Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia

Professional Girlfriends and Transactional Relationships

Heidi Hoefinger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415629348
• eBook ISBN: 9781317931249
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Dealing with the complex and discomforting 'grey 'area where sex, love and money collide, this book highlights the general materiality of everyday sex that takes place in all relationships. In doing so, it draws attention to and destigmatizes the transactional elements within many 'normative' partnerships – be they transnational, inter-ethnic or otherwise.

Focusing on Cambodia, and on a subculture of young women employed in the tourist bar scene referred to as 'professional girlfriends', the book shows that the resulting transnational relationships between Cambodian women and their foreign partners are complex and multi-layered. It argues that the sex-for-cash prostitution framework is no longer an appropriate model of analysis. Instead, a new vocabulary of 'professional girlfriends' and 'transactional sex' is used, with which the nuanced complexities of these transnational partnerships are analysed.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the book inspires new understandings of gender, power, sex, love, desire, political economy and materiality within everyday relationships around the globe. It is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Anthropology, Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Cultural Studies.

1
Professional girlfriends and transactional sex

It was barbeque night at the bar, so there was a buzz in the air. It was the one evening of the month that drew a slightly larger crowd of ‘western’ men because of the cheap drink specials and good food, so the girls were excited about the potential opportunities. In the dank, windowless bathroom of the bar, three young Cambodian women in their early twenties were crammed in front of the small rusty mirror taking turns sharing red lipstick, black eyeliner and pink blush.

While squatting on the floor, another two girls dug around in their imitation Gucci and Prada shoulder bags searching for their uniforms: tight, black, spaghetti strap shirts and short form-fitting black skirts. They exchanged dangly earrings and swapped their differently-styled stilettos for the night – a common practice which helps to keep their appearances fresh through shared resources. The girls at the mirror passed me their make-up and adjusted my hair, while those on the floor handed me a leopard-print bangle to wear. With their bartending shifts beginning in just a few minutes, the girls squealed with laughter and frantically rushed to finish getting ready.

Once dressed and out on the floor, the five girls dispersed among the small but growing crowd of mostly American, European and Australian men. They joined the forces of the other 30 women who were on shift that night. Some girls played pool while gambling with men for ‘ladies drinks’; others worked behind the bar serving beer and shots; still others sat with groups of men who were lamenting about their work at the law office, embassy or English school. Beyoncé was blasting and the atmosphere was alive.

I took my usual place on a stool among the other ‘bar girls’ and customers who lined the bar. Though I was not an employee, the women treated me as a peer within their bar girl subculture. And as long as I bought drinks, the European management was happy. While I sat sipping an Anchor beer, Lyli snuck up and hugged me from behind. ‘Hello sister!’ she exclaimed, as she scanned the room out of the corner of her eye to check out the evening’s clientele. Unimpressed by the selection, she began flipping through photos of her boyfriend on her phone. He was a 42-year-old Dutch construction worker, of average height, with a little extra around the middle and a little less atop his head. Tim visited her in Phnom Penh three times in the past year, and requested that she didn’t work at the bar while he was away. When I asked her why she still did, she replied, ‘What I do? Sit at home? I need money and I want to be with my friends.’

The money she was referring to was her US$60 per month bar work salary, plus the financial and material benefits she receives from other western men she meets there. Though she reserved sex for only her Dutch partner, she flirted with other men to try her luck in getting drinks and tips, and perhaps even finding longer-term friendships that would result in gifts and benefits and possible future security if Tim never returned. The extra money also meant she could buy material symbols of status such as phones and TVs for her family, who viewed her as a type of ‘celebrity’ figure.

While continuing to eye the men in the room, she proudly showed off the cubic zirconia ring and small gold pendant necklace she received from ‘boyfriend number one’ in Holland for her birthday. ‘Do you love him?’ I ask. ‘Sure why not?’ she replied, ‘He been sending $300 a month for a year now. He buy my family a moto. He very nice to me … And when he give me the [marriage] papers, I love him forever.’

