Paper short abstract

A cyber-ethnography of the virtual world of international surrogacy as observed from October 2007 to May 2008. The author uses a variety of internet sources to make contact with international surrogates in order to explore their experiences.

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates the cyberworlds and representations of gestational surrogates. It deals specifically with those who have chosen to carry pregnancies for intended parents (IPs) who are from locations which are not of the surrogate's country of origin. To do so, it draws on interviews with intending and actual surrogates, encountered by the author in cyberspace through various forums. These include virtual advertisements, discussion lists, facebook and question and answer sites such as Yahoo Questions, Yedda, and Wikianswers. The results suggest that stereotypical views of international surrogates as oppressed globalised workers forced to 'rent a womb' are inadequate descriptions of an extremely complex situation. Instead the women experience the embodiment of pregnancy in artful and pleasurable ways, actively working to create distance between themselves without necessarily denying the experience of the pregnancy.