Navigating the "grey zone": Private Governance and the Parameters of Digital Regulation in Platform-Mediated Sex Work

• Grant number: 25/08271-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2025
• End date: October 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Larissa Maués Pelúcio Silva
• Grantee: Cristiane Vilma de Melo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes, Comunicação e Design (FAAC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project seeks to investigate how digital platforms manage sex work in a context of state deregulation and privatized regulation, analyzing whether and to what extent there is a growing regulatory scenario in Brazil based on the governance model implemented by the Bem Acompanhadas (BA) platform. This Brazilian startup operates as a mediator of in-person sexual services. Its corporate governance model - materialized in Terms of Use and Services and Privacy Policies - offers a privileged case study to investigate how digital platforms manage sex work in a context of state deregulation and privatized regulation. The proposal makes a critical contribution to reflections on the governance of digital platforms, highlighting the uniqueness of the sex market, whose autonomy in shaping service dynamics places it on the margins of legislative initiatives aimed at regulating digital platforms. Specifically, the research seeks to analyze the dynamics of platformized governance of sex work in Brazil, based on an examination of the normative framework of the Bem Acompanhadas platform, located in the "grey zone" between informality and legalization; map the platform's normative devices (contractual terms and privacy policies), questioning how they institutionalize labor relations in a regulatory vacuum; problematize the notions of "privacy" and "security" articulated by the company, exploring their effects on the autonomy and/or precariousness of female workers and, finally, investigate the extent to which the platform imposes, via private regulation, specific working conditions that reconfigure the hierarchies of the sex market. The research adopts a qualitative approach, combining interdisciplinary methodological procedures to examine the governance of the BA platform and its effects on platformized sex work. The strategy is divided into five strands: interdisciplinary bibliographic research that will map the theoretical-conceptual debate on sex work, platform regulation and mediatization; digital ethnography that will investigate the dynamics of interaction and media representation of the BA platform; document ethnography through a critical examination of the Terms of Use and Services and Privacy Policy; participant observation at public events of the platform, to capture the performativity of its governance and, finally, the Research Internship Abroad (BEPE) to insert the Brazilian case into the transnational discussion about the privatized regulation of sex work. (AU)