Abstract
Among the many policies implemented to eradicate trafficking in the sex industry, US government agencies have targeted online platforms that market and facilitate sex work. In this paper, I consider two instances of this activity: the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2014 raid and subsequent closing of MyRedbook.com, and the Department of Homeland Security’s 2015 raid and closing of Rentboy.com. Drawing from a qualitative-interpretive analysis of the media coverage of these raids, I show that the responses to them emphasised how the sites’ closures increased both men’s and women’s economic vulnerability, but the similarities largely ended there. Instead, I argue broadly that public responses to these events reflected and reinforced gendered notions of women’s vulnerability and men’s agency in the sex industry. While these responses may seem unsurprising, they are also potentially productive, calling into question the limits of respectability politics and signalling new solidarities in the struggle for sex worker rights.
Highlights
Among the many policies implemented to eradicate trafficking in the sex industry, US government agencies have targeted online platforms that market and facilitate sex work
Among the many policies and procedures implemented to eradicate human trafficking, government agencies have endeavoured to end the availability of commercial sexual services by targeting online platforms, namely websites that operate as intermediaries between sex workers and clients to market and facilitate sex work.[3]
With the exception of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, only sex worker rights groups spoke against MyRedbook’s closing, most notably the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), ‘a national social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of people involved in the sex trade and their communities’, and other Bay Area-based sex worker rights groups such as the Erotic Service Providers Union.[23]
Summary
Among the many policies implemented to eradicate trafficking in the sex industry, US government agencies have targeted online platforms that market and facilitate sex work. I argue broadly that public responses to these events reflected and reinforced gendered notions of women’s vulnerability and men’s agency in the sex industry While these responses may seem unsurprising, they are potentially productive, calling into question the limits of respectability politics and signalling new solidarities in the struggle for sex worker rights. Among the many policies and procedures implemented to eradicate human trafficking, government agencies have endeavoured to end the availability of commercial sexual services by targeting online platforms, namely websites that operate as intermediaries between sex workers and clients to market and facilitate sex work.[3]. Comprehensive data about the site’s use is not available, there is evidence that it was popular: in 2009, Rentboy hosted 40,000 escort profiles in dozens of countries[4] and, at the time of its seizure, had 500,000 unique visitors per day.[5]
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