Thailand’s Sex Entertainment: Alienated Labor and the Construction of Intimacy

Petra Lemberger () and Tony Waters ()
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Petra Lemberger: Master’s Degree Program in Women and Gender Studies, Faculty of Social Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Tony Waters: Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization, Leuphana University, 21335 Lüneburg, Germany

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-24

Abstract: Promising research from Thailand already highlights women in the sexual entertainment industry as being active participants in both intimate relationships and commercial transactions simultaneously. Notably, they are neither victims nor alienated laborers, as some activist narratives assert. Women working in Thailand’s sex entertainment industry consistently adapt working cultures to modernity’s demand to reduce sex to a commercial transaction while often seeking emotional engagement. One result is that new forms of intimacy emerged, taking on new cultural meanings. The profoundly felt need to care for and take care of someone else [ dulae (Thai: ดูแล)], seen as a form of “intimacy”, is, in fact, deeply rooted in the Thai social context. We reframe the literature about sex work in Thailand by assuming that intimacy is key to understanding how “sex work” arose and is sustained there. Focusing on intimacy distances research about sex work away from western assumptions about the commodification and alienation of labor. This gives a more holistic understanding of the complexity of overlapping and intersecting dimensions of the work women perform in sex entertainment. “Intimacy” ties together the issues of money, labor, and a need to care for someone and be taken care of. This thread links women with their customers, families, and themselves.

Keywords: Thailand; sex entertainment; intimacy; emotional labor; care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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