I. Sex and the New World Order

A. Batam: plans to attract foreign investment don't always work
B. Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Oakland: University of California Press.
C. What does it take for immense amounts of money to be invested in Vietnam, by Vietnamese and by foreigners?

1. Trust and confidence
2. Masculine bravado and sexual prowess
3. Feminine desirability and submission

D. Internally diverse market: "I set out to expand the sociology of sex work by incorporating a serious analysis of male clients into my study and to compare the different niche markets that catered to racially and economically diverse groups of men" (3).
E. Four kinds of customers

1. Wealthy local Vietnamese businessmen
2. Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese, or Vietnamese living outside Vietnam in diaspora)
3. Western businessmen living in Vietnam
4. Western budget travelers

F. "In Vietnam, FDI is embodied in entrepreneurial relations that are largely male dominated and heavily influenced by existing practices established in China, Japan, and South Korea, where men rely heavily on the sex industry to facilitate informal social relations of trust as foreign investors embed themselves in the local economy" (11).
G. "It was through these grounded interactions that I came to understand how the intimate relationships formed within different segments of the sex industry were embedded in the dramatic political and economic transformations occurring not only in Vietnam but also around the world" (4).
H. "Dealing in Desire explores how high finance and overseas economic remittances are inextricably intertwined with relationships of intimacy" (4).
I. "Men purchase status and dignity as they work to protect their precarious--whether ascendant or declining--positions in the global order" (23).
J. 2010s: shift in global order

1. 2008 financial crisis: weakens Western power and capital, strengthens Asian
2. "[G]lobal hierarchies are not static but are instead produced and challenged through constitutive relationships between global capital and different kinds of gendered bodies" (179).
3. Sex, masculinity, and femininity reimagine global order and help people secure their place in new forms of political economy

K. Fieldwork

1. 2006-2010: participant observation, in-depth/semistructured interviews, 276 people, 4 bars
2. 3 bars: Hoang hostessed or tended bar, 12-14 hour shifts, 7 days a week, 3 months
3. 4th bar: observed 3-4 times per week
4. 2-3 interviews per night
5. Experienced "subjective power of male desire" (23), men's hopes and anxieties

 

II. Asian Ascendancy

A. 2008 Financial Crisis: Vietnam's economic growth second fastest in world, behind China's
B. Southeast Asian elites shift from Western capital to attracting Asian-based capital flows
C. Overview of Vietnam's shift from socialist to market-oriented economy

1. French colony (1867-1954)

a. Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), 1936: 5000 (est.) women in sex industry, 600 registered
b. White privilege

2. 1954: Division between Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North, Ho Chi Minh, Communist Party) and Republic of Vietnam (South, backed by US)

a. Influx of US military personnel and money
b. 1968: approximately 500,000 women in sex industry nationwide (30)

3. 1975: Communist victory, prostitutes are vestige of imperialism, need reform to become laborers
4. 1986: Doi moi (Renovation) market-oriented policies
5. 1995: Normalization of relations with US
6. Influx of foreign investment

a. Overseas Vietnamese, most lavish spenders in sex economy (2006)
b. Importance of connections

7. 2007: Vietnam enters WTO

D. Vietnamese government views prostitution as social evil
E. 2007 WTO entry
F. Sources of Foreign Direct Investment, 2010
G. Local Vietnamese elites become most lavish spenders in sex economy
H. Capital flows are shaped by class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc.
I. Sex industry permits social contracts in volatile, speculative market
J. Characteristics of sex economy

1. Wealthy Vietnamese businessmen: relationship to Foreign Direct Investment
2. Viet Kieu ("home") and Western men ("charity")

K. Sex work channels money into Vietnamese economy, contests Western dominance (Vietnamese elites, Viet Kieu)

 

III. Ho Chi Minh City's Contemporary Sexscape: Four types of bars

A. Ho Chi Minh City's sex industry = microcosm of global economy and "a critical space where dreams and deals are traded" (5).
B. Elite Vietnamese clients and FDI (Khong Sao)

1. Project confidence, hospitality to promote speculation
2. No signage
3. Expensive alcohol
4. Hostesses, mommies, male workers
5. 20 regular clients spend $15,000-20,000 per month on average
6. $150,000 monthly revenue from alcohol
7. 25 hostesses: ages 16-22, 2/3 from rural areas, not college educated, tip income around $2,000/month, sexual acts at their discretion
8. Status displays

a. Cash
b. Accessories
c. Clinking glasses
d. Boasting
e. Grabbing women's bodies

9. Western businessmen don't have authority to take risks
10. Enact imagined global power relations: "Local elite men's masculinity and their desire for Asian ascendancy were inextricably linked, making these bars central to their (re)production of masculinities in a dynamic global context" (75)
11. Men purchase sex and "status, dignity, and protection for their precarious positions in the global order" (77)

C. Viet Kieu men who are nostalgic (Lavender Bar)

1. Women project deference = Asia's rise
2. Public storefront, but limited access for Western men
3. Bottle service: $100-200 apiece
4. Hostesses earn approx. $1000 per month from tips, $1000 from sex
5. Hostesses largely from rural areas, ages 18-25
6. Customers' VIP status often not recognized in racialized US

D. Western men investing in small-scale projects (Secrets)

1. Negotiate status decline
2. Beer, mixed drinks: $15 for 3-4
3. Women: urban origins, earn $100 plus cut of drinks ordered for them, share tips, earn $250-300/month
4. Boyfriend/girlfriend relationships: $300-700 more per month
5. Customers are "helping" women
6. Backpacker bars seen as seedier
7. Secrets customers have experienced downward mobility in a global sense
8. Learn new styles of communication, reinvent selves: "Instead of contesting hierarchies of race, nation, and class in the global imaginary, these men were sandwiched between success in Vietnam and failure at home, and they used the space of sex work to situate themselves as superior Western men despite their loss in status" (67).

E. Western budget travelers (Naughty Girls)

1. Vietnam as Third World country --> "'charity capital'" (4)
2. Women: darker skinned, cultivate exotic look with smoky eye, half from city, half from Mekong Delta
3. Mafia networks
4. Beer: $1-2
5. Women's incomes from sex work, highlight poverty to get sympathy
6. Customers question masculinity of Asian men

 

IV. Mommies

A. Mommies create environment: business-oriented intimacy (Khong Sao), fantasy-oriented intimacy (Lavender), philanthropy-oriented intimacy (Westerners in Secrets and Naughty Girls)
B. Rural origins
C. Informal economy in fact drove the formal economy

1. Strong social networks
2. Khong Sao: mommy can't marry
3. Lavender: fantasy of high-class luxury
4. Foreign bars: performances of poverty to get men to invest in women to help them out

D. Entrepreneurial energy: "These women were not victims of global economic restructuring but creative agents with an entrepreneurial spirit who played a vital role in developing their nation by facilitating the flow of major sources of capital--FDI and remittances--thereby transforming much of the country by means of the world of commercial sex work" (103).