Firstly, I found it quite depressing and sickening that colonial foundations on race, gender, and imperialism have yet to truly change. In the post I just made about the student arrested for a terrorist threat on campus, I showed how racism in the south has yet to change, it simply has moved from protesting integration to all-white fraternities and sororities. In the same way, (and relating to Ann Stoler's piece we read previously) these mindsets behind sex tourism in Sosua or any other destination are still eerily unchanged. Whereas European males were travelling to non-European parts of the globe to impose their ideas and way of life on others, while European males forced (in more than one way) themselves on and in the lives of native women, while taking advantage economically of these new destinations...European and Western males (largely) are still going to foreign communities of color, taking advantage of the daunting economic situations in these areas, and taking part in situations that force native women into sex work for their benefit. Even the stereotypes about native women's sexual abilities and comparisons to European women's abilities still saturate this type of thinking. And again, on an economic level, it is still largely Europe and Europeans (Westerners) that benefits in the long run from these types of transnational endeavors.
I recently read that Germany abolished its college debt and are offering free college to international students as well. In general, many economic policies and social actions in Europe (such as free college, universal healthcare, paid maternity leaves, etc.) are lauded in the U.S. as ideal, however those aspects of European governments cannot be understood separately from situations in the DR in which tourism to the DR is benefitting Germany (in large part) and not the host of destinations (generally poorer regions). Nor can it be idealized without the history of colonialism. European countries can only afford their citizens such privileges because of the types of trade, transnational relationships, and foreign relations and policies they uphold. In other words, in order for some (whites, westerners, males, etc.) to live privileged lives, others have to live deprived and impoverished lives.
The question of choice remained a salient point throughout What's Love Got to do With It? Towards the beginning, she states
"Some assert that women are forced to choose sex work because of their race, class, nationality, colonial status, and gender and do not have a 'choice'. To them, all forms of sex work are exploitative and oppressive, which is why they usually employ the terms prostitute or prostitution rather than sex worker and sex work. The latter terminology recognizes that selling one's body is a form of labor that - under certain contexts - women can choose. ... Rather than lumping all sex workers in all places together as victims with no control over their lives, I suggest a nuanced understanding of women's room for maneuvering within the sex trade." (p. 23)Reading this at the beginning of the book, i could understand it and related it to the many ways in which sex work and sex workers are seen and pathologized in the Western context. However, the more Brennan goes into the living situations, the economic circumstances, and the societal gender and familial roles of many of the sex workers in Sosua, I find it difficult to see their "choice" as a "choice". It could almost be compared (somewhat) to someone saying that Black women "chose" to be the domestic house help of whites during the reconstruction era and pre-civil rights era in the U.S. If the economic situation is in such disarray, racism and sexism imposes even more limitations to your life and professions, governing entities are operating corrupt local and national governments, and the men of your race and class cannot be counted on for assistance...where exactly is the choice? With a foot on your neck, a growling stomach, and children to feed and shelter, who is to say that any "choice" made under such duress is actually a "choice"? Sure, as Brennan points out, we cannot lump "all sex workers in all places together", but can there be no overviews about sex work in a particular community in a particular country? Later on in chapter 5, she reiterates "The context in which sex is exchanged for money - on a global or local scale - cuts to the heart of the politics of agency, which is why I suggest that in Sosua's sex-tourist trade, women, in Anne McClintock's words, 'exchange sexual service on their terms on their conditions [emphasis hers]'"(p. 154). True, Brennan pointed out some women who wouldn't take drunks, or have unprotected sex, and the ability to chose being an "independent" or a "dependent", however the fact of being in such a (oftentimes dangerous and exploited) position that none of the women reported they enjoyed or even were content with reveals that the entire situation isn't "on their terms on their conditions".
Additionally, I related points that Gina Ulysse made about mobility with that of the sex works in Brennan's piece. The contrast between the ICU's who travel to and from Miami and other areas and the Western vacationers to Jamaica are also very similar to the contract between the Dominican sex workers who sometimes travel for marriage or trips with their clients with the vacationing and mobility of the Western sex tourists. While both can travel, one has an immense amount of restrictions and denigrating possibilities in their destination. Dominicanas, through the German lens, is steadily becoming more and more sexualized (if not already full-blown). And as Brennan pointed out in the conclusion, many are being stereotyped and criminalized in airports or on the streets of these Western countries. Similarly, I've heard stories from many Black American women who travel to places like Italy, and are constantly assumed to be prostitutes given the high commonality of Africans immigrant women who have become sex workers in these areas. It not only limits the mobility and relative safety of those women who participate in sex work, but also virtually any woman that shares their phenotype.
On a more frustrating note, there were times in the both the readings that I was perplexed by the types of support (for lack of a better word) the sex workers offered to structural patriarchy. Pratt and Yeoh point out "It is typically men who take jobs in transnational firms located outside Singapore and employment in such jobs tends to loosen their wives' commitment to the labour market and reinforce patriarchal norms within the household. 'Going transnational' has done little to trouble the gendered divisions of household labour, or destabilise the gendered inequalities of the patriarchal state. Instead, traversing transnational space seems to be a hegemonically masculanised enterprise where men and women remain complicit in the reproduction of patriarchy beyond national borders." They then go on to say "...there is no clear evidence of the emancipatory power of transnational identities in destabilising the gender norms and forms of the nation state." (pgs. 162 & 163). These sentiments are also threaded throughout Brennan's book. I find them to be depressing on a number of levels. And on some level, I have to question whether this would be the case is poverty was not a commonality in these communities.
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