Paper short abstract:

This paper provides an ethnographic account of female sex work in Dublin, Ireland. The sex industry has been dramatically transformed by globalization and technological innovation, impacting not only on the migration of sex workers, but also on how they strategize to sell sex.

Paper long abstract:

This paper provides an ethnographic account of female sex work at the height of the Celtic Tiger, in Dublin, Ireland, when sex like other consumables, saw an insatiable increase in demand. Like other service industries, the sex industry has been dramatically transformed by globalization and technological innovation, including the proliferation of mobile phones and Internet. The increasing fluidity of the global economy and the permeability of national borders within Europe especially, coupled with advances in technology, has facilitated the mass movement of people seeking better opportunities for themselves and their families. As well as increasing the mobility of sex workers, these changes have also altered the way sex workers engage with the industry and how they contract for sex work. In the recent past, covert advertisements in magazines, offering a mere hint at what carnal delight might be on offer, have given way to explicit Internet websites, allowing potential buyers to view an array of women in various locations around the city, as well as a menu of services and price lists. Indeed, far from looking like an exotic enterprise, the sex industry, especially in the escort sector of the market, resembles many other branches of the service industry in the formal economy, in dealing with the effects of globalization by finding new and innovate means of accessing potential markets. Indeed this virtual community of buyers, sellers and organizers shape the state of the online sex market, in terms of what is sold, how it is sold and by whom.