Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Vietnam Rising Dragon: Contesting Dominant Western Masculinities in Ho Chi Minh City's Global Sex Industry

  • Published:
International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Scholars have produced a substantial body of literature on the lives of female sex workers in the commercial sex industry in developed and developing countries around the world. This literature on heterosexual relations has focused overwhelmingly on the experiences of female sex workers, neglecting to examine the significance of male clients (Chapkis 1997; Prasad Sociological Perspectives 42(2):181–213, 1999; Weitzer Annual Review of Sociology, 35(1), 213–234, 2009). The limited studies that do address male clients focus exclusively on Western men who participate in romance or sex tours. No study has examined sex work as a site for the performance and production of specific masculinities for the increasing number of local, non-Western, business elites in the new global economy. Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and 2010 and informal interviews with 25 clients, 25 sex workers, and three madams in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I illustrate how local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen enact their masculinity in relation to other men through the medium of hard cash. Local elites' participation in local hostess bars allows them to capitalise on Vietnam's rapid economic restructuring in the context of the 2008 global economic crisis in order to assert their place as major players in the world order. In doing so, wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen deconstruct dominant Western ideals to assert their place in the global order.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Acker, J. (2004). Gender, capitalism, and globalization. Critical Sociology, 30(1), 17–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allison, A. (1994). Nightwork: sexuality, pleasure, and corporate masculinity in a Tokyo hostess club. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Altman, D. (2001). Global sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Beasley, C. (2008). Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Globalizing World. Men and Masculinities, 11, 86–103.

  • Bedford, O., & Hwang, S. (2011). Flower drinking and masculinity. Journal of Sex Research, 48, 82–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, E. (2007). Temporarily yours: Intimacy, authenticity, and the commerce of sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Braun, Y. (2011). The reproduction on inequality: Race, cass, gender, and the social organization of work at sites of large-ccale development projects. Social Problems, 58(2), 281–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brennan, D. (2004). What's love got to do with it? Transnational desires and sex tourism in the Dominican Republic. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carrigan, T., Connell, B., & Lee, J. (1985). Toward a new sociology of masculinity. Theory and Society, 14(5), 551–604.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chapkis, W. (1997). Live sex acts: Women performing erotic labor. New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chu, J. (2010). Cosmologies of credit: Transnational mobility and the politics of destination in china. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (1998). Masculinities and globalization. Men and Masculinities, 1(1), 3–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (2000). The men and the boys. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (2002). Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W., & Wood, J. (2005). Globalization and business masculinities. Men and Masculinities, 7(4), 347–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. (2000). Being the “go-to guy”: Fatherhood, masculinity and the organization of work in Silicon Valley. Qualitative Sociology, 23(4), 379–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enloe, C. (1990). Bananas, beaches, and bases: Making feminist sense of international politics. Berkeley: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flowers, A. (1998). The fantasy factory: An insider's view of the phone sex industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Francis, B., & Skelton, C. (2001). Men teachers and the construction of heterosexual masculinity in the classroom. Sex Education, 1(1), 9–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • GSO Vietnam. (2011). Foreign direct investment projects licensed in period 1988–2010. Hanoi: Investment Department, General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

  • Gutmann, M. (1996). The meanings of macho: Being a man in mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutmann, M. (2007). Fixing men: Sex, birth control, and AIDS in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolution. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayton, B. (2010). Vietnam: rising dragon. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoang, K. K. (2011a). New economies of sex and intimacy in Vietnam. Doctoral dissertation. University of California Berkeley, Berkeley

  • Hoang, K. K. (2011b). “She's not a low class dirty girl”: Sex work in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(4), 367–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoang, K. K. (2013). Performing third world poverty: Racialized femininities in sex work. In J. Spade & C. Valentine (Eds.), The kaleidoscope of gender: Prisms, patterns, and possibilities (pp. 225–232). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hubbard, P., & Sanders, T. (2003). Making space for sex work: Female street prostitution and the oroduction of urban space. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(1), 75–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, A. (2006). Men of the Global South. New York: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kempadoo, K. (2004). Sexing the Caribbean. New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kersten, J. (1996). Culture, masculinities and violence against women. British Journal of Criminology, 36(3), 381–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kimmel, M. (2004). Global masculinities: Restoration and resistance. In B. Pease & K. Pringle (Eds.), A man's world?: Changing men's practices in a globalized world (pp. 21–37). London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, J. (2010). Service economies: Militarism, sex work, and migrant labor in South Korea. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Messner, M. (1986). Sports and the politics of inequality. Changing Men Issues in Gender Sex and Politics, 17(Winter), 27–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monto, M. (2000). Why men seek out prostitutes. In R. Weitzer (Ed.), Sex for sale (pp. 67–82). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrell, R., & Swart, S. (2005). Men in the Third World: Postcolonial perspectives on masculinity. In M. Kimmel, R. W. Connell, & J. Hearn (Eds.), Handbook of studies on men and masculinities (pp. 90–113). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, A., & Venkatesh, S. (2006). Vice careers: The changing contours of sex work in New York City. Qualitative Sociology, 29(2), 129–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen-Vo, T. (2008). The ironies of freedom sex, culture, and neoliberal governance in Vietnam. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Connell Davidson, J. (2003). Sleeping with the enemy? Some problems with feminist abolitionist calls to penalize those who buy commercial sex. Social Policy and Society, 2(1), 55–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parreñas, R. (2011). Illicit flirtations. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pease, B., & Pringle, K. (2001). A man's world?: Changing men's practices in a globalized world. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pham, C. D. (2003). The Vietnamese economy: Awakening the dormant dragon. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prasad, M. (1999). The morality of market exchange: Love, money, and contractual justice. Sociological Perspectives, 42(2), 181–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ray, R., & Qayum, S. (2010). Male servants and the failure of patriarchy in Kolkata (Calcutta). Men and Masculinities, 13(1), 111–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanders, T. (2008). Paying for pleasure: Men who buy sex. Portland: Willan.

    Google Scholar 

  • The World Bank. (2012). Remittances profile: Vietnam. Washington: Migration Policy Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tienari, J., Soderberg, A., Holgersson, C., & Vaara, E. (2005). Gender and national identity constructions in the cross-border merger context. Gender, Work and Organization, 12(3), 217–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzer, R. (2007). The social construction of sex trafficking: Ideology and institutionalization of a moral crusade. Politics and Society, 35(3), 447–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzer, R. (2009). Sociology of sex work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(1), 213–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • West, C., & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society, 1(2), 125–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiao, S. (2011). The “second-wife” phenomenon and the relational construction of class-coded masculinities in contemporary China. Men and Masculinities, 14(5), 607–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zheng, T. (2009). Red lights: The lives of sex workers in postsocialist China. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, McGuinn Hall 426 Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467-3807, USA

    Kimberly Kay Hoang

Authors
  1. Kimberly Kay Hoang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kimberly Kay Hoang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hoang, K.K. Vietnam Rising Dragon: Contesting Dominant Western Masculinities in Ho Chi Minh City's Global Sex Industry. Int J Polit Cult Soc 27, 259–271 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9155-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9155-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation