Twitter Sex Wars and the Feminist Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights

• In Event: Social Media and the Social Construction of Crime

Abstract

For the past 17 years, the legitimization of sex work as a form of labor has been the crux of controversies surrounding its conceptualization as sex trafficking, or as a form of modern day slavery. Powerful actors in the anti-trafficking movement shape the dominant discourse on sex workers’ human rights, on claims of victimhood, and on the criminalization of the buying, or selling of sexual services. To examine how the dominant discourse is shaped and maintained by actors in the anti-trafficking movement on Twitter, this paper uses a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. By developing a critical events list, we document significant events that generated interest in the anti-trafficking sphere. To examine the sentiments of anti-trafficking organizations from a sex workers’ rights perspective, we compile a modified lexicon using terms derived from the sex-workers’ rights and the anti-trafficking movements to conduct a sentiment score analysis. Finally, to explore possible reasons regarding the hostility of anti-trafficking organizations towards sex work, this study utilizes content analysis on tweets marked highly negative in the sentiment score analysis.

Authors

• Claudia Horning Cojocaru, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY

• Sebastian Hoyos-Torres, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY