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Assignment #11

Cabeza’s research touches on a largely ignored component of research in sexual tourism in the Caribbean: How these “sex workers” identify themselves. According to her work the term “sex worker” cannot be applied to men and women who have romantic and sexual relationships with European tourists. In both The Dominican Republic and Cuba these men and women reject the idea of themselves as prostitutes and see their relationships with these tourists as friendships that can help them acquire some capital to rise out of poverty. Most women do not see these encounters with tourists as an exchange of sex for money but would rather receive gifts that could build the relationship and lead to marriage and migration. While both men and women participate in these sort of arrangements women receive much more scrutiny. In Cuba men that date foreigners are seen as national heroes for “conquering” the bodies of foreign women (118). Meanwhile women are placed under heavy surveillance and their behavior is criminalized. Light skinned and dark skinned women both participate in courting tourists however only dark skinned women are met with abuse and disgust. Light skinned women’s relationships with the tourists are seen as “romance” while dark skinned women are always thought to be prostitutes. Mass roundups of dark skinned women in clubs and even individual women walking alone at night are read as prostitutes. They are arrested and made to pay fines for their “immoral behavior.” Women’s “deviant” sexual behaviors are tied to nation building and citizenship because their means of survival are criminalized and they are constructed as outsiders in their own countries. While the government, tourism industry and the police work to “protect” tourists from the unsightly dark-complexioned poor they punish the native population for attempting to better their lives.