The contractual forms of sexual transactions

Abstract

PurposeTo study sexual deals, the Italian ethnologist Paola Tabet introduced an original frame of analysis, the “economico‐sexual exchanges” frame, which she conceives as a continuum, from marriage to prostitution. The purpose of this paper is to know if we have to accept the idea of a sexual social contract as a holistic way of understanding, like Carole Pateman, or whether we have to admit the heterogeneity of sexual transactions.Design/methodology/approachAccording to the social function of the contract presented by Yvon Pesqueux, this paper will try to seize the contractual forms of sexual transactions, developing at the same time in the logic of the psychological contract, in particular to approach more finely the notion of consent, a notion at the heart of the debates concerning economic sexuality and which cannot be reduced to the expression of personal freedom. Pateman's work is also too fundamental to be ignored and so the author summarizes the main ideas.FindingsIt can be said that the social reality of sexual transactions exists between two opposite contractual and anti‐contractual ideologies, between a gender idealistic point of view and a management realistic one. Individuals, men and women, are more or less free to sell or buy sexual services. If freedom exists, contracts can be spoken about; if not, a contractual point of view appears only as a justification for the strong.Originality/valueThe paper presents a sexual/gender point of view in the contractual theories.