Transformative emotional labour, cosmetic surgery, and masculinity: Rural/urban migration in China's gay commercial sex industry

Abstract

This article draws upon ethnographic data from 101 rural-to-urban migrant gay sex workers in northern China to reveal how rural migrants survive in urban China. The interviewees provide evidence that the marginality they experience as sex workers is sometimes related to a spatial narrative. In China, these migrant sex workers are frequently stigmatized by discourses that present them as 'tropical beings'-from rural and subtropical places in China's south. To overcome marginality, they adopt embodiments of emotional labour which enhance their economic survivability in China's urban gay commercial sex industry. Upon arrival in metropolitan areas, migrant gay sex workers quickly learn they must shed many trappings of their former rural life. Many undergo cosmetic surgeries to conform their physical appearance to the soft-masculine urban standards deemed most attractive and appealing. Since emotional labour is the commodification of private emotions, intended to be sold for profit, these men diligently extinguish those negative markers which reflect the everyday rurality of their masculinity. Conforming to urban standards of queer masculinity and emotional labour increases their chances of survivability in the commercial sex industry.

A reflective review on gay and bisexual men in China

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