Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Researching Compensated Dating

This chapter outlines three different sociological considerations and research paradigms that are used to analyze the phenomenon of compensated dating (CD). The first sociological issue concerns the pro-sex feminist notion of prostitution and focuses on the sexual agency of girls in CD. The second sociological issue concerns the transformation of intimacy. It explores the social and cultural changes in modernity that have shaped and facilitated the practices of CD. It also reviews how CC–Brother relationships reflect and resist romantic relationships and gender patterns in modern times. The last sociological issue discusses the authenticity of emotions in commercial sex, which has important implications for the analysis of participants’ CD experiences and the nature of CC–Brother relationships. Combining all three sociological perspectives, a holistic theoretical framework is developed to understand the CD phenomenon and its participants in relation to the larger society. The chapter then moves on to explain the methods and procedures of data collection, as well as some ethical concerns and risks in conducting research on CD. One of the major data sources comes from cyber-ethnography, which offers a significant methodological advantage to study sensitive topics and hidden groups. The second major data source comes from formal in-depth interviews. The chapter explicates the process and difficulties of recruiting interviewees and describes their demographic characteristics. Finally, the chapter talks about the nature of my offline ethnographic work.