UC Berkeley

Over the past two decades, scholars have paid particular attention to the growth of global sex tourism, a trade marked by convergence between the global and local production and consumption of sexual services. In the increasingly global economy, the movement of people and capital around the world creates new segments of sex work, with diverse groups of consumers and providers. This dissertation examines the dialectical link between intimacy and political economy. I examine how changes in the global economy structure relations of intimacy between clients and sex workers; and how intimacy can be a vital form of currency that shapes economic and political relations. I trace new economies of sex and intimacy in Vietnam by moving from daily worlds of sex work in Ho Chi Minh City [HCMC] to incorporate a more structural and historical analysis. Drawing on 15 months of ethnography (2009-2010) working as a bartender and hostess I analyze four different bars that cater to wealthy local Vietnamese men and their Asian business partners, overseas Vietnamese men living in the diaspora, Western expatriates, and Western budget travelers. Drawing on 180 informal interviews with 90 clients and 90 sex workers across four niche markets of HCMC's sex industry, my dissertation incorporates three levels of analysis.

I show how contemporary processes of globalization re-stratify an already stratified sex industry in HCMC, as well as how the industry is a vital player in the generation of business. Vietnam's opening to foreign direct investment since Doi Moi in 1986 has created a domestic super-élite, connected to the levers of political power, who channel incoming foreign capital to specific projects in real estate and manufacturing. For this super-élite, conspicuous consumption provides both a lexicon of distinction and a means of communicating hospitality to potential investors from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other East Asian countries -- and, using a different symbolic vocabulary, to Western investors. A new, ultra-high-end tier of sex workers has emerged in tandem with the emergence of this new group of clients. These sex workers only succeed to the extent that they can deploy the right vocabularies of consumption and sexuality in an elaborate symbolic dance tailored to the needs of individual capital deals. They are valued not only for their beauty, but also for their ability to help their clients project masculinity, deference, and collegiality in the specific context of entertaining foreign investors: they must also be able to modify this performance for East Asian clients as well as white clients. As a result, racialized desires, social status, business success, and hope for upward mobility are all played out in the bars of HCMC. The same is true in the middle and lower tiers of the industry, but in radically different ways. In short, HCMC's sex industry is not just a microcosm of the global economy, but also a vector shaping financial globalization itself.

I examine how sex workers, male clients, bar owners, mommies (formally known as madams), and the police all work to create and maintain certain types of raced and gendered hierarchies according to the niche in which they are involved. I also focus on the practices of everyday life in the bars and examine how men and women construct their relations with each other, which lead to different kinds of intimate and emotional relationships that sometimes allow women to experience mobility, but at other times are self-destructive. Sex work, I argue, provides a unique lens through which to examine not only how transformations in the global economy reshape intimate life but also how the emotional intimacy (and not merely sex) provided by sex workers serves as an important currency in transnational business deals. Comparing four niche markets within HCMC's sex industry, I found that local Vietnamese men and their Asian business partners participate in business-related entertainment while Western expatriates, in contrast, participate in HCMC's sex industry for recreational purposes outside of work. Racialized desires, status, business success, and hope for upward mobility are all played out in the bars of HCMC, where dreams and deals are traded. This sex industry is not just a microcosm of the global economy; it also helps fuel its growth.