Prostitution and Mega-Sporting Events: A Comparative Study of Olympic Games

• In Event: Vulnerabilities in a Digitized World: Gender, Risk, and Exploitation Across Global Arenas

Abstract

In France, prostitution, defined as the provision of sexual services by an adult for remuneration, is not considered to be an illegal activity. It falls under a legal regime of tolerance. However, although the commodification of the body is not condemned, since 2016, the hiring of sex workers has been sanctioned, thus placing sex workers in a paradoxical position of legal tolerance but increasing precariousness. Using a quantitative approach, we will study internet search trends based on keywords associated with sex work. The study is based on three comparisons: first, an intra-national comparison between Paris (host city of the 2024 Olympic Games) and two non-host cities, Lyon and Marseille, in order to identify a possible overrepresentation of sex work-related research. Then, an international comparison between the Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020-2021 Olympic Games will assess whether similar trends emerge in two Olympic contexts. Finally, a control event will be mobilized: the ATP tennis tournament (Rolex Paris Masters/ Rakuten Japan Open), organized annually in both cities, to distinguish the specific effects of the Olympic Games from those related to any major international sporting event. The objective is therefore twofold: to determine whether there is a significant variation in research related to sex work during the Olympic Games in Paris, and, more broadly, to question the rigidity of the association between mega-sporting events and dynamic sex trade.

Author

• Eva Bonne-Longobardi, Université de Montréal