„FALLEN WOMAN” – ABOUT STEREOTYPICAL PERCEPTION OF WOMEN PROVIDING SEXUAL SERVICES. THE INTERNET FORUMS ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article is focused on the most common stereotypes existing in social perception of women providing sexual services. The presented research findings are related to two detailed problems: (1) How women offering sexual services are perceived in virtual space, which creates the possibility of complete anonymity of speech? (2) What are the stereotypes about sex workers presented on Internet forums on prostitution? An analysis of 20 online forums including 2,403 posts in which prostitution is the main subject defining a framework for discussion was carried out, using qualitative analysis strategies. The selection of online forums was made on the basis of the web engine search results for two questions: “What do you think about prostitution?”, “What do you think about women prostitutes?”. The research implementation and analysis took place in September to October 2013. The stereotypes about female sex workers appearing on the Internet forums were grouped into certain categories, having the ordering character. These are the stereotypes perceived in the context of the causes of prostitution (indicating a certain personality, environmental or cultural factors), the characteristics of female sex workers (mostly negative, demonstrating definite character traits) and the specificity of their working conditions.