Affective sex: Beauty, race and nation in the sex industry

Abstract

This article considers the role of beauty in Costa Rican sex work. In the context of sex tourism, beauty operates as affective labour performed by sex workers, labour that is mediated by deeply contradictory understandings of race and nation. Theorising beauty as a form of affective labour means thinking about beauty as value, as something that circulates, can be exchanged and is ultimately relational. While Costa Rica's national mythology has long focused on claims to white origins, sex tourists identify local women's 'exoticism' and non-whiteness as particularly appealing. Commercial sex does not simply depend on an imperial male gaze, but rather requires us to consider how particular national mythologies about race are linked to ideals of attractiveness in complex ways. I also explore how women experience and manage their sexual attractiveness to foreign tourists in their daily lives and work.

Turismo sexual masculino en Costa Rica: espíritu de equipo, diálogo entre pares y papeles de género en una muestra grande de mensajes en un foro de Internet

“…In most posts they make practical recommendations, while there are fewer posts sharing their personal experiences, and in few cases, they debate about the credibility of particular reports and reporters. Except for the relative importance of each topic, this results match the findings of Rivers-Moore (2009, 2013a about dialogue, which she suggested could be interpreted as a form of male peer validation. Nevertheless, another interpretation is possible: that the men exchange information because they feel part of a group; in their own words, "brothers" who collaborate because of a team spirit (see Blevins and Holt, 2009).…”

“…I read all posts (4409 reports) in the World Sex Guide Forum (http://www.InternationalSexGuide.info/forum/ showthread.php?t=2218) from April 2002 (when the site started its Costa Rica section) through March 2015 and analyzed them based on hypotheses inspired by Rivers-Moore (2009, 2013a in her study of Costaricaticas. com.…”

“…Hundreds of miles away, in the Puntarenas highlands, male waiters and tour guides establish extended relationships with female tourists who want to experience "Latin style romance" and sexual adventures; these adventures include lesbian experiences and group sex (Romero-Daza and Freidus, 2008). Rivers-Moore (2012, 2013a published the only study focussed on what male tourists have to say about their relationships with Costa Rican women: she interviewed several tourists and also studied a random sample of their posts online. She concluded that the activity in the area around San José downtown hotels ("Gringo Gulch") combines elements of both modern industrial and postindustrial paradigms, as well as factors specific to tourism that are not accounted for by those paradigms (Rivers-Moore, 2009).…”

“…In this article I examine the totality of 12 years of forum posts by male sex tourists in a similar but larger website, InternationalSexGuide.info, and analyze similarities and differences with the results of Rivers-Moore (2009, 2013a and other pertinent cases (Frohlick, 2007;Romero-Daza and Freidus, 2008;Milrod and Weitzer, 2012).…”

Unwilling Consumers: A Historical Materialist Conception of Compulsory Sexuality

“…The stated opinions and beliefs of those with whom one is ostensibly trying to build a coalition for social transformation should not be disregarded, even recognizing their historical contingency. Analytically, an exclusively economic analysis tends to recenter an unspoken, white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered subject as the social "default," even if this is not the intent (Rivers-Moore, 2013).…”