Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work

by Kimberly Kay Hoang

This captivating ethnography explores Vietnam’s sex industry as the country ascends the global and regional stage. Over the course of five years, author Kimberly Kay Hoang worked at four exclusive Saigon hostess bars catering to diverse wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen, Viet Kieus (ethnic Vietnamese living abroad), Western businessmen, and Western budget-tourists. Dealing in Desire takes an in-depth and often personal look at both the sex workers and their clients to show how Vietnamese high finance and benevolent giving are connected to the intimate spheres of the informal economy. For the domestic super-elite who use the levers of political power to channel foreign capital into real estate and manufacturing projects, conspicuous consumption is a means of projecting an image of Asian ascendancy to potential investors. For Viet Kieus and Westerners who bring remittances into the local economy, personal relationships with local sex workers reinforce their ideas of Asia’s rise and Western decline, while simultaneously bolstering their diminished masculinity. Dealing in Desire illuminates Ho Chi Minh City’s sex industry as not just a microcosm of the global economy, but a critical space where dreams and deals are traded.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Feminism, Anthropology, Gender, Politics, Social

229 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2015

Reviews

[Rolin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most thoughtful pieces of social science research I've ever read. Deconstructs inaccurate perceptions of sex work in HCMC and offers a new specific framework in its stead by looking at how performances of gender and sexuality are presented in four client populations: Vietnamese businessmen, Viet Kieu (members of the Vietnamese diaspora returning to the country), Western businessmen and Western budget travelers. This summary does the work little justice. Anyone interested in gender dynamics in East/Southeast countries should definitely read this book.

[Indigo bear · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book shows that sex workers who work in hostess bars (bars with sex workers) in Vietnam sometimes see their work as a better option than alternative jobs—working in factories, as maids, or in other 'dead end' jobs. It also shows different types of men who patronize (in a quite patronizing way!) 4 types of hostess bars in Vietnam. The four types she examines are hostess bars that cater to 1) local wealthy Vietnamese businessmen and Asian investors; 2) Vietnamese men who live outside of Vietnam and who return to visit family, to do business, or for other reasons; 3) wealthy non-Vietnamese Western businessmen cycling through Vietnam or living there more permanently; 4) less-wealthy Western men who are able to use their foreign currency to live comfortably in Vietnam while accessing the sex industry (most of whom appear to be 50 years old or older). Hoang did extensive participant-observation fieldwork in one bar for each of these categories.

The methodological appendix is very interesting—it shows how a researcher can fall into researching something somewhat accidentally, and shows the intricacies and struggles of participant-observation work.

I think the main take-away that Hoang wants this book to provide is that the sex workers are often only inconvenienced by Westerners' attempts to "save" them. At least for the sample of sex workers Hoang observed, they do not feel coerced into sex work, and find that it has many benefits (like not having to work 12 hours a day in an uncomfortable and demeaning factory [demeaning in the sense that the bosses are often demeaning, and sometimes even coerce employees into sex work in the factory]). I think it does accomplish this objective, although there are also hints that the sex workers sometimes feel frustrated with the work (e.g., p.143). But the point still stands that this frustration is probably not as severe as if they worked in one of the other jobs available to them.

I also appreciated the short history of the sex industry in Vietnam (chapter 1), which I did not know before reading the book. So I now have a great deal more data about what it felt like to be a sex worker in the hostess bars where Hoang worked, which does lead to better understanding of the sex industry in Vietnam and perhaps elsewhere.

I would have appreciated a section in the methodological appendix or the introduction that gave reasons for using "choice", "niche markets", "ascendancy" etc. as the analytic framework for this data. This critique extends beyond this book, though. I think that a section of the introduction, or even a second "theoretical appendix", is something missing from many ethnographies. Many ethnographies include methodological appendices, where the data collection details are provided (as this book does). But I would also appreciate details of how the author came to use their particular analytic framework—was this a series of carefully thought through, reasoned, criteria-laden choices, or did the author fall into using the theory because of a mentor, a chance encounter with a theoeretical book, etc.? I think either of those two approaches (the reasoned choice approach and the 'falling into theory' approach) are acceptable, and a combination of them is probably also possible. But what I did not see in this book was an explicit reference to either of these standards for describing how the analytical framework came to be used. So what justifies the use of the particular analytic framework used in this particular study? Or: How did the author fall into using the particular analytic framework? Explicit reference to one of these (or a combination of them) would avoid reifying the concepts and/or theory used in the work.

