Selling sex: what determines rates and popularity? An analysis of 11,500 online profiles

The COVID-19 pandemic and male sex workers who have sex with men: associations between age and race and advertising for work in 2019-2021

Despite government-mandated restrictions on business and social activities worldwide, some sex workers continued to see clients in person throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. To better understand this behaviour, we compiled publicly available data from Internet advertisements posted on a popular website before and during the pandemic by male sex workers providing services to men. We first collected data in March 2019 from 172 advertisements - the complete number available at that time - posted by male sex workers advertising services in the Atlanta region. We then assessed whether these same sex workers continued to advertise their availability at three subsequent points during the COVID-19 pandemic: April 2020, January 2021 and February 2021. We also determined whether age and race were associated with advertising presence at each time point. While advertising rates declined among sex workers in all race categories (Black, White and 'other'), results from our mixed effects logistic regression model show that the odds of older male sex workers continuing to advertise were greater than the odds for their younger counterparts. Further, the predicted probability of continued advertising was highest for White male sex workers. Our findings provide additional insights into male sex work during a global pandemic.

The global migration network of sex-workers

Differences in the social and economic environment across countries encourage humans to migrate in search of better living conditions, including job opportunities, higher salaries, security and welfare. Quantifying global migration is, however, challenging because of poor recording, privacy issues and residence status. This is particularly critical for some classes of migrants involved in stigmatised, unregulated or illegal activities. Escorting services or high-end prostitution are well-paid activities that attract workers all around the world. In this paper, we study international migration patterns of sex-workers by using network methods. Using an extensive international online advertisement directory of escorting services and information about individual escorts, we reconstruct a migrant flow network where nodes represent either origin or destination countries. The links represent the direct routes between two countries. The migration network of sex-workers shows different structural patterns than the migration of the general population. The network contains a strong core where mutual migration is often observed between a group of high-income European countries, yet Europe is split into different network communities with specific ties to non-European countries. We find non-reciprocal relations between countries, with some of them mostly offering while others attract workers. The Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPc) is a good indicator of country attractiveness for incoming workers and service rates but is unrelated to the probability of emigration. The median financial gain of migrating, in comparison to working at the home country, is 15.9 % . Only sex-workers coming from 77 % of the countries have financial gains with migration and average gains decrease with the GDPc of the country of origin. Our results suggest that high-end sex-worker migration is regulated by economic, geographic and cultural aspects.

Sexual Interaction in Digital Contexts and Its Implications for Sexual Health: A Conceptual Analysis

Based on its prevalence, there is an urgent need to better understand the mechanisms, opportunities and risks of sexual interaction in digital contexts (SIDC) that are related with sexual arousal. While there is a growing body of literature on SIDC, there is also a lack of conceptual clarity and classification. Therefore, based on a conceptual analysis, we propose to distinguish between sexual interaction (1) through, (2) via, and (3) with digital technologies. (1) Sexual interactions through digital technologies are face-to-face sexual interactions that (a) have been started digitally (e.g., people initiating face-to-face sexual encounters through adult dating apps) or (b) are accompanied by digital technology (e.g., couples augmenting their face-to-face sexual encounters through filming themselves during the act and publishing the amateur pornography online). (2) Sexual interactions via digital technology are technology-mediated interpersonal sexual interactions (e.g., via text chat: cybersex; via smartphone: sexting; via webcam: webcam sex/camming). (3) Sexual interactions with digital technology occur when the technology itself has the role of an interaction partner (e.g., sexual interaction with a sex robot or with a media persona in pornography). The three types of SIDC and their respective subtypes are explained and backed up with empirical studies that are grouped according to two major mediators: consent and commerce. Regarding the causes and consequences of the three types of SIDC we suggest a classification that entails biological, psychological, social, economic, and technological factors. Regarding implications of SIDC we suggest to focus on both opportunities and risks for sexual health. The proposed conceptual framework of SIDC is meant to inform future research.