We were suddenly interrupted by Pich, another worker in the bar. She was crying hysterically and could barely stand up. Through her sobs, she explained the cause of her grief. A young German backpacker named Fred, whom she had been seeing for the past month, was ignoring her and flirting with other girls. She was confused because the week before, she had invited Fred, his German friend, and me to a family funeral. She viewed the invitation to this meaningful ritual, and their introduction to her family, as a sign of familiarity, intimacy, affection and trust. She and Fred had only had sex once during the past month, but she regarded him as a ‘special’ friend.

During the day Pich showed him the sights, in the evenings they went dancing, and at night, they cuddled. In exchange, Fred paid for every meal, taxi ride and some clothes in the market. In her mind, the friendship was ‘real’; in his, she was entertainment. Pulling me aside, Fred explained his perspective: ‘Look, I was thinking something different. I didn’t want this. We spent so much time together but we had a different understanding. I only wanted some fun.’ He viewed her as a local companion and tour guide with benefits during his month-long stay in Phnom Penh. But when her expectations for something more became evident, he turned his attention elsewhere.

Pich was known for putting her heart on the line every time with new men. Through her tears, she expressed confusion, pain, rejection, hopelessness and a desire to be loved and respected. Desperate for reassurance, she fumbled for her phone to call her long-term older partner in the US. In the same breath, she voiced to him anger and frustration that he was not there, jealousy and insecurity that he might be seeing other women, and sadness and desperation for love and commitment.

Though the ten-minute phone call helped to somewhat recuperate her self-esteem and feelings of being desired, she remained unconvinced that he would ever return. Understanding her pain, Pich’s friends and I quietly

rubbed her back in consolation. This communal support seemed to help her bounce back from despair, and soon she again felt hopeful. After drying her eyes and adjusting her dress, she said: ‘Ya know, I get drunk and I cry, but I don’t care. Tonight I meet another man. Maybe he love me and understand me and take care me someday. So I keep trying.’ With that, she grabbed a pool stick, approached a young British man at the bar and asked coquettishly, ‘Hey handsome man, you want play pool?’

This anecdote of Lyli and Pich reveals many themes that span the pages of this book: cycles of hope, hopelessness and hope again; solidarity, support and sister-hood among friends; materiality, status and dreams for security; confusion, uncertainty and desperation for love – a love that means different things to different people, as they try to make sense of feelings and finances in a world of stereotypes and misunderstanding.

Within the transnational spaces of Cambodia’s urban centres, cultures, capital, histories, ideas and imaginaries collide and become entangled, resulting in the formation of complex and subtle interpersonal relationships between the mobile and differentiated individuals occupying them. New understandings of gender, power, sex, love, desire and political economy emerge from these exchanges, as well as new challenges and opportunities. The focus of this book is on the actors who attempt to grapple with the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities. More specifically, Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia is about the transactional nature of sexual and non-sexual relationships between certain young women in Cambodia described as ‘professional girlfriends’ and their ‘western boyfriends’.¹

Defining professional girlfriends

Young women like Lyli and Pich exchange intimacy for their own material benefits, while engaging in what is termed ‘transactional’ sex and relationships. This refers to their initial material motivations in obtaining something from the intimate interactions, such as gifts, drinks, money or even houses and visas. Though observers tend to erroneously brand them with the commercialized and stigmatized labels of ‘prostitutes’ or ‘broken women’ (srei kouc), ethnographic data demonstrates that they engage in relationships more complex than simply ‘sex-for-cash’ marketplace exchanges and, in addition to material comforts, they often seek marriage and love. The sexual commerce framework is, therefore, insufficient for a critical analysis of the complex interplay between simultaneous pragmatic concerns and emotional desires, between intimate and gift-based sexual economies, and between ‘cultural logics of love’ and political economy² that take place in these transnational relationships.