[Favi]

have mixed feelings abt this book. this study contains a massive amount of information that the author has to be applauded for, and i think it adds a nuance on what it means to be a sex worker. however, i felt as though the scale of the problems of these women are undermined in favor of emphasizing agency. this book brought up questions for me, such as, is it not concerning that while they may be escaping other exploitative industries, that they are not properly valued for the role they play in business ventures? it reveals that teenage to young adult sex workers are behind the scenes for rich businessmen; they deal with harassment and a need to submit to men to work. these men then get away with their behavior and their misogynistic view of women while these women deal with the social stigma of what it means to do sex work.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as a course assignment and found it fascinating. I read the entire book in one sitting. It discusses the inner workings of sex work in Vietnam. The researcher spent years working close to/in the industry to gain the trust and relationships for important information and interviews. She analyzed four separate niche sex worker markets in one city. Wow, I am still in awe of how interesting and well written this book was.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

** Read for my 2021 gender and sexuality comprehensive exams **

Thought the history was quite interesting- Vietnam is a country I don't know much about and this book has compelled me to look more into its social and political history. Thought the relationship between finance and the sex industry was interesting, but bleak honestly. I understand this book was meant to discuss agency and economic opportunities which I can see do exist in that setting, however there was a lot of reproduction of sexist gender roles which I don't think are empowering at all, regardless of how much money they make you. I'm a little surprised that there was no critique of the fact that male desires wholly regulate the sex industry, even if women are economic benefactors.

[amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super accessible even in non academic circles I would say. does a great job of reflexivity and her level of nuance and analysis is super detailed and interesting if not incredibly bleak. Would be interesting to see how things have changed 10 years onwards

[Justine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoang does a great job at weaving personal experiences with social theory. The explanation of her methodology is rigorous and adds credibility to her writing. The quotes provided were impactful, and the 4 niche markets identified all felt distinct and pertinent to her research question. Furthermore, I enjoy that she wrote a bit about her own experiences and how working as a hostess had long term effects on her. Often participant-observation ethnographies focuses solely on the participants, so to was nice to see how being deeply embedded into a community could affect a researcher. Although I had to read this book for class, I greatly enjoyed it and I would love to read something similar in my free time.

My main critique is that Hoang did not adequalty address that, despite actively choosing this career path (she goes as far as to call them entrepreneurs), the hostess are still making these choices under patriarchy, global capitalism that constrained their work opportunities in the first place. I wouldn't call them victims, nor should they be presented as trafficked persons as the U.S. state department suggests, but there is still an undertone of exploitation in this type of hostess work.

Dealing in Desire spakred my interest in forced labour, and the intersections of gender and sexuality when it comes to migration. I would recommend this to anyone in the social sciences, lovers of non-fiction, or anyone in the mood for a refreshing academic read.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I assigned this book in my upper level undergraduate Sociology of Sexuality class. We moved through it rather slowly pairing a chapter or two of this book with thematically related articles (on masculinities, emotional labor, embodiment, social and economic mobility) each week. Students really enjoyed the book and were able to accurately synthesize key points and make connections across other material.

In the future, I would like to use this for a class on gender and globalization, because I think it would be a better fit there. For a book about sex work, there really wasn't a whole lot about sex! In most ways, I think this is great because ultimately, sex work is just work and because it's important to see the ways that sex permeates public life, even though we imagine it as this private thing. It also gave us a way into discussions of global inequality that are not always readily available in discussions of sexuality.

Super interesting and well-written! I will definitely use this book again.

[Milou Pikaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een boek wat ik voor school moest lezen over sekswerkers in Vietnam. Heel interessant

[Marie Judson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is disappointingly lacking in depth of analysis. It is no gift to the women of the world.

[Nessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a unique and wonderful ethnography! Hoang completed her research at such a pivotal time for Vietnam's economy and relationship to other nations; it really enhances the picture she illustrates of the sex industry there. I love that she studied and compared these four distinct markets. As she writes in the "Appendix" section, most existing work on sex workers/other sex industries has (imo) an imperialist/colonial vibe, where ethnographers "study down" and look at markets catering to Western men engaging in sex tourism. Hoang's focus on the clients in each bar as well as the hostess workers not only fills a necessary research gap but also tells a more complete story of the relationships that are curated in those spaces.

