Dealing in Desire
eBook - PDF

Dealing in Desire

Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work

  1. 248 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Dealing in Desire

Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work

About this book

This captivating ethnography explores Vietnam's sex industry as the country ascends the global and regional stage. Over the course of five years, author Kimberly Kay Hoang worked at four exclusive Saigon hostess bars catering to diverse clientele: wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen, Viet Kieus (ethnic Vietnamese living abroad), Western businessmen, and Western budget-tourists. Dealing in Desire takes an in-depth and often personal look at both the sex workers and their clients to show how Vietnamese high finance and benevolent giving are connected to the intimate spheres of the informal economy. For the domestic super-elite who use the levers of political power to channel foreign capital into real estate and manufacturing projects, conspicuous consumption is a means of projecting an image of Asian ascendancy to potential investors. For Viet Kieus and Westerners who bring remittances into the local economy, personal relationships with local sex workers reinforce their ideas of Asia's rise and Western decline, while simultaneously bolstering their diminished masculinity. Dealing in Desire illuminates Ho Chi Minh City's sex industry as not just a microcosm of the global economy, but a critical space where dreams and deals are traded.

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Yes, you can access Dealing in Desire by Kimberly Kay Hoang in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Cultural & Social Anthropology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
38
| 
Sex 
Work 
in 
HCMC, 
1867–Present
places 
where 
Western 
men, 
through 
their 
sexual 
relationships 
with 
Vietnamese 
women, 
sought 
refuge 
from 
killing 
Vietnamese 
men.
62
After 
defeating 
its 
foreign 
occupiers, 
Vietnam 
used 
the 
rejection 
of 
prostitution 
as 
a 
symbolic 
weapon 
against 
Western 
imperialism. 
How-
ever, 
with 
the 
opening 
of 
the 
economy 
to 
foreign 
investment, 
the 
regula-
tion 
of 
prostitution 
was 
formally 
used 
to 
appeal 
to 
Western 
and 
Viet 
Kieu 
visitors 
from 
Europe 
and 
the 
United 
States 
looking 
to 
enact 
feel-
ings 
of 
superiority 
through 
nostalgia 
and 
conspicuous 
consumption. 
Finally, 
in 
the 
modern 
era, 
prostitution 
is 
used 
once 
again 
by 
local 
Viet-
namese 
political 
and 
economic 
elites 
as 
a 
symbolic 
tool 
to 
oppose 
West-
ern 
dominance—not 
through 
the 
abolition 
of 
prostitution 
but 
by 
using 
spaces 
of 
sex 
work 
to 
facilitate 
ties 
among 
investors 
in 
charge 
of 
direct-
ing 
Asian-based 
capital. 
The 
congurations 
of 
capital 
sources 
shifting 
from 
the 
West 
to 
Asia 
brought 
on 
new 
tensions 
as 
new 
groups 
of 
local 
elites 
in 
HCMC 
worked 
to 
reimagine 
a 
global 
hierarchy 
in 
which 
Asians 
reign 
over 
their 
own 
region 
and 
local 
elites 
have 
risen 
to 
the 
top 
of 
the 
local 
order.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Dealing in Desire
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction: Dealing in Desire
  9. 1 Sex Work in HCMC, 1867–Present
  10. 2 The Contemporary Sex Industry
  11. 3 New Hierarchies of Global Men
  12. 4 Entrepreneurial Mommies
  13. 5 Autonomy and Consent in Sex Work
  14. 6 Constructing Desirable Bodies
  15. 7 Sex Workers’ Economic Trajectories
  16. Conclusion: Faltering Ascent
  17. Appendix: The Empirical Puzzle and the Embodied Cost of Ethnography
  18. Notes
  19. Bibliography
  20. Index