ha abierto caminos para lxs trabajadorxs del sexo para trabajar en forma independiente de las redes de control, existen también muchas formas de explotación que surgen de los nuevos medios. Observamos que el comercio de sexo online no es particularmente cuidadoso con la agencia de lxs trabajadorxs sexuales sino que está, por el contrario, orientado a brindar oportunidades y un foro para los hombres de negocios y los clientes.

数码化性交易与性工作：法国、希腊与斯洛文尼亚网站的比较分析

本文的目标，在于透过分析与商业网站有关的性慾，探讨网路性交易与性工作的复杂性，并指涉法国、希腊与斯洛文尼亚三个欧洲国家。本文在各自的特定社会文化脉络中比较这些网站，以对浮现的各类网络与服务提供洞见，并探讨它们如何运作、如何沟通、以及性如何被商品化。我们进行了两段式分析：第一部分探讨我们搜寻的一百四十九个网站的量化钜观分析结果，第二部分则是对三个所选网站的自我中心网络之视觉化进行微观分析。研究焦点在于理解性别关係如何在数码环境中建构，以及在虚拟空间中，部门和国家的分野如何被处理。儘管有证据指出，在部分的部门，互联网为性工作者开啓了独立于控制网络之外的工作管道，但仍有诸多剥削形式从新媒体中产生。我们观察到，网路的商业性交易并不特别关注性工作者的能动性，却反而导向提供机会与平台给商人及顾客。

Keywords:

• sex work
• sex commerce
• Internet
• gender hierarchies
• Web crawling

Palabras claves::

• trabajo sexual
• comercio sexual
• internet
• jerarquías de género
• rastreo online

关键词::

• 性工作
• 性交易
• 互联网
• 性别阶层
• 网路探勘

Acknowledgements

Material for this work was collected as part of the project MIG@NET: Transnational Digital Networks, Migration and Gender (http://www.mignetproject.eu/) funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the EC, 2010–2013. We thank the editors for their support during the process and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mojca Pajnik

Mojca Pajnik is senior research associate at the Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies in Ljubljana and assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Communication, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Topics of her research relate to issues of citizenship, media, gender (in)equality and migration. She is author of Prostitution and Human Trafficking: Perspectives of Gender, Labour and Migration (PI, 2008) and co-editor of several books, among them Contesting Integration, Engendering Migration: Theory and Practice (with F. Anthias, Palgrave, 2014) and Alternative Media and the Politics of Resistance: Perspectives and Challenges (with J. D. H. Downing, PI, 2008).

Nelli Kambouri

Nelli Kambouri holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She has worked as an occasional lecturer teaching gender, social policy and the labour market and she was part of the research teams of the projects Mig@net and GeMIC, which were coordinated by the Centre for Gender Studies at Panteion University and funded by the FP7 programme of the European Commission (FP7). She is currently working in Athens as a research fellow at the Centre for Gender Studies, Panteion University. She has published a book, journal articles and chapters in edited volumes on gender, migration and social movements in Greek and English.

Matthieu Renault

Matthieu Renault has PhD in political philosophy and is engineer in computing sciences, specialist in digital methods for human and social sciences. He was a research assistant with the ICT-Migrations research programme at Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'homme, Telecom ParisTech where he contributed to the e-Diasporas Atlas project dedicated to the cartography and analysis of diasporas on the Web. Currently he is a He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University Paris 13, Department of Anglophone studies.

Iztok Šori

Iztok Šori holds a PhD in Sociology (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts) and is a researcher at the Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies, Ljubljana. So far he has been involved in research projects at the various institutions on prostitution, trafficking in persons, violence against women, gender mainstreaming, women representation in politics, reconciliation of private and professional life and migration. In his PhD thesis he studied social and individual contexts of being single as a lifestyle in Slovenia.