I loved her discussion of embodiment, both technologies of embodiment and the embodied cost of working in the sex industry. Chapters 5-7 are my favorite. The analysis is so thorough and I loved learning about the rituals hostess workers go through to alter and maintain their desirability. It's fascinating that the embodied femininity of the hostesses was so different in each niche market. I loved her section on the mommies as well. She does such an excellent job at describing her research participants as subjects, not objects of projects meant to "save them." Each anecdote and quote enhanced her analysis so much and I loved learning about this industry through her work.

As someone who's dream job would be "sociologist" and "ethnographer," I adore the "Appendix" section. I loved getting to walk through the creation of her research questions and changes it went through as she gained more experience or access to a new space. What an excellent ethnography about a topic I'm extremely interested in, I'm so glad to have read it.

[Sean Vu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moving and eye-opening study that reveals the complex and nuanced reality of sex work in Vietnam. Rather than portraying them as passive victims of human trafficking and misogyny, she demonstrates that women in the industry have agency, functioning as actors, entrepreneurs, and diplomats in the larger political economy. She also pushes back against common assumptions of white Western men dominating the market and recognizes the ascendancy of Asia's middle class and elite in visiting the country and brokering business deals.

She also shows how sex work can even be liberating from the often exploitative manufacturing jobs the country is so well-known for. Hoang doesn't sensationalize the industry, however, acknowledging both its celebrity and luxury on the one hand, and precariousness and stigmatization on the other. She also centers the women in her story, and how they navigate and overcome these societal challenges.

Certain claims struck me as too broad to be persuade by, such as Westerners go to hostess bars to grieve about the perceived decline of Western (American) hegemony. Or the impact of overseas Vietnamese on the intimate economy, which arguably rings less true now. I also found the concept of embodied technologies based on Foucault's biopower to be unnecessary. While I do not disagree with her analysis at all, this concept seemed to overintellectualize a working class career. This, however, is more a stylistic and academic critique that has no real impact on the quality of the study.

[Lyra Montoya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a class

Was really interesting in how it discussed the simultaneity of witnessing and identity construction, that the various forms of masculinity are looking to instantiate themselves through witnessing from the feminine other (made feminine and made other) and how the various forms of constructed masculinities necessarily construct an idealized and archetypal femininity.

Brings rather necessary discussions on who is able to be a "witness" both in the contexts of sex work and relationship and fieldwork.

Body modification and cosmetic surgery were a really well explored and discussed. The various forms of metaphorical ties between the archetypal identities (parallel forms of normative masculine and feminine specifically) and the corresponding visual symbols and manifestations gave a helpful frame for considering similar forms of style and visual imagery and various forms of identity and (sub)culture in the united states.

Somehow it seems that ethnography is ontologically confined to a structure of a hero's journey despite Hoang's attempts to subvert this. Perhaps it becomes ethnography proper in publication and archival, that is, the act of writing and publishing the experience as a book is what completes the hero's return from exile and also transmutes experience into research.

[Emily Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous work of social science. There was a compelling and creative mix of history, contemporary challenges, theory, qualitative interviews, and participant-observation in the sex-work industries in Vietnam. I did not know a lot about Vietnam or sex work, and I learned a lot from reading this book. The book does an excellent job centering the stories of her respondents and providing nuance for topics like – femininity, social mobility and poverty, agency and consent, consumption and fantasy, against a backdrop of rising international business dealings and shifting power dynamics. I also really appreciated the attention to the different types of men who are involved in these bars. As Dr. Hoang points out, men are largely absent from the academic and public discussion of sex work.

A real strength of this book is the appendix where Dr. Hoang describes in very real terms what doing this work meant for her (daily alcohol consumption, near constant rude comments) and how her work was received by her colleagues (“me-search”, dismissed as just partying) . This frank discussion about the physical and mental toll of fieldwork is eye-opening. The Appendix is a must read for anyone interested in doing their own fieldwork or anyone who wants to gain a greater appreciation for the challenging work of ethnography.

