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

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• 作者：Christopher S. Swader (1)
  Olga Strelkova (1)
  Alena Sutormina (1)
  Viktoria Syomina (1)
  Volha Vysotskaya (1)
  Irene Fedorova (1)
  
• 关键词：Compensated dating ; Fictitious commodification ; Gift ; exchange ; Post ; socialist transformation ; Economic jargon ; Sexuality
• 刊名：Sexuality & Culture
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：December 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：17
• 期：4
• 页码：598-616
• 全文大小：
• 作者单位：Christopher S. Swader (1)
  Olga Strelkova (1)
  Alena Sutormina (1)
  Viktoria Syomina (1)
  Volha Vysotskaya (1)
  Irene Fedorova (1)
  
  1. Department of Sociology, NRU-Higher School of Economics, Ul. Myasnitskaya 20, 10100, Moscow, Russia
  
• ISSN：1936-4822

文摘

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.