TY - JOUR
T1 - The prosumer economy and the sex industry
T2 - the creation of an online community of sex prosumers
AU - Lahav-Raz, Yeela
N1 - Funding Information:
Dr Yeela Lahav-Raz is a sociologist and ethnographer who is researching sex work regulations and politics, mainly in Israel, and the intersection between technology, masculinity and sexuality. After receiving the post-doctoral fellowship from the ISF (Israeli science Foundation), she is currently an honorary lecturer in the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester. Her post-doc research deal with sex tourism in the Middle East in the aim of expending current knowledge about the global capitalist order; neo-colonialist trends; and the relationship between global elites and local marginal populations.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2019/11/2
Y1 - 2019/11/2
N2 - In this article, I discuss how changes in the economic infrastructure of mass consumption have changed the values and attitudes of consumer culture. By focusing on an online community of Israeli sex consumers and applying the theoretical framework of the prosumer economy, this article suggests its innovative potential for understanding the intersections of cyberspace, capitalism, and sex work consumption. Using the context of the dynamic cultural terrain of prosumerism, the article examines how commercial way of thinking is encouraged, understood, and adopted by sex consumers in the practice of purchasing sexual encounters and sharing them online. The main argument is that the online community of sex consumers has become a collaborative project in which consumers simultaneously produce and consume–that is, they become ‘prosumers’ and thus occupy positions of power within the capitalist market-place. They, therefore, not only responding to market rules but also producing them. I claim that the change in the nature of the community has impacted both the nature of online writing and the way clients perceive sex workers.
AB - In this article, I discuss how changes in the economic infrastructure of mass consumption have changed the values and attitudes of consumer culture. By focusing on an online community of Israeli sex consumers and applying the theoretical framework of the prosumer economy, this article suggests its innovative potential for understanding the intersections of cyberspace, capitalism, and sex work consumption. Using the context of the dynamic cultural terrain of prosumerism, the article examines how commercial way of thinking is encouraged, understood, and adopted by sex consumers in the practice of purchasing sexual encounters and sharing them online. The main argument is that the online community of sex consumers has become a collaborative project in which consumers simultaneously produce and consume–that is, they become ‘prosumers’ and thus occupy positions of power within the capitalist market-place. They, therefore, not only responding to market rules but also producing them. I claim that the change in the nature of the community has impacted both the nature of online writing and the way clients perceive sex workers.
KW - Prosumer economy
KW - consumer culture
KW - consumption
KW - cyberspace
KW - sex work
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070749768&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17530350.2019.1646159
DO - 10.1080/17530350.2019.1646159
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070749768
SN - 1753-0350
VL - 12
SP - 539
EP - 551
JO - Journal of Cultural Economy
JF - Journal of Cultural Economy
IS - 6
ER -