[Sam Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one of the best examples of intersectionality applied to empirical sociological work that I've ever read. As a graduate student reading this book, I have so much respect for the incredible dedication to her fieldwork that the author had. Don't skip her excellent appendix- her discussions of the embodied cost of ethnography are fascinating (but very sad). Her work on the embodied femininities of the 4 groups of women are so rich and in depth. She says she's filling a gap this literature by also focusing on the male clients, but in some ways, I feel like she flattened the men. And she definitely has some data she could have used to enrich her analysis of the men. In the appendix, she reveals that she worked as a consultant for some of the extremely powerful Vietnamese businessmen, spending time in their company offices, going out to dinners with them, and even going to a golf resort! I'm looking forward to her new book project, which seems like it will focus more on how these competing masculinities shaped by race-nation-class are constructed.

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, a worthwhile effort, showing that Vietnamese sex workers have a certain amount of agency. But concepts such as "masculinity" and "the West" and "Viet Kieu" are treated somewhat uncritically. Hoang's actors are like chess pieces being moved around, each trying to maximize their gendered being, their capital, their national and/or ethno-racial identity. So, the model reverts to a sort of economistic selfish individual who seeks to accumulate prestige and money: sexwork is one of the terrains on which these struggles play out. Hoang makes pretty wild conclusions based on a comment or two. If a White man comments about his allegedly superiour penis size (vis-a-vis Asian men), his motives are all too clear to Hoang. I get it: I'm a feminist and anti-race-supremacist too, but there's quite a bit of sociological mind-reading here, as opposed to deeper ethnographic study.

[n · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title really does not do this virtuosic work of scholarship justice. There is so much richness in Kimberly’s study; she managed to capture a nuanced picture of an unbelievably complex, transnational economy of desire at a pivotal moment in contemporary Vietnamese history. I am in awe at the depth and scope of the fieldwork that she conducted, as well as the genuine care that she demonstrated towards the people with whom she engaged.

[reegs reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh my god, one of the best pieces of nonfiction ethnographic works that I have ever read. Incredibly grateful for all of the embodied costs Dr. Hoang subjected herself to when writing this book. She is truly an inspiration as a researcher, and her sacrifices have resulted in such a nuanced, rich, and deeply impactful account of sex work in vietnam in the early 2010s. Definitely the most interesting and powerful books I’ve had assigned in my degree so far!

[Nita · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very in depth analysis of Kimberly's experiences working as a hostess in 4 bars within Vietnam, catering to different clientele. I appreciated the detailed observations provided as well as analysis regarding the social-political climate at the time of her research. The conclusions drawn from the text were very well-thought-out and fascinating to read, especially regarding her personal experiences speaking with clients and sex workers alike.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting ethnography of an arguably quite small portion of history but regardless interesting and also definitely insightful and probably generalizable. However I must admit that the book feels very repetitive, restating the same set of points in practically every chapter, could have been better organized in that regards imho

[manaal · Rating 4 out of 5]

really fascinating, no idea how much of this has changed since like 2013 or whenever, though. had no idea how little i knew about vietnam's economy/position in global economy/like anything about vietnam after the vietnam war at all, actually

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow the best book I’ve read for my Urban Ethnography of Asia class so far. The whole thing had me constantly stopping to reflect. The author took quite the sacrifices for ethnography.

[Joosung Kwon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful ethnography of sex work in Vietnam.

[Zhuang8899]

very good ，you need undersand the normal knowledge！！

[Antonina B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stellar socio-economic analysis that elegantly ties together theories and realities of sex industry in Vietnam.

[Althea · Rating 5 out of 5]

So thought provoking and wonderfully written!

[Lily Beeson-Norwitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't like it as much as I thought it was but it was compelling

[Elhana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting ethnography that blends social science research with revealing anecdotes about sex workers in Viet Nam.

[Yanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting but extremely redundant at times. Wish she included more long interviews and observation. Past chapters were more interesting

[Edrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow wow wow. First I was like the argument is so simple? But then I realized how difficult it is to organize so much information in such a clear and understandable way. THIS is a masterclass of storytelling. But then, weirdly, I started to find some descriptions still being too simple, especially in generalizing groups into "men", "women", "Asians", "white people". I also found it quite off putting that in the middle of something a sociological theory would just suddenly appear out of nowhere as there is no need for it I already got your point?

Main takeaway being men are so weird! But their struggles are valid and we need to recognize and protect them. And emerging markets are so fascinating, I wonder if I already missed my time. Money and wealth is such a force, I need to stay humble and not lose touch with the value of things. There are still people struggling, and see no way out.

Drinking every night is crazy, for research? Kimberly is destined to make huge impact in this world (as she already has) given her bravery and energy and good health.