The majority of women detailed in this category (also referred to as ‘young women’ or ‘girls’)³ range from age 16 to 35 and are officially employed at hostess bars and clubs in touristy urban areas of Cambodia. Though the women do not view themselves as ‘sex workers’, nor the formation of their transnational partnerships as ‘work’, the distinction of the term ‘professional’ is made to emphasize that (1) they do rely on the formation of these relationships as a means of livelihood and their motivations are initially materially based; (2) they engage in multiple overlapping transactional relationships, usually unbeknownst to their other partners; (3) there is a performance of intimacy, whereby the professed feelings of love and dedication lie somewhere on a continuum between genuine and feigned, and where meanings of the term ‘love’, itself, range from sexual, passionate and/or romantic, to caring, respectful and appreciative (Hoefinger 2011a, 2013).⁴

While some people contend that the term ‘professional’ itself connotes ‘work’, I maintain an alternative definition as ‘engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood’ – which does not necessarily imply ‘work’. I also refer to the definition of ‘professional’ that means ‘having or showing great skill’ or expertise in a particular area.⁵ In short, women such as Pich and Lyli are ‘skilled’ at being girlfriends and companions.

In English conversation, sexually active girls in Cambodia generally discuss the sex they engage in with western boyfriends using three (often overlapping) terms: ‘sex-for-love’, ‘sex-for-fun’ and ‘sex-for-money’. In reference to the gifts and benefits anticipated, the women sometimes refer to materially motivated sexual encounters as ‘sex-for-money’ – which does not necessarily signify marketplace exchanges or the immediate sale of sex for cash for a predetermined price and time frame. It must be noted however, that it is specifically this material motivation that classifies certain sex and relationships as transactional in nature. When the women engage in ‘non-transactional’ sex and relationships – meaning their motivations aren’t predominantly material-based, and when genuine feelings of intimacy and love are exchanged with one primary partner, they are no longer acting as ‘professional girlfriends’ (PGs). Instead, they are engaging in more conventional, non-remunerative, emotionally motivated relationships based on a model of monogamy – which they sometimes refer to, in English, as ‘sex-for-love’.

On other occasions, however, sexual desires (often fuelled by alcohol) are the main motivating factors for some women to have sex. In this case, the sex would still be considered non-transactional and termed not ‘sex-for-money’ or ‘sexfor-love’, but rather ‘sex-for-fun’. Deriving its meaning from the ‘depth of physical sensation’ in what sociologist Elizabeth Bernstein (2007: 6) terms the ‘recreational sexual ethic’, the girls might engage in ‘sex-for-fun’ with several different partners – usually free from reproductive consequences or romantic love attachments (Baumann 1998). In the formulation I present here, women ascribing to the recreational sexual ethic would still not be considered PGs if material gratification was not the main driving force behind their engagements. They would just be having pleasure-motivated casual sex with multiple people, as many people unabashedly do in locations throughout the world.

It’s also crucial to note that not all local Cambodian women employed in bars, restaurants and clubs who date foreign men are professional girlfriends. There are, in fact, many virgins employed in the ‘bar scene’ in Cambodia (which is a fact that many outside observers, persuaded by stereotypes, tend to contest or disbelieve). I argue that it is only when women meet the above three criteria (actively securing multiple transactional partnerships through a performance of intimacy in order to gain material benefits) that they are considered to be acting as professional girlfriends.

However, the category of ‘professional girlfriend’ is ambiguous, and it is difficult, for analytical purposes, to clearly state who is acting as a PG and who isn’t, who is having transactional or non-transactional sex, and who is selling sexual services for cash, and who isn’t. The borders between the classifications of ‘professional girlfriend’, ‘prostitute’, ‘transactional sex’ and ‘non-transactional sex’ are often porous. The women regularly cross boundaries and straddle multiple identities, their positions contradictory and ambivalent, and subjectivities betwixt and between. Only the women themselves ever know what motivates them to engage in particular relationships and what constructs those relationships are based on.

The possibilities, combinations and permutations of intimate interactions and relationships are endless, and never fit neatly into rigidly defined boxes. However, the value of the categories of ‘professional girlfriend’ and ‘transactional sex’ lie in their distinction between the straightforward sale of sex for immediate cash returns that takes place within the sexual marketplace, and the more noncommercial, gift-exchange sexual economy that exists between ‘bar girls’⁶ like Pich and Lyli and their western boyfriends – which often suggest a more complex relationship of sex linked to a wider set of obligations. The framework of ‘professional girlfriends’ and ‘transactional sex’ provides a more nuanced lexis with which to critically explore and analyse the entanglement of love, sex, desire, political economy and pragmatic materiality that permeates many transnational relationships in Cambodia.

