Behind the discreet screen

Join the Department of Sociology for an insightful open seminar with Dr Yeela Lahav-Raz.

Dr Yeela Lahav-Raz is a sociologist and ethnographer from the Ben-Gurion University in Negev (Israel) who is researching sex work regulations and politics, mainly in Israel, and the intersection between technology, masculinity and sexuality. After receiving a post-doctoral fellowship from the ISF (Israeli Science Foundation) she is currently honorary lecturer in the School of Criminology at the University of Leicester.

Based on an online ethnography research in an online community of Israeli sex industry clients, in this presentation, I will focus on how Israeli consumers tell social stories and how they situate themselves in those stories. Using a theoretical combination between Swidler’s (1986) definition of culture repertoire and Simon and Gagnon’s (1986) sexual script theory, I will present three prevailing masculine sexual repertoires: the "Prosumer"; the "Hunter"; and the "Edict", all three are based on the intertwine cultural logics – consumption, hegemonic masculinity, and addiction. I argue that Israeli men use the online arena to negotiate their sexual identities by displaying flexible masculinity that draws from both local and universal cultural repertoires.

These sexual scripts become a strategic practice for negotiating and challenging masculine hegemonic ideals. Hence, the online community serves as an arena for expressing power and domination alongside vulnerability, weakness, and intimacy that may be difficult to articulate in non-commercial intimate relationships. Thus, the Israeli case study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of sex consumption and of how different cultural scripts and logics operate and being translated in the sex industry.

This seminar is part of an open seminar series, hosted by the Department of Sociology.