Love as a Fictitious Commodity: Gift-for-Sex Barters as Contractual Carriers of Intimacy

Summary, in English

Gift-for-sex (GFS) barters are a niche practice potentially representing the commodification of everyday dating practices. We inquire how GFS exchanges are practiced and understood in contemporary Russia. Second, we situate these in relation to contemporary economic culture. Our project provides answers in two

steps based on online content. First, we identify GFS exchange practices within a major dating website. Next, we take the signals exchanged in those dating profiles and display their intersubjective meanings in Russia based on blogs and discussion fora. Our analysis focuses on gender roles and inter-gender conflicts, the use of

economic jargon, the link between luxury consumption and sexuality, and understandings of gift-giving and generosity, in order to show how GFS barters, despite being contractual, carry emotional and romantic content. As such, love is under a constant conversion process, through the medium of the contractual gift, into the

fictitious commodity form.

• Author: Christopher Swader; Olga Strelkova; Alyona Sutormina; Victoria Syomina; Volha Vysotskaya; Irina Fedorova
• Publishing year: 2013
• Language: English
• Pages: 598-616
• Publication/Series: Sexuality & Culture
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 4
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9162-1
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Springer
• Topic: Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
• Keywords: Compensated dating; Fictitious commodification; Gift-exchange; Post-socialist transformation; Economic jargon; Sexuality
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1936-4822