Brennan Response

Sousa is a city of migrants and immigrants. There are some residents who have been living there since the “old days” or since before the tourist industry and sex trade began to really take hold, but those, from what Brennan says, are the minority. Most of its residents moved there to find work in either the tourism industry or the sex trade—although really, aren’t those one and the same, considering the majority of tourists who visit Sousa are “sex tourists”? Is there really any point in trying to categorize these as anything but two parts (the resort experience/expensive hotel/ “legitimate” tourist industry and the sex trade/”illegitimate” tourist industry) of the same whole? If I’m understanding Brennan’s text correctly—and I sincerely hope I am (or maybe I don’t because this whole book was horrifying)—then both trades developed not just at the same time, but also, in relation to one another. As the tourist industry grew, as more people began coming to Sousa, the sex trade grew as more and more Dominicans (especially women, but not always) realized there was more money to be made (and more freedom to be had) through the sex trade than through the job available to people of their class and education level.

Participation in the sex trade is a temporary way of making money for poor Dominican woman, at least, they generally think of and describe it as temporary. According to Brennan, most of the sex workers in Sousa are mothers who are involved in this work to help support their children and families. Most of them cannot or do not bring their children to Sousa with them, but rather, leave them with either paid babysitters/caretakers or relatives. Their role as mothers are the most important part of their identities, no matter how long they spend living away from their children—and in some cases Brennan discusses, they live apart for years. Participating in sex work purely for personal gain—earning money for themselves, for clothes, jewelry etc—without any being given to their families is the primary basis on which sex workers are judged by their peers. Those who are fortunate enough to obtain visas through their European boyfriends and move off the island only to return are judged for giving up the opportunity. It doesn’t matter what their experiences were; nothing could be as bad as staying in the Dominican Republic. If their relationships fell apart, it is their fault for not trying hard enough. If relationships between women in Sousa and foreign clients end, the women are often blamed and blame themselves, as in the case of Jurgen and Elena.

These women need these men, not just for visas, but for their daily survival. However, none of them men need these women; for them, traveling to Sousa is a vacation. They are seeking women who are more beautiful, exotic, interesting, less demanding, etc than those from their own countries. Power plays just as much of a role in their relationships with sex workers as does sex itself. In their home countries, these men are often lower middle or working class, but in Sousa (and similar locations) they are rich, foreign tourists; they are objects of intense desire, and they can choose any woman (or women) they want. They can afford to not only take a sex worker out to dinner, to a bar, etc, but also to help support her and her family, not only during their stay but also after they leave Sousa. How many of these men remain in contact with the women they meet in Sousa because they genuinely care for and want to help them, and how many do so because they enjoy having that kind of power and desirability? Because they’re hoping to eventually get an exotic, grateful wife? The men can end the relationships at any time without their lives ever really being affected, but when the faxes and money stop coming, the women’s lives are affected.

However, none (or almost none) of these women genuinely believe these men will keep in contact or follow through on their promises. That doesn’t stop them from performing love and desire for them in the chance that they just might be telling the truth. Making a decent living and leaving the Dominican Republic is only possible for them if they form a relationship with a foreign man who can help them. They are, in a very real sense, entirely dependent on men for everything, despite the extensive support networks sex workers offer one another.

Movement plays a critical role in all of this. The movement of foreigners to and from Sousa influences the movement of Dominicans to and from Sousa, and the women’s movement, to a lesser degree, influence’s the men’s movement. Women move to Sousa because of tourists, and tourists travel to Sousa because of women (or in some cases, men as female tourists do engage in relationships with Dominican men). Sousa is now known as a “sexscape”, as Brennan calls it, and women in Sousa and the Dominican Republic are advertised to male travelers/tourists/sex tourists as available, exotic, easier to deal with than European/Canadian/U.S./etc women, which influences not only how we see the Dominican Republic/Sousa, but also further constrains the movement of not only people from this country, but from other countries as well.