Methodological Challenges and Ethical Dilemmas in Conducting Research on the ICT-Mediated Sex Markets in Italy

ABSTRACT. During my PhD research, which explored, among other things, how the Italian sex markets changed over the last fifteen years, I embarked on an online journey to try to understand how the increasing use of online advertising to promote the sale of sexual services consumed in person impacted the sex markets at large. This process landed me on many different platforms: Classified Ads Websites, Client Forums, Adult Service Websites, Review Websites, and much more. However, carrying out ethnographic research within these spaces required me to deal with a number of methodological and ethical issues I, naively, had not anticipated. Still, practicing feminist reflexivity means questioning the ethical implications of our research strategies every step of the way, especially when researching sensitive topics and stigmatized populations, and this is particularly true when assessing traditional research methods’ suitability in the digital context and their underlying assumptions (Hine, 2005). This contribution will therefore present the research design process, the methodology, the ethical dilemmas I faced, and the compromises I had to accept to conduct research on the ICT-mediated sex markets. Furthermore, it will present the different approaches adopted to carry out the research while protecting the privacy of all parties involved. In doing so, the presentation will highlight the importance of remaining aware of the implications and potential harm embedded in each and every methodological tool, and of the unintended consequences that could arise from research, not only for individual sex workers, but also for the sex working community at large.