What's Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (Latin America Otherwise) [Paperback]

Denise Brennan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0822332973 | ISBN-13: 978-0822332978 | Publication Date: May 14, 2004

In locations around the world, sex tourism is a booming business. What's Love Got to Do with It? is an in-depth examination of the motivations of workers, clients, and others connected to the sex tourism business in Sosúa, a town on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Denise Brennan considers why Dominican and Haitian women move to Sosúa to pursue sex work and describes how sex tourists, primarily Europeans, come to Sosúa to buy sex cheaply and live out racialized fantasies. For the sex workers, Brennan explains, the sex trade is more than a means of survival—it is an advancement strategy that hinges on their successful “performance” of love. Many of these women seek to turn a commercialized sexual transaction into a long-term relationship that could lead to marriage, migration, and a way out of poverty.

Illuminating the complex world of Sosúa’s sex business in rich detail, Brennan draws on extensive interviews not only with sex workers and clients, but also with others who facilitate and benefit from the sex trade. She weaves these voices into an analysis of Dominican economic and migration histories to consider the opportunities—or lack thereof—available to poor Dominican women. She shows how these women, local actors caught in a web of global economic relations, try to take advantage of the foreign men who are in Sosúa to take advantage of them. Through her detailed study of the lives and working conditions of the women in Sosúa’s sex trade, Brennan raises important questions about women’s power, control, and opportunities in a globalized economy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A smart, timely, eye-opening account. What’s Love Got To Do with It? makes both men’s and women’s hopes and strategies visible. It underscores poor women’s capacity for agency and internationalized thinking without portraying the international system of commercialized sexuality as one in which women and men are meeting on a level playing field.”—Cynthia Enloe, author of The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War

“In this finely hued ethnography, Denise Brennan questions how transnationalization gets transacted, imagined, and experienced through an examination of the sex trade in a specific locale, Sosúa in Dominican Republic. Interweaving the grand themes of political economy and power inequities with those of desire and fantasy—and from the sides of both (foreign) customer and (local) sex worker—she has crafted a richly textured study of a ‘sexscape’ and its brokering of dreams as much as of money and sex.”—Anne Allison, author of Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club

About the Author

Denise Brennan is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Georgetown University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (May 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822332973
• ISBN-13: 978-0822332978
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Discussion, March 5, 2009

By 

Anathaniel Wallace "Nosidino" (Wash, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What's Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (Latin America Otherwise) (Paperback)

What was really great about this book was that the author took an amoralistic view (Instead Of A Moralistic One) towards the lives of the women. She did not rant against men and males, but looked at the entirety of their situations in an honest way. While not condoning what the women did to survive, she did not become a radical feminist either. I was pleased to see the honesty in her work. The maps were very well produced and printed well in the book. The book flows very well and is a delightful read.

The author shows the Dominican Republic to be a beautiful island and a delightful place to visit if one has the time and money to do so.

A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very interesting study, March 21, 2008

By 

B. Dehghan "the redpearl" (toronto canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What's Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (Latin America Otherwise) (Paperback)

this study is probably one of the easiest to read, and really makes you feel a connection with each person in the book. its a great read for tourism studies or sociological studies

4 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating read..., January 23, 2006

By 

A Strong Polish Woman (Oakdale, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What's Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (Latin America Otherwise) (Paperback)

This book was fascinating to read. It was well written and interesting throughout. I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read and wants to learn about something they may know nothing about.