Escorts Online: Effects of Policy on Sex Work through Digital Spaces

In April 2018, the Trump Administration approved two acts that frame sex work as human trafficking. Subsequently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized popular adult personals site, Backpage.com, used by Canadian and American sex workers. This led to the increase in censorship of online spaces, which sex workers require to safely conduct their independent business through advertising, processing secure transactions, and maintaining safe communication with clients and the sex work community. My work aims to understand how these changes have explicitly impacted sex workers as they advertise and communicate their services, working predominantly as escorts in Canada and the United States. Governmental documents and laws like Bill C-36/PCEPA and SESTA/FOSTA, which claim to save exploited populations, may harm autonomous citizens making a living through stigmatized labour by seizing their resources and forcing them to use outdated, unsafe methods of business and communication. Most, if not all, of these regulations are developed without the input of sex workers or relevant empirical evidence. Through interviews with current sex workers in Southern Ontario and an overview of ads, a deeper understanding of the communication practices of consensual sex work, its fight for decriminalization, and the importance of the Internet is reached.