Reciprocating Desires: The Pursuit of Desirable East Asian Femininity in China’s Commercial Sex Industry

ABSTRACT

This article examines how socioeconomic conditions impact heteronormative sexual desires between high-tier sex workers and their non-Chinese clients in urban South China. Drawing from Hoang’s interpretation of ‘dealing in desires’, Rofel’s ‘Desiring China’, and cultural capital, the article considers how desire circulates in high-end bars and its impact on how workers and clients negotiate their relationships. I move beyond Hoang’s and Rofel’s framework to include cultural capital that help sex workers perform an East Asia femininity and develop their image as cosmopolitan tempting girls to practice ‘reciprocating desires’ with their non-Chinese clients. The article unfolds as a theoretical exercise in unearthing and understanding the underpinnings of how socioeconomic context impacts our understanding of what qualifies as desirable East Asian femininity. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted in a high-end bar in South China from the summer of 2015 to the summer of 2017, this article first examines desire and the meanings attached to sex workers’ body capital, and cultural capital that exemplify desirable East Asian femininity. Second, cultural capital explains how desire operates within high-tier heteronormative sex work spaces to construct social identity, which can help sex workers achieve professional success and become a source of personal satisfaction.     

Rights to the Oceans: Foundational Arguments Reconsidered

This article examines theories of ocean rights based on the works of Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Pufendorf. Grotius's object‐centred view uses features of the natural world to justify claims to external objects. I show that Grotius's view is inadequate, because it relies on an outdated claim that oceanic resources are sufficiently abundant for anybody to use. Further, adaptations of his view are wanting, because they either rely on arbitrary distinctions or disregard the values of cultural minorities. Pufendorf's relational view constructs rights through the exercise of human will. While Pufendorf believes that agreements create rights, he also argues that property rights can be unilaterally acquired from the commons without express consent from others. The relational view is a viable alternative to the object‐centred view, because it both delimits territorial claims over the ocean to a ‘modest’ size and also respects cultural variability. A major aim of this article is to present Pufendorf's theory of territorial rights extended over oceans and to demonstrate how it is useful for assessing contemporary disputes. In the final sections, I apply the relational view to Canadian claims to the Northwest Passage, and I also sketch implications for assessing expanding claims to the seabed.     

Interruptions: Cultivating Truth-Telling as Resistance with Pre-service Teachers

Studies in Philosophy and Education - As ethical agents, teachers regularly must decide whether compliance to rules and norms is in the best interest of their students. Yet, teachers in the United...