Digital platforms in the Brazilian sex markets: restructuring and reorganization of the online sex and erotic trade

• Grant number: 20/02268-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Heloisa Buarque de Almeida
• Grantee: Lorena Rúbia Pereira Caminhas
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/04422-9 - Governing digital sex labour: privacy and the regulation of online erotic content creation, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This research analyses the entry of digital platforms in the Brazilian sex markets, questioning how they act as ordering agents of the online sex and erotic trade. It has two central aims: a) analyzing platforms' role in the Brazilian sex and erotic trade and their consequences to the organization and management of sex work; b) examining the conventions and stratifications by axes of differences and inequalities present in the platforms, responsible for privileging a specific profile of sex workers in the online environment. This study is based on an interdisciplinary approach, framed in two main fields: in the anthropological studies on sex, eroticism, and markets (Gregori, 2008; Piscitelli, 2016), centrally those that diagnose the development of digital (Parreiras, 2015; Silva, 2014) and platform-mediated sex markets (Rand, 2019a); in the media studies focused on digital platforms and their economic, interactional, and moral structure (Van Doorn, 2017; Van Dijck et al., 2018). Its methodology is the digital ethnography, understood as an analytical tool to systematically observe the material, symbolic, and interactional dynamics in the online space (Hine, 2015). The ethnography is divided into two phases: the immersion in the three selected platforms - OnlyFans, ModelHub, and Twitter - and the perform of informal conversations with digital sex workers (Sanders, 2006). This research follows the ethical protocol defined by the Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0 de 2020. (AU)