Although they might be stigmatized by the wider conservative Cambodian society, PGs use their own forms of discursive, emotional and sexual power in attempts to advance their mobility and secure a better future for themselves – as do many women who do identify as sex workers. Within the hierarchy of status among young women employed in hostess bars, English-speaking professional girlfriends do tend to comprise one of the highest classes. The elite, ‘celebrity-like’ status⁷ recognized by Lyli’s family (and her non-English speaking peers) was directly related to the connections she made by communicating in English with many tourists and expatriates, and the opportunities for those encounters were directly related to the amount of negotiating skills, interpersonal skills and English skills she possessed.

The women with the highest status are often the ‘ex’-professional girlfriends – the ‘success stories’ – who have managed to ascend the economic ladder and eventually find one man with whom they settle down into a mutually loving monogamous relationship or marriage with a secure financial future. It must also be noted that while many of these women enjoy an elite status vis-à-vis the bar/restaurant/club scene, the category of ‘professional girlfriends’ is not a uniform class of women. The girls I include in this classification come from an array of material and economic conditions resulting from their various circumstances, abilities, objectives, backgrounds, talents and luck. They are ambitious, young ‘modern’ women, who reserve the right to be sexually active and enjoy the company of men. They use the tools of the bar girl subculture and interpersonal relationships to find pleasure in their lives. In doing so, however, they are directly challenging ‘traditionally’ constructed meanings of Khmer womanhood, respectability and family honour, and as a result simultaneously experience social stigma and praise.

Significance and objectives

It is always dangerous territory to step into the lion’s den of identity politics – particularly in relation to sex. In these postmodern times, labels are fraught and tend to lose importance as meanings are derived from a myriad of subjective interpretations and multiplex identities unceasingly shift. I realize I am perhaps stepping onto shaky ground with this project of (re-)naming that attempts to draw lines around different types of subjectivities and relationships that are always fluid and changing. However, my objective with this book is not to mark sharp divides between ‘sex workers’ who politically embrace that self-identified title and those who reject it because they might view their exchanges as less noticeably commercial. In the Cambodian context, nearly all sexually active unmarried women employed in bars share the same stigma, social disapproval and disrespect from the larger society.

As evidenced in the public reaction to some of my recent work in the mainstream media circuit,⁸ it remains clear that it is difficult for many people (locally and abroad) to think about female bar workers in Cambodia – and Asia in general – as anything other than ‘prostitutes’, and ‘prostitutes’ as anything other than ‘poor victims’, ‘greedy thieves’ or ‘bad girls’. However, these stereotypes are essentialist and dangerous. Women’s experiences and motivations are heterogeneous and diverse. The girls in this book ended up in bars – selling sex and/or seeking boyfriends – both by choice and circumstance. A few did identify as ‘victims’ of poverty, others as ‘survivors’ of symbolic and physical violence and still others as ‘strong girls’ fighting their way – but all ultimately identified as agents in both their own self-actualization and personal processes of change, and as women in control of their lives, despite the sea of gendered, patriarchal and structural constraints they faced.

A major goal of my work, then, is to remedy the various inadequate frameworks that exist for understanding women’s gendered experiences. Radical feminist perspectives that eternally classify young women who do this type of work – or decide on this type of lifestyle – as only ever submissive victims of patriarchal oppression and exploitation are limited, damaging and no longer useful. They ignore the voices and agency of postcolonial women who are, in fact, resisting and subverting the patriarchy. By leaving their homes, moving to c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Professional girlfriends and transactional sex
• 2 Methods, ethics and intimate ethnography
• 3 Sex, work and agency
• 4 Politics, history and the sexual landscape
• 5 Sexuality, subculture and alternative kinship
• 6 Constructions of love and the materiality of everyday sex
• 7 Moving beyond sex work
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index