"Like shagging a dead fish": misogyny and consent in online sex buyers' reviews

The subject of this paper is sex buyers’ (or punters’) reviews published on a popular and long-established escort review site in the UK. It examines these reviews in light of the legal definition of consent in England and Wales and within a framework of misogyny. The social implications of this online phenomenon are explored in relation to “review culture”, the gig economy, and the impact of big tech platforms. Through feminist digital ethnography, combined with large-scale discourse and corpus analysis, it reveals prominent discursive patterns within this online community, as well as ideological stances shared with other groups in the Manosphere. The findings show that reviewers express the most misogynistic sentiments when women disrupt their fantasies, thus pointing to the extent this digital technology grants them power over women’s freedom in the sex industry. This study contributes to existing research on sex buyers’ communities by conceptualising punters’ reviews as misogynistic tools that keep women subordinated to men, and by sparking a critical debate about the effectiveness of the consent framework, versus a misogyny-based framework, in determining sexual violence.