Cyberpunters and Cyberwhores: Prostitution on the Internet (From Dot.cons: Crime, Deviance and Identity on the Internet, P 36-52, 2003, Yvonne Jewkes, ed. -- See NCJ-199525)

• NCJ Number: 199528
• Author(s): Keith Sharp; Sarah Earle
• Date Published: 2003
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research); Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Following an overview of how the social relationships involved in paying for sex are being transformed by the Internet, this chapter summarizes some of the authors' own findings from an analysis of approximately 250 "reviews" of prostitutes posted by men on a British Internet site.

Abstract

In discussing the types of Web sites dedicated, in one way or another, to prostitution, the most obvious are noted to be sites that market the services of prostitutes. These include "escort agencies," which tend to be regional and operate at the "upper" end of the market; "independents," women who advertise sexual services on the Internet but do not work for or through an agency; and "massage parlors," which typically focus on an establishment and contain photographs of the facilities offered. Another significant category of prostitution-related material on the Internet are the various Web sites dedicated to reviewing the services of individual prostitutes. In the United Kingdom, this category is dominated by one site, "Punternet," which contains over 5,000 "reviews" of British prostitutes. In presenting the authors' analysis of this site, this chapter first provides a detailed account of the Punternet site itself and explores some of the methodological issues and concerns associated with this type of covert cyber-ethnography. It then explores "punting" as a transgressive act and documents some of the ways in which punters seek to minimize the risks to social identity and the ways in which participation in this type of cyber-community serves to normalize what would otherwise be considered a transgression. This is followed by a focus on men's concerns with giving women pleasure during paid-for-sex. This analysis concludes that the Internet allows anonymous men who use prostitutes to communicate with one another, share practical information, and develop a virtual subculture of communication and values in which paying for sex and discussing women as sexual objects is the norm.