[Bilimsel Haber] Cultural Study of Commercial Sex DEADLINE EXTENDED

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

CFP Sexualities: Special Edition The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 1 APRIL

Given the proliferation of forms of commercial sex, the scarcity of research
—except on ‘prostitution’—is remarkable. The 
focus is
usually on personal motivations, the morality of the buying-and-selling
relationship, stigma, violence and disease prevention. Questions of 
desire and
love are usually sidelined; relationships are rarely contextualised 
culturally
or conceived as complex; concrete sexual issues are hardly dealt with.
Commercial sex is usually disqualified from cultural research and 
treated only
as a moral issue.

A new field of the cultural study of commercial sex would refer to all
commercial goods and services with an erotic or sexual element—a rich
field of human activities, every one operating in complex socio-cultural
contexts where the meaning of buying and selling sex is not always the same.

Sites of the sex industry: Bars, restaurants, cabarets, clubs, brothels,
discotheques, saunas, massage parlours, sex shops, peep shows, hotel rooms,
flats, bookshops, striptease and lapdance venues, dungeons, Internet sites,
beauty parlours, clubhouses, cinemas, public toilets, phonelines and 
occasional
sites such as stag and hen events, shipboard festivities and
‘modelling’, swinging and fetish parties.

Participants in the sex industry: Business owners, bartenders, waiters, 
maids,
cashiers, guards, drivers, cooks, cleaners, accountants, lawyers, doctors,
travel agents, tourist guides, estate agents, media editors and 
entrepreneurs,
outreach personnel, researchers—as well as those who sell sex or its
illusions and those who buy it.

The framework is addressed in ‘The Cultural Study of Commercial
Sex’, by Laura Agustín, published in Sexualities, 8:5, 621-34 (2005)
ONLINE AT http://sexualities.sagepub.com/current.dtl The goal of the special
edition is to actively use a cultural framework for scholarly 
conceptualisations
that do not fit comfortably in the ‘prostitution’ tradition.
Scholars from any academic discipline are encouraged to contribute.

Contributions are particularly welcome that:

- question the discursive division between commercial and non-commercial 
sex;
- examine the belief that sex-with-love or sex-with-partners is superior 
to paid
sex;
- consider concepts of consumption, entertainment and ‘having a good
time’;
- explore different notions of desire;
- take into account ethnicity and class, as well as gender.

Deadline for submission of articles of no more than 6500 words HAS BEEN 
EXTENDED
TO 1 April 2006. Sexualities is a refereed academic journal, so please 
note that
articles must be reviewed by two anonymous referees before decisions about
publication are made. For inquiries and to submit contact Laura Agustín at
laura@nodo50.org